WooCommerce is one of the most popular options on the market for businesses that want to set up an eCommerce store quickly and easily. WooCommerce builds onto existing WordPress sites to create a fully functional online store where businesses can sell their products, without the need for extensive setup processes or coding.
However, one question some businesses may have is whether or not WooCommerce can be used to sell services as well as products. This is an essential function for eCommerce businesses that deal specifically with services or that offer a combination of services and products.
Can You Sell Services On WooCommerce?
The short answer is yes – you can use WooCommerce to sell services as well as products. In fact, many businesses already do exactly that, utilizing WooCommerce’s various helpful features to grow their service-based online businesses.
WooCommerce is designed primarily for businesses selling products, but it’s a highly flexible and customizable platform, making it easy to adapt its systems to sell services instead. Essentially, while the platform’s terminology is geared towards selling products, users can easily use product listings to promote and sell services.
How Do You Sell Services On WooCommerce?
Selling services with WooCommerce is relatively simple – in many ways, it’s a very similar process to selling products. In fact, the very first step (besides configuring WooCommerce in the first place) is to navigate to the Products tab and add a new product.
This will take you to a product setup page which will form the basis of your service listing. Set the name of your service in the “Product Name” field, then add both a main description and a brief description in the relevant text fields. You can also add an image for the service you are offering via Product Image.
In addition, make sure to fill out the Product Categories and Tags fields, as these will make the service easier to find when customers navigate through your WooCommerce site. Categories and Tags can also help you to manage and organize your services more easily.
Next, select the Virtual option in the Product Data section. This signals to WooCommerce that there’s no physical item being sold, meaning there’s no need for shipping considerations. You can also select a Variable Product if the service has multiple options for customers to choose from, such as service duration, type, etc.
These variations can be added as distinct options via the Attributes tab. You’ll need to create either a Global Attribute (which can be applied across multiple services) or a Custom Attribute (for specific products). Once you’ve created the attribute, apply it to the service you’re creating.
Next, you can price your service. If you left it as a Simple rather than a Variable Product, you can simply enter a price in the Regular Price box. For Variable Products, you’ll need to add variations and then add the attributes you created earlier. You’ll then be able to set a price for each variation using the Regular Price field.
Once you’ve sorted all of this, you’re ready to publish your first service on your WooCommerce store. This is the simplest, easiest, and most basic way of selling services when you’re just getting started with the WooCommerce plugin.
However, there are more advanced methods and additional features and plugins you can make use of to further customize the way you sell services on WooCommerce. If you’re struggling with setting up your WooCommerce store to sell services, or if you want help implementing new selling options, you can always get advice from our WooCommerce experts.
What Are The Benefits Of Using WooCommerce To Sell Services?
We’ve already mentioned some of the main benefits of using WooCommerce to sell services. It’s simple to set up on an existing WordPress site, and it’s flexible and customizable enough to give you all the options you need when setting up an eCommerce store for services.
Even if WooCommerce’s base features don’t offer you the functionality you need for your eCommerce store, there’s an extensive library of extensions and add-ons which offer many additional features. As such, it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll be able to find the function you need for your services store (and if you can’t find a ready-made plugin, you can always get a custom WooCommerce solution for your site).
As well as extensive plugin options, WooCommerce also offers a huge number of integrations. As such, if you already rely on specific tools for marketing, payments, accounting, or anything else, you’ll be able to integrate them with WooCommerce to bring together all your eCommerce operations within one space.
Another benefit of WooCommerce is that since it builds upon an existing WordPress site, you have access to a fully-functioning content management system alongside its eCommerce features. WordPress enables you to easily customize and manage your website’s content and create blog posts that can enhance SEO to get your services noticed by customers.
WooCommerce also comes with in-built features for up selling and cross-selling. The platform allows you to make suggestions for related services on each service listing and offer upgraded services at checkout, helping to convince customers to buy more from you at the click of a button.
Finally, one of the biggest benefits of using WooCommerce to sell services is that it’s completely free. While you’ll still have to factor in other costs (such as hosting, paid themes, and additional plugins or add-ons), using WooCommerce itself won’t cost you a penny, making it a highly cost-effective option for selling services.
Useful Plugins, Add-Ons & Extensions For Selling Services On WooCommerce
As well as WooCommerce’s in-built features, there are plenty of useful plugins, add-ons, and extensions that you can use to add further functionality to your eCommerce store. Certain add-ons are particularly useful for businesses selling services via WooCommerce; the following are some of the most useful options on the market.
However, if none of these offer the functionality you need, don’t worry – through WooCommerce customization services you can easily set up the tailored features and workflows to set up your online business.
WooCommerce Subscriptions
WooCommerce Subscriptions is a plugin provided by WooCommerce that enables you to create and manage services with recurring payments. This subscription model is ideal for selling services that are needed on an ongoing basis.
WooCommerce Subscriptions features multiple billing schedules to suit different subscription models. It also integrates with over 25 payment gateways for automatic recurring payments, automatic renewal notifications, and more. In other words, it provides you with all the tools you need to create a successful service subscription model.
This is extremely useful for businesses selling services on WooCommerce, since enabling a subscription model means it’s easier to capture recurring revenue and boost customer loyalty. The plugin also gives you extra flexibility in how to charge customers for ongoing services – rather than having them pay upfront, you can give them the option to split payments over the course of the service period.
The plugin is a premium product though, costing $199 per year, but it’s more than worth it for businesses that want to enable subscription models for the services they sell on WooCommerce.
WooCommerce Bookings
WooCommerce Bookings is another first-party plugin from WooCommerce with some essential features for businesses using the platform to sell services. As the name suggests, the plugin enables customers to create bookings and appointments for your services, making scheduling easier for both you and your clients.
The plugin gives you a range of options for managing bookings, such as setting fixed time-slots for particular services, blocking off days or times as un-bookable if your services aren’t available then, and advanced pricing options for different periods of time, group sizes, and other factors.
It also enables you to automatically require customer confirmation for services, offer free cancellation periods, and send automated reminders to reduce no-shows.
If your services rely on watertight scheduling, then WooCommerce Bookings is incredibly valuable as a means of making it easier to manage your schedule and give customers more control over their bookings. Like WooCommerce Subscriptions, this is a premium product sold at $249 per year, but it’s still a great option for businesses who need an easy way to manage bookings on their WooCommerce store.
Flexible Checkout Fields
WPDesk’s Flexible Checkout Fields plugin gives WooCommerce users a whole host of advanced tools for customizing the checkout for different services. As well as options for changing the order of fields with a drag-and-drop interface, plus label and placeholder editing, Flexible Checkout Fields provides tools such as:
- New custom checkout fields for text, drop down menus, checkboxes, and more
- The ability to show or hide default fields as necessary
- Easy management of required and optional fields to ensure you get the right information from your customers
- Advanced pricing tools for fixed and variable prices
All of these features are particularly useful for businesses selling services via WooCommerce, since services can often require more information and more complex checkout options than standalone products. By using Flexible Checkout Fields to customize your service checkout pages, you can fine-tune your eCommerce store to sell more intelligently.
The plugin comes in different price tiers, with a basic free option with more limited features and a Professional tier for $79 per year with more support options.
Gravity Forms
Another option for ensuring you collect the right information from customers when they purchase your services is to use Gravity Forms. This plugin adds an easy-to-use visual form editor which allows you to construct forms and embed them on your WordPress site.
What makes Gravity Forms so useful is its conditional logic capabilities, which allow you to set parameters for your forms to show or hide certain fields based on customer inputs in other fields. This means you can tailor your forms to capture exactly the information you need from clients without cluttering your forms with fields that may not always be necessary.
The plugin also includes a number of other handy features such as secure data collection and file upload options for customers to submit documents or photos.
Gravity Forms offers three different price tiers:
- Basic – $59 per year for a single site and standard support
- Pro – $159 per year for up to 3 sites and standard support
- Elite – $259 per year for unlimited sites and priority support.
Gravity Forms is highly useful for businesses selling services on WooCommerce, enabling them to collect relevant information from customers at checkout or on individual service pages while avoiding overly cluttered forms.
Conclusion
Selling services is just as easy as selling products on WooCommerce – partly because the basic process for setting up a service listing is more or less the same as setting up a product for sale.
What’s more, WooCommerce’s built-in features and the array of helpful add-ons and plugins that are available give businesses the flexibility to set up their eCommerce store to sell services exactly how they want.
Getting your WooCommerce store set up to sell services may take a bit of time and effort, but before long, you can easily create a successful eCommerce store. If you need extra support to get your store set up exactly how you want it, though, make sure to get in touch with our WooCommerce experts to configure and customize your WooCommerce site according to your exact specifications.
