10 free WooCommerce extensions for new stores to consider
As you likely already know, part of the beauty of WooCommerce is that it gives you a free platform that can be added and expanded upon with nearly endless extensions. In the interest of getting you up and running quickly — and saving you money — we’ve collected ten solutions you should try when you first start your store.
From plugins to monitor your traffic to add-ons that will improve your emails, here are some of our favorite free WooCommerce extensions for new shop owners.
Keep a close eye on your store’s growth
A new store needs your close attention so any possible problems — or potential opportunities — can be nipped right in the bud. Here are two tools you can use to track your growth in depth as you go from zero to hero.
1. Use Google Analytics to track pageviews, purchases, & more
Google Analytics is a universally trusted (and free!) resource for website owners who want to keep track of pageviews, clickthroughs, conversions, and more. But it can be a bit tricky to set it up for eCommerce.
Enter this free Google Analytics integration for WooCommerce, which allows you to nearly instantly hook your GA account into your Woo-powered store. Simply enter your Analytics ID, set up the tracking code, and boom — you’re all set to see your store on the GA
2. Try Jetpack’s built-in stats to see traffic right on your dashboard
Jetpack is a resource-packed WordPress plugin that allows you to do everything from enhance your security to customize your theme’s appearance. But where it has huge potential for new WooCommerce store owners is in its Site Stats feature.
3. Create stylish, informative order receipts
An order receipt email is an often boring, yet necessary, part of a customer’s experience with you. But what if you could turn that experience into a sales opportunity?
Enter Conversio. Conversio’s free plan allows you to transform your WooCommerce email receipts into fully customized conversion machines. Not only can you customize the look and feel of your emails, but you can also add in links to sign up for your newsletter, follow your social networks, and more. Anything you want to ask your customer to do, you can do.
Interested in taking your strategy to the next level? With a paid plan, you can expand Conversio to do even more, including sending emails to shoppers who abandoned their carts.
4. Facebook for WooCommerce
This one really is a no-brainer.Marketing on Facebook helps your business build lasting relationships with people, find new customers and increase sales for your online store.
Adding Facebook for WooCommerce gets you two powerful ways to help grow your business:
The Facebook ad extension makes it easy to reach the people who matter to your business and track the results of your advertising across devices, and the Facebook shop section, enables you to showcase products and drive sales from your Facebook Business Page. If you don’t have one yet, it’s well worth setting up!
5. Allow customers to subscribe to your email list on checkout
Join the 16 million customers who use MailChimp, the world’s largest marketing automation platform, to develop their eCommerce marketing strategy.
With the official MailChimp for WooCommerce integration, your customers and their purchase data are automatically synced with your MailChimp account, making it easy to send targeted campaigns, automatically follow up with customers post-purchase, recommend products, recover abandoned carts, and measure the ROI of your marketing efforts. And it’s completely free.
6. Add sharing buttons to your site content
Of course, your products might not be the only thing your customers are interested in sharing. If you have blog posts, guides, or other forms of content, you’ll want them to share those, too.
7. Ask for reviews (that you can turn into ads!)
Customer reviews have a ton of benefits: they make you look trustworthy, they can be shared to show how great your products are, and they add content to your store. You might have known all this, but did you know that you can even turn them into opportunities to make more money?
Yotpo powers up your store’s reviews and turns them into sharable bits of content that customers can share or you can use for ads, along with plenty of other amazing features that will beautify your boring product pages.
8. Add Square to your store for in-person payments
Online and in-person payments are simple with Square. Get the WooCommerce extension for Square at no cost and instantly start accepting payments. You can easily track all your inventory and sales from online and offline in one place.
9. Steer searching shoppers in the right direction
The built-in search on your store is a powerful one indeed, but there’s a way to make it even more powerful — for free. InstantSearch+ is an extension that uses the power of stored suggestions to instantly complete your customers’ search queries.
10. Trigger coupon messages with hidden shortcodes
Coupons and discounts can definitely nudge more customers into buying, but at such an early stage, you might not want to publicize codes on an external site. That’s where Coupon Shortcodes can help.
With this extension, you can use criteria like the current value of items in a customer’s cart to trigger messages about what coupons are available (or will become available with additional actions). The messages can be customized to your liking, and you can add shortcodes for as many coupons as you wish.
Here’s some sample code:
[coupon_is_valid code="discount"]
You qualify for a discount!
Use the coupon code [coupon_code] to take advantage of this great discount : [coupon_discount]
[/coupon_is_valid]
If you’re up for suggesting a coupon or two based on the actions of your shoppers, this extension is exactly what you need to get started.