Freelancers and agencies for WordPress can no longer ignore WooCommerce. What possibilities and business models does the store system offer? Which extensions should you know? And how do you use them efficiently? Our new e-book WooCommerce for professionals will show you. It is available in German and English.

More and more self-employed people, freelancers and agencies are considering using WooCommerce. Because the shopping market is booming. And it's the only way to keep your customers. But what does the free store system based on WordPress do? When should you use it and how much does a typical online store cost? Our e-book has the answers for you.

Directly to the download in German language
To the English version "WooCommerce for professionals"

The 70+ page e-book contains important information for agencies and WP professionals to get off to a flying start with WooCommerce. Whether for planning, implementing or developing web stores. Here is an excerpt from the content:

Why WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is the most successful software for online stores worldwide. But only a few companies in this country are familiar with the system. We'll give you the arguments you need to score points with your customers. Find out more about the open source model, ease of use and scalability of WooCommerce, as well as its limitations. The market for online stores is growing rapidly. Do you already offer services for WordPress? Then you can share in this success relatively easily. We show you how to do it step by step in the book.

Basics of the store system

WooCommerce is particularly popular because it can be installed very quickly and with little prior knowledge. Nevertheless, your customers need you as a professional:

• A simple store is actually set up within a few minutes. But then the work begins. For example, with the creation or import of products and customer data.
• Hidden behind inconspicuous menu items in the backend are functions that change entire store processes. Laypersons are very often overwhelmed by this.
• Ongoing maintenance must be well thought out. This includes extensive testing of updates, regular backups, checking and updating product data as well as adapting the store to legal requirements.
• You absolutely need a test or staging environment for WooCommerce. Store owners also like to place this responsibility in external hands.

Online stores require technical knowledge as well as know-how in the areas of online law, logistics, online marketing, usability, web design, SEO, analytics and content marketing. You will not become an expert in all of these areas. You will also find further information on this in the e-book.

WooCommerce for Professionals also shows you how to calculate the costs for a WooCommerce store. Both for setting it up and for ongoing operation. This is because the requirements for an online store are usually much more extensive.

Set up WooCommerce as legally compliant as possible

WooCommerce was developed for the US market. In the EU, and especially in Germany and Austria, there are numerous legal requirements that you must take into account when planning and during operation. Otherwise, your customers run the risk of receiving a warning. They will instruct you to make their store as legally compliant as possible.

There is no such thing as 100% protection. Nevertheless, you are expected to be familiar with the permitted checkout process, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and button solutions.

There are good plugins and service providers for WooCommerce that do most of the work for you. This also minimizes your entrepreneurial risk as an agency or freelancer. WooCommerce for professionals introduces tools that you should know about. And we list the most important customizations you can make in the store system.

Plugins for WooCommerce

There are hundreds of thousands of plugins for WooCommerce, for every conceivable purpose. It is anything but easy to assess the quality of the extensions. Our e-book not only provides indications of a future-proof solution. We also introduce you to the most important tools that experience has shown are requested for common store projects.

These include plugins for

• The administration of member pages
• For sending newsletters
• For products in the subscription model
• For the sale of events, training courses and rentals
• Variable pricing

Show your customers that you know your stuff. And that you use high-quality components. This will save you a lot of trouble in the long term.

B2B stores

B2B stores are aimed at commercial users. They require different processes than when selling purely to end customers. This also applies to mixed online stores that sell to B2B and B2C. Store owners do not always know what needs to be implemented here.

One example: In Germany and some other countries, B2B customers must be verified using their sales tax identification number (USt-ID) or VAT ID before they are allowed to use a store. As a rule, sales tax does not have to be shown either. Mapping this in WooCommerce is much more complex than it initially sounds. This is because the tax calculation is anchored in many internal processes. In WooCommerce for professionals, we present the "B2B Market" plugin. It also ensures better marketing of products in the store. With graduated prices and similar tools that WooCommerce does not have as standard.

Themes for WooCommerce

A theme for WordPress or WooCommerce is a type of design template. It determines how your portal looks. A good web design is extremely important for online stores. It determines whether your visitors stay in the store and add products to their shopping cart. Your customers often only realize after a relaunch that the new theme wasn't such a good choice after all.

This is where you are needed as a consultant who knows all aspects of a good design template. WooCommerce for Professionals gives you the knowledge you need.

This involves points such as mobile optimization, speed, clean programming, but also compatibility with WooCommerce and third-party plugins. In our e-book, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of self-developed themes versus ready-made templates. Depending on your focus - consulting or development - you will specialize in one of the two options as a service provider.

In the book, we present the best-known themes for WooCommerce. These include Flatsome, Storefront and Astra. But also a German-language theme.

WooCommerce Hosting

Webshops require significantly higher-performance web hosting than pure content portals. This is because their users register, use the comprehensive product search, filter the results, put together shopping baskets, complete the purchase and payment, access their customer area, etc. - and all of this in parallel. That's why you should use special packages for WooCommerce hosting.

As a WordPress professional, you have the following levers at your disposal to make WooCommerce faster:

• The caching of stylesheets, JavaScript but also of images and co. But be careful: For WooCommerce you have to set up certain exceptions, for example for the shopping cart. Otherwise the ordering process will not work.
• Sufficient CPU cores. After all, the server has to be able to cope with more load with many visitors and corresponding database queries.
• A sufficient PHP memory limit. So that the server can withstand large and simultaneous processes. For this reason, the PHP memory limit for our WooCommerce tariffs is 512 megabytes.

Other points for hosting online stores include automatic backups, free SSL certificates and managed WordPress, theme and plugin updates. This will make the solutions run much more stable for your customers. You can find more details on the points mentioned in our e-book.

WooCommerce for freelancers and agencies

The growing shopping market is your opportunity. There are many providers who have store system services in their portfolio. However, they rarely have the necessary expertise. If you come from the WordPress community, you have great advantages here.

The e-book lists the advantages and disadvantages of different business models with WooCommerce. Which services are particularly in demand? And how do you recognize which parts of it are suitable for you? We'll show you step by step. Not developing, but running an online store yourself? Then use this part of the book to find out more about the quality of your service providers.

Blog posts on the topic

You can also read some of the chapters from the book as blog posts:

• 4 factors for WooCommerce hosting
• WooCommerce: The advantages & disadvantages of the popular store plugin
• How good is WooCommerce? What does a typical WooCommerce store cost?
• WooCommerce for freelancers & agencies: Who should use the store system?
• Making WooCommerce legally compliant: Requirements for Germany and Europe

If you develop online store projects for your customers, then take advantage of our free hosting for WooCommerce now.

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