With WooCommerce, creating a dropshipping store should be a breeze. All you have to do are the following:
- Install the plugin
- Configure the store
- Add your dropshipping products
- Start running the site
But, with that said, it’s also easy to run into issues with WooCommerce. And, if you’re not careful, your online store may behave erratically, or be vulnerable to security risks.
WooCommerce is an effective tool to help you sell your dropshipping products, and all you should worry about is how to best market your goods and bring clients to your store.
That being said, there are some mistakes that can hinder your success rate. In this article we will go through 7 of the most common ones that you could run into with your WooCommerce store. So let’s dive right in!
1. No Staging Site
“When running an WooCommerce business, you’ll need at least 1 staging site to go along with it,” says Carlisle Benson, a writer at UKWritings and Assignment Help. “Sometimes, you’ll need 2 staging sites to ensure that development tests go well for your WooCommerce site. While WordPress doesn’t provide you with a way to create staging sites from scratch, various third-party tools online can help you do so.”
2. Not Updating Plugins
Outdated plugins can make your WooCommerce site vulnerable to hackers and cyber-attacks. While there are many plugins that send you courtesy reminders to update them, the one mistake that you can make here is to ignore those requests. Ultimately, not updating your plugins can deteriorate your site.
Therefore, make it your job to update your plugins regularly. If you want to be sure that an update is beneficial for your WooCommerce site, then A/B test the update. If the update passes your test, then you can load it in real-time.
3. Not Setting Up A Specific Selling Location
Setting your selling location is essential. Letting your customers know where your WooCommerce store is based offers transparency and legitimacy to your brand.
Without a set selling location, people may question whether or not your store is legitimate.
To solve this problem, disable delivery for only the locations that you’re not currently operating in. If desired, you can use a plugin to disable unnecessary locations. You can also perform local SEO of your online store, so that you can target the right location(s) to sell your products at.
4. Operating On An Older Version Of WooCommerce
As much as you may want to keep your current version of WooCommerce, don’t. Normally, WooCommerce will release a new version every six months, and offer plugin support to help you make the transition. So, ignoring an update for your WooCommerce site isn’t an option.
So, it’s important to have the newest version of WooCommerce, and to update it once a new version is made available. If you’d like, you can A/B test the newest version, and then deploy it once it passes your test.
5. Not Looking At The System Status Report
System status reports are vital to the success of your WooCommerce store. These reports show:
- How your site is doing
- Your current version of PHP
- Your current version of your plugin
- Your web server
- Your active themes
- The availability of core functions, etc.
When WooCommerce sends you a notification on top of your page, that means it’s time to look at your report.
6. Not Backing Up WooCommerce
“Like any other website, your WooCommerce site must be backed up regularly,” says Diana Walters, a WooCommerce expert at OXEssays and Revieweal. “If not backed up, your WooCommerce site can work against you. For example, if you accidentally delete certain files, then you’ll lose those files permanently. However, if your site is backed up, then accidentally deleting files can be an easy fix. Plugins like Backupbussin and BackWPup can help you back up important data automatically on your WooCommerce site.”
7. Not Making Your WooCommerce Secure
Finally, your WooCommerce website should have plenty of security. Not only will security ensure the health of your site, but you’ll be garnering trust from even the most skeptical customer online.
One of the best ways to ensure security on your site is to install an SSL certificate. When a certificate is installed, you – along with online users – will see a padlock symbol and HTTPs in the domain section. There are many reputable hosting providers that offer SSL certification for free.
8. Bonus Tip
Another thing that could harm your business and hinder all your hard optimization work on your store is choosing the wrong supplier. That is right: if you choose a partner that cannot support your business thoroughly, you could find more than one bad headache and A LOT of returned items.
As you might already know, many newbies in the business approach AliExpress resellers to source their items, without realising that:
- They purchase products at B2C prices, which lowers their profit margins;
- They do not have any information on the quality or the products shipped;
- They do not have any control on the shipping method used.
These are only a few of the problems that could happen, but don’t worry. You can avoid them all by simply choosing the right supplier. Choose Yakkyofy!
We work with hundreds of eCommerce owners and source only from some of the best Chinese Producers. Moreover, we provide a software integration that can easily connect to your WooCommerce store and automate your whole dropshipping fulfillment process. From the sourcing of your dropshipping products up to the very fulfillment of your orders and shipping to your final customers.
Yakkyofy will take care of everything related to the logistics of your orders, while you will only have to focus on the marketing side of your business. In short:
You sell the items and we will deal with everything else.
So what are you waiting for?
Conclusion
WooCommerce is an excellent platform to help you run your dropshipping store easily so let’s make the best out of it by avoiding the 7 mistakes that were mentioned in this article. By avoiding such mistakes, you’ll grow your customer base and, eventually, see sales go up from your site’s success!
BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR:
Lauren Groff is a writer at Write My Paper and Essay Writing. She is also a proofreader at Studydemic. As a blogger, she writes articles about WooCommerce, eCommerce practices, and social media marketing.