The Ultimate Guide to WooCommerce Scalability

by Vipe Team in WordPress Development; Published on 26.10.2022 Last updated on 26.05.2023

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Let’s engage in a quick game. Go ahead and ask your friends and family when was the last time they went shopping online. We assume that the majority of them have recently stepped into the world of online stores and have already purchased a thing or two.

The thing is we live in a digital world. During the last several decades we have all witnessed tremendous development in the world of the web – be it online learning, social media, enterprise websites, online shopping, you name it! With time, people are more and more capable of doing anything in front of their devices’ screens. It’s only logical for developers to aim at constant improvement of the users’ experience.

Since we’ve mentioned online shopping, it’s only logical for our WordPress Development Agency to share a thing or two about WooCommerce development.

If you are an entrepreneur wishing to establish a highly-functional, scalable and user-friendly online store, then you’ve arrived at the right place. Join us as today we’ll talk about what WooCommerce is and why we think it’s the ultimate number one option for establishing and maintaining an online store.

What’s With Online Shopping and Why It Became So Successful?

In the past, people exclusively went shopping at physical stores – in order for anyone to get what they needed, they had to implement a whole journey situated around malls, shopping centers and all kinds of stores.

Of course, as the Internet boomed, along with the numerous enhancements and developments, online stores happened. With time, we got used to visiting virtual stores where everybody got the chance to easily purchase and pay for all kinds of necessities, products and services.

In the very beginning, people expressed uncertainty when it came to online shopping simply because it revolutionized the entire concept of buying things – it was an entirely new approach both for businesses and customers. But with time, as the digital world became more and more present in our lives, so did online shopping. It was just a matter of time before people became fully acquainted and used to visiting online stores, to the point that today this is often the first place we go to whenever we need a certain item.

There are numerous reasons explaining online shopping’s success: it’s fast (the customers avoid waiting in lines), it’s 24/7 (we no longer need to head to the shop quickly before closing hours), we witness a vast diversity in products and services and deliveries rarely take more than several days. In addition to all that, we can rely on secure and fast payment transactions, as well as reading other customers’ reviews that certainly help us in deciding on purchasing a specific item.

It’s no wonder online shopping became so successful but with success always comes greater responsibility.

Now that online shopping increased in popularity, developers worldwide had to ensure a truly dazzling, easy, precise and obstacle-free user experience. That’s where Custom WooCommerce Development enters the picture.

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What Is WooCommerce and Why It Turns Out to Be a Golden Standard in Establishing WordPress-Based Online Stores?

Since WordPress is the world’s biggest CMS (powering over 40% of worldwide websites), it’s only natural for the platform to launch its very own online store plugin – WooCommerce!

WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce plugin that allows developers to create, develop and maintain one-of-a-kind online stores meeting nearly endless possibilities in terms of scalability, diversity, security, increased revenue, personalization and optimization.

What Are Some of WooCommerce’s Advantages?

It’s incredibly easy to set up – with just a few clicks anyone familiar with using WordPress can start using the WooCommerce plugin for creating an online store;
Users and developers can choose between many pre-made themes created for online stores and tailored specifically to their needs and requirements – product listings, availability, shopping carts, payment options, checkouts, etc.;
WooCommerce allows payment integrations for users to successfully and easily purchase any item or service;
Integration with Google Analytics and tons of other add-ons that boost the online store’s performance;
WordPress developers can opt for Custom WooCommerce Development that promises to elevate and improve any online store, making it unique, one-of-a-kind and tailored to a very specific business;
WooCommerce is incredibly scalable – WooCommerce development manages to handle bigger and bigger demand without this interfering with the store’s performance;

Scalability Is an Absolute Must When We Refer to Maintaining Online Stores

Whoever shows interest in establishing and maintaining online stores knows for certain how important it is for the platforms to be scalable.

But first, we need to explain what exactly scalability is – in its essence lies the importance of its feature!

What Is Scalability in the Context of Online Stores?

Let’s examine closely a quick example.

Let’s say an aspiring entrepreneur decides to establish an online store business. Regardless of the products or services type, they aim at creating a successful enterprise in the specific business niche with hopes of the company’s development skyrocketing in the next years. Essentially, the entrepreneur should put in the business strategy plan a step, dedicated to the development of the online platform.

Of course, the majority of business endeavors start humble – perhaps the entrepreneur would list no more than ten items just to check how the audience perceives the brand and the products. With time and exceptional business marketing, there’s a high chance the enterprise would reach a great number of potential customers and the traffic to the online store would multiply.

But imagine both the entrepreneur’s and the customers’ disappointment if the platform crashes repeatedly under the pressure of increased demand. As the business’s success rises, so will the customers’ demand – but in order for the online store to continue serving its purpose, it needs to maintain a high level of performance.

That’s why it’s incredibly important right from the get-go for entrepreneurs to choose a scalable option for their business. Scalability means the platform’s option to handle increased demand without this killing its performance. Since every entrepreneur starts an endeavor with success in mind, it’s important to pick wisely when it comes to the perfect platform – the virtual home of the online store. That’s where WooCommerce development kicks in!

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What Proves WooCommerce’s Scalability?

Luckily, WooCommerce is one of the most popular eCommerce solutions worldwide. WooCommerce’s demand itself has helped the plugin to reach new heights in the scalability department. Here are some of the reasons WooCommerce is known for its flexibility and nearly-endless features:

WooCommerce allows the addition of an unlimited number of items – even if a business starts with only ten products (as described in the example above), there would be no issue for business owners to add as many as they like later on;
The plugin is known for its ability to meet huge traffic spikes – no business should worry whether the platform can handle their Black Friday event;
Custom WooCommerce Development is done easily thanks to the nature of the plugin’s code and the developers’ constant work to develop and upgrade it;
WooCommerce is other-WordPress’s-plugins-friendly – as an online store owner, anyone would want to further enhance their platform’s performance by picking additional features. This can easily be achieved with the help of other WordPress-based plugins, created specifically for eCommerce;
It’s highly customizable and on the WooCommerce Development stage, any developer can construct an online store that best fits into the brand’s vision, mission and tone of voice;

We bet you’re already convinced: WooCommerce is indeed the best possible solution when it comes to creating, developing and maintaining an online store. What’s not to like – it offers flexibility, a custom approach, various plugin integration and nearly-endless scalability!

Once we’ve explained what WooCommerce is and why everyone should choose it as the best option for eCommerce endeavors, let’s explore some practical steps that can help in establishing a truly successful and scalable platform.

How to Scale Your WooCommerce Platform?

Once an entrepreneur has decided on their business strategy and has chosen WooCommerce as the ultimate tool for establishing an online store, it’s time they pay attention to what can be done in order to ensure the platform’s scalability right from the get-go.

We already know that WooCommerce offers nearly-endless scalable opportunities. But what can be done in terms of optimization and development strategy beyond?

Work with a hosting provider that can cover all your platform’s necessities – choosing the right hosting provider is definitely a crucial step in establishing a successful and scalable online store with impeccable performance. Before deciding, check the provider’s traffic demand capabilities, as well as whether there are certain limitations. You need to be properly prepared once your business skyrockets!
Make sure you pick the right plugins and add-ons – choosing wisely when it comes to themes, plugins or add-ons is crucial when it comes to your platform’s performance. You need to pick plugins that offer customer support, are developed properly with clean code, etc. Choosing Custom WooCommerce Development is always the best option.
Try not to overload your platform with things you don’t use – the more plugins and add-ons you have installed on your online store, the weaker its performance will be. Essentially, this would lead to longer waiting times that can easily frustrate customers.
Don’t forget about the CDN – a CDN stands for Content Delivery Network. Its main goal is to download various types of website assets such as images, videos and CSS to serve them through another network. This part is crucial in instances when a business runs an international online store – for example, the CDN would serve a certain visitor’s request through the closest network, instead of taking the request to the other side of the world. This concept allows the platform to be quicker and deliver better performance.
Keep everything up to date – a WooCommerce online store runs plenty of plugins, add-ons, themes, etc. Part of scalability is definitely the great performance – so making sure everything is up to date and regularly checking for updates is yet another important WooCommerce development step.
Pick the best payment options – nowadays more and more people prefer to make online transactions. In order to end with a scalable online store, you need to come up with the best payment options. WooCommerce allows numerous types of payment integrations based on the business’s preferences, budget and customer demand.
Use performance analysis tools – metrics such as speed, performance, proper loading, etc. are very important for the overall scalability of a WooCommerce store. There are plenty of tools that can help with proper analysis.
Sync what you have in store with what your clients are seeing online – a successful, scalable and optimized online store would rely on a strong connection between the warehouse and the displayed availability numbers.

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Covering the above-mentioned essentials in terms of speed, scalability and performance would certainly help every business impress and succeed in the market of its specific niche.

Start Scaling Your WooCommerce Store Today!

Having a business idea is great; finding a way to make it true is even greater.

With WooCommerce Development every business can opt for a stable, secure and scalable online store that can easily manage tons of traffic, endless item lists, numerous purchases and huge amounts of payment transactions. Adding Custom WooCommerce Development allows every business to carefully customize and optimize its online store up to its customers’ liking.

Online shopping doesn’t seem to be out of the picture anytime soon. Quite on the contrary – more and more people choose daily to enter a virtual store and place their purchases with just a few mouse clicks. Essentially, businesses should cooperate fully with the clients’ demands – the best way to do so is by creating online stores that scale and offer the best customer experience.