The WooCommerce platform is the power behind an impressively large number of e-commerce websites. BuiltWith reported that as of February 2018, there were 2,241,106 online stores using the software to power their transactions.
However, WooCommerce isn’t only a successful WordPress shopping cart platform, it can do much more than that. We’ve listed some of the most popular WooCommerce extensions which can enable you to do much more than you may have realized.
1. Subscription Boxes with WooCommerce Subscriptions
The subscription box business model is to sell customers a themed range of products, once a month or more frequently depending on the items sold. You offer consumers curated shopping experience, introducing them to new brands and sending them an interesting and exciting box on a regular basis.
You could even set up this business based around an existing website, as a subscription box business can be tailored to almost every niche. It can provide a stable model of recurring income to monetize virtually any established online community.
Sending customers a selection of products around a particular niche can be a lucrative business, with thousands of websites popping up offering this service for almost every imaginable market segment. WooCommerce has extensions allowing such a business to be set up and run in a very efficient manner.
Woocommerce Subscriptions enables you to manage recurring payments, whether it is for virtual or physical products. Set the billing options to fit your particular subscription-based model and create free trials as you see fit.
Recommended extensions: WooCommers Subscriptions | Toolbox for WooCommerce Subscriptions.
2. Fulfillment by Amazon
Fulfillment by Amazon, or FBA as it is frequently referred to, is a method of utilizing Amazon’s vast resources in your online retail business. Amazon will take care of the storage, shipping and customer service associated with online order fulfillment. Giving you more time to do the things in your business that produce more income, such as researching markets and sourcing products.
Using WooCommerce extensions in your business will not only allow your customers to benefit from the fast shipping normally available to Amazon customers, but you won’t have to deal with returns and other customer issues. Your products will also feature on the Amazon site, giving the opportunity to reach more customers.
Both you and the customer will be emailed when items are purchased and dispatched. Stock levels will be updated on your website automatically. The customer will also benefit from being able to track where their shipment is in the delivery process as a normal Amazon customer would.
Recommended extension: Amazon Fulfillment Plugin.
3. Amazon Affiliate
As an Amazon affiliate, your task is to promote products you select which are relevant to your site’s audience. Then when the visitor clicks through to Amazon, you get a commission based on the purchases made up to 24 hours later. It doesn’t even matter if they add something to their shopping cart that you weren’t promoting, you will still earn the commission.
There are WooCommerce extensions which allow descriptions, prices and stock numbers to be updated live on your site. The extension can also give your website visitors information on shipping costs and times for many different countries. You can even use Amazon’s frequently bought together feature on your blog to increase sales.
Recommended extension: WooCommerce Amazon Affiliates.
4. Membership Site
Membership sites can be a lucrative way for you to monetize a hobby and to help other people. It enables you to keep the information, special discounts, or an exclusive product range in a membership section of your site. You then charge an ongoing fee for access to the special members-only section.
A membership WooCommerce extension gives you the option to charge different prices for different levels of access to your membership site. The extension allows subscription payments to be easily charged on a recurring basis. Payments can be taken using all the normal providers and renewal notices will be sent out as needed if your customer isn’t using a paid subscription.
Recommended extension: WooCommerce Memberships.
5. Making Appointments and Taking Bookings
Whether your site sells a service, offers rentals, tours, tickets or hotel reservations, the process of allowing customers to select a date to suit them could cause you some headaches. Fortunately, there are easy and efficient solutions to be found using the WooCommerce platform.
Use WooCommerce extensions to give your customers the ability to book an appointment whenever is easiest for them. Your service business can make it simple for your customers to arrange bookings, thanks to calendar integration making certain you don’t have conflicting appointments. Customers can log in to revise their appointment and are able to look through the available dates and times to reschedule.
Recommended extension: Booking & Appointment Plugin for WooCommerce.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this article has helped you see beyond the use of WooCommerce for just shopping cart integration. With the aid of these popular WooCommerce extensions, you are able to customize your site in ways you may not have been aware of, giving you more options to generate a profit whilst automating your business.
This article is written by David Attard. He runs CollectiveRay and several other web design, WordPress, SEO, and Joomla related websites. He tends to geek on articles related to these favorite topics and see how to make an impact with these technologies for businesses he works with.
This article is written by David Attard. He runs 
