Preface

Back in the early days of WordPress, the platform was mainly used to create and run blogs. Soon plugins became available to add functionality to the platform. A couple of e-commerce plugins became available as well. However, often they were incomplete or buggy.

In 2011, the WooCommerce plugin became available on the market, developed by the popular creators of Woothemes.com, where you can buy premium WordPress themes. WooCommerce was an instant hit and reached over ten thousand downloads in the first couple of weeks. A few years later, the plugin was downloaded almost 1.4 million times and it received a complete makeover during 2013 with the release of WooCommerce 2.0. Meanwhile, the solution has become mature and is even used for larger online stores.

The reason that the plugin became so popular is that it is so easy to use. Millions of people were already using WordPress for their blogs and websites and were looking for an easy way to be able to sell products and services directly on their own website. WooCommerce made this possible for all of us.

This book will explain you how to set up WooCommerce, create products, and use payment and shipping methods. You will work with themes and add plugins to expand the functionality of WooCommerce. It will teach you how to create and run your own online store in a very easy, straightforward manner.

It's time to get started!