eCommerce
Creating a website to sell your products and services has never been easier than now with WordPress, many great Themes and Elementor tools. The cool web tool used my most developers is called WooCommerce which allows a full setup of everything required to turn clicks into sales.
From the relevant financial information to creating Checkout screens, keeping your inventory to designing the way your online shop looks The WooCommerce WordPress Plugin makes it easy and as quick as the number of products you are selling. Many Theme producers now create Elementor specific themes to make the most of the Elementor tools.
WooCommerce + Great Theme + Elementor = Great Site. Get trading quickly!
WooCommerce
Display your products, sell your products all in the way you know all to well from any online shop you have purchased from. And accept payment from all the major Credit/Debit cards. There are two types of web pages that are used by WooCommerce; Archive and Single Product. An Archive page is essentially your own screen catalogue from which the customer can either drill down to see the item they are interested in or even click to add to cart. The Single Product Page is where an individual product is shown with larger images, descriptions, specifications, size options and anything else deemed relevant.
The Elementor tools allow complete control of how these pages look and feel.
In the example below, we first have a top-level menu which points visitors to the Archive page required (such as Mens or Womens clothing). This is a great way to replicate a Store Front, make it attractive to the visitors and they will enter the shop.
Other elements could be added especially to show larger images or more details, this would normally come from the Single Product page which will be discussed shortly. As a pit stop, we can also take the opportunity to look at Popup boxes which are very often used to show further product details instead of building individual pages. For clothes, where there are likely to be different colours and sizes which could even lead to different prices, a Single Page is a good idea but for other products perhaps a simpler approach is better hence the Popup box.
3 of the products from above are used in examples below. Click on one or all to see how a Popup could work, you will see multiple images in this case but further description could be added, all depending on the type of product being sold.
fashionshack
womens fashion
5/5
4/5
5/5
4.5/5
3.5/5
4.75/5
4.7/5
4.5/5
The visitor’s selection then takes them to the Archive page. At this point it is worth knowing this is a simple example, the 4 options could have been further split such as Womens Dresses, Womens Tops, Womens Shoes etc. An additional sub-menu could be added to all pages to allow customers quick links to their required products.
Below we can see general Women’s clothing on an Archive page. As well as product image, name and cart button we have star ratings as well so customers get an honest appreciation of other customer’s opinions.
Onto Single Product Pages, much more suitable for the Clothing stores. Below is just an example for one outfit but we can see all of the usual aspects of a product page such as further images, prices, sizes, descriptions and recommendations. These are all configurable within the Themes Page with Elementor to make the page look exactly the way you want.
The images are also configured, in this example, to use lightboxes which place a larger image in a Popup.
Loose Fit Casual Shirt
Sizes: Small to Extra Large
Great accessory over your favourite top or on its own. Soft feel but hard wearing and easy iron, just throw it on and walk out it style
£24.99
Customers who viewed this item also bought
Puff Shorts
Popcorn Long Sleeve
Why Not T-shirt
Loose Fit Casual Shirt
Sizes: Small to Extra Large
Great accessory over your favourite top or on its own. Soft feel but hard wearing and easy iron, just throw it on and walk out it style
£24.99
Customers who viewed this item also bought
Puff Shorts
Popcorn Long Sleeve
Why Not T-shirt
PayPal
For many customers, the whole WooCommerce setup may be excessive depending on the type of product, and how much they are selling. We all know PayPal from eBay and other online stores and this may be a better way for a business to accept payment. The PayPal payment screen allows for all major credit/debit cards as well as a PayPal payment so you would not be limiting customers.
There is no login/account aspect to using PayPal payments so it does allow for a straight forward click, pay, wait for delivery type of approach. Some customers like this as it is deemed less fussy and less chance of being swamped by marketing emails.
All any online trader needs is a business PayPal account, this provides a code Dynamiser would use with a set of PayPal buttons created via a PayPal WordPress Plugin. The buttons can be seen in the example below and both buttons redirect the customer to PayPal where they login and pay. PayPal then send the trader an email with order and delivery details and the payment lands in the traders PayPal account.
fashionshack
summer collection
fashionshack
summer collection
Party Summer Dress
£31.99
In 3 Colours
Denim Dungarees
£44.99
Little White Dress
£85.99
Backless Dress
£85.99
Blue Sleeveless top
£19.99
Floral Top & Shorts
£35.99
NEW
Denim Coat
£69.99
Cool Summer Top
£21.99
Party Summer Dress
£31.99
In 3 Colours
Denim Dungarees
£44.99
Little White Dress
£85.99
Backless Dress
£85.99
Blue Sleeveless top
£19.99
Floral Top & Shorts
£35.99
NEW
Denim Coat
£69.99
Cool Summer Top
£21.99
eCommerce on the go
So we have a great online store using WooCommerce or PayPal but if Mobile and Tablet platforms are ignored it could lead to a serious impact on the amount of online sales. It has been estimated by some studies that online sales via mobile could be at 45% by 2020 and that currently 82% of potential buyers will research on mobile before purchase. The most important page for WooCommerce is the checkout page, if that gives any sort of negative perception then the customer will click out without purchase. But any poor page on an online store will deter sales.
More on the importance of Mobile (And Tablet) support is discussed here.
Below is a selection of mobile/tablet screenshots showing how good your online store can look.