Is your WooCommerce site slow? It’s good that you’re looking into it. $1.6 billion is the amount Amazon.com would lose in sales every year if their page load slowed down by just one second.

Fast loading pages boost conversions and SEO, reduce cart abandonment, increase page views, and keep customers engaged.

The good news is that, in most cases, you can fix a slow WooCommerce site by checking a few key things.

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You have a plan to sell online. You’ve decided what you’re going to sell, you’ve decided to use WooCommerce, and now you need to design your store.

This stage can be difficult. Finding that perfect theme, or even selecting a designer who understands your goals, can eat up time you don’t have. And if you’ve never sold online before, you might feel as if you’re searching for something that just “looks nice,” without having a solid grasp on what’s really important.

To help you understand what’s crucial and what’s not, you should know what the most important features of a store’s design actually are. This will help you separate the designs that “look nice” from those that perform well.

Let’s take a look at the most important features of your WooCommerce store’s design so you can get started on that next crucial stage.

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Updating WooCommerce, its extensions, and WordPress itself needn’t be a nerve-wracking experience. If you prepare well and follow best practice, you can avoid all “my product pages look weird” and “this plugin isn’t working right” experiences.

Today we’re going to show you four ways to better manage updates to your WooCommerce store to save you time, keep your store running smoothly, and give you confidence for the next time you see the phrase “an update is available” in your WordPress dashboard.

Let’s get started.

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There are some huge advantages to selling digital products. There’s no need to package and ship anything, fewer costs associated with stocking and managing products, and you can usually get new items added to your store in way less time.

But these products come with their own set of challenges. Have you ever tried to photograph a digital product? Or write a compelling product description about a downloadable file? It’s not so easy.

Setting up an amazing digital goods store with WooCommerce (or simply selling a few downloadable items) takes some smart choices. Lucky for you, we’ve got a whole bunch of extensions that will help make those choices easier, and maybe even kick your sales up a notch.

Here are four extensions we think are must-haves for digital goods stores, whether you’re a seasoned pro or just getting started.

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Once you’ve made the decision to build a store with WooCommerce, you don’t want anything to slow you down.

If your store isn’t built with longevity in mind, however, you could run into trouble as time goes on. You might see product pages load slowly, extensions stop functioning, or even encounter serious issues like data loss or security breaches.

These are all issues that will ultimately lead to one thing: a decline in — or complete loss of  — paying customers.

To keep your WooCommerce store profitable, you need to build it with long-term stability, safety, and performance in mind. Let’s take a look at how you can build a WooCommerce store that will last for months, years, and beyond.

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Starting a retail store is hard. You’ve got to have the right products, the right location, and the right staff to make it work. Miss the mark on any one of these aspects and you’re bound to struggle.

If you’ve already got a successful store, nobody can blame you for feeling like you can do anything. Or wanting, perhaps, to take over the world a little bit. Extending your reach only seems natural — once you know you can run one store, why not two?

The next natural step for you entrepreneurial brick and mortar shop owners is often a move to an online store. And while a smart move, it’s one that should be made with caution. Taking an offline store online can be hugely beneficial, but there are a few things you need to think about and plan before you set anything up.

If you’re thinking about adding an online store into the mix, whether you’ve been in the retail business for a few months or many long years, read over these tips and steps to take first.

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If you’ve found success selling your products or services online, you’ve probably given some thought to expanding offline — that is, opening a brick and mortar store.

Switching from a solely online business to a multi-channel merchant is difficult, though. And the harsh reality is that not everyone has the time or resources necessary to do it well… or at all.

If you’re seriously thinking about taking your WooCommerce store offline, there are a couple important things to consider before taking the big leap. If you can sort these factors out beforehand, it’ll give you a better chance of success.

From location to staffing to all things payment-related, here’s the full list of what you should be thinking about before you grow your presence into the “real world.”

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WooCommerce is fairly flexible out of the box, giving you the ability to sell multiple product types and deliver them many ways. However, the goods you’re selling may require advanced customization, you might want to ask your customers for more information at checkout, or you might be ready to start experimenting with pricing and discounts.

If you need to go beyond what’s baked-in, that’s where our extensions come into play. These free or paid add-ons extend the functionality of WooCommerce, giving you the power to sell new product types, enhance your store’s performance, and more.

There are quite a lot of extensions that you might want to try — here are ten powerful extensions we recommend for new WooCommerce stores.

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Starting a WooCommerce store? You’ve got a lot to consider, from what you plan on selling to how you’re going to market it.

Deciding what to start with first is tricky. As you’re setting up your store, you have a lot of decisions to make, and likely not a lot of time to make them in. You may wonder what you should set up or customize first to make the rest of the process as smooth as possible.

To help you properly prioritize, we’ve put together this short list of the first few things you should customize in WooCommerce. These items will get you started on the right foot and ensure you have the groundwork covered before you add products or set up marketing methods.

Let’s take a look at the first five things that should be customized on any new WooCommerce site, plus some helpful articles that will give you a deeper dive into getting these aspects right as you work on building your store.

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More than half of Americans either own or work for a small business, and every year since 1963 the United States has celebrated National Small Business Week to recognize their critical contribution to the economy. This week we’re celebrating small businesses by offering some advice to help them succeed.

There are quite a few common mistakes that new small businesses make; the tips offered by the businesses earlier this week covered much of them (for example, don’t think small, don’t waste time on things you’re not great at, make your store fast and beautiful). But there was one tip we felt was missing.

Many small businesses start out trying to be the best at everything — that is, be the best clothing store online, or the world’s greatest home decor shop. And the truth is that it’s almost impossible to do this. Not that we’re trying to dash your hopes, only being realistic.

The key to small business success is finding and choosing a niche. By doing that, you can avoid one of the most common mistakes business owners make: of going too broad with their store’s products and market appeal.

Let’s dive a little deeper into this subject and talk about why you should have a niche, how it can help you succeed, and how to pick one (if you haven’t already).

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Coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world. It’s also one of the most popular products sold via a subscription model.

If you’re considering starting an online coffee store, you’re likely wondering what the vital ingredients for a speciality eCommerce website are. Do you need to spend loads to offer monthly subscriptions of your roasts or beans? And which platforms are suitable for selling this specialty product?

In this post, we’ll guide you through setting up a coffee subscription business from start to finish, giving you all the tools and insight you need to start off on the right foot. We’ll cover why coffee sells particularly well by subscription, some key elements to running a coffee business, and make some suggestions for choosing the right eCommerce platform for your new store.

Ready to give it a go? Read on to learn all you need to know about starting your store.

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Humans want things to happen fast. We expect short waits in line, fast food, entertainment on demand — all in all, instant gratification.

It’s this mindset that leads us to anticipate websites that load and deliver content quickly. If we don’t get what we want, we can always go somewhere else and find the same thing.

This means that your WooCommerce-powered store has to be fast to gain as many paying customers as possible. If your site is sluggish or its pages take a long time to load, visitors will abandon it for your competitors, and you’ll miss out on countless sales.

To help you achieve the necessary goal of having the fastest, most efficient online store possible, we’ve compiled these first steps to speeding up WooCommerce. From image compression to up-to-date extensions, these are a few ways you can streamline your store for optimal performance.

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According to a cross-channel marketing report conducted by Responsys and Econsultancy, 70% of companies find it’s more costly to acquire new customers than it is to bring back existing ones.

This is undoubtedly one of the reasons that subscription models have become so popular in the world of eCommerce. Subscriptions keep those hard-fought customers on the hook for automatic repeat purchases, plus they create a reliable source of recurring revenue.

However, starting a successful subscription-based business, or adding a subscription to your existing store, isn’t easy. It takes careful planning, knowledge of your customers’ needs, willingness to try new things… and then some.

If you’re considering trying the subscription model for yourself, here’s what you should know and do to bolster your chances at long-term success.

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Not all eCommerce stores specialize in physical products. Some — perhaps yours? — sell digital goods, like audio files, books, PDFs, video tutorials, games, or even stock photography.

Stores with digital products might not look different from those with physical ones, but they aren’t exactly the same. In fact, they require careful handling, and attention paid to different aspects that may not even need considered otherwise.

If you have or are starting a store with digital or downloadable products, following a few specific guidelines can ensure that your customers are happy with their purchases. It can also help you create a shopping experience that converts more shoppers into paid customers, and even draws more searchers to your store.

Let’s take a look at some tips that can help you create a stronger digital store using WooCommerce.

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An eCommerce website is made up of many moving parts: the shopping cart, the order confirmation page, and so on. You might think that every one of these pieces and pages exists to serve your customers in some way, but some of them exist almost solely to serve search engines.

A sitemap is one such page. Your customers will probably never find your sitemap useful, but to search engines, it’s one of the most useful components in existence. Having one can improve how well your store is reviewed by search engines, and how visible each of its pages might be in searches for related keywords or phrases.

If you’re curious about the necessity of sitemaps for eCommerce, how having one can improve your store, and how you might even be able to take your existing sitemap to the next level, we’ve got you covered. Pack your bags and come along with us on a journey into the world of sitemaps.

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Whether you’re selling a single subscription service or hundreds of unique items sourced globally — building and launching your WooCommerce store is a rewarding experience.

With so much to consider during setup — from payments to shipping to marketing — it’s not unusual to be cautious about costs. You certainly don’t want to break the bank before you’ve sold anything!

WooCommerce is a free platform that can be added and expanded upon with nearly endless extensions — including some great free ones.

From monitoring traffic to abandoned cart emails to live chat, here are some of our favorite free WooCommerce extensions.

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