WooCommerce: Our review

WooCommerce is an incredibly popular e-commerce platform that offers a wide range of features to help businesses sell their products online. What many people don’t realize is that WooCommerce is built off of WordPress, one of the most widely used content management systems in the world.

Because WooCommerce is built off of WordPress, it has many of the same features and functionality that WordPress has, but with a focus on e-commerce. This means that businesses can take advantage of all of the great features of WordPress, like easy content management, powerful SEO tools, and a vast array of plugins and themes, while also having access to all of the e-commerce features that they need to run a successful online store.

One of the great things about WooCommerce is that it is incredibly customisable. There are thousands of different plugins and themes available that can be used to customize the look and feel of your online store, as well as to add new functionality and features. This makes it easy to create a unique and compelling online shopping experience for your customers.

Some of the key features of WooCommerce include robust inventory management tools, support for a wide range of payment gateways, customisable shipping options, and powerful tax management tools. Additionally, WooCommerce offers a wide range of reporting and analytics tools that can help businesses track their sales, monitor inventory levels, and gain insights into customer behavior. And as an extension of WordPress access to their marketplace.

What Licence Does WooCommerce have?

The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses or copyleft that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general use and was originally written by Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), for the GNU Project. The license grants the recipients of a computer program the rights of the Free Software Definition. These GPL series are all copyleft licenses, which means that any derivative work must be distributed under the same or equivalent license terms.

~ Wikipedia

What does a GNU licence mean for business?

If you modify or reuse the source code WooCommeerce it is a derivative work. You then must distribute any such works under the same or equivalent terms.

Because changes are costly, many businesses find this licence type prohibitive. As it means that competitors are able to use your work free of charge. However, you may still create custom extensions with an arbitrary licence type, so most changes do not require any modifications to the original distribution.

Other businesses find the marketing benefits from being an active contribuitor as a positive that outweighs any negatives of helping competitors.

Conclusion

Overall, WooCommerce is a powerful and flexible e-commerce platform that offers a wide range of features and functionality available out-of-the-box. Whether you’re just starting with e-commerce or you’re looking to take your online store to the next level, WooCommerce is worth considering. And because it’s built off of WordPress, you can be sure that it’s a reliable and trustworthy platform that will help you achieve your online sales goals.