If you want to run an online shop with WordPress, you will very quickly come across WooCommerce stossen. WooCommerce extends a normal WordPress website with the functions you need to sell products or other offerings over the internet.
This includes, for example, products, prices, shopping cart, checkout, orders, payment methods, and shipping. You still manage your shop using the familiar WordPress interface.
Briefly explained: WordPress forms the basis of your website. WooCommerce adds store functions to WordPress. This turns your WordPress website into an online store.
What exactly is WooCommerce? #
WooCommerce is a Open-source e-commerce solution for WordPress. Technically, WooCommerce is installed as a plugin in WordPress. After activation, additional functions for operating an online store are available in WordPress.
So you don't have to manage two completely separate systems. Pages, posts, users, media, and many basic website functions are still managed with WordPress. WooCommerce additionally takes care of the functions required for the shop.
WordPress
│
├── Pages and Posts
├── Users
├── Images and Media
├── Design and Theme
├── Plugins
│
└── WooCommerce
├── Products
├── Cart
├── Checkout
├── Orders
├── Payments
├── Shipping
└── Shop Emails
WooCommerce itself is free and open source. Depending on the features your shop requires, however, additional themes, plugins, extensions, or external services may incur costs.
What is the difference between WordPress and WooCommerce? #
WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS). You can use this, for example, to create a company website, a blog, or a club website and manage their content.
WooCommerce is built on WordPress and adds e-commerce functionality.
| WordPress | WooCommerce |
|---|---|
| Manage the website | Expand the website with an online shop |
| Pages and Posts | Products and Product Categories |
| User management | Customers and orders |
| Images and other media | Product images and product galleries |
| Basis for themes and plugins | Shop features within WordPress |
So WooCommerce does not replace WordPress. Without WordPress, there is no WooCommerce store in a standard WooCommerce installation either.
How does a purchase with WooCommerce work? #
To a visitor, a WooCommerce store initially looks like an ordinary online shop. In the background, however, several steps take place before a product in the shop becomes an order.
Simply put, the process looks like this:
View product
↓
Add product to cart
↓
Check cart
↓
Proceed to checkout
↓
Enter address and required customer data
↓
Select shipping method
↓
Select payment method
↓
Place order
↓
WooCommerce creates the order
↓
Order is managed in the WordPress backend
Which steps are actually displayed depends on the shop's configuration and the products being sold. For a digital product, for example, standard package shipping is usually not required. The available payment methods also depend on which payment types have been set up for the shop.
What is a product in WooCommerce? #
A product is what you offer through your shop. This can be, for example, a physical item or a digital download. With additional extensions, even more business models can be implemented.
Various information can belong to a product, for example:
- Product name
- Description
- Price
- Product image and additional images
- Product category
- Article number
- Inventory
- Weight and dimensions
- Variants such as size or color
Not every product requires all of this information. Which fields are useful or necessary depends on what you are selling.
What is the shopping cart? #
The Cart collects the products that a customer wants to buy. The customer can check their selection there, change quantities, or remove products again.
The shopping cart is not yet a completed order. It is comparable to a shopping cart in a store: only at the checkout does the contents of the shopping cart become an actual purchase transaction.
What does checkout mean? #
The term Checkout denotes the area where the customer completes their order. In German, this is also often simply called Checkout used.
Depending on the shop, the following information, for example, is requested or displayed there:
- Billing address
- Shipping address
- Shipping options
- Payment methods
- Products and quantities
- Shipping costs
- Taxes
- Total amount
Which fields and options actually appear depends in turn on the shop's configuration, the products, the delivery country, and the extensions used.
What happens when the customer submits the order? #
When the checkout process is completed, WooCommerce creates a Order This contains the information relevant to the purchase, such as the ordered products, quantities, customer data, shipping information, payment method, and the current order status.
The order will then appear in the WooCommerce order management. There you can check and further process the transaction.
Important: A created order does not in every case automatically mean that the money has already been successfully received. Whether a payment is confirmed immediately, is still pending, or is processed in another way depends, among other things, on the payment method used and the payment service provider.
What is the function of payment methods? #
Payment methods allow you to determine how your customers can pay for their order. Which options are available depends on your shop's configuration and, if applicable, any additionally installed payment extensions.
WooCommerce supports various payment flows. Certain basic offline payment methods are already available. For many online payment services, on the other hand, a suitable extension or plugin from the respective provider is required.
A payment provider is not the same thing as WooCommerce. WooCommerce passes the information necessary for the payment process to the respective payment integration. How the actual payment is processed depends on the specific provider and the integration used.
How does shipping work? #
When you ship physical products, the store needs to know where the shipment is going and what shipping options are available for that region.
For this, WooCommerce works with, among others, Shipping zones. A shipping zone describes a geographic area for which specific shipping methods and shipping costs apply.
A simple example:
Switzerland
├── Shipping method A
└── Shipping method B
Germany
└── Shipping method C
Other countries
└── no delivery
This is just a simplified example. How you actually set up your shipping zones depends on your delivery area and your shipping conditions.
How do taxes work in WooCommerce? #
WooCommerce can technically calculate taxes and display them in the shop. To do this, the tax functions must be activated and configured appropriately.
However, which taxes and tax rates your business actually has to apply is not a decision made by WooCommerce. This depends, among other things, on the company, the products or services sold, and the countries in which you sell.
Important: WooCommerce provides the technical functions for tax calculation. The system does not decide which tax rules legally apply to your business.
What happens to the orders? #
Orders are stored in WooCommerce and can be managed in the WordPress backend. WooCommerce uses various order statuses to indicate the current state of an order.
For example, a distinction can be made between whether a payment is still pending, an order is being processed, or the transaction has been completed.
What the individual order statuses mean in detail and when you should change them is covered in a separate article of this WooCommerce guide.
Which emails can WooCommerce send? #
WooCommerce uses email notifications for various processes related to an order. Depending on the event, messages can be sent to the customer or to the recipients configured for the shop.
This includes, for example, information about new or processed orders as well as certain changes in the order process.
Which emails are active, who they go to, and what they look like can be managed in the WooCommerce settings.
Does a WooCommerce shop need additional plugins? #
Not necessarily for every basic shop function. WooCommerce already includes many features for products, orders, shipping, taxes, and the basic sales process.
Additional plugins or WooCommerce extensions are required if your shop needs to use features that WooCommerce itself does not provide, or does not provide in the desired form.
These can be, for example, certain payment service providers, special shipping solutions, booking systems, or other additional store functions.
The following does not apply: The more plugins, the better. Every additional extension must be maintained and updated, and can increase the complexity of the shop. Therefore, only install extensions that you actually need.
Who manages a WooCommerce store? #
WooCommerce is managed via the WordPress backend. Depending on user role and permissions, different individuals can be granted access to the shop functions.
For daily work, this means: You don't need a separate WooCommerce program for every task. Products, orders, and many other shop settings are located directly within your WordPress installation.
What WooCommerce doesn't do automatically for you #
WooCommerce provides the technical foundation for an online store, but it does not automatically take care of all your decisions and tasks.
For example, you have to determine or check yourself:
- which products you want to sell
- What prices apply
- where you deliver
- which shipping methods are offered
- which payment methods you would like to use
- how your shop should be designed
- what legal and tax requirements apply to your business
- which additional extensions your shop needs
Maintenance, updates, and the monitoring of the running shop also remain important tasks. An online shop should therefore not simply be left to itself after setup.
WooCommerce can be extended #
An important feature of WooCommerce is its extensibility. Additional plugins and extensions can add new functions.
This is why the WooCommerce interface can look different on two websites. One shop may contain additional menu items, settings, or features that are not present in another WooCommerce installation.
Therefore, when following a guide, you should always consider whether it describes WooCommerce itself or an additional extension.
This is how our WooCommerce guide continues #
Now you know the basic components of a WooCommerce store and know what roles WordPress and WooCommerce play.
The next step is about practical setup. We will show you how WooCommerce is installed and what initial steps are necessary after activation.
Summary #
WooCommerce expands WordPress with the features of an online store. You can use it to manage products, provide a shopping cart and checkout, process orders, and configure shipping, taxes, payment methods, and store emails.
The typical process leads from the product through the shopping cart and checkout to the order. WooCommerce manages this process within WordPress. Additional plugins and external services may be necessary for extra functions.
For a shop to function reliably, the individual areas must be set up to suit the respective company, tested, and subsequently maintained.
