WooCommerce App for IOS and Android

May 21, 2019

For those unaware,  WooCommerce is an eCommerce platform for WordPress. It has become a popular solution for WordPress websites that require an online store for the following reasons:

1. it’s free
2. simple to setup
3. fully customizable

Recently the WordPress community learned that WooCommerce is now available on mobile for IOS and Android devices. Having used WooCommerce for many projects, I was excited to explore this new App and detail my experience is this blog.

Getting started

To get started you will need to download the Woo Mobile App and have access to a site with WooCommerce. If you require assistance setting up your site you can use this resource.

Configuration

This step is required to connect the mobile App to your store. After launching the App you will see a landing screen with a button allowing you to login with Jetpack. Jetpack is a tool for WordPress that offers a number of services including: design, marketing, and security. For our purposes we are only concerned with the security service. Jetpack can be added to your site by following the instructions here. You will need to access the admin dashboard of your site to ensure Jetpack is setup properly. Click the Jetpack tab to navigate to the settings page and follow the instructions to complete the setup. You should now be able to complete the App configuration by logging in with Jetpack.

Features

After completing the steps outlined in the previous sections of this blog, I was able to connect my online store with the Woo Mobile App and explore the various features this App has to offer.

As you may have predicted, the main advantage of the App is the convenience of being able to monitor store activities on the go.  The App collects lots of useful information, which can be accessed by toggling between the following main features: My store, Orders, and Notifications.

My Store

This feature is the primary benefit of the App, because it provides a comprehensive summary of the performance of your store. For example, the App provides a simple dashboard that displays trends across multiple performance metrics including: visitors, orders, and revenue. These trends can be analyzed over various periods of time ranging from days to years. In addition to trends, the App also provides lower level information such as the top performing products, broken down by day, week, month, and year.

Orders

This feature allows you to review the details of a given customer order. For instance, after clicking a random order from the order history page, I am presented with the following details: order status, the list of products and quantities, customer information, and payment. There are many situations where having immediate access to this information could be useful. However, given that most of this information is read-only, I’m a little disappointed since it would be equally beneficial to update the details of an order conveniently through the App if changes were required.

Notifications

Like the feature implies, you receive real-time alerts regarding store activity such as new orders and product reviews.

Conclusion

The Woo Mobile App is a convenient tool for managing store activity and measuring performance. This App is most beneficial to those that are constantly on the go who do not have access to a computer, but readily require up-to-date information of their store.

Overall I think this App serves as a great tool, but as I mentioned earlier, it is limited when it comes to updating order details, which is a significant downside. I’m optimistic that this issue will be corrected in later versions, but until then I still highly recommend the Woo Mobile App and encourage you to try it out for yourself.