You create an eCommerce store with WordPress by installing the free WooCommerce plugin on a WordPress site, then setting up payments, shipping, tax, your policies and your products. It’s a strong choice when you want to own your store, your data and your integrations. It is not free to run well, and it isn’t the right platform for every business.
The short answer
- WooCommerce is the free, open-source plugin that turns WordPress into an online store. It has more than 7 million active installations.
- The software is free. Hosting, a domain, paid extensions, payment fees and ongoing maintenance are not.
- The current version, WooCommerce 11.2, needs WordPress 7.0 or later, so start on an up-to-date site.
- In Australia, register for GST within 21 days of knowing your GST turnover has reached, or will reach, $75,000, and remember that consumer guarantees apply to online sales.
- WooCommerce suits stores that want control and custom integrations. If you’d rather someone else runs the platform, a hosted platform may suit you better.
Is WordPress a good platform for eCommerce in 2026?
WordPress is a good eCommerce platform in 2026 for businesses that want full ownership of their store, content and customer data, and the freedom to connect it to inventory, accounting and marketing systems. With WooCommerce, the store and the content that brings buyers in live on one site. The trade-off is that you, or your team, own the upkeep.
The scale is real. W3Techs reports that WordPress runs 39.6% of all websites and holds 58.3% of the market among sites with a content management system it can identify (October 2026). The WooCommerce plugin page lists more than 7 million active installations, with version 11.2.1 released on 9 October 2026. And the market for online stores keeps growing here: Australians spent a record $82.6 billion online in 2025, up 14% on the year before, according to the Australia Post eCommerce Report 2026.
The platform matters less than who owns the store after launch. A WooCommerce store with nobody looking after it will lose to a simpler store that someone checks every week. If you’re still comparing options, I cover the main ones in choosing the best eCommerce platform.
Is WooCommerce really free?
WooCommerce itself is free to download and use, with no licence fee or monthly platform charge. Running a store that sells properly still costs money: hosting suited to an online store, a domain, any paid extensions you need, payment processing fees on every sale, and the time or developer hours to keep it updated, backed up and secure.
I’ll correct my own earlier advice here. The 2021 version of this guide promised a store “with a ZERO budget”. That was never true for a store that takes real orders, and I’d rather you budget for the costs below than discover them after launch.
| Cost | Free or paid | What decides it |
|---|---|---|
| WooCommerce plugin | Free | Core store features: products, cart, checkout, orders |
| Hosting and domain | Paid | Traffic, product count and how much of the store can’t be cached, such as cart and checkout |
| Payment processing | Paid per transaction | Your gateway’s fees. WooPayments, for example, has no setup or monthly fees but charges per transaction |
| Extensions | Free or paid | Subscriptions, bookings, shipping carrier and inventory integrations often need paid extensions |
| Theme | Free or paid | Whether a free block theme fits, or you need custom design |
| Maintenance | Your time or a developer’s | Updates, backups, security monitoring and fixing what updates break |
How do you create a WooCommerce store, step by step?
To create a WooCommerce store, get a domain and suitable hosting, install WordPress and the WooCommerce plugin, run the setup, connect a payment gateway, choose a theme, add products, set up shipping and GST, publish your store policies, add only the plugins you need, then test real orders before you launch. Here is each step as it works in October 2026.
1. Domain and hosting
Register a domain your customers can remember and spell. For hosting, start from WordPress.org’s recommended requirements: PHP 8.3 or greater, MySQL 8.0 or MariaDB 10.11 or greater, and HTTPS. A store needs more from its host than a brochure site, because pages such as the cart, checkout and account area are personal to each shopper and can’t simply be served from a cache.
2. Install WordPress and WooCommerce
Install WordPress, then go to Plugins, Add New, search for WooCommerce and activate it. Check the versions first: WooCommerce 11.2 requires WordPress 7.0 or higher, according to its plugin page. If you’re adding a store to an existing WordPress site, update and back up the site before you start.
3. Configure WooCommerce
The setup asks for your store address, currency and what you sell. Two defaults matter more than they look. New stores store orders in High-Performance Order Storage, which has been the default for new installs since WooCommerce 8.2. And new stores use the block-based cart and checkout, the default since WooCommerce 8.3. Some extensions still don’t work fully with the block checkout, so check every extension you plan to use before you commit.
4. Set up a payment gateway
Pick one main gateway and set it up properly. WooPayments, WooCommerce’s own option, is free to install with no setup or monthly fees, and charges per transaction. The Stripe gateway for WooCommerce supports Apple Pay, Google Pay and buy now, pay later options including Afterpay. Before you choose, confirm the gateway supports Australian businesses, Australian dollar payouts and the payment methods your customers expect. The 2021 version of this guide suggested Easy Digital Downloads for extra gateways. That’s a separate store plugin, not a WooCommerce add-on.
5. Add a theme
Choose a theme that declares WooCommerce support and is built for the block editor, then test the product page, cart and checkout on a phone before you add anything else. Most of your buyers will see the store on a phone first. A heavy theme with every feature switched on is the fastest way to a slow checkout.
6. Add products
Go to Products, then Add New. Give each product a clear name, a description that answers buyers’ questions, real photos, price, stock, weight and dimensions for shipping, and a category. Write descriptions for people first. Search engines and AI shopping assistants read the same text, and they reward the store that explains the product best.
7. Set up shipping, tax and GST
Create shipping zones for where you deliver, with flat rates, free shipping thresholds or live carrier rates. Then switch on tax. In Australia, you must register for GST when your GST turnover reaches $75,000 ($150,000 for non-profits), or when you expect it to reach that. You have 21 days to register once you know you will cross the threshold. GST is 10% on most goods and services. Set WooCommerce’s tax-entry and display settings deliberately. For consumer sales, the ACCC requires a single total price including GST and unavoidable charges that can be calculated. Prices displayed only to other businesses have a GST exception. Test the product page, cart and invoice for your actual customer and tax scenarios; a tax setting is not a choice to leave GST out of consumer prices.
8. Add privacy, returns and terms pages
Publish a privacy policy, a returns and refunds policy, shipping information and terms of sale before your first order. Write them for your store rather than copying a template, because a policy that doesn’t match how you actually operate creates problems with customers, payment providers and regulators. The Australian rules that apply are in the next section.
9. Add relevant plugins
Add one plugin per job: SEO, security, backups and performance, plus any shipping or marketing integrations you need. Every plugin is weight, and some of them are also a small bomb with a nice settings page. Patchstack’s State of WordPress Security in 2026 found that 91% of the 11,334 new WordPress vulnerabilities reported in 2025 were in plugins. My guide to how many WordPress plugins is too many explains how to keep the list short.
10. Test and launch your online store
Before launch, place real orders with every payment method, then refund one. Check the order emails, the tax on the invoice, the shipping charge for each zone and the stock count afterwards. Then make the store visible, submit your sitemap in Google Search Console and confirm your analytics records purchases, not just visits. Only then spend money sending people to it.
If this replaces an existing store, agree how new orders will be handled between the final copy and the switch. A staging database can overwrite later orders, customer changes and stock movements if pushed back in full. Reconcile order numbers, stock and payment-provider records before reopening checkout, and keep a recovery plan that preserves transactions received after the switch. Run gateway tests in sandbox first, then authorise any small live payment and refund checks.
What Australian rules apply to an online store?
An Australian online store has to follow the same consumer law as a physical shop, collect GST once it passes the registration threshold, and handle customer data responsibly. The rules don’t change because the counter is a checkout page. Your store policies should say what the law says, not what would be convenient.
| Rule | What it means for your store |
|---|---|
| Consumer guarantees (Australian Consumer Law) | Customers keep their rights to a repair, replacement or refund for faulty goods. You can’t exclude them, and a blanket “no refunds” policy is likely to be misleading. You can choose not to offer change-of-mind refunds. |
| GST | Register within 21 days once your current or projected GST turnover reaches $75,000 ($150,000 for non-profits). GST is 10% on most goods and services. |
| Privacy Act | Most businesses with turnover of $3 million or less are exempt, but health service providers and businesses that trade in personal information are covered regardless of size. |
The detail sits with the regulators: the ACCC on consumer rights and guarantees, business.gov.au on GST registration, and the OAIC on the small business privacy exemption. If you sell anything regulated, or sell overseas, get advice for your situation.
When should you not use WooCommerce?
You should not use WooCommerce when nobody will own the updates, security and integrations after launch, or when your operation fits a hosted platform’s way of working better than a custom store. WooCommerce rewards stores that need control. Stores that need someone else to run the platform are often better served by a hosted service, and that is a perfectly good answer.
I’ll admit this isn’t the answer people expect from someone who builds on WordPress. Earlier this year my team scoped a move the other way, off WooCommerce and onto Shopify, for a fashion label. Its stock lived in a separate inventory system and it sold wholesale as well as retail, and the WooCommerce set-up was fighting both. Before anyone set a launch date, we ran a discovery phase that mapped every WooCommerce function the business relied on to its Shopify equivalent, because the risky part of a re-platform is the feature nobody remembered was there.
Moves go the other direction too. If you’re on Shopify and want more control over content and integrations, I explain what’s involved in migrating from Shopify to WooCommerce.
How do you keep a WooCommerce store fast and safe after launch?
A WooCommerce store stays fast and safe when updates are tested on a staging copy before they reach the live store, backups run often enough that a failure costs no more orders than you could re-enter by hand, restores are tested, plugins are kept to one per job, and someone checks speed, checkout and integrations every month. In my experience, most store failures are maintenance failures, not platform failures.
Here’s what that looks like when it goes wrong. My team was recently called in by an online retailer whose WooCommerce store kept falling over. Orders were syncing late, or not at all, to the business’s inventory and accounting system, so fulfilment was delayed, and the marketing team couldn’t tell which campaigns actually sold anything. We didn’t start with a redesign. We started with a technical audit and a stabilisation sprint, then used session recordings to see where buyers were getting stuck. The store is only as reliable as the sync behind it.
- Updates: test on staging first. Patchstack found 46% of 2025’s WordPress vulnerabilities had no fix available when they were disclosed, so a fast, tested update routine matters.
- Backups: a store changes every time someone orders, so back up the database more often than a brochure site. Decide how many hours of orders you could afford to rebuild by hand (your recovery point), set the backup schedule to match, and test a restore before you need one. My WordPress backup guide covers how.
- Speed: product, cart and checkout pages are the ones that earn. My guide to WooCommerce performance covers where stores usually slow down.
- Conversion: if the store gets visitors but not sales, that’s the gap I built PostCliq for: finding the revenue leaks after the click.
What to do next
- Write down who will own updates, backups and integrations after launch. If the answer is nobody, solve that first.
- List the systems the store must connect to, such as inventory, accounting, shipping and email, and check each has a maintained WooCommerce integration.
- Choose hosting that meets WordPress’s recommended requirements and is sized for a store.
- Work through the ten steps above on a staging site, and place real test orders before launch.
- If you’d rather have a team build it, see how my team approaches WooCommerce development.
Frequently asked questions
Can I add a store to my existing WordPress website?
Yes. WooCommerce installs as a plugin on an existing WordPress site, so your pages, content and rankings stay where they are. Update WordPress and back up the site first, check your hosting can handle store traffic, and build and test the store on a staging copy before it goes live.
Is WooCommerce better than Shopify?
Neither is better for everyone. WooCommerce gives you ownership, flexible content and deep custom integrations, and asks you to run the platform. Shopify runs the platform for you in exchange for working within its rules and fees. Choose by who will maintain the store and which systems it must connect to, not by features alone.
Do I need a developer to run WooCommerce?
Not for day-to-day work. Adding products, managing orders and editing pages are designed for store owners. You’ll usually want a developer for custom integrations, performance work and testing major updates, and someone technical on call when an update or an integration breaks during a sale.
Is WooCommerce secure?
WooCommerce is actively maintained and updated often, but a store is only as secure as its weakest plugin, theme and server. Most WordPress vulnerabilities are found in plugins, so keep the plugin list short, apply security updates quickly after testing, keep PHP current and use strong logins with two-factor authentication for every admin account.
How long does it take to set up a WooCommerce store?
It depends on what the store must connect to. A simple store with a small range and standard payments and shipping can be set up quickly. Custom design, large catalogues, product imports and integrations with inventory or accounting systems take much longer, and most of that time goes into testing rather than building.
