This is in continuation of my previous post on Ecommerce website setup on WordPress. If you are starting on setting up an Ecommerce store, please read Create Ecommerce Website Using Astra Theme before continuing. This post will discuss in details Ecommerce store setup.
Here we will setup Ecommerce store setup with store location and address, Shipping information, Checkout configuration, payment setup using paypal, stripe etc and customization of e-mails sent to customer during the order process. It sounds a lot but once you go through the article, it should be very easy to setup.
Contents
Setup Ecommerce store location and address
In your WordPress admin Dashboard, go to WooCommerce -> Settings. You should see a page like below:
On General tab , Add store address details here with the city , state and country where the store is located.
Based on your products , you can setup to sell your products to multiple countries. If you are selling to multiple countries, you can select a list of countries you are selling in the General options section. If we want to offer discount coupons to your customer, that option can be enabled here.
On the Currency options page, you can setup default currency in which product price will display. Only one may be selected. Price format can be setup here like thousands separator , decimal separator and no of decimals to suit country and region needs.
Setup product options
On the Products tab, you can setup product measurements like weight in lbs, kgs and measurements in cm or inches or yards. You can also choose your shop page also here. Shop page can be any page that you setup for shopping. By default , it points to the shop page. You can enable/disable product reviews or ratings at this page. These are very straightforward settings.
Product Inventory can be managed from Products-> Inventory page.
Downloadable products can be setup from Products->Downloadable Products
Setup shipping options
On the Shipping tab , You can setup shipping zones here.
A Shipping Zone is a geographical area to which you ship items. You can get as specific as you need, right down to regions and zip codes, or you can leave it more general – whichever suits you best. You can group your delivery areas into shipping zones to easier tracking of various shipping zones.
In the Shipping options link, you can set Shipping options such as flat rate shipping or variable shipping rates. Shipping calculator can be enabled on the checkout page by checking that option here. Shipping destination can be setup and can be defaulted to customer current location or billing address by default.
In the shipping classes link, you can setup shipping classes . WooCommerce Shipping Classes are a great way for you to charge different shipping rates depending on the products purchased. That way, if you sell really heavy products (which tend to be more expensive) and lightweight products (which tend to be cheaper), you can automatically adjust your shipping rate during checkout to cover those costs.
Setup payments
Here is an important part of the setup.. Payments. Time to get paid !!! In the Payments tab, Payment can setup using direct bank transfer, Check payments, cash on delivery or paypal. Payment for stripe also can be setup here. Most of the forms are self explanatory. Here we will explain the paypal setup here.
You need to give your paypal payment account details on the paypal page. While testing , you can enable sandbox to test your payments are working correctly. Here refunds can also be processed using paypal. You can get paypal API details for this setup. Paypal Credentials page should have those details for setup.
Other payment details can be setup in similar fashion. If you need to add different payment methods other listed above, you can go to payment vendor documentation for setup details.
Setup account and Privacy
On Accounts & Privacy tab, you can enable guest checkout here. Guest checkout means people can add items to cart until checkout page without signing in. At the checkout page, users can log into existing account or create a new one. You have various account creation options on this page as well. There are some options related to personal data and account. You can leave the defaults here unless you have specific options you want to enable.
Setup e-mails
On E-mails tab, Here you can setup e-mail format for various order processing e-mails like new order, reorder, order on-hold, processing order, cancelled order etc. E-mail sender options and from e-mail address can be setup here. E-mail template styling can be setup here like header image , Footer text , background and body text color options.
Order page
Now you are done with settings, let us look at the order page where you can see orders you received and process an order. You can see order details in Order page WooCommerce -> Order.
Here is a list of order and their status. You can view the order by clicking on order no and view order details. Order details will show customer name, billing and shipping address details and products that are ordered. You can complete the order on the order list page as shown below.
Coupons page
Coupons page can be found in WooCommerce -> Coupons. You can setup coupons for promotions or loyal customers. Coupons can be fixed percentage discount, Fixed cart percentage or Fixed product percentage. Free shipping can be enabled and also can setup coupon expiry date for entered coupons.
Reports page
Finally you can track your order in the reports section. You can get reports on orders , customers and stock. You can track how your store is doing with these reports.
Final thoughts
We went through various store setup features in this article. There are numerous options available during store setup . If you have any questions about these options, you can reach out to us on our contact page. We are happy to answer your queries.