1. Log in to your WordPress admin dashboard
2. Go to Plugins → Add New
3. Search for "WooCommerce"
4. Click Install Now on the official WooCommerce plugin by Automattic
5. Click Activate

After activation, WooCommerce launches a Setup Wizard automatically. This wizard walks you through the essential configuration steps. Click Yes please to begin.

The setup wizard covers your store's foundational settings:

Store Details

• Country/Region: Select where your business is based. This affects tax calculation, currency defaults, and available payment gateways.
• Industry: Select your primary industry (fashion, electronics, food, etc.)
• Product types: Choose what you'll sell — physical products, digital downloads, subscriptions, memberships, etc.
• Business details: Number of products you plan to list, whether you currently sell elsewhere.

Payments

Choose your payment methods. WooCommerce supports:

• PayPal Payments — Most widely recognised globally. Good for international customers.
• Stripe — Accepts credit cards directly on your checkout without redirecting. Professional, high conversion rate. Highly recommended.
• WooCommerce Payments — Stripe-powered, managed by WooCommerce. Available in select countries.
• Bank Transfer (BACS) — Manual payment via bank transfer. Good for B2B.
• Cash on Delivery — For local pickup or delivery stores.

For most stores, enabling both Stripe and PayPal provides maximum customer choice.

Shipping

• Flat rate: Charge a fixed amount for all orders (or orders to a specific region)
• Free shipping: Offer free shipping (optionally above a minimum order value)
• Local pickup: Allow customers to collect in-store

Shipping zones let you set different rates for different regions. At minimum, create a zone for your primary country with your standard rates and a zone for international orders (if you ship globally).

Store Design

Choose a theme optimised for WooCommerce. WooCommerce recommends Storefront (its own free theme) or compatible themes like Astra, Kadence, or OceanWP.

Click Continue through each section and Finish at the end.

After the wizard, review the full settings panel. Go to WooCommerce → Settings — the main control panel for your store.

General Tab

• Store Address: Enter your business address (used for tax calculations)
• Selling Locations: Choose where you sell — all countries, specific countries, or specific regions
• Shipping Locations: Where you ship to
• Default Customer Location: How WooCommerce determines customer location (store address, geolocation, or no default)
• Currency: Set your store currency (GBP, USD, EUR, INR, etc.)
• Currency Position: Before or after the amount

Products Tab

• Measurements: Weight and dimension units for physical products (kg/cm, lbs/in, etc.)
• Reviews: Enable/disable product reviews and star ratings
• Shop Page: Designate which WordPress page is your shop (WooCommerce creates this automatically)

Tax Tab

Enable taxes if applicable:

1. Check "Enable taxes"
2. Configure tax options — prices entered with tax or excluding tax, display prices in the shop, tax calculation based on customer shipping address, billing address, or store base address
3. Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Tax → Standard Rates and add your tax rates

For India: configure GST rates (5%, 12%, 18%, 28% depending on product category).

Go to Products → Add New to create your first product listing.

Product Data

• Product title: Write a clear, descriptive product name with relevant keywords.
• Product description: The full description that appears on the product page. Use bullet points for specifications, write benefit-focused copy.
• Short description: 2–3 sentences that appear below the product title. This should be your most compelling selling proposition.
• Product categories: Assign the product to one or more categories. Create a logical category structure (e.g., "Men's Clothing → T-Shirts").
• Product tags: Optional keyword tags for filtering.
• Product image: Upload your main product photo. Use high-quality images (at least 800×800px) with a neutral or white background.
• Product gallery: Upload additional product photos showing different angles, colours, or uses.

Product Type

Click the Product data dropdown to select your product type:

Pricing (Simple Product)

• Regular price: Standard selling price
• Sale price: Optional discounted price with optional date range

Inventory

• SKU: Stock Keeping Unit — your internal product code
• Manage stock: Enable to track inventory levels
• Stock quantity: Current inventory count
• Allow backorders: Whether customers can order out-of-stock items
• Stock status: In stock / Out of stock / On backorder

Shipping (Physical Products)

• Weight: Product weight (affects shipping calculations)
• Dimensions: Length, width, height

Set the product status to Published and click Publish or Update.

WooCommerce automatically creates four essential pages during installation:

• Shop — Your main product listing page (/shop/)
• Cart — Where customers review their order (/cart/)
• Checkout — Where customers enter payment and shipping details (/checkout/)
• My Account — Customer account dashboard (/my-account/)

Verify these exist: WooCommerce → Settings → Advanced → Page Setup

If any pages are missing, create a page with the appropriate name and assign it in settings.

Add the shop to your navigation menu:

1. Go to Appearance → Menus
2. Add the Shop page to your main navigation menu
3. Save the menu

Setting Up Stripe

Stripe is the most recommended payment gateway for WooCommerce:

1. Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Payments
2. Click Set up next to Stripe
3. Click Connect with Stripe
4. Sign in to your existing Stripe account or create one (free)
5. Complete Stripe's onboarding (business verification, bank account connection)
6. Return to WooCommerce — Stripe is now active

Stripe charges approximately 1.4–2.9% + fixed fee per transaction (varies by country). No monthly fees.

Setting Up PayPal

1. Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Payments
2. Enable PayPal Payments
3. Click Set up and connect your PayPal business account
4. Configure whether to show PayPal as express checkout buttons

Test Mode

Before going live, test your checkout:

1. In Stripe dashboard, enable Test Mode
2. Use Stripe's test card numbers (e.g., 4242 4242 4242 4242) to simulate purchases
3. Verify the entire purchase flow — order confirmation email, order in WooCommerce dashboard
4. Disable Test Mode and switch to Live Mode when ready to accept real payments

WooCommerce sends automated emails throughout the customer journey. Configure them at WooCommerce → Settings → Emails:

Email types to configure:

• New Order (to admin — you receive this when an order is placed)
• Processing Order (to customer — order received, payment confirmed)
• Order Complete (to customer — order shipped/fulfilled)
• Order Refunded (to customer)
• Customer Invoice (to customer — for manual orders)
• Customer New Account (registration confirmation)
• Customer Password Reset

For each email: Click the email type, verify it's enabled, set the recipient (admin notifications) or review the template, and add your logo and customise the email header colour to match your brand.

Your theme should be explicitly WooCommerce-compatible. Recommended options:

• Astra (free + premium) — Fastest WooCommerce-compatible theme. Beautiful product pages, excellent shop layout customisation.
• Kadence (free + premium) — Modern, fast, excellent WooCommerce block support.
• Storefront (free) — WooCommerce's own official theme. Reliable compatibility by definition.
• OceanWP (free + premium) — Feature-rich, many WooCommerce-specific options.

A few additional plugins make a significant difference:

• Stripe for WooCommerce — If not bundled, install separately for full Stripe integration.
• WooCommerce PDF Invoices & Packing Slips (free) — Automatically generates PDF invoices for orders.
• WooCommerce Abandoned Cart Lite (free) — Emails customers who add items to cart but don't complete checkout. Recovers 5–15% of abandoned carts.
• YITH WooCommerce Wishlist (free) — Adds a wishlist feature to your product pages.
• WooCommerce Google Analytics Integration — Tracks purchases and eCommerce events in GA4.

Before announcing your store, verify every item:

• SSL certificate active (https:// in all URLs)
• Payment gateway in Live Mode (not Test Mode)
• Placed a real test order and received confirmation emails
• Shipping rates calculated correctly for test orders
• Tax calculations correct for your country/state
• All product images uploaded and displaying correctly
• Mobile checkout tested on a real phone
• Refund policy, terms and conditions, and privacy policy pages published and linked in footer
• Customer account creation and password reset emails working
• SMTP configured for reliable email delivery
• Google Analytics eCommerce tracking active
• UpdraftPlus backup configured and first backup complete