WooCommerce is perhaps the most powerful plugin available on WordPress. It enables you to instantly set up an ecommerce store using your simple WordPress website.
Setting up a WooCommerce store doesn’t seem like a challenge at first. You simply need to add products, set up categories, and all your customers can start browsing your store.
At the backend, things aren’t as simple. There are a number of things you need to keep a tab on. If you’re building an app with AppMySite’s WooCommerce-to-app solution, your store will be synced to the app. In essence, the steps you take to manage your store are also reflected in the app.
An ecommerce store is a sum of many moving parts. From your front page to categories, product pages to checkout, and shipping to payments, the list is seemingly endless.
So what is the best way to manage your WooCommerce store? In this article, we suggest a few tips you can keep in mind to effectively manage your online store.
#1: Choose product categories strategically
We all are familiar with product categories on ecommerce stores. Categories are the best way to navigate across an ecommerce store.
New customers often rely on your store’s categories in order to sum up the products you’re offering.
When it comes to categories, there are two main mistakes store owners make: bad nomenclature and incorrect category creation.
Categories are meant to ease navigation and allow customers to understand what you’re selling. Many online stores use esoteric category names that only a select few customers can understand. This leads to confusion and harms the general user experience.
Ideally, your categories should be comprehensible. An average customer should be able to comprehend the type of products a category contains by looking at the name.
Bad nomenclature can harm your store and ruin your experience. It is thus important to brainstorm the nomenclature of your categories.
The other problem store owners run into is the number of categories they create. Depending on the volume of products in your store, you should limit the number of categories you create.
Let’s say you add five new products to your store and want to create a new category for them. Creating a new category for five products doesn’t make a lot of sense. As a general thumb role, you should only consider adding a new category if you plan to add at least ten products to it.
For fewer products, you can consider using product tags.
Read: What are the differences between categories and tags on WordPress?
This is simply to make sure that your customers have greater choice when they select a category. Showing just five products for a category gives the wrong impression of your store. A rule like this helps you limit the number of categories you create, thereby making store management simpler.
#2: Manage product inventory
Tracking inventory is a big part of running an ecommerce store. Inefficient inventory management can lead to unfulfilled orders and harm the overall customer experience.
WooCommerce has in-built features that allow you to manage and update your store’s inventory. These in-built features allow you to update inventory, show out-of-stock labels, and more. You can use these settings to bring your online store in line with your stock availability.
Additionally, you also have the option to enable inventory depletion alerts. These alerts are sent to the store administrator’s email. In case a product’s inventory is about to finish, an email alert is sent to the store admin.
This makes it much easier for store owners to get a grasp of their stock availability. If you have many products and keeping track of inventory is difficult, these alert emails are absolutely essential.
#3: Leverage WooCommerce analytics
Analytics comes as an inbuilt part of WooCommerce. This module allows you to track all the essential info about your store’s performance.
Instead of choosing a third-party tool from the outset, you should consider leveraging the Analytics module within WooCommerce. Here are a few key metrics you can track within the module:
- Gross sales: It is the product of the sale price of your items and the total quantity sold.
- Total sales: The sum of your gross sales, shipping, and taxes. Returns and coupon counts are deducted from the sum.
- Net sales: Includes gross sales and deducts returns and coupon discounts..
- Orders: The total number of orders placed in your store.
- Refunds: Total refunded amount. This can change based on your store’s specific refund policy.
- Shipping: The total amount customers pay for shipping.
- Total tax: Includes both order and shipping tax.
There are a number of other metrics you can track within this module. Additionally, you can view specific time and product-related analytics on the Reports screen. You can export your reports in CSV for further analytics and sharing.
#4: Streamline shipping and payments
If you happen to sell physical products, shipping is a major part of running an online store. WooCommerce.
WooCommerce enables you to set up different shipping zones. This basically allows you to choose different shipping costs based on the location of your customers. You can also charge customers different costs based on the shipping method they choose.
The other important aspect of order fulfillment is integrating a payment gateway. Most payment gateways work on similar lines. The only point of difference is how much your customers trust a particular gateway.
Using an obscure payment gateway can harm conversions and increased abandoned checkouts. Customers are generally vigilant about the page where they enter their payment details. You should choose a widely known payment gateway that inspires general trust in your audience.
If you’re targeting an international audience, it is a good idea to offer multiple payment gateways at checkout. This way, your customers can choose a payment gateway and method they’re most familiar with.
#5: Choose the right plugins
There are a whole variety of plugins that allow you to power your WooCommerce store. Many store owners make the mistake of downloading too many plugins in an effort to add greater functionality.
Plugins are important for your store functionality, but installing too many can slow down your website. Additionally, managing a lot of plugins is difficult for store owners. Managing plugin updates is very challenging if you have too many active plugins.
In many cases, store owners have to set up a staging website in order to test each plugin update. This is because plugin update conflicts can lead to website errors like internal 500.
The solution? You should choose a select few plugins which actually help your store.
The WooCommerce Checkout Field Editor is a good case in point. It allows you to completely customize your store’s checkout page. Since it has been developed by WooCommerce, you can rely on it to not cause plugin conflicts.
In conclusion
Managing a WooCommerce store can be challenging. There are a lot of moving parts you have to manage while running a store. Poor management can lead to bad user experience and ultimately harm your website.
This article covers five tips you can use to manage your WooCommerce store effectively. If you build an app with AppMySite’s WordPress or WooCommerce solution, your app will be closely linked to your website. Thus, managing your Woo store well can also make your app a success.