November 13, 2025

Review O'clock: What are the Pros and Cons of WooCommerce

Discover the Benefits and Drawbacks of Outsourcing WooCommerce Store Development. Make an Informed Decision for Your E-commerce Business. Explore Our Comprehensive Guide Now!
Review O'clock: What are the Pros and Cons of WooCommerce
Review O'clock: What are the Pros and Cons of WooCommerce

Key takeaways: 

  1. As a free, open-source WordPress plugin, it offers businesses of all sizes flexibility, customization, and essential ecommerce features such as multiple payment gateways, shipping options, analytics, and inventory management.
  2. With thousands of themes, plugins, and extensions, WooCommerce allows businesses to tailor their online stores to match their brand and grow from a few products to hundreds of thousands. 
  3. WooCommerce is cost-effective, SEO-friendly, and supported by a large global community. However it comes with technical complexity, hidden costs, hosting responsibilities, and ongoing maintenance.
  4. By outsourcing your WooCommerce store development, businesses can gain access to expert knowledge, advanced tools, cost savings, faster turnaround, and the ability to focus resources on other core areas like marketing and sales.

At ePlaybooks, one of the most crucial decisions we guide our clients through is selecting and setting up the right ecommerce platform. Among the many options available today, WooCommerce consistently stands out as a top choice for businesses of all sizes.

With WooCommerce, you can easily list your products, manage your inventory, process payments, and carry out other activities that facilitate your customer’s shopping experience. 

However, maintaining a WooCommerce site can be quite complex and require some specialized skill and expertise. For most businesses, they may outsource their WooCommerce development services. 

In this article, we will analyze the pros and cons of WooCommerce and also look at the benefits and downsides that come with outsourcing your WooCommerce store development. 

What is WooCommerce?

Before we look at the pros and cons of outsourcing your WooCommerce store development, let’s look a bit into what WooCommerce is.

WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin for WordPress. It is user-friendly and allows businesses to establish an online presence. It comes with customizable packages that can help business owners to sell their products. 

Over the years, it has gained popularity among all types of businesses and helped thousands to set up their ecommerce store and sell their products.  

Features of WooCommerce

Here are some features that make WooCommerce stand out: 

  1. Many plugins

On WooCommerce, you can find multiple free and paid plugins to improve your website’s functionality. You can access these plugins when you visit their website. 

  1. Wizard guide 

Setting up and installing WooCommerce doesn’t require much effort thanks to their wizard guide. When you install the WooCommerce plug-in, a wizard guide helps you configure your store. 

  1. Multiple payment gateways 

The WooCommerce plug-in works with multiple payment gateways including Stripe, PayPal, Google Pay, credit cards, debit cards, and other means of payment. You can also enable options like payments through checks, bank transfers, Cash on delivery, etc. 

  1. Multiple themes

WooCommerce works seamlessly with countless themes including WooCommerce’s default themes and other third-party themes. You can choose from an array of themes that work best for your online store. 

  1. Built-in shipping options

You can choose from countless shipping options to fulfill your orders. You can have your customers choose to ship their order, pick up their order, or have it delivered locally. You have the option of setting flat rates or including additional rates for heavy items. 

  1. Inventory management 

With WooCommerce, you can access tons of inventory management features including getting notifications for low or out-of-stock products, tracking your stock levels, or holding your stock after an order is canceled.

  1. Built-in blogging 

WooCommerce integrates seamlessly with WordPress, the most popular blogging platform. With this, you can create and publish high-quality and build your brand. 

  1. Built-in analytics and reporting 

WooCommerce comes with comprehensive built-in analytics to help you analyze your customer’s shopping behavior and how they interact with your store. What’s more, you can integrate your WooCommerce store with third-party analytics tools like Google Analytics for further analysis.

Pros and Cons of WooCommerce

Pros of WooCommerce

Here are some reasons why choosing WooCommerce is great for your online store: 

  1. Free and open-source: WooCommerce is a free plugin for WordPress, making it cost-effective compared to other ecommerce platforms. This means you won’t have to worry about paying for software licenses, support, or other functionalities before using the platform. Being open-source means developers and businesses have full access to the code, allowing for deep customization and flexibility.
  1. Highly customizable: WooCommerce comes with a high level of customization and flexibility. The platform has thousands of themes, plug-ins, and extensions that you can use to build your brand and improve the functionality of your store. You can tailor everything from design and layout to product pages, checkout experience, and marketing integrations.
  1. Seamless integration with WordPress: Perhaps one of the major reasons to choose WooCommerce is its seamless integration with the WordPress Content Management System (CMS). With WordPress and WooCommerce well integrated, creating quality content for your ecommerce store becomes easy. From creating stellar product descriptions to blogging, email marketing, product reviews, and search engine optimization. 
  1. Scalability: WooCommerce can support small stores with a handful of products or massive stores with hundreds of thousands of products (given the right hosting and optimization). It grows with your business, so you won’t need to switch platforms as your store expands. It comes with all you need to sell products and services on your ecommerce store. From a user-friendly backend for inventory management to a variety of shipping methods, thousands of customizable themes, and multiple payment gateways. WooCommerce also integrates well with third-party marketing tools and platforms like Facebook, Google Analytics, etc. 
  1. Wide range of payment options: WooCommerce supports multiple payment gateways such as PayPal, Stripe, Google Pay, Apple Pay, debit/credit cards, and more. You can also enable offline payment options like bank transfers, checks, or cash on delivery.
  1. Strong community support: WooCommerce has a large global community of developers, store owners, and agencies.
    Users can easily find documentation, forums, and professional help for troubleshooting or custom development.

Cons of WooCommerce 

Here are some downsides to using WooCommerce: 

  1. Requires technical knowledge: WooCommerce is not entirely plug-and-play. While the setup wizard helps, customizing themes, plugins, and advanced features often requires coding knowledge (PHP, CSS, JavaScript). Non-technical users may need to hire developers, which adds to costs.

  2. Hidden and ongoing costs: While the plugin itself is free, expenses add up with premium themes, extensions, plugins, hosting, security, and maintenance. For example, adding advanced features like subscriptions, memberships, or advanced shipping often requires paid add-ons.

  3. Hosting and maintenance: Unlike Shopify (which is hosted), WooCommerce requires users to purchase and manage web hosting.
    You’re responsible for backups, updates, performance optimization, and site security, which can be overwhelming without technical expertise.

How to get started with WooCommerce 

Here is how you can get started with using WooCommerce: 

  • WooCommerce is a plug-in for WordPress, so you need to have WordPress installed. 
  • Secondly, you will need to invest in trustworthy WordPress hosting to power your online store. You will also need a domain name that serves as your store’s permanent online address. 
  • Next, go to the WordPress dashboard, click on plugins, and search for WooCommerce. Then click on “Install Now” and “Activate” to get WooCommerce activated on your site. 
  • Once done, you can choose from a range of WooCommerce themes and build your store. 

Outsourcing your WooCommerce store development: benefits and downsides

After setting up your store, you need to ensure it is well-maintained. However, maintaining your WooCommerce store may be quite complex and require some technical skills. 

If you have limited expertise in-house, outsourcing your WooCommerce store development may be a cost-effective solution for your business. 

Let’s look at the benefits and downsides of outsourcing your WooCommerce store development to help you make an informed decision. 

Benefits of outsourcing your WooCommerce store development 

Better expertise

One of the biggest benefits of outsourcing your web development is that you can work with experts and skilled individuals who have a better understanding of the platform which ultimately results in better performance and customer satisfaction. 

With seasoned experts working on your WooCommerce site, you can reduce turnaround time and improve the overall quality of your website. 

More cost-effective 

Businesses can employ the services of experts at a lower wage rate, reducing labor costs. They can also eliminate the cost of recruitment and training. 

Beyond labor costs, businesses can completely remove the cost of investing in infrastructure or equipment and channel funds toward other strategic areas of business. 

Access to the latest tools and technology

Outsourcing your WooCommerce store development services gives you access to some of the latest tools and technology. In a competitive ecommerce industry, staying up to date with the latest technological tools is crucial to staying ahead of the competition. 

These services use advanced tools to deliver the best services. By working with these service providers, you can feature these technologies without incurring extensive costs otherwise needed to buy and maintain them. 

More resources for other areas of business

By outsourcing your WooCommerce store development to specialized experts, you can save time, money, and resources which you can then channel to other core areas of business like marketing or sales. Ultimately, by channeling resources to these areas, you can improve overall efficiency and increase sales and profit. 

Identify and manage potential risks 

When you outsource your WooCommerce store development, you can spread the risk between your business and the service provider. With experts on your team, you can better identify potential risks and manage them using insight-driven strategies. 

Downsides of outsourcing your WooCommerce store development 

No full control

Outsourcing your WooCommerce store development to external service providers means that you have to give up some control over the decision-making process of your business. In other words, you get limited control over some parts of your business. However, with good communication, this can be taken care of to ensure desired objectives are met. 

Possible security risks 

Outsourcing your store’s development also exposes your business to possible security risks. To avoid this, you want to carry out thorough research and carefully choose a reputable outsourcing provider with good security measures in place including data encryption, non-disclosure agreements, etc. to minimize security risks. 

Communication barriers and cultural differences 

If you outsource your WooCommerce development to foreigners, you may encounter communication barriers slowing down the successful execution of projects. Time zones and cultural differences may also affect project timelines leading to challenges in collaboration and communication of project requirements. 

To avoid this, it is important to set clear communication channels, utilize interpreters or translators, and seek to establish a good relationship with your outsourcing team. 

How can you maintain effective communication with your outsourcing provider?

Communication can be a challenge especially if you’re working with outsourcing providers from a foreign country. To ensure effective communication and effective workflows, it is crucial to keep the communication lines open, use collaboration tools and translation services, and hold regular virtual meetings to bridge communication gaps and language barriers.  

How can you reduce security risks when outsourcing? 

Firstly, to reduce security risks, you want to choose a reputable outsourcing provider that prioritizes data security. 

Secondly, carrying out regular security audits can also help reduce possible security threats. Data encryption and non-disclosure agreements during data transmission of sensitive business information are also great ways to ensure data security. 

Final thoughts 

As a business owner, you may be considering outsourcing your WooCommerce store development. This can come with multiple benefits for your business. You can gain access to expertise and experience, save resources, and channel them to other core areas of business. 

However, there are a few drawbacks like potential security risks and communication barriers. 

To decide if you want to outsource your WooCommerce store development, it is important to carefully weigh the pros and cons. 

If you're still exploring which ecommerce platform is right for you, the team at ePlaybooks can help. Our ecommerce experts are here to guide you step by step, from platform selection to full store development.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Can WooCommerce handle 500,000 products?

Yes, WooCommerce can handle hundreds of thousands of products if your hosting environment is powerful enough and properly optimized. With the right server resources and database management, WooCommerce can scale to support large product catalogs.

Is it better to use Shopify or WooCommerce?

It depends on your business needs. Shopify is fully hosted, user-friendly, and great for beginners who want an all-in-one solution. WooCommerce, on the other hand, is very flexible, customizable, and cost-effective if you prefer full control of your store. Both platforms are excellent and your choice comes down to factors like your budget, technical skill, and long-term goals.

Which country owns WooCommerce?

Originally, WooCommerce was developed by a company called WooThemes, based in South Africa. Today, it is owned by Automattic, the U.S.-based parent company of WordPress.com.

Does WooCommerce take fees?

No, WooCommerce itself does not charge transaction fees. However, you’ll still need to pay for web hosting, extensions, and payment gateway fees like PayPal or Stripe.

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