Learning how to set up a WooCommerce store is relatively straightforward. We’ll cover how to do it in this WooCommerce tutorial. The plugin holds your hand through most of the process. Even so, if this is your first time dealing with payment processors, shipping settings, and the like, you’ll need some help.

Getting WooCommerce installed and configured correctly the first time will save you a lot of troubleshooting. The sooner you get all your store’s settings right, the faster you can promote your products and land sales.

In this WooCommerce tutorial, we’ll walk you through five steps to set up a barebones WooCommerce store. It’s part of a series that will show you everything WooCommerce has to offer, including how to publish products and more.

What Do You Need to Set Up a WooCommerce Store?
To build your eCommerce store, you’ll need three main things:

Domain name – The URL or name of your WooCommerce store. You’ll have to register your domain online.
Hosting – The server that will host your website (e.g., BlueHost).
WooCommerce plugin – It goes without saying, but it’s literally the WordPress plugin that adds eCommerce functionality to your site.
WooCommerce Tutorial: How to Set Up a WooCommerce Store
Here’s a high-level view of the process:

Install the WooCommerce plugin
Choose a payment gateway
Set up WooCommerce shipping zones
Install recommended extensions
Verify that core pages are working
Step 1: Install WooCommerce
Since you’re reading this WooCommerce tutorial, we’ll assume it might be your first time setting up an online store. In that case, we recommend starting with a clean WordPress installation, a default theme, and no other plugins. This will minimize the possibility of any compatibility issues with WooCommerce.

The first thing you’ll want to do is set up WooCommerce itself. To do this, go to your WordPress dashboard, navigate to the Plugins tab, and select Add New:

On the next screen, type WooCommerce into the search bar. Once the plugin appears, click the Install Now button:

When you’re ready, you can click the Activate button. Once the process is complete, WooCommerce will launch its setup wizard, which will help you configure the critical settings for your store.

First up are some basic questions about your store:

You’ll need to specify where you’re located, what currency you want the store to use, and what types of products you plan to sell:

After filling out each field, click the Let’s go! button.

Step 2: Choose Your Payment Gateway
The next step in our WooCommerce tutorial is to select the payment processor you want your store to use. Out of the box, WooCommerce supports Stripe, PayPal, and offline payments:

You probably don’t want to deal with offline payments, so let’s focus on the other two options. WooCommerce will set up plugins to integrate with whichever gateway you choose. You can use one, both, or neither. If you go with the last option, you can set up an alternative platform later.

Both Stripe and PayPal are solid choices, so you can’t go wrong with either. If you need some help deciding, we have a post dedicated to the best payment gateways for WooCommerce.

For now, select the options you want and move on to the next page. You’ll configure the rest of the payment settings later.

Step 3: Set Up Your Shipping Zones
With payment processing out of the way, it’s time to configure shipping settings for your store. WooCommerce will ask which ‘zones’ you want to ship products to and what rates you want to apply:

Shipping zones are simply geographical locations where you want to apply specific shipping rates. For example, you might offer one price for your state or province, another for your country, and a third for international sales.

How much to charge for shipping is entirely up to you and will depend on the areas you want to cover and the products you’re selling. If you’re not sure what to charge yet, we recommend checking your local post office’s rates. Plus, you can always change these numbers later.

International shipping can get complicated, so we also recommend starting local unless you’re already experienced in this area.

Finally, WooCommerce gives you the option to use its Shipping extension to print labels at home and save time. It can be a great efficiency booster, so it’s worth considering.

Once you’ve set up your shipping zones and rates, hit the Continue button.

Step 4: Add Recommended Extensions
WooCommerce is a fully-featured eCommerce solution on its own. However, you’ll almost always want to extend its functionality with add-ons.

WooCommerce immediately recommends several options that are useful for a broad range of online stores:

You’ll notice that WooCommerce suggests you install a specific theme. For now, it’s best to stick with the default. Then you can shop around for a WooCommerce theme that fits your brand. Until you decide on one, disable this option.

Other recommendations include the Automated Taxes and Mailchimp plugins. The Automated Taxes extension can save you some administrative work, so it’s smart to activate it.

Whether to use Mailchimp, however, will depend on which email marketing platform you want to use. If you haven’t picked one yet, disable this option.

When you’re ready, move on to the next screen. WooCommerce will automatically set up the plugins you selected in the background. Before you proceed to the final step, the wizard will ask if you want to connect your store to Jetpack if you enabled automated taxes.

For Jetpack to work, you’ll need a WordPress.com account. WooCommerce will prompt you to connect to WordPress.com and create an account if necessary.

Step 5: Check That Everything Is Configured Correctly
At this point in the WooCommerce tutorial, you’ve reached the end of the setup wizard. Now you can move on to publishing your first products. However, before you do, it’s wise to check that everything is working correctly.

Every online store needs several pages, and WooCommerce automatically generates a few of them for you. To check them, visit your site and look for your Shop, Cart, and Checkout pages:

Since this is a barebones WooCommerce installation for now, there’s still a lot of work to do before you can sell your first products. However, the foundation is there.

If you want to make further changes to your WooCommerce settings, you can do so from the WooCommerce > Settings screen. Here, you’ll find options to tweak taxes, shipping, payments, and email settings:

Make sure to jump to Payments and click the Set up button next to the gateway you selected earlier. From here, you can finish the configuration. For example, if you want to set up PayPal, you’ll need to enter your email and API tokens:

Check out these guides to learn how to configure each payment processor that WooCommerce supports out of the box. Once you’re done, your store will be ready to process sales.

WooCommerce Tutorial Summary
There are a lot of steps involved in setting up an online store. The advantage of using WooCommerce (and WordPress by extension) is that they make the process much simpler. With this popular plugin, you get access to a setup wizard that walks you through everything until you’re ready to publish your first products.