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According to WP Swing, the official WooCommerce plugin has been downloaded 161,908,802 times from WordPress.org and counting. WooCommerce is used by over 5,106,506 live websites.
The research also showed that every day, at least 30,000 people download the WooCommerce plugin from WordPress.org. WooCommerce is used by 8.7 percent of all websites. WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce platform, accounting for 23.43 percent of the global market. WooCommerce is used by 12.96 percent of all eCommerce websites on the internet. This number keeps growing, and your business needs to grow with it.
We firmly believe that WooCommerce should be the plugin of choice for your e-commerce store. Now, if you want to know how to get started with a working e-commerce store, you are at the right place. In this guide, you will discover the essential plugins for setting up a functional WooCommerce store.
We will cover a list of categories of plugins you need to have to get started with your e-commerce business. These plugins include site administration plugins, payments, shipping, emailing, customization, sales, and marketing plugins, among others.
If you have already decided on WooCommerce and are finding the set up process too cumbersome, then you can enlist expert help. Get in touch with us to help you set up your store.
So, if you are ready, let’s get started!!!
Essential plugins required to create a successful e-commerce store
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WooCommerce has a host of plugins to help store owners build and maintain professional eCommerce businesses. The Woo team created these plugins specifically for WooCommerce-based stores. Based on categories and functions, here are the top essential plugins you’ll need to build a profitable eStore in 2022.
Category 1: Site Admin
This category contains a bundle of hosting and site administration plugins. Let’s take a look at them. These are essential to ensure a stable foundation for your store.
1. WooCommerce Mobile App
WooCommerce Mobile App
This plugin enables you to manage your store from anywhere. You can manage your entire business while on the go with the WooCommerce Mobile App. It also supports real-time product creation, order processing, label printing, and key statistic tracking. The top functionalities provided by this plugin include:
- Ability to create, edit, and publish products directly from your smartphone.
- Ability to get real-time alerts on various activities such as an order review from customers.
- Ability to manage the entire order process through the mobile app.
- Ability to print order receipts, perform refunds, and track order shipment.
2. WooCommerce Cart & Checkout Blocks
WooCommerce Cart & Checkout Blocks
This plugin provides a streamlined store purchase flow with clearly defined steps that eliminates any unnecessary points of friction. This plugin reduces the number of reasons for your customers to abandon their checkout and results in a higher conversion rate. Below are some of its outstanding features:
- Includes everything you need to create a seamless checkout experience.
- Features instant field validation on form errors to reduce users’ frustration of having to re-enter an entire form on any mistakes made.
- Has a built-in WordPress block editor that allows you to edit features in real time.
- Provides varieties of payment methods for collecting payments from customers.
Category 2: Payments Plugins
This category contains some excellent WooCommerce payment processing plugins that will assist you in collecting payments from your customers.
1. WooCommerce Subscriptions
WooCommerce Subscriptions
This is a subscription-based plugin that lets you create a variety of subscription packages for physical or virtual goods and services. This plugin enables you to do the following:
- Create multiple billing schedules to meet the needs of your store.
- Work with over 25 payment gateways to set up automatic recurring payments.
- Include manual renewal payments via any WooCommerce payment gateway, as well as automatic email invoices and receipts.
- Allows for automatic rebilling of failed subscription payments, ensuring that you never lose revenue.
- Enables subscribers to manage their plans, including upgrading and downgrading, without having to rely on you for assistance.
2. WooCommerce Deposits
WooCommerce Deposits
This powerful and adaptable tool enables you to create custom payment plans. Your customers will be able to go through an easy payment process as they browse and checkout, using simple visuals. Here are some key features of WooCommerce Deposit you should know about:
- Create your own payment schedule using days, weeks, or months.
- Accept payments in the form of deposits, layaway plans, or any other payment structure desired.
- Checkout flow for customers, with visuals that explain the payment plan.
- Provides customers with the option of paying in full or with a deposit.
Category 3: Email + Automation
These plugins are required to automate and distribute emails to your customers and targeted audience.
1. WooCommerce Zapier
WooCommerce Zapier
This plugin assists you in automating workflow on your eStore. Over 4000 cloud apps and services can be integrated into your WooCommerce store. Zapier allows you to connect your WooCommerce store to thousands of cloud apps for two-way integration. These are some of the apps and services you can use with WooCommerce Zapier:
- Google Sheets, Zoho Sheets, Excel.
- Gmail, Office 365, Mailparser.
- HubSpot, MailChimp, AWeber, SalesForce, Active Campaign.
- Slack, Zendesk, Freshdesk, Help Scout.
- QuickBooks, Xero, Freshbooks.
- Twilio, ClickSend SMS, SimpleTexting.
- Trello, Asana, Basecamp.
- Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.
- Google Docs, Google Drive, Dropbox.
2. MailPoet
MailPoet
This is the most recent email solution for WooCommerce that every new store needs to get up and running quickly. You could use this plugin to create compelling emails that get results.
Email marketing can help store owners effectively market their products and services online. From your dashboard, MailPoet provides you with the tools you need to grow your business.
MailPoet lets you do the following:
- Use automated follow-up emails to boost sales.
- Use tailored content to cultivate long-term customer relationships.
- Make your WooCommerce emails unique.
- Create newsletters and email marketing campaigns.
- All of your emails are delivered to inboxes rather than spam folders.
- Examine and enhance your campaigns.
Category 4: Shipping
Proper shipment and logistics are required to effectively deliver products to your customers. The following are recommendations for improving your WooCommerce shipping processes.
1. WooCommerce Shipping
WooCommerce Shipping
You won’t have to waste time copying and pasting order details into fulfillment software with this plugin. WooCommerce Shipping is integrated into your WooCommerce dashboard, making it easy to find everything you need in the right place. Here are some of the takeaway benefits of using WooCommerce Shipping:
- It is integrated into the core of your WooCommerce site.
- It is simple to prepare, print, and save documents.
- Orders are eligible for free shipping.
- Manages DHL and USPS labels from your laptop or mobile device.
- Allows for international shipping.
3. Shipment Tracking
WooCommerce Shipment Tracking
With WooCommerce Shipment Tracking, you can easily provide your customers with a way to track their shipment. Immediately after adding details to an order using this plugin, the tracking information will appear in their account section’s emails, order tracking page, and order view page.
These are some of the Shipping Providers compatible with this plugin:
- Australia Post
- Canada Post
- City Link
- DHL
- DPD
- Fastway South Africa
- FedEx
- OnTrac
- ParcelForce
- Polish shipping providers
- Royal Mail
- SAPO
- TNT Express (consignment)
- TNT Express (reference)
- UPS
- USPS
One final note about this plugin: it works fantastically with the WooCommerce Mobile App.
Category 5: Customization
Personalization is an inevitable aspect of WooCommerce. Customization and eStore personalization are what makes your brand stand out. The plugins listed below are recommended for your WooCommerce store.
1. Product Add-Ons
WooCommerce Product Add-Ons
Customizing products can keep your customers coming back. With Product Add-Ons, you can quickly provide special options to your customers that makes the shopping experience a lot better. Here are a list of things you could do so well this plugin:
- Form a unique shopping experience for your customer.
- Give customers the extra option they want, such as purchasing clothes in a different color.
- Add gift wrapping to an item for an extra buck.
- Provides a dropdown for choosing between pre-defined options.
- Enter a specific text to customize items such as a monogram on a t-shirt.
- Perform image-based selections and more.
2. Product Bundle
WooCommerce product bundles
This is a beautifully designed WooCommerce plugin that caters to nearly every bundling requirement you will need. From creating discount packages to selling custom skateboards, computers, furniture, and even personalized cupcake boxes, there is something for everyone.
The product bundles plugin provides customized product bundles, bulk discount packages, and assembled products to anyone that has it installed on their store. Here are some pronounced advantages you’ll get for using this plugin:
- In seconds, create bulk discount packages with dynamic bulk discount rules.
- Provide customization boxes that allow you to control the minimum and a maximum number of items that customers must include in their box.
- Construct products from multiple inventory-managed parts.
- Recommend add-ons and necessities by adding Frequently Bought Together items to popular products and maximizing their impact with discounts.
Category 6: Sales & Marketing
Use the following tools to practice good marketing for your business, get impactful insight from your store data, and make a more rounded decision. See the following plugins:
1. WooCommerce Google Analytics Pro
WooCommerce Google Analytics PRO
With the world’s leading analytics platform, which is free to integrate with WooCommerce, this plugin helps you understand your customers and increase revenue. You will be able to do the following with WooCommerce Google Analytics PRO:
- Discover which channels (including search, social, email, and ads) drive the most traffic so you know where to focus your efforts.
- Track the flow of users from product page to cart to checkout to determine where your site is losing money.
- Determine which products are of interest to customers by comparing traffic, transactions, and revenue across products.
- Understand what your customers are looking for by observing which pages they arrive at via search engines.
You will be able to add advanced event tracking and enhanced eCommerce tracking to your WooCommerce site and more.
2. WooCommerce Wishlist
WooCommerce Whishlist
With this plugin, guests and customers can create and add products to an unlimited number of Wishlists. Users can make and add products to an unlimited number of Wishlists. Customers can use the WooCommerce Wishlists plugin to add products to their birthday list, wedding list, and everything in between.
Here are some key features of WooCommerce Wishlist:
- Allows guest visitors to create Wish Lists that will be saved for a maximum of 30 days or until their cookies are cleared.
- Enables registered customers to create and save Wishlists indefinitely.
- Provides an ability to share wishlists on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and even email with a personalized message.
- Provides support for grouped products, product variations, and simple products, as well as products that use Product Add-ons and Gravity Forms Add-ons.
- When browsing onsite, notifies users if the item already exists in a wishlist and which one(s).
- Makes allowance for customizing the “Add to Wishlist” text which can be changed from a button to link text with a star or icon.
Category 7: Productivity Types
This category contains a variety of plugins for hosting premium content on your WooCommerce website and here are a few:
1. WooCommerce Memberships
WooCommerce Membership
This plugin enables you to power your membership association, online magazine, e-learning sites, and more with access control to content/product and member discounts.
This plugin enables you to build an entire membership system that is seamlessly integrated with your store. You can restrict your content to members, but you can also limit it over time to control when members have access to it.
Here are some of the main advantages of using this plugin:
- You can sell or assign memberships to subscribers.
- It enables you to strategically grant subscribers content access.
- It assists you in transforming your store into a purchasing club.
- It allows you to provide better shipping options to members.
- It allows you to provide members with special discounts.
- It facilitates the import and export of members from your store.
2. WooCommerce Booking
WooCommerce Booking
Customers should be able to book appointments, make reservations, or rent equipment without leaving your website, and so, this plugin helps you do that. It will allow your customers to book reservations, appointments, or rentals without having to call you. This saves you time and frees up your calendar by allowing your website to do the work for you.
Here are some main benefits of using this plugin:
- It allows you to schedule one-on-one meetings or group events.
- It offers discounts for groups, days, or individuals.
- It displays the customer’s time zone.
- It requires confirmation and offers free cancellations.
- It sends out reminders to help reduce meeting absences.
- It eliminates double bookings.
How much does it all cost?
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The above plugins cost an average of $79 per plugin per year, which can quickly add up if you’re paying for ten or more of them.
Does this price seem too much to just get started? Do not worry! WooCommerce allows their partner agencies (such as WisdmLabs) to provide bundles of these plugins at a discounted price. We can create custom bundles based on your requirements to create the perfect store for you.
Get custom bundled plugins at a discounted price.
Conclusion
And here we are at the end of this guide, hope you got a lot of information you require to purchase the currently selling WooCommerce bundle.
So, which will you choose? Is it better to buy the bundle or the single plugin? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.
And contact WISDMLABS for more information on hiring a professional WooExpert team to work on your store.
If you need expert help as a beginner, set up a free consultation with our WooCommerce experts today.
Until next time, best wishes!
