What is WooCommerce? How does it work?

WooCommerce is an eCommerce plugin that helps people create stores online. It runs on top of WordPress – so you need a WordPress site to run WooCommerce on. The good news is that both WordPress and WooCommerce are free and open source – which means they’re great options to build your online store with.

While there are many platforms out there that you can use to build your online store, nothing is as full-featured and free as WooCommerce. And the fact that it’s open source means it’s both flexible and doesn’t come with yearly licensing fees.

Also, because WooCommerce sits on top of WordPress – which powers 31% of the internet – and WordPress is highly calibrated for SEO, it means WooCommerce stores are easily discovered and promoted via Google (which can’t be said for other platforms that just bolt on a content component to their carts).

Finally, WordPress has the ability to build beautiful (and effective) websites via Beaver Builder. Here’s an example:

Can’t you run WooCommerce on any WordPress site?

The good news is that you can. You can create a WooCommerce store anywhere you can create and run a WordPress site. But just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

A lot of hosts tell you that you can run a WooCommerce store on their platform. What they neglect to tell you is that they haven’t optimized their platform for an online store. And when you realize it, that’s when you get the upsell that invites you to jump to dramatically more expensive plans.

Imagine the sticker shock if you purchase a hosting plan from a WordPress host for $20/month and then are told you need to spend $1200/month?

So what is Managed WooCommerce Hosting?

How does Managed WooCommerce Hosting differ from other Managed WordPress hosts?

Most managed WordPress hosts created their platform when WordPress was just taking off. They designed a platform that would be fantastic for blogs and magazine sites.

These sites don’t have a lot of “logged in” users – which is different than membership sites, online courses, and eCommerce sites. So the platform is designed to handle high traffic loads by caching static content.

But that approach doesn’t work for eCommerce sites. That’s where Managed WooCommerce Hosting comes in.

Who benefits from Managed WooCommerce Hosting?

In order to build a platform that was optimized for logged in users – people who each experienced a site differently than others – we couldn’t just rely on caching. We actually had to create a platform that would be highly performant when users were logged in.

We also had to work on WooCommerce – the code itself – to make sure that it could scale and handle high traffic loads. To that end, we tweaked the database and how the code saves orders.

In the end, we built a platform that was really optimized for eCommerce stores – because when it comes to conversions, speed counts. With the Astra Pro theme, which comes standard on all Managed WooCommerce Hosting plans, your site will be extremely fast. In fact, faster than most other stores.

Who benefits?

Those who are shopping. After all, studies have shown that if your customers are spending 2 or more seconds waiting between page loads, their visit length will be cut in half.

Who else benefits?

Store owners. Because if your store is fast, conversions go up, and when conversions go up, so does revenue and profit.

What’s included in our Managed WooCommerce Hosting plans?

In order to create the best platform and a total solution for eCommerce stores, we’ve pulled together a lot of features.

1. Every store gets automatic image compression so that your store isn’t slowed down by images that are larger than necessary.
2. Every store gets automatic segmentation and analytics so that you know exactly what products are hot, which categories are doing well, and which customers need coupons.
3. Every store gets automatic cart abandonment features so that you can bring those 70% of visitors back after they put something in a cart and then got distracted.
4. Every store gets our dynamic resourcing so that your store can have a great traffic day without getting an escalating bill. We want you to succeed without having to worry about RAM and disk space.