Setup WooCommerce in WordPress to Build Shopping Cart

In this tutorial will learn how to build e-commerce website using Woo Commerce WordPress.

Woo commerce is an e-commerce plug-in from Woo Commerce themes. Woo Commerce is the e-commerce toolkit which handles admin reporting, shipping and tax, product inventory and payment gateways.

Before we begin Woo Commerce setup make sure that you have WordPress properly installed and have a awesome WordPress theme activated. If you haven’t create basic pages like contact, about and blog page, and then create blank WordPress pages. We will add more other pages later on. After creating all four pages you can select all pages and turned off commenting by quick edit.

The next thing we’re going to do is setting static homepage to WordPress blog so that our post I’ll list on a blog page.

To set static pages - go to WordPress admin Dashboard -> settings-> Reading - > second radio button title “a static page” and set FrontPage to be homepage and post page to be blog page.

The next thing we’ll do is setting up a WordPress Permalink. We don’t want a permanent with an Id as a parameter. So, we will set /%postname%/ in a custom permalink structure and save those changes.

Also make sure that you have a great custom menu setup in WordPress. If you haven’t set up WordPress menu, then you can create a new name “Main menu “and add relevant or all pages to that menu. Set primary Menu as a main Menu.

Step By Step Woo Commerce Guide to Build WordPress Shopping Cart

Now you can install WordPress Woo Commerce plug-in to make your WordPress functioning as an e-commerce site. You can install it two ways.

• You can go to woo-commerce.com and download the plug-in and install it via FTP server.

• alternatively, you can search from admin area plug-in section by typing “Woo Commerce plug-in” and install it directly.

once the plug-in is activated it will ask the setup some pages. Those pages are required create to functioning of Woo Commerce theme. It will create a bunch of default pages like shop page, checkout page, cart page, product Page another more pages.

Click on the setup pages button, it will create set of new pages including my account, change password, edit Address, checkout, order received.

There are many tabs for Woo Commerce configurations which enables you to set up various options to make your WordPress functioning as a shopping cart.

Configure General Tab in Woo Commerce

here you can specify various options like country, currency and (allowed countries -useful for store to be open for certain regions or country specific)

Catalog settings in v

here you can specify the product sorting other options. You can keep other options as it is. If you don’t want to deal with SKU fields, weight, height, dimensions than you can unchecked those options. Removing those options make our admin area more simplified and cleaner. You can set weight and dimensions unit as per your regions. Also, if you want product ratings enable than give those check boxes checked.

Pages settings in Woo Commerce

if you want to display products, homepage rather than separates Shop page than you can homepage from the drop-down menu. Other settings will remain the same until you read more customization.

Inventory management with Woo Commerce

Woo Commerce allows you to track inventory on a website. There are pros and cons for the same. You’re running an online business and all your transactions through website than very beneficial to maintain inventory through Woo Commerce. It will become problems when you sell products via online store as well as separate physical store and your process your orders at store as well as online. In that case the inventory won’t be sync.

Enable Taxes handling.

You can set taxes as per your regions. Access rates are different for area wise we’re not going to discuss that thing your

Various shipping methods available in Woo Commerce plug-in

from shipping Can set various tipping methods like international shipping flat rate shipping free shipping you can enable disable according to your requirement. If you need a more detailed shipping date model than commerce had a nice advance shipping plug-in additional fee.

Payment gateway integration in WordPress Theme

Woo Commerce supports various payment gateways are Credit card payments you can enable disable from admin area according to your requirement. There are many payment methods support by Woo Commerce, including direct bank transfer, check on delivery, PayPal, direct credit card transaction and more of the custom providers. You can disable payment gateways and metal which are not in use. If you are using paper payment gateway, then you need to enable sandbox for testing transaction before website goes live. Contact us for PayPal payment gateway integration service.

Setup Email notifications

you can set email notification for your order as well as specify email invoice for format color you can manually edit email templates from the folder configure invoice format more advanced level.

Other service integration

you can integrate Google analytic, share cart and some other services help you to identify your customer flow and help you better visualize what customers are purchasing on your store.

Congrats.! We have successfully integrated plug-in and setup store. Now you can add few products and check out the process how purchase and check out works.

Once you complete the entire process and tested well with products you can disable the sandbox features from admin area before you go to live store.

After you make used to live, don’t forget to make a taste purchase to make sure that everything goes smoothly without any error. Want to learn more about Woo Commerce Customization than can refer documentation.

If you’re looking to set up a new theme or want to design a custom Woo Commerce theme than contact us now. We will help you setting up your WordPress based shopping cart from custom PSD designed to fully working SEO friendly Woo Commerce online store.