How to create an online store in WordPress

In your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New, search for WooCommerce, then install and activate it. WooCommerce is a plugin rather than a separate website platform, so it runs inside your existing WordPress site.

Follow the setup wizard and enter your store location, product type and selling details. The wizard provides recommendations for products, payments, taxes, shipping and marketing, but review every recommendation rather than accepting settings blindly.

Open WooCommerce > Settings > General. Set the store address, selling and shipping locations, currency, customer location behaviour and whether coupons are available. Then review WooCommerce > Settings > Products for the shop page, measurement units, stock management and low-stock notifications.

Check the pages assigned under WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced. Your shop, cart, checkout and account pages must exist and point to the correct content. If a page is missing or assigned incorrectly, shoppers may see a blank page or be unable to complete an order.

Go to Products > Add New. Add a clear product name, description, price, main image and gallery images, then choose the product type. For a physical product, enter its stock quantity, weight and dimensions where relevant. For a downloadable product, add the file and set the download rules.

Create product categories, tags and attributes such as size or colour before adding many items. Use a variable product when customers choose from options that have separate prices, stock levels or images. Preview each product on mobile before publishing.

Open WooCommerce > Settings > Payments and enable the payment methods you want to offer. Connect each provider, complete its verification requirements and confirm whether it is using live or test mode. Do not launch until you know where successful payments, failed payments, refunds and chargebacks will appear.

For tax, enable tax calculations under WooCommerce > Settings > General, then configure the Tax tab. Choose an automated tax service or enter rates manually only after confirming your obligations with a qualified tax professional. For physical goods, create shipping zones under WooCommerce > Settings > Shipping and add the methods and rates that apply to each zone.

Review WooCommerce > Settings > Accounts & Privacy and Emails. Decide whether customers can check out as guests, what account information is retained and which order emails are sent. Add your terms, privacy policy, returns information and contact details so customers can find them before paying.

If the checkout uses the Checkout Block, edit it through the site editor. If it uses the older checkout shortcode, some checkout-field options are available through the WooCommerce customiser. Avoid changing checkout fields until you have confirmed that your payment gateway supports the result.

Place test orders from a logged-out browser or another device. Test a successful payment, failed payment, coupon if enabled, taxable product, free-shipping threshold, shipping charge, refund and customer email. Check that stock decreases correctly and that the order appears in WooCommerce > Orders.

The common Friday problem is a checkout page that worked during setup but fails after caching, a theme change or another plugin update. If WooCommerce pages are blank or return 404 errors, verify their assignments, go to Settings > Permalinks and save the settings again, then clear site, server and browser caches. If checkout still fails, temporarily test with other plugins disabled and a standard theme to identify a conflict.

WooCommerce is a sensible manual route when you want a large extension ecosystem, detailed control and a store built around WordPress. It is also the better choice when your hosting, payment provider or existing plugins already support it.

For a standalone store stack, consider FluentCart Pro instead. It brings product management, payments, inventory, subscriptions, customer management and analytics into one self-hosted commerce plugin, which can reduce the number of separate extensions you need to configure. Install it from Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin, activate it and follow its setup screen, but do not run two independent commerce systems for the same products and checkout.