WP Engine eCommerce solutions evolved from “hosting” to “complete and fully managed WordPress platform”. More than 1+ million sites and agencies already depend on WP Engine today.
I am a huge advocate of using simple solutions such as Strikingly, Simvoly, Wix, Webflow, and at least another 23+ No Code website building tools.
For mid-sized to larger eCommerce stores, I always recommend Shopify. If you want to sell digital products or services, you should use Podia or Payhip.
But if you want to stick to WordPress, then using WP Engine eCommerce hosting is the way out.
But not everyone is comfortable with third-party solution providers when it comes to eCommerce. Some eCommerce brands want to rely on the familiarity and ease-of-use of WordPress.
The vast and ever-growing ecosystem of WordPress (along with the plugins, themes, and everything else WordPress comes with) makes it unbeatable, if you think about it.
If you want to depend on WordPress, you are better off using WP Engine’s eCommerce solutions. With Flywheel also now a part of the WP Engine family the deal is now too sweet to ignore.
Here’s why:
Fast & Dependable Hosting For WooCommerce
In most cases, WordPress hosting is just hosting. For SSL Certificates? You buy extra. Shared hosting almost has no headroom for you. CDN, prevention from threats or attacks, Caching, backups, restoring backups? Pay extra please.
Shared hosting quickly gets expensive. What you need is an all-inclusive, optimized solution for eCommerce hosting.
WP Engine eCommerce hosting gives you platform level protection from threats, built-in hacker protection, dedicated services (compute-organized), WordPress-optimized Caching, CDN, managed WordPress hosting with rolling PHP updates, and a slew of global data centers available for you to pick on.
WP Engine hosted websites see an average 37% improvement in site speed after migrating to WPEngine. I am not surprised given that WPengine hosting plans offer 99/99% uptime SLA, WP Engine Evercache for WooCommerce, advanced security and burst capacity.
Instant Store Search (Powered By ElasticPress)
When users search for products or content or both on eCommerce stores, it’s usually an experience that doesn’t play out well. You aren’t Google, that’s why?
Searches on eCommerce sites also lead to content-heavy views in WordPress (while the search result pages themselves leave a lot to be desired).
Brands like Boston, Metro Corp Publishing, PE Hub, TexasMonthly, and many others use ElasticPress (on top of WordPress as the base) to roll out powerful search solutions for managing content, displaying content (often leading to digging out from hundreds of metadata points per second).
ElasticPress is a leading solution for powering WordPress search. ElasticPress pricing starts at $79 per month all the way up to $699 per month for enterprise plans.
WP Engine users, however, get Instant Store search, which is powered by ElasticPress. Instant store search by WP Engine helps you showcase most valuable and relevant products.
Get an instant conversion boost by using features such as “Did you mean?”, autocomplete, and more.
eCommerce Blocks, Landing Pages, Templates
Tweaking your eCommerce store for optimized store experiences is hard as it is. You don’t want to keep paying developers or take your sweet time to launch.
With eCommerce Blocks from WPEngine, you can whip up custom landing pages and tweak shopping experiences with fully-customizable WordPress eCommerce themes, WooCommerce optimized Gutenberg blocks, and build custom blocks (integrated with WooCommerce).
Using the same access to design flexibility, make your entire eCommerce marketing strategy content-driven — including eCommerce blogging with a decent publishing velocity, content on sites, dedicated landing pages, and more.
eCommerce stores with a content-driven marketing strategy enjoy 6X higher conversion rates than eCommerce sites that don’t. Plus, add in eCommerce Checkout optimization, eCommerce pre-orders, mobile commerce checkout flow, customer retention strategies, and eCommerce subscriptions and your business rules like no other.
Reduced Security Risks
eCommerce stores need security like we need oxygen. That’s also the reason why platforms such as Shopify are popular and sought after.
With WordPress, the onus of security management is on you (the eCommerce merchant). WP Engine eCommerce hosting helps you manage risks a wee bit easier (still doesn’t preclude you from doing what you ought to do) while preventing at least 109 million+ attacks blocked each day.
Thanks to enterprise-grade security for WordPress, WP Engine uses SOC 2 Type II examination for security. The platform protects your eCommerce store from unauthenticated file system access along with other features such as Managed WAF, DDoS mitigation, federated identity solutions, and an encrypted global network routing.
WordPress Optimized for eCommerce Performance
WP Engine uses a dedicated WordPress-optimized technology stack for hosting normally. For WP Engine eCommerce, you get even more.
For instance, all WP Engine powered eCommerce stores get EverCache® for WooCommerce and Live Cart leading to a smooth and fantastic experience for your customers. EverCache® alone can boost eCommerce page load speeds by 90% or more (compared to default WooCommerce performance with pages and the shopping cart).
Plus, there’s the proprietary smart cache technology that detects and delivers pages (that can be cached) which results in 2X faster page speeds.
The live cart option helps you eliminate the lag that cart fragments cause while enabling dynamic cart totals, product count (quantity fields), and other dynamic elements that checkouts usually have.
Advanced Features & Workflows
eCommerce stores aren’t exactly like running full-fledged online publications. There’s a “store” element with WordPress eCommerce and that necessitates a complete list of advanced features and workflows that are a must.
WP Engine eCommerce hosting and solutions provides you with features that’ll make your job as an eCommerce merchant a lot less complicated.
For instance, WP Engine for eCommerce provides you with:
- Build (or Tweak) eCommerce stores with premium Woo Blocks or start quickly with the starter template. If you have skilled hands, you can also develop 100% custom eCommerce blocks and templates.
- If you have an existing store, you get free automated migrations (in minutes). The migration plugin alone has been downloaded 656k+ times
- Get access to one-click staging and development workflows (and spare your store from dreaded downtimes or disasters like whole eCommerce stores getting wiped out).
- If you use “Local” (Erstwhile feature from Flywheel), you also get free image compression and free broken link checking (without having to use two different plugins for these).
Do you use WP Engine eCommerce hosting solutions? Is WP Engine a better alternative to Shopify? Or are there other alternatives you’d rather go with?
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