WooCommerce is a free plugin that turns a WordPress site into a full online store - products, a shopping cart, checkout, and payments. It's the most popular way to sell online with WordPress.
Also known as: WooCommerce store, WordPress shop
In plain English
WooCommerce is a plugin that adds e-commerce to WordPress: product catalogs, shopping carts, checkout, payment gateways, shipping, and order management. It powers a large share of all online stores.
Why it matters for your business
It makes WordPress a real store platform, but it's also the heaviest common plugin - stores need careful attention to speed, security, backups, and update testing because a broken checkout is lost revenue on every visit.
When you'll run into it
If you sell products or services online through WordPress. Maintenance concerns multiply: more plugins, payment data responsibility, and zero tolerance for checkout downtime.
Run into this on your site?
WordPress Care Plans