If you want to start an online CBD store, you’ll need a platform for selling your product. WooCommerce, Shopify, and BigCommerce are some of the options available. These platforms are easy to use and allow you to easily customise and manage your store. You can even hire a developer to make your CBD online store look its best.
The combination of WordPress and WooCommerce is a popular solution for e-commerce, and CBD WordPress templates are increasing in number. However, WordPress does not have its own native eCommerce solution, so you will have to use the WooCommerce plugin to sell your products. WooCommerce is a powerful eCommerce platform, but it is not without its drawbacks. One of the drawbacks is limited customer support. Alternatively, you could use a SaaS solution such as Shopify or BigCommerce. These e-commerce platforms are a good fit for most business types because they offer almost all of the tools needed to run an online store.
WooCommerce is free to use, and its features include product bundles, tax management, shipping integration, secure payments, and more. It also has SEO benefits, and the ability to easily convert WordPress websites to e-commerce.
Shopify is a great choice for the CBD industry because of its flexibility and ease of use. It can be used by people of any technical level and offers a comprehensive set of features that will make building an online store a breeze. The platform includes numerous features, such as multilingual support, Shopify CBD payment processors, and configurable checkout processes. It is also easy to set up and can be customized. It has an easy drag-and-drop interface, user profiles with role-based permissions management, and import/export functionality for PST files. It is also easy to manage inventory and sales.
Shopify’s SaaS model is extremely flexible. It’s built to allow you to grow your business as you do. For example, you can add and increase the bandwidth of your server, which is important if you want to offer flash sales. It lets you integrate your online CBD store with various financial software packages. You can also use this platform to sync inventory and track customers.
If you’re planning to open an online store for your CBD products, you may want to look into using the BigCommerce e-commerce platform. This platform is extremely easy to use and provides everything needed to launch your e-commerce site. It is also very easy to customise, making it suitable for both beginners and experienced users. BigCommerce has various features, including a built-in Buy Button app that allows you to embed your store’s buy button on other sites. You can also embed individual products or entire catalogues. The e-commerce platform also supports more than 60 different payment gateways. In addition, BigCommerce supports the sale of CBD and hemp products. BigCommerce can handle both B2C and B2B businesses, and it’s an enterprise-level platform that supports all of the necessary features. It’s also free to use and has no transaction fees. In addition, BigCommerce has many social media integrations. On the other hand, Shopify offers various features and is a good choice for smaller businesses.
As more and more businesses enter the space, it can be challenging to find payment options that cater specifically to cannabinoid-based products. Fortunately, there are now several CBD-friendly payment gateways available for both online and brick-and-mortar shops. Most of these CBD-friendly gateways integrate with most major e-commerce platforms like WooCommerce + Shopify. These specialised providers offer secure card processing for CBD products, ensuring compliance with regulations, and avoiding any potential red flags with mainstream payment processors. So whether you’re a CBD start-up or an established retailer, there’s no need to miss out on sales. Simply switch to a CBD-friendly payment gateway and keep your business running smoothly. It’s just one more way to make the CBD industry more accessible. If you need more advice, you can read more about CBD Merchant Account & Payment Gateways here.
To summarise, if you have some degree of technical knowledge or will be hiring an agency with technical expertise, then WordPress + WooCommerce is the best choice for you. It will allow you to scale your business easily and you will have the upper hand when it comes to SEO.
If you need to build your online shop quickly and prefer to do everything yourself, and like everything from support to security taken care of without having to worry about hiring an agency, then Shopify will be the best choice for you. The ease-of-use and template designs are easy to customise. The only drawback is that you won’t have as much scalability and control over your website’s SEO.
Other considerations to keep in mind are Shopify also have very costly apps whereas you can find many free-to-install plugins from WordPress or reasonably priced plugins. Another bonus is, WordPress have over 55,000 plugins, so you have many choices of quality plugins to help with your website’s functionality.
Shopify also enforces its own transaction fee, unless you use Shopify Payments. WooCommerce doesn’t have transaction fees for third-party payment gateways, making WooCommerce the better choice if you are looking for value for money.
“After spending many years working with WordPress and WooCommerce, it remains my personal preference due to the flexibility it gives you. While it is not perfect, it’s packed with many benefits that allow most businesses to operate a smooth and efficient online shop. Of course, we would all love to build from scratch, but in the current times where you need to be able to adapt fast and respond to market trends, WooCommerce gives you everything I feel a CBD business needs, for the foreseeable future at least. SEO has always been quite easy to implement, and many clients have seen page-one results and tackled the majority of technical requirements that search engines like to see. Hosted in a good environment, and optimised well it really can help you build a successful online business.”
David – Founder
“From my experience, everything always comes back to WordPress & WooCommerce. WordPress runs most of the websites as we know them, and choosing WordPress means you’ll have countless guiding resources available to you allowing anyone to pick it up and learn. As for WooCommerce, it’s feature-rich, easy to set up and has one of the best collections of plugins for just about everything. In my opinion, WooCommerce is the best ecommerce platform for CBD businesses. It’s essentially an investment.”
Joe – Digital Marketing Specialist
“I’ve heard this question pop up a lot of times during my career, especially when the person I’m speaking to is thinking about setting up an online shop – Is Shopify or WordPress better? The answer is, it depends on your current situation and needs. More often than not, I would always recommend WordPress and WooCommerce because of the scalability and control it gives you, specifically with SEO. It grows with your business. It also gives developers more control and freedom to build a website that the client truly wants as it has very few limitations. However, if you want to do everything yourself and you don’t have the technical expertise, then Shopify would be the better (but not necessarily the cheaper) option.”
Reika – Operations Director & Digital Marketing Manager
If you have a CBD-related business and would like to learn more, head over to our e-Commerce page.
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