The below blog is a repository of tips and tricks we have picked up over the years when setting up and managing e-commerce shops using WooCommerce.

Plan plan plan!

Woo-comerce has a wide range of plugins from smaller free plugins to more extensive paid plugins, these all interact with each other in slightly different ways. Adding a larger plugin late on in the game when you have already set up your products and your store front can cause some issues, as such one of the most important things to do before you start is to map out, the below areas:

1. Your products and how you would like to manage variants
2. What payment methods you plan on supporting
3. How you plan on managing delivery including postage costs
4. How you plan on updating stock and inventory 
5. If you plan to set up any discount options 

Mapping out and answering all of the above areas before you start will allow you to identify any plugins you might need, and the costs associated with those so you can get everything set up before you start inputting products

Pictures sell

This one might seem quite obvious but a lot of people will take a few pictures of their products with their own camera or phone to upload to their shop. However there are so many shops online its important to make sure your shop and your products stand out, getting high quality photos either professionally or from a friend who is really into it as a hobby really does come to make a difference when you get the photos up online. Through WooCommerce you can upload multiple images for different products and variations at a high resolution so it really allows you to show off how cool your products are. 

Special events and offers 

Having a store and promoting it on social media is a good base line however in our experience to take your store to the next level you need to create limited timed events and offers to encourage people towards your site. Having these set for limited time creates a sense of urgency and increases the likeliness of people coming to check it out. Through WooCommerce you can set up and schedule items to be available for a period of time as well as discount codes available for short periods of time.

Trade store/trade area

Whilst setting up a store allows you a solid platform to share your products, there is also plenty of stores worldwide who also have a focus on re-selling independent crafters stock. As such to maximise your ability to sell your products and get them out to the most people you can set up a trade store to run alongside your main store, to allow you to sell in bulk to other stores. Woo-comerce and wordpress have a few different features that make this possible, either having separate stores you can post products two, using passwords to protect one set of products or by having user registration areas to allow special protected areas for resellers to use.

Reports and analytics 

The final thing to consider is what information is important to you when it comes to reports and metrics, making sure you fully understand which products sell the best, which are the most profitable, which times of day are busiest and how users are finding their way to your site are all super important to allow you to maximise you store. Along with the inbuilt WooCommerce reports you can also set up social media pixel tracking, to identify where the users have come from and which ones purchase what products and google analytics to give you a deeper understanding of traffic, times of day and locations of your audience.

Conclusion

To conclude, there are plenty of different ways to plan and execute your online store and WooCommerce and the various plugins as well as wordpress offer the tools to deliver everything as best suites you. The most important thing is to spend the time upfront to make sure you understand your brand and your products so that you, or a web team you get in can help you deliver your brand in the best way.