If you rely heavily on ecommerce, WordPress is a great choice. We recommend it to many our clients. But as with business software, it’s not right for everyone. Here are the upsides (and challenges) of using WordPress & ecommerce, to help you make the right choice. [See how ROI can help you with WordPress here]

WordPress & Ecommerce

Upsides:

There are 60 million installations of WordPress. They power one-sixth of all sites out there. It’s free, open source, and built by volunteers. Its wide use means it’s easy to integrate themes and plugins. It’s updated (very often) to improve security and functionality. And if you are big on ease-of-use, you’ll be happy to know that most hosting providers out there have the means for you to install WordPress in just one click.

In general, this makes WP a stable, high-demand ecommerce platform. Moreover, the huge number of diverse, easy to use themes and plugins mean that you can customize the look, feel, and functionality of your WP ecommerce site to your heart’s content.

Challenges:

Though it seems like you have tons of options when first exploring WP themes, not all of them are ecommerce ready. You’ll have to do some extra homework—and legwork—to make sure the WP you select can actually support your ecommerce, or that you can find a plugin that will.

Security is a must if money is changing hands online is a fundamental requirement. Unfortunately, WP is a big hacker target, due to its widespread use. Of course, WP does take security measures. Just make sure you’re on board with their security protocols before you make the leap.

Compatibility might also be a challenge as you build your site, and attempt to integrate more and more plugins. The frequent updates also mean that some customizations are likely to get overwritten every time your site is upgraded.

To sum things up, WP wasn’t originally developed to be an ecommerce platform. That means it can be difficult to orchestrate and maintain ecommerce on a WordPress site in the face of near-constant upgrades, updates, and security threats.

However, WordPress is rapidly changing, growing, and improving. So if you’re already using ecommerce plugins for WordPress, or if WordPress is the best choice for you for other reasons, there’s no reason to overhaul or change what’s already working. Is WordPress working well for your ecommerce (or not)? If not, what would you recommend for ecommerce instead? Tell us the story in your comments!