When running a WooCommerce website, there are a number of factors to consider. There are many different things that go into acquiring customers and offering products. There are a lot of things that go into running an online business, from monitoring and managing inventory to measuring the website’s performance and sending out marketing emails.
So much food on one platter. When there are so many items to keep a record of, mistakes are inevitable. Even if you build the site with great care, things might still go wrong, and you may find yourself skipping a step or failing to complete a task.
6 WooCommerce website Mistakes
Using A Previously Released Version Of WooCommerce
When you first started working on the website, all of it was fresh, new, and up-to-date. Since then, WooCommerce has remained unchanged, running the version that was new at the time and may have become outdated now. A new version of WooCommerce is released about every six months. If your website is still running on an older version, you won’t be able to use plugins and add-ons that work with the new version.
It’s Fix: Installing and testing the latest version of WooCommerce will keep your site up-to-date with WooCommerce. After completing and passing the test, you can deploy it in the production environment. Staying up to date is unquestionably a good practice.
System Status Reports are ignored
As the owner of a WooCommerce website, you are responsible for maintaining your system configurations up to date. With WooCommerce, there’s a feature called “system status report.” This feature gives regular reports on how the website is performing. These include PHP version, plugin version, web server version, and access to core functionalities and current themes. People who run WooCommerce websites usually don’t pay attention to these reports, and that’s where the issue arises.
It’s Fix: Whenever you notice a red alert at the top of the page, it’s time to reflect on the report and take steps to alleviate the risks.
Failure to Establish Locations
Unless you run a truly worldwide online business ready to deliver to any region across the globe, forgetting to configure your WooCommerce store’s location settings is a terrible idea.
You and your company might encounter a lengthy refund process due to this technical failure. Once a customer from a region you don’t ship to orders a product, you’ll be compelled to refund them. Not only is it frustrating for you and your consumer, but it will also cost you money to execute refunds.
It’s Fix: To configure WooCommerce’s selling locations, navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > General in your WordPress dashboard.
From the ‘Selling location(s)’ dropdown menu, choose one of the following:
- Sell to all countries
- Selling to all countries except for
- Sell to specific countries
Not performing backups
In this case, there’s no way back. E-commerce businesses need to prioritize security and backups in their operational practices. A website without a backup is like jumping off a plane without a parachute.
In most cases, users either fail to back up their data or neglect to do so. People don’t know that it can have a significant impact on their business, especially for companies that sell things online. A single breach of security can completely destroy businesses. That’s really scary.
It’s Fix: To prevent this, you can automatically have your website host create a backup for you. Alternatively, you can set a reminder in your calendar and use that to manually create a backup. You can also use plugins like UpdraftPlus, Backupbuddy, etc., to back up your website automatically.
Neglecting the security
Security is critical to a WooCommerce website’s ability to acquire the trust of its audience. However, many Woocommerce users still don’t pay attention to this. Customers may be hesitant to enter your website if it is not protected from unauthorized access. This is despite the fact that you have a genuine product and an authentic website.
In order to protect your website, the first step is to install an SSL certificate. You’ll see a lock icon and HTTPS in the domain section when you’ve successfully installed an SSL certificate.
It’s Fix: you can secure your WooCommerce website by adding SSL certification to increase sales and prevent customers from leaving. You can purchase an SSL certificate while purchasing a web host for your site. Before buying a web host, make sure it has the features you need. There are web hosts that give you SSL certificates for free. Look out for them.
Using a Badly Coded WordPress Theme
There are so many WooCommerce-compatible themes available these days that choosing one can be difficult. And because you’re competing with a slew of other online stores selling the same product, having a unique WooCommerce theme is extremely important. However, selecting a unique theme may not be the most critical task for your eCommerce website.
Keep in mind that a poorly coded theme is a big no-no for your website.
There are a lot of things that could go wrong if you have a poorly coded theme:
- Performance issues on the site, such as slow loading times
- Giving hackers access to your website and consumer information
- Excess database bloat and server resource waste
- Serious mistakes that can bring your entire website offline
It’s Fix: Pick a WooCommerce theme that not only has the appearance and functionality you want but also uses clean code standards. A good theme author will keep their themes up to date. Never trade performance for aesthetics when choosing a theme.
In the end,
An excellent strategy for gaining an advantage over competitors is discovering the mistakes they have made. Every e-commerce website owner makes little mistakes that have a big impact on their sales and profits.
We’ve compiled this list of common mistakes business owners make when using WooCommerce to help you avoid them. Correcting these errors will allow you to get an advantage over your competition by giving clients a hassle-free shopping experience.
