These are the notes that I have taken so far while going through the Udemy Course “WordPress E-commerce: Build 2 Websites & Dropshipping Store”
Section 1 Highlights –
Here are some valuable points to remember and implement whenever you are building an e-commerce store
- Make it easy for your customers to find what they are looking for
- Add as much description and features as possible to the products
- Provide attributes like color, condition, size, quantity, material, weight, length etc where necessary
- Allow customers to update their cart or check out
- Capture their email addresses for future transactions
- Add shipping options where applicable
- Ensure protection (encryption) for customers credit/debit card information if payment will be made on your website. Alternatively, you can redirect them to third party websites like PayPal to complete the transaction.
- Keep track of all products shipped and paid for and be able to update their status in case of exchanges or refunds.
Section 2 Highlights –
Shipping Zones: 12. Creating Shipping Zones
- Woocommerce > Settings > Shipping Zones
- Woocommerce provides the ability to create different shipping rules for different zones that customers are ordering from.
- Ex. All orders from within the same State of the store will automatically receive free shipping.
Shipping Classes: 13. Shipping Classes Part 1
- You can change the name of shipping methods, such as flat rate to domestic rate by editing the flat rate method settings
- Shipping classes can be added for products that will require special shipping methods, such as products that are heavy or fragile.
- Woocommerce allows for more customizable shipping class costs using placeholders:
- [qty] – Number of products in the cart
- [fee] – An additional fee. This fee has two optional arguments.
- percent – A percentage based on total order cost.
- min_fee – A minimum amount. Useful when using percentages.
- max_fee – A maximum amount. Useful when using percentages.
- Examples
- 10 + ( 2 * [qty] ) – A base shipping cost of $10 plus $2 for each item in the cart.
- 20 + [fee percent=”10″ min_fee=”4″] – A base shipping cost of $20 plus 10% of the order total, which is at least $4.
Variable Products: 17. Creating a Variable Product
- Attributes can be created with different variables using a separated list.
- EX. Name: Size, Values: Small|Medium|Large
- Variations can then be created using all attributes, which will create a new variation with each combination of variables.
Group Products: 18: Creating a Grouped Product
- Grouped products can be used to combine multiple similar products on one page, where the user can select which option they would like out of the products.
- Ex. A group product of hoodys, with multiple styles of hoodies being shown on the same product page.
Up Sells and Cross Sells: 19
- Available under linked products
- Ups ell allows you to link a more expensive comparable product to appear on the products page in a new “You may also like…” section
- Cross sell allows you to link products that would go well with the current product.
- Cross sells will also be displayed on the cart page
Payment Methods: 22: Setting Up Payment Methods
- Payment methods can be restricted to only certain shipping methods. Ex. Cash can be accepted only on local pickup
- Enable PayPal Payments to be able to run test payments on the site
Sandbox PayPal: 24 and 25:
- A sandbox personal and a sandbox business account will be needed for the test payments
- On the website’s woocommerce PayPal payment settings, the Sandbox Business email will need to be set as the PayPal email