WooCommerce developer: when do you need one?

If you have searched for a WooCommerce developer, you are usually in one of three situations: you need a new webshop, you have a webshop that does not do what it should, or the person who built it no longer replies. This guide explains what WooCommerce is, what a WooCommerce developer actually does, what you can handle yourself, and what to ask before you hire anyone. I am a developer in Vejle and I do this work myself, so read it with that in mind.

What is WooCommerce?#

WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin that turns a WordPress site into a webshop. Products, basket, checkout, stock and orders live in the same WordPress installation as the rest of the site, on a server you choose yourself.

That is the big difference from Shopify, where you rent the shop as a service. With WooCommerce you own the code and the database, and you can change everything. In return, it is your responsibility that WordPress, WooCommerce and the plugins are kept up to date, and that the server is fast enough. If you are choosing between the two, I have written about WooCommerce or Shopify for a Danish webshop.

What does a WooCommerce developer do?#

Most of an ordinary webshop can be set up without a developer. A WooCommerce developer comes in where the setup is not enough. In practice that is typically:

• Checkout and payment, when customers drop off, or a payment method fails silently on one card type.

• Integrations with accounting, stock and shipping that have to hold up on the bad days, not just on the day they are built.

• Product logic that the standard plugins cannot handle: items put together from many options, price lists per business customer, or subscriptions with special rules.

• Speed, when the shop has become slow from twenty plugins and desktop-sized images.

• Takeover of a shop someone else built, with an inventory of what is installed and what is actually used.

It is rarely WooCommerce itself that is the problem. It is the layer on top: the theme, the plugins and the connections nobody keeps an eye on.

WooCommerce webshop development: what you can do yourself, and what takes a developer#

You can get a long way on your own. Installing WooCommerce, creating products, choosing a theme and switching on a payment gateway are well described in WooCommerce's own documentation, and a small shop with a manageable range can run perfectly well like that.

The line is usually drawn at three things. When the shop has to talk to other systems, because a connection that fails on a Friday is only discovered by the bookkeeper the following month. When you need something a plugin promises but cannot quite do, and the plugin that claimed it broke the theme. And when the shop has become slow and nobody can say why. I have written a whole note on that last one: Why is my WooCommerce shop slow?

WooCommerce developer in Denmark: the specifically Danish parts#

A WooCommerce developer does not have to be based in Denmark, but it helps with the parts that are Danish:

• Payment: MobilePay and Dankort through a Danish payment gateway such as QuickPay, Nets or Frisbii.

• Shipping: typically Shipmondo or a direct connection to GLS, PostNord or DAO, so shipping labels and track-and-trace are created once the order is paid.

• Accounting: orders posted in e-conomic, Billy or Dinero with the right VAT codes, also when an order is credited or shipped outside the EU.

• The customers: prices in kroner including VAT, and a checkout, cookie banner and terms of sale that suit Danish customers.

None of these is hard on its own. What takes time is order statuses, credit notes and partial captures that have to behave correctly when something goes wrong along the way.

What to ask a WooCommerce developer#

Before you hire anyone, these questions are worth asking. The answers say more than a portfolio:

1. Who owns the hosting, domain and accounts afterwards? The answer should be you, in your name.

2. How are changes tested? On a copy of the shop (staging) before they go live, not directly in the shop customers are buying from.

3. What happens when an integration fails? A good answer mentions retries and an alert that goes to a human.

4. Do I get the price in writing before work starts? And what happens if the job turns out to be bigger?

5. How is speed measured? On a real phone, before and after, so you can see the difference.

6. Can another developer take over? The code and integrations should be documented well enough for that.

Frequently asked questions#

What is the difference between a WooCommerce developer and a WordPress developer?

WooCommerce is WordPress, so a WooCommerce developer is a WordPress developer who also knows the webshop part: checkout, payments, order statuses, VAT and the integrations a shop needs. Not every WordPress developer has worked with that part.

Can a WooCommerce shop handle a lot of orders?

Far more than most shops have, when caching and the database are set up properly. Scaling problems are usually down to one query without an index or one plugin that runs on every page view, not WooCommerce itself.

Should I choose WooCommerce or Shopify?

If you would rather not think about hosting and updates, and you sell in an ordinary way, Shopify is often the honest answer. If the shop needs to do something unusual, or it sits alongside a WordPress site with a lot of content, there is a lot to be said for WooCommerce.

What does a WooCommerce developer cost?

It depends on the job, and a serious developer gives you a price in writing after a short conversation about what the shop needs to do. I price the shop itself and each integration separately, so you can decide on each of them on its own.

If you have a shop that needs to be built, fixed or taken over, you can read more about my work as a WooCommerce developer.