WooCommerce Store Basics (Products, Cart, Checkout)

What WooCommerce adds to WordPress

WooCommerce is a free plugin that turns a regular WordPress site into a full online store — product catalog, shopping cart, checkout, order management, and payment gateway integration.

It is by far the most widely used e-commerce plugin for WordPress, and one of the most popular e-commerce platforms overall, precisely because it builds on the WordPress content skills you already have.

Real-life example: Adding WooCommerce to WordPress is like adding a cash register and shelving system to a space you have already decorated (your existing WordPress site) — the walls and rooms (content) stay, commerce gets bolted on.

Installing WooCommerce and the setup wizard

Install WooCommerce like any plugin (Plugins → Add New → search “WooCommerce” → Install → Activate). Activating it launches a setup wizard asking for your store's location, currency, industry, and preferred payment methods.

The wizard automatically creates essential pages for you — Shop, Cart, Checkout, and My Account — using shortcodes/blocks that render dynamically.

wp plugin install woocommerce --activate

Adding your first product

Go to Products → Add New. Enter a title, description, and set the Product Data panel below — Simple product (one price/variant) or Variable product (e.g. sizes and colors, each with its own price/stock).

Fill in the Regular Price, optional Sale Price, a Product Image, and manage stock quantity under the Inventory tab if you want WooCommerce to track how many are left.

• Simple product — one price, one SKU, no variants
• Variable product — multiple variants (size/color), each with its own price and stock
• Product categories/tags work almost exactly like blog categories/tags

How cart and checkout work behind the scenes

When a visitor clicks Add to Cart, WooCommerce stores that selection in a session (a cookie-based memory tied to their browser) until they either check out or the session expires.

At Checkout, WooCommerce collects shipping/billing details, calculates tax and shipping if configured, and hands off payment to your chosen gateway before creating an Order record you can manage under WooCommerce → Orders.

Real-life example: The cart is like a shopping basket you carry around a physical store — nothing is charged until you reach the checkout counter (Checkout page) and pay.