What Platform Do We Suggest for E-commerce Website Development?

If you’re running a business or starting one, you’re likely interested in building an e-commerce website. Having an e-commerce site can give your business an edge over your competitors. So now, the question is, what platform should you use for your e-commerce website development? 

The best platforms to use for e-commerce website development are WordPress and WooCommerce. When used simultaneously, they’re ideal for e-commerce websites of all sizes because they’re free to use, easy to set up, highly customisable, secure, and SEO-friendly. 

In this article, let’s explore more reasons you should consider using WordPress and WooCommerce for your e-commerce website development. 

Why Businesses use WordPress and WooCommerce

WordPress and WooCommerce are the best solutions for building a nice and reliable e-commerce website. And the numbers don’t lie! 

Today, it’s estimated that 64 million websites, or around 43% of all websites on the internet, are powered by WordPress. Moreover, the WooCommerce plugin on WordPress powers approximately more than 5 million online stores or around 28% of all e-commerce websites on the internet. 

So, why do so many businesses love using WordPress and WooCommerce? 

Free to use

Pricing is the number one factor most people consider when they’re looking to build a website, especially if you’re a small business trying to expand your reach. 

Well, here’s some good news; WordPress and WooCommerce are free to use! You can easily set up a basic online store for no charge if you already have proper domain hosting. 

When you compare them with similar e-commerce platforms, you’ll see that using WordPress and WooCommerce is a smarter financial decision. 

For example, take the second most famous e-commerce platform, Shopify. Currently, Shopify offers three subscription plans. The cheapest plan, which offers only basic tools for newly-built stores, costs around £24 per month. 

On the other hand, WordPress and WooCommerce offer more powerful tools for free. And when you’re ready to expand your business and scale up, you can also add various paid extensions to help you run your e-commerce site. 

Easy to set up

Another reason businesses love WordPress and WooCommerce is that they are easy to use and set up. 

Even beginners with basic technical knowledge can handle almost all the features they offer. 

When you set up your e-commerce website, you only need to: 

1. Choose your preferred theme. 
2. Add your products.  
3. Set up payment and shipping options. 

Granted, without additional technical or design experience, your e-commerce website will look simple. But it will work just fine! A few clicks here and there, and your website is ready to go! 

Highly customisable

Being open-source, it is no surprise that WordPress and WooCommerce are highly customisable. You can easily make a lot of adjustments to the source code. This allows you to modify and customise everything to improve your e-commerce website according to your business goals and customers’ needs.

Don’t have any coding experience? Not to worry, you don’t have to be an expert to customise your e-commerce website. WordPress offers a wide range of themes and plugins suitable for e-commerce. 

Whether you want a simple online shop or a fully responsive and adaptive website, WordPress and WooCommerce have you covered.

SEO-friendly

Your online presence is essential to getting more visitors and conversions. One of the best practices to ensure you have a good online presence is ensuring your e-commerce site is SEO-friendly so that you can gain visitors via search engines. 

For that reason, WordPress and WooCommerce are the best solutions for you. 

First, WordPress itself is one of the most SEO-friendly website builders available. It also offers tons of SEO plugins to make your optimisation efforts more effective. 

WooCommerce also allows you to integrate SEO-friendly content into your site. For example, the product pages can easily be optimised to make it easier for search engines to crawl and index them. 

Safe and secure

Your website’s security should be your top priority, especially considering it’ll store your customers’ personal data and records of financial transactions. 

This is another aspect where WordPress and WooCommerce shine; both take cybersecurity very seriously. 

First, WooCommerce never stores any data regarding your customers’ payment methods. Therefore, even if your website gets hacked, the hacker won’t be able to access your customers’ payment information. 

Moreover, it’s unlikely for your website to get hacked in the first place. WordPress’s development team regularly releases security updates to keep your site as safe as possible. 

WordPress even offers various other features to boost your e-commerce site’s security, such as: 

• Security plugins. WordPress offers various free tools to ensure that your site is well protected. 
• Backups. An essential feature, just in case something goes wrong. You’ll be able to recover your website easily. 
• Site activity trackers. WordPress also offers plugins to track user activity and changes to your site. That way, you’ll know if a hacker is currently targeting you. 

Excellent plugins and integration options

Need to use more tools to run your online shop? Don’t worry! WordPress and WooCommerce offer excellent plugins you can use to assist you in managing your business, from marketing to analytic tools. 

And if you can’t find the right plugin from the vast array of options, you can opt to integrate third-party solutions to your e-commerce website. 

WordPress makes it easy to integrate anything into your website, including: 

• Shipping carriers 
• Payment gateways 
• Social media share buttons 

Scalable 

Lastly, but most importantly, WordPress and WooCommerce can grow alongside your business. 

As a business owner, you need to think about the future. What will happen if you want to expand your business or offer more types of products? 

Fortunately, WordPress and WooCommerce will allow you to scale your e-commerce website gradually. As your business grows, you can easily integrate more suitable paid features and appropriate business solutions into your site. 

Moreover, WooCommerce imposes no limits on the type or amount of products offered on your site. You can sell anything from physical products to digital files, memberships, and more; perfect if you’re trying to diversify your product range. 

Additionally, WooCommerce can handle an unlimited amount of products and website traffic, as long as your website is not too slow. 

So, when you’re ready to expand, upgrade your hosting plan to handle more traffic, and you can still use WordPress and WooCommerce with no problem. 

What are the benefits of hiring an e-commerce website development company?

While WordPress and WooCommerce are easy to use, not everyone can build a good and reliable e-commerce website. That’s where e-commerce website development companies come in! 

The main benefits of hiring an e-commerce website development company include: 

• Industry expertise 
• Time-saving 
• Professional and reliable website design 
• Continuous support and maintenance 

Now, let’s explore these benefits one by one. 

Industry expertise

If you’re just starting your business or e-commerce website, chances are, you still have a lot to learn. 

Learning everything from the beginning will take too much time. Instead, you can choose to hire an e-commerce website development company to help you get your foot in the door. 

Professional website development companies likely have extensive experience in the industry. They’ll help you create a dynamic and engaging website that suits your business goals and needs. 

Time-saving

As a business owner, you probably understand that time is money. When you’re running a business, there are other important things to take care of aside from building an e-commerce website. So, why not outsource that task to the professionals? 

By hiring an e-commerce website development company, you won’t have to spend long, tedious hours building your new e-commerce site. 

Additionally, if it takes too much time to develop your new site, you might lose potential customers and sales. Hiring professionals will ensure a quick turnaround on your website design, allowing you to tap your audience faster. 

Professional and reliable website design

Having a professional and elegant website will help improve your conversion rate and keep the bounce rate down. Plus, a clutter-free website will also help you improve your SEO score. 

An e-commerce website development company can use their experience and give you new web design insights. That way, you’ll be able to choose a design that is equally professional and suitable for your brand’s identity. 

Additionally, it’s also essential to have a reliable website to improve your customers’ shopping experience. Professional web developers understand the best practices to ensure your site is free from bugs and errors before it goes live. 

Continuous support and maintenance

The work doesn’t stop once your e-commerce site goes live. Your website will require attention and support on an ongoing basis, some even as often as once every week. After all, proper website maintenance is essential to ensure your e-commerce site runs smoothly. 

Web development companies generally offer maintenance and support plans for their clients. That way, you’ll know where to go whenever you need some bug fixes, customisation support, or new site updates. 

Why do I hire WordPress developers for my e-commerce site development?

Developing an e-commerce website requires plenty of expertise, knowledge, and experience. 

If you have the option, consider hiring WordPress developers to help with your e-commerce website development project.

As their title suggests, WordPress developers are professionals who specialise in building and maintaining WordPress-based websites. 

Here are some of the main reasons you should hire WordPress developers for your e-commerce website development. 

Better website architecture

A WordPress developer can help improve your e-commerce site’s architecture, making it more efficient, streamlined, and bug-free. This will not only make it easier for you to manage your e-commerce website, but it will also improve your customers’ experience. 

With their extensive knowledge, WordPress developers will help your website run smoother and improve its functionalities. 

Easy consultation for future updates

Need to scale up your website? Want better plugins to help manage your site? 

As a business owner, expanding your business should be a goal. When you decide to scale up your e-commerce website, you’d be grateful to have a WordPress developer to help you. 

WordPress developers can help you create site expansion strategies and offer you solutions for any technical problems you run into. 

How much does it cost to build an e-commerce website?

Now that you know the best platforms to use and why you should hire professionals to help with your e-commerce website development, only one question remains. How much will it cost you? 

The average cost of building an e-commerce website ranges from £2,000 and £20,000, depending on the site structure and design’s complexity. Additionally, you should be prepared to pay an additional maintenance fee, which ranges from £790 – £7,990 per year. 

You might be wondering, why is there such a wide range of costs. This is because not all e-commerce websites are built the same. 

Smaller online shops with pre-made designs will cost significantly less than expansive e-commerce sites made with customised designs. Additionally, the functionality of a website could vary widely. For instance, a business may need a live chat and ticketing systems that aren’t necessary for other businesses. So, make sure to understand your business goals and needs first before hiring someone to build your website. 

Not sure what kind of web design and structure your business needs? Don’t worry! Some web development companies, such as Sanders Design, also offer consultation services to help you map out your business goals and create a bespoke e-commerce site designed to meet your needs. 

Starting at just under £3,495, Sanders Design’s E-Commerce Website Package will provide everything you need to manage online sales and grow your business. 

Final thoughts

When it comes to e-commerce website development, you can never go wrong with WordPress and WooCommerce. 

They’re easy to operate, secure, highly customisable, and SEO-friendly. They offer many advantages over other website development platforms at a very low cost. Making a functional e-commerce website will be a breeze with these platforms. 

If you want to save your time and get the best results, leave it to the professionals! Hiring an e-commerce website development company, such as Sanders Design will help you create the best e-commerce website tailored to suit all your business needs and goals.