Almost 43% of all websites are created using WordPress. With its myriad of options for plug-ins and extensions, WordPress is one of the best open-source Content Management System platforms in the market. If you want to create an eCommerce store using WordPress, leveraging WooCommerce, one of the most popular plug-ins for WordPress online store websites, is the right decision. 

WooCommerce is a free plug-in that makes it easier for you to set up an online store as well as promote and sell your products and services efficiently. It enables you to accept payments and manage shipping accordingly, too. 

However, this particular platform may not be right for everyone. If you do not have a WordPress site or are looking for WooCommerce alternatives that cater to your unique business needs, you have come to the right place. This detailed blog will delve deeply into how the WooCommerce platform works, including its pricing, features, alternatives, and other relevant details. So, let’s get started!

Understanding WooCommerce

WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce platform for WordPress that powers more than 3 million online stores. The platform is built and supported by Woo and provides you with all the tools you need to support your online business idea. To get started with this platform, you will either need to choose a host, such as WordPress, Bluehost, SiteGround, or more, and then install the plug-in to build a new online store or migrate your existing store to WooCommerce.

Furthermore, WooCommerce enables you to sell everything, including simple products, customizable bundles, and downloads, through your store. You can also add extensions for bookings, selling subscriptions, and more. This popular eCommerce plug-in has several helpful features for users, like:

1. Product Management

One of the hardest things to figure out when starting an online business is how to sort and manage product inventory on the website. WooCommerce allows you to segment your products into different categories, which helps with product management and navigation. The best part is that you can freely customize the product by adding specific attributes, like color, size, and other categories. Additionally, you can provide special prices, like discounts and promos, to enhance sales and reduce inventory for efficient stock management.

2. Shopping Rules

This particular feature of WooCommerce can be adjusted and designed to the needs of sellers to make it easier for buyers to order numerous products. It is helpful in defining the customer journey when purchasing from your shop. It usually begins with the ordering process, followed by payment, and then product refunds.

3. Order Management

You can monitor all orders sent by your customers on the website with this feature. Sellers can further create offline orders manually. WooCommerce also helps streamline your order management process by integrating with your sales, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform, and email hosting services. Furthermore, WooCommerce also syncs your orders across all other marketplaces you may be selling your products and services on for a multi-channel selling experience. 

4. Sales Report

WooCommerce has a built-in sales report feature that enables you to add extensions if the default report feels less comprehensive. A few report extensions even let you export various reports either into Excel or CSV documents for easy sharing and analysis to help with your business development and sales improvement. These WooCommerce extensions have affordable pricing as well. 

5. Flexible Payments

WooCommerce provides several payment methods, like cash on delivery (COD), digital payments,  bank transfers, and others. The payment methods offered by the platform are fully compatible with other payment gateways like PayPal, Doku, and Stripe. Moreover, you can even use the WooCommerce payment extension, WooPayment, for no setup or processing fees. 

WooCommerce Pricing

WooCommerce is a free-to-use WordPress plug-in. However, it offers a paid enterprise version of the plug-in with more functionalities, such as personalized support and guidance with a success manager, a robust point-of-sale feature for syncing offline and online businesses, and advanced customization. The WooCommerce enterprise pricing is not standard and will depend on your business size, the infrastructure and level of support you need, and specific requirements. You can provide your business information for a custom quote.

Moreover, WooCommerce offers 850 different extensions that you can use to enhance your online store's functionality. These include payment gateways, shipping options, marketing tools, and customer support features. Each extension is designed to cater to specific business needs and improve shopping experiences. The WooCommerce extensions' pricing ranges from $0 to $299. 

Here is a look at WooCommerce pricing for a few extensions that may be beneficial for your business.

• WooCommerce Subscriptions: $23.25 per month/ $279 per year

• Checkout Field Editor: $4.09 per month/ $49 per year

• WooCommerce Bookings: $20.75 per month/ $249 per year

• Gift Cards: $6.59 per month/ $79 per year

Limitations of WooCommerce

WooCommerce offers several benefits to its users, but, like several other platforms, it has its fair share of challenges and limitations. These include:

1. Need to Be a WordPress User

It is usually presumed that all eCommerce endeavors necessitate using WordPress to support their respective online stores. WooCommerce is not suitable for you if you want to use a CMS other than WordPress. The particular plug-in works better only with WordPress and may not be compatible with non-WordPress sites.

2. Included Hidden Expenses  

WooCommerce may need to improve vital SEO tools on other platforms through standalone plug-ins. To that end, you may need to acquire additional plug-ins to maintain competitiveness with other relevant stores.

Although there are no initial expenses associated with WooCommerce, the incorporation of extensions, business utilities, and inventory management tools require some additional costs to improve the efficiency of your workflow and save you time and effort. Therefore, you cannot prevent these “hidden” costs when using WooCommerce. 

3. Using Plug-ins Can Challenging

WooCommerce integrates with over 1,000 plug-ins, but these are separate software modules that require additional processing power, memory, and internet bandwidth. Extension overload may lead to a decline in website performance because of the strain on memory resources. Therefore, you must incorporate jQuery, CSS, or HTML to preserve a lightweight and more responsive website.

4. No Tax or Legal Regulations

WooCommerce lacks all kinds of legal documentation, like data protection, declarations,  terms and conditions, or revocations. These could provide legal or taxation challenges in the future, which may disrupt your operations. 

Top WooCommerce Alternatives in 2024

WooCommerce is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms, and it provides features like shop front design, landing page creation, AI tools, and other features. However, given its limitations, you may want to look for suitable alternatives to this platform. Hence, we have curated the top WooCommerce alternatives for you to choose from.

1. Neo

Neo is an email hosting platform that includes a complimentary one-page website with all of its plans. The platform’s easy drag-and-drop feature makes it easy to create a website to showcase your products and services. It also allows you to integrate your social media handles and customer forms for easy order management and communication. 

It is an email hosting platform, it allows you to create a free business email with custom domain, like edu-co.site or in-co.site, because it offers co.site domain for free. Moreover, Neo offers certain email marketing tools, such as read receipts and email blast options, to increase the success rate of your email campaigns. The best part about the platform is that it offers affordable plans and a free trial for all its users for a limited period. 

Key Features

Neo can be considered one of the most efficient WooCommerce alternatives because of its range of features, such as: 

• One-Page Website Builder: Neo's drag-and-drop features enable you to build single-page, efficient sites quickly and without any coding knowledge.
• Email Marketing Services: You can send bulk emails to your clients easily and track their performances with Neo’s integrated email marketing solutions. You can also schedule email campaigns and newsletters to run automatically, reducing the amount of work to keep your customers engaged.
• Payment Integration: Neo enables multiple payment gateways, which provides greater convenience to your customers. 

2. Shift4Shop

Shift4Shop is an all-encompassing and unique eCommerce solution that helps businesses meet their needs without any charge. This platform is one of the best WooCommerce alternatives because it offers a package of tools and services for building secure sites, such as a free drag-and-drop website builder and mobile-friendly templates that are also SEO-optimized.

Key Features

Shift4Shop provides several features, including:

• Product and Inventory Management: Simplify your inventory control by conducting automatic stock counts through the system whenever orders are received. Furthermore, every product in your catalog will have a record sheet, which makes it easier to arrange and monitor the inventory.
• Order Management: Improve your organization's efficiency with a dedicated order dashboard, invoice number with customer information, and an RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization) system for simplified product return or replacement. 
• Marketing and SEO Tools: Increase your online shop’s sales by improving its SEO. This WooCommerce alternative offers SEO optimization tools like internal link building, Google Analytics integration, custom domain registration, and schema markup for improved communication with numerous web engines. 

3. Ecwid

Ecwid is another eCommerce platform that enables you to create and manage an online store easily without any coding or design knowledge. The platform also helps you sell products across numerous channels, including marketplaces, social media, and even your own website. Furthermore, Ecwid provides various attractive templates to build your eCommerce website. It also provides tools for streamlining your processes, such as orders, payments, and business progress.

Key Features

Ecwid offers a range of features, including:

• Platform Integration: Ecwid can be integrated with popular platforms like WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger, and Joomla. This enables you to manage your operations from a single infrastructure.
• Scalable Plans: The free plan is suitable for up to ten products. The platform also has other plans to suit your business needs over time. With paid plans, you also get some additional features, including selling digital goods, inventory control, and coupons.
• Marketing: Grow your business with Ecwid’s marketing solutions, such as automated social media ads, target-based ads, and built-in email marketing support. 

Comparison Table

The following table showcases a detailed comparison of WooCommerce and its alternatives so that you can decide which one is best for your business. We have rated each of the providers based on the features that we liked, their user-friendliness, learning curve, and pricing. 

Final Thoughts

The availability of several WooCommerce alternatives enables businesses to start an online store without much initial investment. With its diverse plug-in options and other eCommerce features, WooCommerce provides a suitable option to establish your online store and manage it with ease. 

However, there are several alternatives to this WordPress plug-in platform. All the alternatives of WooCommerce discussed in this guide provide robust infrastructure and unique tools to scale your business. If you want a tool that offers WooCommerce functionality with added email hosting services, Neo is your go-to option.  You can also combine Neo with any of the above platforms to simplify your workflow. So, register with Neo today and start your online business with your custom email address without or with a custom domain!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q1. What is a significant limitation of WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is best suited only for small to medium-sized businesses. Moreover, it has very limited customization options. A few businesses may also need more advanced features and functionality that are unavailable on the platform. You also get limited customer support for your WooCommerce online store.

Q2. How should you choose an online store?

It’s essential to consider several key points in mind before you choose a platform to design your online store. Factors such as pricing, features, customization options, ease of setup, and in-depth store analytics should be analyzed for any platform before you make the final choice. 

Q3. Is WooCommerce completely free to use?

The WooCommerce platform itself does not have pricing. However, to make your store functional, you will have to purchase various extensions within the WooCommerce infrastructure. You may even purchase the enterprise version of WooCommerce with the cost tailored to your needs.