How to Sell on WordPress in 7 Steps

You can start selling products on a WordPress ecommerce store in 7 simple steps. We walk you through the entire process starting with setting up your domain, choosing the right ecommerce plugin, listing products to sell, and managing orders and shipments. We also explore ways to expand your WordPress site as you grow.

Your first task is setting up your WordPress ecommerce site, which we walk you through in Steps 1-4. After that, Steps 5-7 cover building out your product line and ways to manage sales and growth.

1. Choose a Domain & Set Up Your WordPress Site Hosting

The first step in selling products on a WordPress ecommerce site is setting up your domain name and WordPress hosting. Hosting is where your WordPress site resides, and your domain, or URL, is the address of your site, like YourAwesomeBusiness.com.

To start, see if your business name is available with a .COM extension. You can use the domain search tool below to check:

If it’s not available, try subtle variations. Adding your city name works if you’re targeting local customers. Or, try variations of your company name, brand or product line. While it may be tempting to go with a .NET or .INFO, these domains are a lot less popular. Many people enter .COM by default, so it’s important these visitors get to the right site. If you’re having trouble finding a name, check out our Top 25 Domain Name Tips From the Pros.

After choosing a domain, your next step is to sign up for WordPress hosting. We recommend Bluehost since they have the best rates for hosting (starting at $2.95/month) and include a domain name plus business email at no extra cost. Click here to check out Bluehost’s hosting plans.

Visit Bluehost

2. Choose a WordPress Ecommerce Shopping Cart Plugin

After you have your domain and WordPress hosting set up, you need to add ecommerce functions to your WordPress site. For this, you need a WordPress Shopping Cart Plugin. This lets you list products for sale, accept orders, apply taxes and shipping charges, process online payments, offer coupons, and communicate with customers, all on your WordPress site.

The type of WordPress ecommerce plugin you need depends on the types of products you sell and how you want to sell them. You can sell digital downloads off blog posts, have a storefront full of items that ship, and even manage online memberships, as long as you have the right ecommerce plugin.

Searching for the perfect WordPress ecommerce plugin can be daunting, so here’s a quick look at 5 top-rated shopping cart plugins and the types of sellers each caters to. Best of all, many are free! We explore each in further detail below.

5 Top WordPress Ecommerce Plugins & Who They’re Best For

Next, we’ll help you figure out which WordPress ecommerce plugin is best for your business, based on your selling needs. You can take a closer look at these plugins in our side-by-side WordPress Shopping Cart Plugin guide.

If You: Want a Full-Featured Storefront or Store Section

Try this WordPress Ecommerce Plugin:
WooCommerce (Free!)
Plus you can stretch functionality via purchased extensions and add-ons starting at $49/yr.

Process Payments with:
PayPal Payments, Stripe Payments, or your own gateway and merchant account

Create Shipping Labels and Manage Inventory with:
Shipping rate comparison tools like ShippingEasy, ShipStation, or Ordoro

Who it’s Right for:
Anyone who wants to sell physical or digital items, or a mix of both, through a full-featured storefront or store section on a WordPress site.

How it Works:
WooCommerce is a free WordPress shopping cart plugin that offers a ton of ecommerce functionality. It’s compatible with many themes, so it works with many existing WordPress sites. Or, you can use a great-looking free or low-cost WooThemes theme if you’re launching a new store or looking to upgrade your existing WordPress blog.

With WooCommerce, you can create item pages for each product, categorize them, display them as a store section on your blog or as a complete storefront, and even track inventory. PayPal and Stripe are the easiest options for secure payment processing on WooCommerce, and for shipping, third-party shipping services like ShipStation, ShippingEasy, and Ordoro integrate seamlessly. If you need advanced inventory or back-end store management, both ShippingEasy and Ordoro offer that too.

Source: WooCommerce.com

Visit WooCommerce

If You: Sell Only Digital Downloads Like Music, Ebooks, Photos & E-courses

Try this WordPress Ecommerce Plugin:
Easy Digital Downloads (Free!)

Process Payments with:
PayPal Payments

Who it’s Right for:
Anyone who wants to sell digital goods on WordPress via instant download, not products that need to ship.

How it Works:
This simple WordPress ecommerce plugin works with any WordPress theme and lets you upload digital files to sell via download. You can create item pages for each product, categorize them, and display them in a store section on your blog or as a gallery-style storefront. With PayPal Payments, customers can complete their order and pay with PayPal or a Credit Card. After the sale, customers can download purchased items from your site.

Source: EasyDigitalDownloads.com

Visit Easy Digital Downloads

If You: Want to Sell Products from Blog Posts

Try this WordPress Ecommerce Plugin:
WP Simple PayPal Shopping Cart (Free!)

Process Payments and Shipping with:
PayPal Payments and PayPal Shipping

Who it’s Right for:
Sellers who want to sell products on WordPress and use blog posts or pages as their product listings.

How it Works:
This simple WordPress ecommerce plugin quickly turns any blog post or page into a product listing, and you can use it with any WordPress theme. The plugin creates a short piece of code, called a shortcode, which you simply paste onto any page or post to display an Add to Cart buy button, as shown below, which links to the PayPal shopping cart.

Customers can add one or many items to the cart, then complete their order and pay via PayPal using a PayPal account or Credit Card. After the sale, you can print shipping labels directly from PayPal for physical products and customers can download digital items from your site.

Source: TipsAndTricks-hq.com

Visit Plugin Page

If You: Sell Subscriptions, Memberships, Products & Downloads

Try this WordPress Ecommerce Plugin:
Cart66 (14-day Free Trial)
Basic subscription $9.95/month, extended features $29.95/month

Process Payments with:
PayPal or Stripe Payments, or your merchant account using Cart66’s unique PCI-compliant checkout

Create Shipping Labels with:
Easy Post integration within the Cart66 dashboard

Who it’s Right for:
Anyone who wants to sell physical items, digital items, subscriptions, memberships, take donations, or a mix of anything and everything through a WordPress site and social sites like Facebook.

How it Works:
Cart66 offers a ton standard of ecommerce selling features plus subscription sales and membership management, donation acceptance, and complete store management functions. Cart66 offers many unique features, but two stand out — it works with any theme so you can turn any post or page into a product page, and you don’t have to worry about PCI compliance because all orders and payments are processed using the PCI-compliant Cart66 checkout.

With Cart66, you can easily sell physical, digital, and subscription/membership items on WordPress and on social sites, and conveniently manage orders, inventory, and shipping from one dashboard. Both PayPal and Stripe offer easy payment options on the secure Cart66 platform, but you can use your own merchant account with confidence since the Cart66 checkout ensures the highest level of PCI compliance, taking the burden off of you.

After the sale, you can compare shipping rates and print labels right on the Cart66 dashboard through its integration with the third-party shipping service, EasyPost.

Source: Cart66.com

Visit Cart66

If You: Sell Products on a WordPress Store, Other Websites, Social Sites & In-Store

Try this WordPress Ecommerce Plugin:
Ecwid Basic (Free!)
Higher levels cover retail POS integration, mobile selling, multiple channels, and more, from $15/month to $99/month

Process Payments with:
PayPal, Stripe Payments, and many payment gateways for online sales; Square, Clover, or Vend for retail POS integration

Create Shipping Labels with:
Shipping comparison software like ShippingEasy or ShipStation

Who it’s Right for:
Anyone who wants to sell physical or digital items, or a mix of both, through one or many websites or WordPress sites, marketplaces, social sites like Facebook, or a physical store. This is a great plugin for sellers who want seamless multichannel functionality.

How it Works:
Ecwid offers a ton of ecommerce and multichannel sales functionality and even has a free basic version for starter stores. With Ecwid you can sell physical and digital items, or a mix of both, on WordPress sites, social sites, online marketplaces, and in physical stores — all through one dashboard.

Using Ecwid, you can create item pages for each product, categorize them, and display them on your WordPress site in a number of ways. Ecwid works with many WordPress themes and has a PCI-compliant checkout so you can use PayPal, Stripe, or other payment gateways with your own merchant account.

If you have a physical store, Ecwid integrates seamlessly with Clover, Square, and Vend POS systems to manage all sales and inventory in one place. To ship, you can compare rates, print labels, and provide package tracking for customers with third-party shipping comparison software like ShipStation or ShippingEasy.

Source: Ecwid.com

Visit Ecwid

3. Choose Your WordPress Theme

A WordPress theme sets the overall look and functionality of your WordPress website. Many WordPress ecommerce plugins can work with any WordPress theme, but some plugins work and look best with a compatible theme, like Storefront made for WooCommerce, shown below.

Source: WooCommerce

Some WordPress ecommerce plugins, like WooCommerce, offer their own themes, which makes setting up a new store quick and easy. Or, you can find a huge selection of ecommerce plugin-compatible themes on Themeforest, the largest marketplace for WordPress themes.

Theme Tip: A great go-to theme that works with most shopping cart plugins is Divi by Elegant Themes. It’s not free and has a learning curve if you’re new to WordPress, but offers unlimited customization options. It’s worth taking the time to learn Divi if you’re serious about running an eye-catching ecommerce store that can compete with the internet’s biggest names – even on a shoestring budget.

You can learn more about how to choose and set up a theme for your WordPress store in our step-by-step guide to setting up a WordPress site on BlueHost.

Once you have your domain, hosting, ecommerce plugin, and theme in place, it’s time to configure your WordPress ecommerce plugin so you can start selling.

4. Configure Your Payments, Shipping & Other Key Data

After downloading and installing your WordPress ecommerce plugin through your WordPress dashboard, you can configure your store data in the plugin’s settings. This is where you control basic information such as:

• Your store name and address
• Contact phone numbers and email addresses
• Payment processing methods
• Shipping methods and rates
• Applicable sales tax rates
• Coupons, discounts, and store specials
• Customer email notices for order and shipping confirmations

Each plugin is different, but most are intuitive and simple to learn. You can take a closer look at top plugins in our side-by-side WordPress Shopping Cart Plugin guide.

Not every setting is required for your store to operate, but you must have the following settings set up before you start selling:

• Payments
• Shipping
• Sales tax
• Store contact information

And don’t forget! You also need to create your information pages for Customer Service, Privacy, and Shipping details before you launch your store.

Here’s a look at WooCommerce’s easy-to-navigate Settings Screen:

Source: WooCommerce

From here, you can set up key details like Payments and Shipping in your WordPress store

Set Up Payments in Your WordPress Ecommerce Store

Online payment services process online the payments for your store. You have several options here.

• All-in-One Payment Processors like PayPal or Stripe
  All-in-one payment processors like PayPal and Stripe combine a payment gateway and processing in one service. Most startups opt for these since they are an easy, secure way to get started selling products in a WordPress store and work with most shopping cart plugins.
• Your Own Merchant Account
  If you already have a credit card processor or process a higher volume of payments $10k each month, you may get better rates using your own merchant services provider and payment gateway. But, you might also be required to meet PCI compliance standards, which is why many small and mid-sized businesses stick with PayPal and Stripe. See our PCI Compliance Guide to learn more about online payment security.
• Point-of-Sale (POS) systems like Square POS
  If you already accept credit cards in your retail store or use a POS system such as Square, you can seamlessly connect your WordPress Store and in-store sales in one system. Square POS and many other popular POS systems work with most WordPress ecommerce plugins.

Once you’ve decided on your payment provider, you’ll set up payment methods in the ecommerce plugin settings. Most payment methods require a “key” or “token” which creates the connection between your store and the merchant processor. The plugin has fields for you to enter this information in the payment settings, and you’ll get these keys/tokens from your provider. After setup, you can run test payments by enabling the test, or “sandbox” mode, in your provider’s settings before going live.

Here’s a look at the Payments Setup screen in WooCommerce, with Stripe Payments selected:

Source: WooCommerce

Set Up Shipping Rates in Your WordPress Ecommerce Store

Shipping options and charges are set up in the ecommerce plugin settings, usually under “Shipping” settings. Shipping charges are generally applied to orders in one of three ways:

• Flat-fee Shipping
  The same shipping fee is applied to every order or added on a per-item basis.
• Table-based Shipping Rates
  Shipping rates are applied based on the total order value. Free Shipping can easily be applied for orders over a certain value using table rates.
• Actual or Real-time Shipping Rates
  Shipping rates are calculated in real time using UPS, FedEx, and USPS rates.

Here’s a look at the Shipping Settings screen in WooCommerce:

Source: WooCommerce

The method you choose depends largely on your particular business needs and what your competition is doing. If you’re in a highly competitive market and shipping bulky or heavy items, charging customers actual rates may hurt sales. Be warned! Shipping is expensive, and most customers have no idea of the actual costs. Flat-fee or table-based rates are the most customer-friendly choice if your profit margin can absorb the shipping costs.

However, if you sell unique, one-of-a-kind, or upscale items with little competition, charging actual rates can be a profitable choice.

Decide How to Print Your Shipping Labels

You also need a way to print a shipping label and email shipment tracking information to your customer. WordPress ecommerce plugins don’t do this automatically, but they do integrate with a variety of third-party shipping solutions to get this job done.

With them, you can compare shipping rates and print labels for UPS, FedEx, USPS, and other carriers. And once the label is printed and order shipped, your WordPress store orders are updated with tracking information and shipping update emails are sent to notify your customers.

5. Enter Product Data into Your WordPress Ecommerce Store

Once you’ve completed your WordPress store setup, it’s finally time to enter your product information. Most shopping cart plugins include the following basic fields in the product entry screen:

• Product ID/SKU
• Item Name
• Price
• Item Description
• Product Type for items with options (like color/size, if needed)
• Product Images

Here’s a look at how WooCommerce handles Product Entry:

Source: WooCommerce

Product entry is detailed and can be time-consuming, so it’s helpful to be organized before tackling this task. Assembling product information in a spreadsheet or Word document beforehand is helpful, as is having product images sized, cropped, and organized in files for easy upload.

Optional Product Data Import

If you need to add many products to your site, you can use an import function. Most WordPress shopping cart plugins have an import feature that allows you to bulk import product data from a .csv (comma-separated value) file, which you can create in most spreadsheet programs.

Optional Product Data Fields: Product Weights & Inventory

Many shopping cart plugins include optional product data fields, such as item weight and size for shipping purposes, and product counts for inventory tracking. Your business may or may not need to use these fields.

Weight & Size Fields Affect Your Shipping Charges

If you charge shoppers Flat-rate shipping fees or offer Free Shipping, then these fields probably won’t matter to you. But if you use Actual or Real-time Shipping Rates to determine shipping charges, you need to fill in weight and size data for accurate shipping charges to be applied.

Inventory Tracking Helps You Stay Organized

You can also manage inventory manually within many shopping cart plugins, or integrate a back-end inventory system like Ordoro or ShippingEasy. You can even upload QuickBooks inventory data to update inventory fields with accurate counts.

Even if you don’t use all of the plugin’s bells and whistles at first, you’ll find it’s nice to have these product data options already built in as you grow.

6. Manage Your WordPress Ecommerce Store: Process & Ship Orders

After you’ve completed setup steps 1-5, your WordPress ecommerce store is ready for business. Most WordPress ecommerce plugins collect and store your customer order information and make it accessible through the plugin’s dashboard on WordPress. So as orders roll in, you can manage them many ways, including:

• Search for orders and customers
• Print invoices and packing slips
• Change orders or entering phone orders
• Process payments and refunds
• Create internal notes on orders
• Email order updates to customers

Here’s a look at the Order Dashboard in WooCommerce:

Source: WooCommerce

The final order processing step, printing a shipping label, can be managed a few ways from your WordPress store. How you do this depends on the ecommerce plugin and shipping solution you choose, but most make the process quick and easy.

For example, some shopping cart plugins, like Cart66, print shipping labels within the plugin dashboard. Others, like Ecwid and WooCommerce, require a third-party shipping service such as ShippingEasy, ShipStation, or Ordoro to print labels

Whichever solution you choose, it connects to your WordPress ecommerce plugin so you can download orders, compare shipping costs, print labels, upload tracking numbers, and send emails to your customers all in a seamless process.

Here’s a look at the ShippingEasy shipping management dashboard:

Source: ShippingEasy

7. Prepare for Growth with Extensions & Specialty Plugins

Most small stores can easily manage orders, shipping, inventory, and other tasks within the WordPress ecommerce plugin dashboard. But as you grow, you’ll likely need advanced features like high-volume or multichannel order and inventory management, email marketing campaign integration, mobile app selling, and more.

Here again, WordPress plugins come to the rescue. Many WordPress ecommerce plugins offer expanded functionality through add-on features called extensions. These generally come with added costs, but if you need the feature to support a growing business, they can be worth every penny.

Here’s a look at the many areas where you can expand WooCommerce’s base functionality:

Source: WooCommerce

If your WordPress ecommerce plugin doesn’t expand to support needed features, you can also find what you need via specialized plugins that provide:

• Store locator functions
• Drop shipping support
• Print-on-demand integration
• Specialty pricing features
• Retargeting and remarketing campaigns
• Coupon popups
• Abandoned cart emails and recovery
• And much more

The unlimited capabilities that plugins bring to WordPress make it an ideal platform for a growing business. With added features just a few clicks away, you can improve day-to-day operations, increase productivity, and scale to support seasonal demand or sales spikes as your business grows.

Even if your business doesn’t need advanced features and functionality yet, it’s nice to know that WordPress ecommerce plugins, add-ons, and extensions can meet the demand when the time comes.

Ecommerce and WordPress Terms You Need to Know

Here’s a list of the terms you’ll run into when you start working in the WordPress platform.

Plugin – A WordPress app that extends a site’s functionality, such as adding ecommerce capabilities.
Add-ons – Additional plugin extensions or third-party services that extend functionality, such as printing shipping labels, back-end business management, payment processing, or advanced reporting.
Theme – A set of coded files that create the overall design and basic navigation functions in a WordPress site.
Shopping Cart – Another name for ecommerce functionality on a website or WordPress site. Also refers to the list of saved items that is activated on a website when a customer clicks the “Buy” or “Add to Cart” button.
Checkout – The secure screen where customers enter address, contact, and payment information to complete an order.
Third-party Service — A vendor providing integrated functionality such as shipping, advanced inventory, or back-end store management for WordPress websites.
Shortcodes – small snippets of code that some themes and plugins use to add functionality to WordPress blog posts and pages.
Integration – Elements or services that work seamlessly together.
Payment Gateway – The secure platform that credit card and payment processors use to collect and process payment transactions.
Point-of-Sale (POS) System – A payment processing, sales, and inventory management solution for physical stores. Some POS systems like Square POS integrate with several WordPress shopping cart plugins to manage online and offline sales and inventory through one system.
Sandbox – Refers to staging platforms that are not live for public use or access, used for testing when setting up payment and shipping functions.
PCI Compliance – PCI compliance is the security standard for anyone collecting, processing, or storing customer information and payment data.

The Bottom Line

WordPress ecommerce stores are a versatile and low-cost online selling solution for many types of sellers. But it’s important to carefully review WordPress ecommerce plugins, payment processors, and shipping providers to find the best combination for your needs and budget. Once your WordPress store is up and running, you can easily expand functionality using ecommerce plugin extensions and specialty plugins.

And speaking of growth, remember that WordPress is also the ideal platform for publishing engaging content that attracts customers and keeps them coming back. After all, content is how WordPress got its start. You can easily incorporate the brand-building content that shoppers love into your WordPress store. Video, product image galleries, project how-to’s, product reviews, recipe sections, categorized blogs, social feeds, and more are easy to publish on WordPress.

Do you use WordPress ecommerce for your online store? Which ecommerce plugins and add-ons deliver the best features for your customers? We’d love to hear about your unique solution in the comments below.