You certainly know Woocommerce , this solution for creating an online store is quite easy to install and allows many WordPress sites to be able to try ecommerce with varying degrees of success.
However, there are many online shops that use this E-commerce CMS because it is quite easy to add it to an already existing blog. Since its creation, there are even Woo commerce agencies that will specialize in the creation of e-commerce sites only on this software.
But imagine that, like every e-commerce solution, Woocommerce does not only have advantages. What are the main flaws of this platform? That's what we're going to see together today in this new Pikka blog post.
Why know the defects of Woocommerce ?
Whether you are an e-commerce manager or not, choosing the right solution is extremely important for a successful online business. Knowing what the advantages and disadvantages of each CMS are allows you to get a more precise idea and to guide your choice in full knowledge of the facts. It is worth remembering that no e-commerce solution is ever perfect and that there will always be, by choice, lack of time, human error or just by forgetfulness, defects in each e-commerce solution.
The idea is therefore not to shoot Woocommerce but rather just to highlight the points where this solution seems to us the least suitable for an e-commerce project.
Woocommerce Flaw #1: Security
And yes, thanks, or maybe because in this case, of the widespread distribution of this CMS throughout the world, searches for vulnerabilities are legion. This means that O day breaches and security alerts are part of the regular life of a WordPress and Woocommerce user. As much as it doesn't matter when you have a small blog with 10 visitors, when doing e-commerce, there is a legal responsibility.
And yes, the GDPR requires you to secure the personal data of your customers. In this case you will have dozens of customer data in your Wordpress: postal addresses, email, telephone etc...
All this therefore does not leak or be hacked, you have an obligation to communicate data leaks.
In short, even if there are many plugins to secure a Woocommerce site, this will represent a cost and a constant subject of questioning for a merchant. I have even seen an e-merchant take advantage of the security flaws of one of its competitors to quietly siphon off its customer base. Totally illegal, of course, but if it's a competitor located outside of France, it will be very difficult to do anything about it.
Note that contrary to popular belief, in the vast majority of cases, automated and robotic attacks will scan Woocommerce sites. So saw nothing personal if you get your woocommerce e-commerce site hacked.
Wordpress flaw #2: WordPress updates can break your site.
Security is therefore essential, so you must update your site to benefit from the security patches of Wordpress and Woocommerce but also from the theme and the many plugins that you will use.
The problem ? With each update, this can break your theme or your Woocommerce as a whole and completely block order taking.
To avoid this problem, you will need an e-commerce agency that comes, for a fee, to secure the update each time they appear, that is to say almost weekly. in short, a titanic job to avoid the slightest risk to your online store.
Defect #3 of Woocommerce: site performance
Basic WordPress is a fairly fast CMS for many editorial sites. But the more you will add plugins, applications and themes purchased for example on Themeforest, the more you will slow down the site.
Be careful, a custom-built theme by a wordpress agency will be very, very fast and will certainly be able to hold the load significantly. But overall, many Woocommerce sites are simply add-ons of features that aren't always compatible with each other or optimized for speed.
As a result, sometimes the page display speed and the page speed index, very important in the eyes of Google, can be impacted and therefore penalize your natural referencing.
Again, nothing serious in the evening because it is totally optimizable but it will require costs and skills that are not always planned by e-merchants
Woocommerce Flaw #4: Painful Plugin Management
The advantage of an open source solution is to be able to modify whatever you want. The disadvantage of open source is precisely that it can be modified everywhere.
Some plugins will therefore work well together but others not at all... And it will be up to you to understand why and to manage.
We also pass on the respect of good development practices because no check is made on the plugins or even possibilities of hacking or hacking if a plugin is hacked or if you tend to install plugins without checking the source too much and the checksums.
In short, once again, nothing very serious if you have good practices and a bit of experience in the use of development environments. But this is unfortunately not often the case when you are a little in the juice e-merchant who just wants to advance on his technical toto.
Note that for a few years now, the plugins are almost all equipped with a paid version, once or SaaS rental. Farewell to the image of a free Wordpress / woocommerce e-commerce site
Defect No. 5 of Woocommerce: A back office poorly adapted to E-commerce
For me, this last big flaw of Woocommerce is still the most important and what prevents me from recommending in any situation whatsoever a Wordpress / Woocomerce to create a site : the full bazaar in the back office to manage its daily workflow .
To put it simply: processing an order, a product, a reduction will take a lot of time in Woocommerce while it is native to all other e-commerce solutions: Wizishop, Magento, Prestashop or other.
You don't have to take my word for it but here is for example the back office of a Woocommerce site that we migrated to Shopify
If you want to know more, you can read our introductory article on Wordpress .
