What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is a free plugin (a software add-on) that turns any WordPress website into a fully working online store. This guide explains what that means in practice and helps you understand whether WooCommerce is right for your business.

What WooCommerce actually does

When WooCommerce is added to your WordPress site, it gives you:

• A product catalog — a place to list everything you sell, with photos, prices, and descriptions.
• A shopping cart and checkout — customers add items to their cart and pay through your site.
• Order management — you see every order in one place and can mark it as fulfilled, refunded, or cancelled.
• Inventory tracking — WooCommerce can track stock levels and warn you when items run low.
• Automated emails — customers receive order confirmations, shipping updates, and receipts automatically.
• Reports — you can see sales totals, best-selling products, and customer data at a glance.

Who uses WooCommerce?

WooCommerce powers a huge range of businesses — from small boutiques selling handmade goods to large brands with thousands of products. It works well for:

• Physical product retailers (clothing, gifts, home goods, food)
• Digital sellers (ebooks, music, software, courses)
• Service businesses (bookings, consultations, custom orders)
• Businesses with mixed catalogs (physical + digital)

How does WooCommerce relate to WordPress?

Think of it this way: WordPress is your website, WooCommerce is the store inside it. WooCommerce is a plugin — it lives inside WordPress and uses your existing theme, pages, and content. You manage everything from the WordPress admin panel.

This means your store and your other content (blog, about page, services) all live in one place, under one login.

What does WooCommerce cost?

WooCommerce itself is free and open-source. However, running a store involves real costs:

Your Chykalophia project lead will advise you on the right hosting and payment setup for your business.

WooCommerce vs other store platforms

What types of products can you sell?

WooCommerce handles several product types out of the box:

• Simple products — one item, one price (a book, a mug, a candle)
• Variable products — items that come in options (a shirt in multiple sizes and colors)
• Digital downloads — files delivered automatically after purchase (PDFs, music, software)
• Virtual products — services or products with no physical shipping required

With extensions, you can also sell subscriptions, bookings, and memberships.

Common questions

Related guides

• A tour of your WooCommerce dashboard
• Products in WooCommerce explained
• Payment methods explained
• General store settings
• Keeping your store secure

Learn more

• WooCommerce official documentation
• WooCommerce getting started guide