WordPress is a self-hosting platform used by millions of bloggers today. This platform which once started as a blogging tool has now evolved into one of the worlds most popular Content Management System (CMS) serving the needs of not just bloggers but businesses of all sizes as well as Ecommerce sites.
Here are some staggering facts about WordPress:
- In the top million high-traffic sites, at least one-sixth of them are powered by WordPress [Source]
- There are sixty million WordPress users
- Built by volunteers and is free and open source
- More than half of the top million high-quality sites that use content management system operate on WordPress
- With Fantastico and other third-party installers, WordPress single-click installation is allowed by most hosting providers
- Better security and functionality is provided through constant WordPress updates
- To customize better backend functionality and front-end appearance, WordPress helps integrate plugins and themes with ease
Is WordPress good for Ecommerce websites?
WordPress can be a robust platform for your Ecommerce website with the right plugins, themes and other add-ons.
Here are a few more reasons why WordPress can serve your Ecommerce needs well:
- An impressive variety of themes – WordPress offers users a stunning range of themes to choose from. Though only certain themes can be used for Ecommerce sites, there are enough to choose from. The best aspect is that you can modify the themes on this open source platform and customize depending on your specific preference.
- Plugins allow you to add functionality – Just like Apple claims “there’s an app for that”, for any Ecommerce functionality you wish to add there’s a pretty good chance “there’s a plugin for that”! This is one of the major reasons for the widespread use of this platform. All plugins are offered free of charge, at least the base version and integration in most cases isn’t too difficult either. Some of the popular extensions offered by WordPress include Google XML site maps, WP-polls, Akismet and Yoast SEO . While some of them help your site rank high on popular search engines, others are designed to help minimize or even completely eliminate spam comments. Certain extensions enable you to engage site visitors through interactive polls while certain others allow you to back up vital website data to be retrieved later when you want to.
- Enhance the sidebar contents using widgets – Widgets can help you change the WordPress sidebar content with ease. Using widgets, you can also include gizmos, HTML, images and text for ecommerce site side bars. Many useful purposes are served by easy tools such as text widgets. You can add notices on special deals and rebates, add HTML lists that link directly to categories of products and create featured products using this excellent WordPress tool.
- WordPress offers enhanced product customization options – One of the most important aspects of an Ecommerce site is continuous addition and removal of products. WordPress allows you to add and customize your products using simple setting options. All you have to do is to follow a simple process to add weight and shipping settings, price, stock control, voucher codes, downloads and merchant notes.
So, are there any disadvantages of using WordPress for Ecommerce?
Actually, yes there is.
Whilst WordPress is a great platform for small Ecommerce websites, for larger online stores we usually prefer using Magento or a custom-coded Ecommerce platform.
Whilst WordPress has many advantages, essentially you are using a piece of software which means that to a certain extent, you are limited by what you can and cant do.
A custom-built Ecommerce platform has many advantages such as complete flexibility and customisation which can be especially important if you are selling niche goods, where the products themselves require a certain level of customisation before purchase (E.g., made-to-order goods).
If you aren’t sure which platform to go with, Flow20 can help you decide. Drop us a line at create@flow20.com and we’ll be happy to help.
