WooCommerce is among the many quickest rising platforms. We’ve addressed it many instances, together with with columnist Richard Stubbings’ sequence on migrating from Magento to WooCommerce. B2C retailers, particularly, worth WooCommerce’s flexibility and plugin choices.
My experience, nevertheless, is with B2B corporations. I personal an online improvement agency that focuses on that area of interest. In my expertise, corporations with significant B2B gross sales mustn’t select WooCommerce.
To make sure, my firm doesn’t construct WordPress or WooCommerce websites. We suggest different platforms as a result of our agency focuses on producers and distributors with $50-$500 million in annual income. We don’t consider that WordPress and WooCommerce is the correct resolution for these corporations. There are profitable B2B retailers utilizing WooCommerce. On this put up, nevertheless, I’ll clarify why it’s not the only option.
In my expertise, corporations with significant B2B gross sales mustn’t select WooCommerce.
Safety Considerations
A buyer as soon as contacted my firm in a panic. The shopper’s WordPress website had been compromised and was getting used to host a phishing assault on different companies. We had not arrange that website, however we labored with the shopper to scrub and harden it as an preliminary step. Finally, we moved the corporate to a distinct platform.
That buyer shouldn’t be alone. WordPress continues to be essentially the most contaminated content material administration system — 83 p.c of contaminated web sites in 2016 had been on WordPress, in keeping with a report by Sucuri, a safety platform.
Safety vulnerabilities may also be launched by the greater than 55,000 WordPress plugins. The supply of those plugins is commonly seen as a profit. Whereas WordPress’s core software program is created by a talented improvement crew, the power of plugin builders varies, in my expertise.
There are methods to enhance WordPress’s safety. I’m not prepared to imagine that threat when establishing an ecommerce retailer, nor do I really feel snug recommending it to an organization that’s accountable for defending its clients’ information.
Doesn’t Scale
As an internet site grows — with extra guests, merchandise, orders, and clients — its pace and efficiency can not undergo. This can be a downside for a lot of WordPress websites, the place progress equals slower efficiency. Pace issues. A delay in load time reduces conversions.
Actually many WordPress websites can deal with a lot of site visitors and transactions. Nevertheless it usually requires heavy configuration, together with internet hosting tweaks and improvement effort.
Free, or Not
WordPress is an open supply platform with a neighborhood of contributors, however not a whole lot of controls and never a whole lot of assist choices. There are corporations specializing in WordPress assist. However assist from WordPress straight, through its VIP assist program, begins at $15,000 per 12 months. For that type of cash, use a stronger platform than WordPress, particularly for B2B.
B2B Specifics
B2B corporations usually have customized wants that don’t match WooCommerce. Listed below are just a few examples.
- A number of customers per account. B2B corporations can have a number of individuals who function patrons on the identical account. All of them have to log in and procure particular pricing. They might have to see one another’s orders. WooCommerce shouldn’t be arrange for this. Customizing it could possibly be messy and costly.
- Non-standard checkout. Many B2B corporations have particular checkout configuration necessities. Sure chemical merchandise can not ship to some states, for instance. There are WooCommerce plugins that may allow a service provider to limit transport on this method. However we as soon as labored with an organization that wished the checkout course of to suggest one other product if the unique one was restricted. We had been in a position to implement this in a simple method within the software program we selected. It could have been harder in WooCommerce.
- Ongoing upkeep. In software program improvement, there may be often a option to get issues accomplished. However it could make the appliance harder to take care of, costing money and time. It is very important use a platform that allows scalable innovation as an alternative of piecing collectively plugins and layering your customizations on high after which sustaining them throughout updates to the core product and the plugins.
The Proper Software
Don’t decide WordPress as a result of it’s well-known, or it appears cheap. Perceive your organization’s B2B alternatives and distinctive necessities. Decide a platform to get you there.