WooCommerce is among the many quickest rising platforms. We’ve addressed it many occasions, together with with columnist Richard Stubbings’ collection 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 internet improvement agency that focuses on that area of interest. In my expertise, corporations with significant B2B gross sales shouldn’t select WooCommerce.
To make certain, my firm doesn’t construct WordPress or WooCommerce websites. We advocate 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 appropriate answer for these corporations. There are profitable B2B retailers utilizing WooCommerce. On this submit, nevertheless, I’ll clarify why it isn’t the only option.
In my expertise, corporations with significant B2B gross sales shouldn’t select WooCommerce.
Safety Considerations
A buyer as soon as contacted my firm in a panic. The client’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 client to wash and harden it as an preliminary step. Ultimately, we moved the corporate to a unique platform.
That buyer just isn’t alone. WordPress continues to be probably the most contaminated content material administration system — eighty three % of contaminated web sites in 2016 have been on WordPress, in response to a report by Sucuri, a safety platform.
Safety vulnerabilities can be launched by the greater than fifty five,000 WordPress plugins. The supply of those plugins is usually seen as a profit. Whereas WordPress’s core software is created by a talented improvement staff, the power of plugin builders varies, in my expertise.
There are methods to enhance WordPress’s safety. I’m not prepared to imagine that danger when establishing an ecommerce retailer, nor do I really feel snug recommending it to an organization that’s chargeable for defending its clients’ knowledge.
Doesn’t Scale
As a website grows — with extra guests, merchandise, orders, and clients — its velocity and efficiency can’t endure. This can be a drawback for a lot of WordPress websites, the place progress equals slower efficiency. Velocity issues. A delay in load time reduces conversions.
Definitely many WordPress websites can deal with numerous visitors and transactions. However it sometimes requires heavy configuration, together with internet hosting tweaks and improvement effort.
Free, or Not
WordPress is an open supply platform with a group of contributors, however not numerous controls and never a whole lot of help choices. There are corporations specializing in WordPress help. However help from WordPress instantly, by way of its VIP help program, begins at $15,000 per yr. For that type of cash, use a stronger platform than WordPress, particularly for B2B.
B2B Specifics
B2B corporations typically have customized wants that don’t match WooCommerce. Listed here are a number of examples.
- A number of customers per account. B2B corporations can have a number of individuals who function consumers on the identical account. All of them have to log in and acquire particular pricing. They could have to see one another’s orders. WooCommerce shouldn’t be arrange for this. Customizing it might be messy and costly.
- Non-normal checkout. Many B2B corporations have particular checkout configuration necessities. Sure chemical merchandise can’t ship to some states, for instance. There are WooCommerce plugins that may allow a service provider to limit delivery on this method. However we as soon as labored with an organization that needed the checkout course of to advocate one other product if the unique one was restricted. We have been capable of implement this in an easy method within the software we selected. It might have been harder in WooCommerce.
- Ongoing upkeep. In software improvement, there’s often a option to get issues completed. However it might make the appliance harder to take care of, costing money and time. It is very important use a platform that permits scalable innovation as an alternative of piecing collectively plugins and layering your customizations on prime after which sustaining them throughout updates to the core product and the plugins.
The Proper Device
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.
