W
WooCommerce
Definition
WooCommerce is the free plugin that turns a WordPress site into a full online store — products, cart, checkout, orders, tax and shipping.
In plain English
Install it and WordPress gains a shop. Products become a content type you edit much like posts. Cart, checkout and account pages are created for you. Payments plug in through gateways like Stripe, PayPal or Mollie.
You own the whole thing — the data, the design, the rules — with no per-sale platform fee.
Why it matters
For anyone who wants a store without renting their business from a platform, WooCommerce is the default answer. It powers a large share of the web's smaller shops and its ecosystem covers almost any requirement.
The trade-off is that ownership includes responsibility: hosting, updates and backups are now yours.
How it works
- Run the setup wizardCurrency, location, tax and shipping basics in one pass.
- Add products properlyReal photos, honest descriptions, correct stock and weight.
- Configure payments and taxThen test a live order end to end before you launch.
- Invest in hostingA shop serves uncacheable, logged-in pages. Cheap shared hosting shows up first at checkout.
Place one real order before launch
Sandbox mode hides the problems that cost real sales. Buy something with your own card, then refund it.
Watch it in a real build
Related terms
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