Setting up an online store with WooCommerce
PrintWooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin that adds everything a shop needs: products, a cart, checkout, payments and shipping rules. This guide takes you from a plain WordPress site to a store that has taken its first test order.
Get these ready first
- A WordPress site on the store's domain. If you do not have one yet, follow How to install WordPress on cPanel.
- An active SSL certificate, so the store opens over
https://. Customers enter personal details at checkout and browsers warn them on plain http. See Automatic issuance of SSL. - A mailbox on your own domain, such as
orders@example.md, to send order confirmations from.
Install and activate the plugin
- Sign in to WordPress at
example.md/wp-admin. - Go to Plugins and click Add New.
- Search for WooCommerce and pick the one published by Woo.
- Click Install Now, then Activate.
If you manage the site with WP Toolkit in cPanel, you can install the plugin from the site's plugin tab there instead. Either way, WooCommerce opens its setup wizard as soon as it is active.
Answer the setup wizard
Nothing here is final. You can skip any step and change it later under WooCommerce, then Settings.
- Store address and country drive taxes and shipping zones.
- Currency is the one your prices are shown in, for example Moldovan leu (MDL) or euro.
- Shipping works with zones. Create one per area you deliver to and give it a method: flat rate, free shipping or local pickup.
- Payments include cash on delivery and direct bank transfer by default. Card payments need an agreement with a payment processor and, usually, that processor's own plugin.
Add your first product
- Open Products and click Add New.
- Enter a name, a useful description and the regular price. A sale price has its own field.
- Set a product image and, if you like, a gallery. Compress photos before uploading them.
- Fill in the SKU and stock on the Inventory tab, and weight and size on the Shipping tab if your rates depend on them.
- Use the Attributes tab for options such as size or colour.
- Click Publish.
Order e-mails on shared hosting
A TopHost shared hosting account can send at most 400 e-mails per hour, and connections to outside SMTP servers are blocked. Send store mail from a mailbox you create on your domain in cPanel. All the limits are listed in Restrictions on the use of the mail service. For large newsletters, use a dedicated mailing service.
Checklist before you open
- Under Settings, then Permalinks, choose the "Post name" structure for readable, search-friendly addresses.
- Use a theme built for WooCommerce. Storefront is the official one; Astra and OceanWP support it fully as well.
- Place a test order with every payment and shipping method and make sure the confirmation e-mail arrives.
- Resist installing extensions "just in case". Each extra plugin slows the store and needs updating.
WordPress Hosting and Business Hosting plans run on the LiteSpeed web server, and the LiteSpeed Cache plugin skips the cart and checkout pages by default. Setup tips are in Turning on LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress.
Stuck somewhere? Open a ticket and our support team will help.
