8 Tools that helped me sell 6-figures with e-commerce on WordPress
Running a website that’s e-commerce on WordPress opens up a whole world of possibilities! WooCommerce sets up a store for you so all you have to do is add in your details. You can sell just about anything with WooCommerce.
Here are some of my favorite tools and plugins for eCommerce on WordPress.
1. E-commerce on WordPress with WooCommerce
Are you an avid crafter and want to get your creations out in the world? Interested in sourcing products and reselling them on your website? Are you an artist who wishes you could get your designs on clothing such as t-shirts, dresses, or even aprons? Are you a service-based entrepreneur who wants to sell Canva templates, ebooks or even Power Hours?
WooCommerce can sell all of these and more! And the best part is that you can get started absolutely free! There are premium options that you can add on, but I have been able to sell using all of the methods that I mentioned above with the free WooCommerce. Check out my favorite website host below.
2. Lyrical Host for Hosting and Domains
Owning your domain and paying for your hosting is one thing that you can’t really get around. You only have to pay for the domain once a year (you can also buy the domain for a longer period if you prefer). Hosting can be paid either monthly or yearly.
I love and recommend Lyrical Host as their pricing is all-inclusive, they include a bunch of amazingly helpful resources for clients like free monthly stock photos, and they have an incredibly helpful and responsive customer service team.
Use discount code LOVELIVEHUSTLE to get 10% off your first payment. Paying for the year upfront helps you get the most out of the discount, but you can get started with just the first month as I did.
3. Use Elementor to easily design your own site and store
Elementor makes it super easy to design your perfect website. It is a drag and drop builder that includes a bunch of free templates you can use to get started. There are a few other plugins that you can use to add even more functionality like Envato Elements. Even when you are using Elementor, you will need to set up a theme (in the dashboard under appearance). I like to use Astra Theme as it’s clean and easy to customize with Elementor, and includes even more free templates you can use.
4. Shipstation
Shipstation changed my life. From one day to the next I went from processing 40 orders a day to over 300. Needless to say, processing shipments individually was not going to cut it. Especially since I was also packaging the orders and delivering them to the post office. I got the recommendation to use Shipstation and although there was a bit of a learning curve, it helped me keep my sanity. Suddenly I could process hundreds of orders with a few clicks. This also solved a big problem we didn’t know we could have with the bank. So apparently there are limits to how many charges hit your account each day. Since the WooCommerce shipping made me process each shipment individually it was charging each shipment individually. When I finally switched over to Shipstation I was able to deposit a certain amount and process a bunch of orders without worrying about bank limits.
Another advantage I found was that it was easier to interact with my orders through Shipstation than it was through the WooCommerce interface. And Shipstation offers an app to help you track your orders and shipments. Unfortunately, they don’t offer a free option but their base option is very inexpensive and absolutely worth it even if you don’t have hundreds of orders (yet!).
5. Flexible Shipping Plugin
The Woocommerce shipping options are… limited. This free plugin helped me charge properly for shipping. This is a big deal if you decide to sell with dropshipping. Keep in mind that drop-shippers typically charge for shipping by the item so you need to account for this when setting up shipping rules. If your website charges a flat rate of $5 and someone orders 4 things, your drop shipper is going to charge you shipping for each of the 4 items. Depending on the weight of your items it might be worth it to look into a shipping option that doesn’t depend on the weight.
6. Printful for dropshipping certain items
I mentioned dropshipping above, but what does that mean? It means that you create a store on your website and offer products through a company that will print and ship your sales for you. An example of this is Printiful. You have to upload your designs to Printful, pick your product and link it up to your store. Then you can create as many products as you want with as many designs as you want and offer them for sale from your store. There is a large variety of drop-shipping companies to explore, Printful is one that I have used and had success with
7. Fulfillment Center
Once I was processing hundreds of orders a day, I quickly realized that it was not sustainable. I looked into renting a location to work out of, but the logistics were crazy and I didn’t want to have to learn an entirely new industry (running a factory and shipping center). My main focus is websites and when I was processing orders, I had no time to do that.
That is how I stumbled into fulfillment centers! One great option that is available nationwide is Shipbob. Now when I first looked into them, it seemed expensive compared to the local options I found. What I didn’t realize was that what looked like the less expensive options actually had a bunch of hidden fees and crazy requirements that ended up being a huge waste of time and energy and resources. Save yourself the headache and get your fulfillment handled right.
So what is a fulfillment center? If you have a bunch of inventory that is selling, you can send it to a fulfillment center to be processed for shipping when it sells. This is kind of like when you send inventory to Amazon FBA. It takes the stress out of actually selling your product, so you can actually focus on marketing and selling it.
No more boxes of inventory in my house. No more trips to the post office or a storage unit. No more dealing with end-of-day shipping reports or printing out shipping labels. This is when your business gets fun!
Make sure that your pricing structure is set up to handle the investment of adding services like this. Also take into account the hours that you will be saving every day, week, and month. This is time that you can use to sell more so you can finally make more. This is how you can scale.
8. No more Ink! Save money with a thermal printer for Shipping Labels
Speaking of shipping. Discovering a thermal printer changed my life, again! Holey Moley, this thing is one of my favorite discoveries from this journey. This guy requires absolutely no ink. Do you know how much ink I was buying? How frustrating it was to deal with the unreliable wifi when trying to print out hundreds of labels? All you have to buy is the thermal paper reams which were pretty inexpensive on Amazon. I used the thermal printer to print out shipping labels for customers, packing slips, Amazon FBA labels, and UPS shipping labels. But my favorite part is the no ink part.
9. Contact Form Plugin
This simple-to-use plugin makes it a breeze to create a “contact us” form on your website. This makes customer service really easy and streamlined. Make sure that you also use a Recaptcha to block robots from filling out the form or you will get a ton of random messages.
10. G-Suite for customer service
You get a free email account with your domain name when you sign up for hosting with Lyrical Host, which you can access from email.lyricalhost.com. But if you are used to working with Google, you can actually set up your email to be delivered via the Google Interface. This means that you can add it to your accounts on your phone, and create Documents, Spreadsheets, and Slideshows with Google Suite using your domain name email. I absolutely love having my email account set up this way, and I use Google Drive to share documents and other files with my clients.
11. Stripe
If you want to make money from your website, you have to have a way of collecting money. Setting up a stripe account is free and can be used to process payments on WooCommerce, Learnpress, WP Simplemembership, and a bunch of other things. I love that money is deposited directly into my bank account. This is a great alternative to Paypal.
12. Google Analytics
Google Analytics helps you better understand who is visiting your website and what they are doing. This helps you figure out where people are falling off so that you can make improvements. The first step is to set up your Google Analytics Tag, and then since we are talking about e-commerce, you will want to make sure to set up the tab that is specific to e-commerce. This will help you track where your sales are coming from so you can duplicate your efforts and sell more. I don’t like making Google tutorials because they are constantly changing things. For the most up to date information about setting up your Google Analytics Tags, check Google directly.
13. Facebook Pixel
Speaking of tracking, if you have a Facebook Page for your website it’s a good idea to set up your Facebook Pixel. This is required if you want to link your Instagram to your website, too. Adding the Facebook Pixel will help track your audience, where they are coming from, and what they are doing. All of this data helps you better understand who your audience is, and what they want.
14. Mailerlite
As an e-commerce business owner, it is super important that you have a mailing list. This will help you get in touch with your past customers and future customers. One simple way of giving your customers something of value in exchange for their email address is to offer a coupon. You can create coupons for your products under the Marketing tab under WooCommerce in the dashboard.
Mailerlite has been my favorite option so far. You can get started for free. As your audience grows, they offer options to affordable scale your account. And it is definitely the easiest to set up and use, from my experience.
15. Use Airtable to keep track of everything about your business
Airtable is like a spreadsheet with superpowers. I use Airtable to keep track of a bunch of things in my businesses. For example, I have a spreadsheet with all of my affiliate links. That way I can easily find affiliate links for whatever I need them. I created the habit of opening up Airtable and adding my new links whenever I sign up with a new affiliate program.
Don’t overthink affiliate links- take a look at programs that you are already using, such as your website host, or Canva. If you use something that you love, consider doing a Google search with the product/service and the word “affiliate” or “affiliate program”.
I also use Airtable to keep track of podcast guests, these blog posts, and more. I still do use Google Sheets for other things, but I love having certain things on Airtable so they are always easily accessible. Airtable also has an app so you have access to all important info right from your phone, which is great for social media posts and in-person recommendations.
