In this article, we discuss ManageMore’s integration with WordPress WooCommerce and its capability to handle nearly any company inventory size and ordering volume with super fast performance with the right know-how. This article is mostly meant for advanced users to provide the best practices used on larger traffic ecommerce sites. Small ecommerce sites are unlikely to experience any noticeable slow downs, but the information in this article can prepare you for things you need to consider when your WooCommerce does begin to slow down.
Debunking the Myths
For users with heavy traffic ecommerce sites, it is not uncommon to see an ecommerce site suddenly begin to slowdown and take considerable time between page loads. When this occurs, the first reaction by some IT individuals and business owners is whether or not WooCommerce is capable of handling their growing ecommerce site. We often get inquiries regarding WooCommerce and its ability to handle large inventories and scale effectively to handle large volumes of orders. We were surprised to find out that we are not the only software provider that deals with this line of questioning on the most popular and proven ecommerce platform in the world. Not surprising to us, this circulated myth that WooCommerce only works for small operations is unfounded. The reality is that there is no such thing as an ecommerce site you simply install and deploy without continuous performance monitoring to ensure the site stays healthy and fast as more visitors start to use the site. Think about it… this is not much different than how a restaurant owner deals with growth. As the volume of restaurant foot traffic increases, an owner knows he or she must be prepared to add more dining tables, find better ways to prepare and cook food quicker, or find a larger location and hire more staff to handle the amount of business coming in. Your ecommerce site will evolve and it must be monitored and scaled accordingly.
So how large can a WooCommerce site truly become? According to WordPress, there are documented ecommerce stores that have more than 100,000 products that are processing thousands of transactions a minute without any problems. Those who want to build a complex store with expected high traffic volume simply have to know what to do as the ecommerce site begins to take on hundreds or thousands of visitors daily.
Get the Right Pieces in Place
For small ecommerce operations with limited inventory and low expected visitor volume, there probably isn’t much that will be needed to maintain an online shopping cart. However, if the sky is the limit and you expect your ecommerce site to be an integral part of your daily sales, then getting the right pieces in place ahead of time is important. This starts with determining who will be responsible for managing and maintaining your shopping cart.
As you are aware, ManageMore takes care of all the database aspects of keeping your ecommerce site in sync with your backend inventory and customers. But who is monitoring the ecommerce site itself? Business owners often do not understand the technical nature of computers and the internet and are not educated on this subject. Mistakes are often made because of misinformation and lack of understanding.
For example, we all know that a home decorator can make your home look spacious and beautiful, but nobody in their right mind would call a decorator to fix home A/C or plumbing problems. The same holds true for those you hire to help you in your ecommerce venture. You should not expect your self-proclaimed computer guy to be an expert programmer, expert web developer, expert database administrator, expert data security analyst, expert networking consultant, or a systems engineer. Just like the upkeep of a home, it often takes a team of people (like an electrician, plumber, A/C specialist, carpenter, etc.) with different skill sets to get all your issues taken care of.
Where do you start then?
The first thing you will need to get an ecommerce site up and running should be hiring an individual or company who has experience building an ecommerce site… more importantly someone who has accomplished the setup and install of a WooCommerce site and knows all about the different factors that affect server performance. You can research and choose from hundreds of freelancers or choose established companies that have a team of ecommerce specialists to help you from installation to graphic design to choosing the right WooCommerce theme for your needs.
Some of our clients have had success at finding proven proven freelancers using service sites such as fiverr.com or freelancer.com or upwork.com . A better option (but slightly more expensive one) is to choose a company with a team of experts to help you get up and running. WordPress, the CMS company behind WooCommerce, offers a WooExpert MarketPlace that is composed of trusted agencies who can help you make magic through WooCommerce.
Choosing the Right Hosting Provider
The next and most important decision is choosing the right hosting provider for your ecommerce site needs. An ecommerce site has many moving parts and many things that can go wrong. Choosing the right hosting provider and the right hosting plan for your needs is critical. Imagine this… You launch a killer marketing campaign, and your WooCommerce store gets flooded with orders. Suddenly, your website slows to a crawl or, worse, crashes entirely. This is where scalability comes into play. The right hosting solution should be able to handle traffic spikes without sacrificing performance.
We will not get into specifics here, but if you would like to know more detail on factors that make a great hosting provider, click here.
In summary, there are two types of ecommerce hosting plans with a mix of different hardware configurations that are typically offered by hosting providers. A WooCommerce hosting plan comes in either a managed or unmanaged plan.
We strongly recommend our clients to sign up with hosting providers that specifically offer WooCommerce managed plans with built-in performance monitoring, auto-scaling capabilities, and at least 8 PHP workers to ensure the up and down swings in ecommerce traffic are managed properly.
Here are our top picks for a managed hosting provider in 2024.
Nexcess
Nexcess has a consistent track record for high performance and has all the scalability features one should expect. Nexcess also offers an excellent managed hosting support team that can be reached via phone, email, or chat.
SiteGround
This hosting providers strikes an excellent balanced choice for performance and scalability.
Pressable
This hosting provider continues to score well as a top performer and offers excellent scalability options compared to most.
Optimizing Your Site
WooCommerce is recognized as the innovator of what is now referred to as a web-based Content Management System (CMS). However, WooCommerce and all the plugins you choose to customize your shopping cart can have an impact on performance. There are dozens of factors that can cause an ecommerce site to underperform and a specialist is often needed to tweak your site properly.
If you have not already done so, please read one of our site articles entitled “PHP Workers: Slow Site? This May be the Reason.“
This is a good starting point of where to look for performance robbing factors on your ecommerce site.
PWA Technology… A Game Changer in Performance
So, you checked off all the performance related boxes and selected a fast hosting provider, a super quick woocommerce theme, efficient woo plug-ins, etc. and your site is still not up to the performance speed you and your customers would like to see. Then it may be time to consider PWA technology to kick things into high gear. While WordPress (the backbone of WooCommerce) has evolved dramatically since its inception and has placed it at the forefront of web content management systems, we must recognize that it does have some limitations due to its one-size fits all concept. WooCommerce provides so many custom capabilities, that sometimes this flexibility can create a less than smooth user experience. It is possible that you may have hit a roadblock on performance versus necessary features for your shopping cart site.
Fear not, because there are newer technologies that can transform your web-based WooCommerce shopping cart into a super-fast device-based shopping cart platform using PWA’s. In fact, many of our clients already ask us if there is a way for their shopping cart system to become a mobile app that can be installed on a smartphone. The short answer is “YES” and its called a PWA.
A PWA framework is a tool used to build Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), which are web apps that combine the best features of websites and mobile apps. This newer technology builds on the web design concepts of ecommerce sites (like WooCommerce) and transforms it into an app that can be installed on any device as a standalone application. PWAs are extremely fast when compared to a browser-based web site only. Most of the assets are cached, and service workers help load them quickly. Even if your site visitors don’t have the fastest and most reliable network provider, their WordPress-fueled PWA will load instantly. Progressive Web Applications (PWAs) are already supported by browsers like Google Chrome, Opera, Microsoft Edge, Safari, and Firefox. A PWA will transform your WooCommerce site into an app that can be obtained from a Google Play Store, Apple Store, or even downloaded from your site as an installable APK.
Some of the well-known PWA frameworks are React, Angular, and Vue. js. These frameworks are popular because they have a wide range of tools and libraries for building complex applications that have features, such as component-based architecture, efficient state management, and excellent developer experience.
But there is a catch with the use of PWAs…
- A PWA framework introduces another layer of code complexity that will have you relying more heavily on a computer consulting firm or IT expert with development skills on WooCommerce as well as PWA’s. FYI… the dev favorite for PWA development is the REACT framework.
- Compatibility issues and some changes to your Woocommerce site will be necessary to make a PWA work effectively. Again, this requires someone who is proficient with WooCommerce and the PWA framework libraries.
We encourage anyone who is just starting to build their WooCommerce site from scratch to consider a PWA framework (like ReactPWA) right from the beginning, to avoid any design/code conflicts between WooCommerce and the PWA framework. For example, imagine building a house that you may consider adding a second floor to at a later time. Knowing this ahead of time, an experienced construction worker would add more support beams and stronger materials to avoid future structural problems when the new addition is added. The same goes for considering a PWA framework to wrap around a WooCommerce site. If you plan on ecommerce orders being a critical part of your customer interaction, then talk your web developers from the beginning about implementing a PWA for your ecommerce site. Alternatively, hire a separate consulting company that has experience in PWA’s with WooCommerce to do this conversion work for you.
Here are some great articles on the subject of PWA’s by their appropriate authors:
Building and optimizing Progressive Web Apps (PWA) with WordPress by Kinsta
React-Powered PWAs: Elevating WordPress Capabilities by CronJ Expertise
Progress Web App for WooCommerce by WebKul
DISCLAIMER: Intellisoft does NOT provide technical support for the implementation of PWA’s with WooCommerce.
