WooCommerce is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms available today. It’s used by over 29% of all online stores and powers everything from small mom-and-pop shops to multi-million dollar brands.
The platform has its pros and cons, but overall it makes for an excellent starting point for your e-commerce website if you’re just getting started or have no expertise in web development at all.
The problems with WooCommerce and Theme Development
The main issue with WooCommerce Theme Development is that the platform is not a framework, but it’s treated as one by many people.
It’s also not to blame for its own limitations, which can sometimes be frustrating for developers and users alike. The problem is that WooCommerce isn’t really either of these things; it sits somewhere between them, being a plugin for WordPress rather than an application built on top of WordPress itself.
This means that any issues in your themes related to third-party plugins will often be beyond your control as you’re unable to change those plugins’ code directly or remove them from your site without affecting other functionality at the same time.
Why is theme development so difficult?
First and foremost, you must understand that WooCommerce is not a framework. It is built on the popular WordPress CMS, which means that when you use it for theme development and other things like plugin development or core changes, you are working with a tool that does not provide much structure or guidance for how to do so.
WordPress itself is not a platform either; it’s simply an open source content management system (CMS). While this may sound like splitting hairs at first glance, there is actually quite a difference between these two terms.
A CMS provides prebuilt functionality that allows users and/or developers to easily create new pages, blog posts or other content types; add custom fields; manage user accounts; integrate payment gateways into their websites; and more — all without having to code anything from scratch or reinventing the wheel every time they need something new added onto their site design!
How to work around the limitations of WooCommerce (the right way)
There are a few ways you can overcome the limitations of WooCommerce.
- Use the right WooCommerce theme framework to build your site
- Use a WooCommerce plugin to solve specific issues
- Use a WooCommerce theme framework and plugin(s) together
The right way to handle things
The RIGHT way to handle things is to use a theme framework. Theme frameworks are designed for WooCommerce and WordPress, so they have all the necessary features built in. Some examples of popular theme frameworks are Genesis, Thesis, and Avada.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that it’s possible to handle many of the problems associated with WooCommerce with a little work and some patience. You can make your theme development process easier by using best practices, working within the limitations of WooCommerce and its themes, and learning how to work around them.
