WooCommerce shop: stay, slim down or move?
WooCommerce is the add-on that turns a WordPress site into an online shop. It does a lot, and a busy shop needs most of it. Some owners still find the shop has become hard work. Updates feel risky and renewal notices keep arriving. You have three choices. You can stay and have the shop properly looked after, slim it down, or move to something simpler. Which one fits depends on what you sell and how you sell it.
Last updated
The short answer
A WooCommerce shop that feels like hard work has three paths. Stay and have it properly looked after if you have a real catalogue, track stock or link the shop to your accounting. Slim it down by removing paid extensions you no longer use. Move if you sell only a handful of items or mostly take deposits and bookings, because a simpler site with a payment link may do the job. WaTo Consulting in Adelaide builds, hosts and maintains WooCommerce shops and can help you choose.
Questions to ask yourself first
How many products do you sell?
A catalogue of hundreds of items with sizes and colours needs a proper shop system. Five products or a short list of services is a different case. A shop system may be more than that job calls for.
How often do they change?
If staff add products, change prices or run sales every week, they need a shop they can edit themselves. If the range has barely changed in two years, that editing screen is not earning its keep.
Do you track stock?
Stock tracking means the shop counts down what is left and stops selling when you run out. If you rely on that, stay with a shop system. If everything is made to order or is a service, you may not need it.
How many orders a week?
A steady flow of orders justifies the upkeep, because the shop pays its way. A shop that takes one or two orders a month still needs the same updates and renewals as a busy one.
What else is plugged in?
Many shops send orders to an accounting package, a stock system or a courier. Those links are valuable and can be hard to rebuild elsewhere. Write down each one before you decide anything.
How do customers pay you?
Some businesses mostly take deposits, bookings or payment for a quoted job. That can often be done with a payment link, which is a web address from your payment company that opens a secure page to pay on.
Who this guide is for
- You own a WooCommerce shop and it takes more looking after than the sales seem to justify.
- You are nervous about pressing update because the last one broke the checkout.
- Renewal notices for add-ons keep arriving and you are not sure what half of them do.
- You sell a few products or take bookings, and wonder whether you need a full shop at all.
How to work out which path fits
- Write down what the shop does for you. List the jobs it handles in a normal week, such as taking orders, working out shipping, sending receipts and keeping customer accounts. This is the list any replacement would have to match.
- List every extension and when it renews. Extensions are paid add-ons for WooCommerce, and most renew every year. Note what each one does and whether you still use it. Our guide to WordPress running costs explains where these charges come from.
- Look at what really sold last year. Open the order reports and count the orders and the products that made them up. Owners are often surprised to find most sales come from a small part of the range.
- Match your answers to a path. A real catalogue with stock and regular orders points to staying. A healthy shop with a long list of unused add-ons points to slimming down. A handful of products or mostly deposits points to moving.
- Make changes on a copy first. The shop is where an update going wrong costs money straight away. Any update or removal should be tried on a copy of the site, with a test order put through, before it touches the live shop.
The three paths, and how WaTo can help
- Stay and have it properly looked after. This is right for a real catalogue, stock levels, customer accounts, shipping rules, or links to accounting and stock systems. A website maintenance plan means updates are tested, with a backup taken first. We also offer WooCommerce hosting on our own Australian servers.
- Slim it down. Many shops carry extensions they stopped using years ago. Each one is another renewal and another part that can clash after an update. We can work through the list with you and remove the ones doing nothing, testing the checkout after each change.
- Move to a code site. A code site is plain web pages without plugins or a database. It can take payment through a payment link or a checkout page hosted by the payment company, so card details never touch your site. This suits a handful of products, deposits and bookings.
- Move to a hosted shop platform. A service such as Shopify runs the shop software for you and charges its own monthly fees. It can suit an owner who wants a full shop without looking after WordPress. We build online shops on other platforms by quote.
- The size of the job matters here. Our one-week WordPress rebuild is for ordinary business sites. A full shop is a bigger job, and we quote it after looking at what the shop does. We have been Adelaide owned and operated since 2001.
Related questions
Is WooCommerce a bad choice for an online shop?
No. WooCommerce is a capable shop system that suits businesses wanting flexibility and ownership of their shop. Like WordPress itself, it needs regular upkeep. It becomes hard work when the shop is left alone between problems, or when it carries far more than the business uses.
Can I take card payments without a shop system?
Often, yes. Payment companies offer payment links and checkout pages that they host themselves. Your website shows the product or service and a button, and the customer pays on the payment company's page. This works well for a short list of items. It does not track stock or keep customer accounts the way a shop does.
Should I move my shop to Shopify?
It depends on what the shop has to do. A hosted platform takes care of the software updates for you and charges a monthly fee for it. WooCommerce gives you more control over how the shop works and where it is hosted. Our e-commerce website checklist lists what to settle before choosing.
Is it safe to delete extensions I do not use?
Usually, but check first. Some extensions do quiet work in the background, such as sending order emails or working out shipping. Switch one off on a copy of the shop, place a test order, and confirm everything still works before removing it from the live site.
Can you rebuild my shop as a code site in a week?
Not a full shop. The one-week rebuild is for ordinary business sites without a shop attached. If you sell a handful of items and a payment link would do, the job can be much closer to a normal rebuild. Our guide on your options for leaving WordPress compares the paths.
Will I lose my orders and customers if I move?
Products, customers and order history can often be exported and brought across. How cleanly they transfer depends on where they are going. If you move to a code site with a payment link, there are no customer accounts to move, so we would talk through what records you need to keep.
How WaTo can help with this
Not sure which path fits your shop?
Book a call or ring us on (08) 7123 0805. Tell us what you sell, how many orders you take in a week and what the shop is connected to. We will say which of the three paths we would take with a shop like yours.
Mon to Fri, 8:30am to 5pm
