Why Use WordPress As An E-Commerce Platform?

E-commerce business is spreading its wings with great pace, as more and more people are beginning to rely on the Internet to buy products. Selecting suitable e-commerce platform is important for a successful business, and platforms which can fulfill the following parameters are highly acknowledged:

• Plenty of effective e-commerce themes and plugins
• Easy to use
• Cost-effective
• Easy to install and upgrade
• SEO friendly
• Secure

Though there are multiple options which satisfy above needs, however my pick is WordPress. Most people think that WordPress is just for blogging, but it is much more than that. It can provide a very flexible platform on which your e-commerce website easily grows. There are various advantages of WordPress for developing business website and e-commerce website. Some points that will fuel your inclination toward this platform are mentioned below:

1. WordPress has plethora of e-commerce plugins

Due to its flexibility lot of plugins are available to extend WordPress functionality from a normal blogging platform to use it as a base for large portal, social networking site or even an e-commerce website. There are many plugins available in internet world which can help you in launching a WordPress ecommerce website.

Features of WordPress e-commerce plugins:

• Easy to install
• Instant support community
• All the popular payment gateways supported
• Search engine friendly
• Supports multiple currencies
• Multi-shipping options
• SSL security integration

Famous WordPress e-commerce plugins:

Woocommerce

Woocommerce is one of the popular plugins that comes from the developers of the famous Woothemes. This plugin promises to provide elegance to your website as well as powerful e-commerce facilities. Further, this highly customizable plugin comes with multiple payment options including Cheque, Paypal, Cash on delivery and many more options.

WP e-commerce

If you are searching for an e-commerce plugin which has a high usability factor and great looks, then WP e-commerce is perfect option for you. The WP e-commerce shopping cart is widely used for selling products and services online. In addition to this, it can be used to collect fees online if you choose to run a service that requires yearly or monthly fees to be paid.

Cart66 Pro

This e-commerce plugin enables you to sell physical as well as digital products from your site. This plugin is good choice for those who are willing to make their webpage a one stop shop, as you can manage orders, sell products, place products anywhere on your website or sell internationally. Payments can be received by PayPal Website Payments Standard, Manual Checkout or PayPal Express Checkout.

EShop

One of the famous WordPress shopping plugins, Eshop is helpful in creating product spots because of its compatibility with custom post types. You can download as well as upload product by using this plugin. Apart from generating automated emails, E-shop has basic control of stock and multi-site compatibility. Checkout is done by PayPal, Authorize.net, Payson, Webtopay, eProcessingNetwork, iDEAL and Cash/Cheque.

2. WordPress has plenty of e-commerce themes

There are thousands of both free and paid e-commerce themes that install easily into WordPress and give your e-commerce website an instant design makeover. Many themes of this platform are also designed to be responsive that means they will adapt to any device from desktop to tablet to mobile, therefore, it is a quick way to expand your online audience and give all website visitors a good experience.

All the WordPress themes are editable that allows you to modify these as per your specific requirement. If you want your website to align with, and add to, your brand value, than you need a custom WordPress theme created for you. A custom theme is about aligning the ‘look and feel’ of your website with exactly what you want. For designing your own theme, I recommend to hire experienced WordPress theme designer, who will give your website new look as per your requirement.

If you want to use existing WordPress e-commerce themes, then I have mentioned some famous themes:

Store WordPress Theme

If you are looking a theme for any size of online store, big or small, then store is the best option for you. It is an elegant and hugely customizable WooCommerce powered ecommerce WordPress theme. This theme is perfect for any brand and is suitable for selling all types of products. Some features of this theme include

• 12 unique page templates (team, partners, testimonials and services etc.)
• A powerful slider
• Multiple layout options
• Portfolio templates
• Integrated blog

Elite WordPress Theme

Elite is a visually striking, unique and feature packed WooCommerce store WordPress theme. This theme would be perfect for clothes and fashion stores, luxury products, or boutique online shop that wants to present their products in a professional, bold and memorable manner. Some of the features of this theme include:

• A fully customizable and widgetzied homepage
• Over 100 Google font options
• Attention widget with custom icons
• Light-box pop-up galleries
• Automatic updates

Clean Sale WordPress Theme

It is an elegant and professional ecommerce WordPress theme, which is ideal for big stores that have a lot of products. It has a very clean, minimalist design that is ideal for showcasing and selling any type of merchandise. Due to its responsive design, visitors can search, view and buy products no matter if they using a desktop mobile, tablet or desktop computer. Some of the other features of this theme comprises:

• A multiple block homepage slider
• Product image slider for showing multiple product images
• Customizable typography
• Visual customizer to easily make visual change

Gather Responsive Ecommerce WordPress Theme

Gather is an elegant minimalist e-commerce WordPress theme with a responsive design and it allows you to showcase your work, sell your products and maintain a blog all together in style. Ecommerce functionality in this theme is powered by WooCommerce ecommerce plugin so you can get a featured packed and powerful online store. Some features of this theme include:

• A touch swipe slider
• Custom post type for portfolio management
• A filterable portfolio template
• Google fonts
• A custom options panel to set your own colors, backgrounds, logo etc.

3. Other features that make WordPress an ideal choice for e-commerce website:

It is cost-effective
An open source platform, WordPress is available for Free that means this platform can be used for e-commerce projects without incurring any cost. Not only this, its creators are continuously improving the system and you can download all the updates from the internet for free, too.

It is flexible
The way WordPress platform is designed makes it quite flexible and it can easily be customized and edited (without needing specific domain expertise) to be used as a shopping website.

It is easy to install and upgrade
WordPress e-commerce platform is well known for its “Famous Five Minutes Installation”. Installing WordPress is quite easy and can be done in following three steps:

• Create a database
• Specify parameters in wp-config.php
• Upload the actual WordPress source code to your web root

It has Well Defined Sections
WP e-commerce sections are well organized and their functions are simple and well explained. For example, the incorporation of the “Groups” tab allows the addition of unlimited categories as well as their sub-categories. That means, instead of using separate pages for different functions, like in Zencart and Magento, WP e-commerce uses manageable tabs, which allows easier navigation and efficient access to the functions.

It has Cross Promotion and Marketing Tools
You will be able to increase your profits of your e-commerce business using the Marketing tools and Cross Promotion that are part of the WordPress E-Commerce System.