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WordPress is the most widely used content platform in the world, and WooCommerce is the reason it also powers millions of online shops. A free core and an ecosystem of thousands of plugins make it capable of anything, from selling T-shirts to running a subscription platform with thousands of products. In this article, the CreateWeb team explains exactly what WooCommerce is, how it is structured, what it can and cannot do without extra plugins, and the minimum add-on stack needed for a working online shop in Bulgaria, including Stripe, myPOS and integration with Econt and Speedy.
This article complements our central guide to building a website for online sales and our series on WordPress plugins. We also introduce the WooCommerce Foundation Stack, a 5-level framework from the platform foundation to marketing.
What is WooCommerce – definition and how it works
WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin that is installed on top of WordPress and turns it from a content management system into a fully functional e-commerce platform. It is developed by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, and was first released in 2011 under the name WooThemes. It has been owned by Automattic since 2015, which guarantees long-term support and development.
At a technical level, WooCommerce adds several key things to WordPress: new content types (products, orders, coupons), new database tables for storing product information, orders and customer data, an admin panel for running the shop (orders, inventory, shipping, taxes) and front-end pages (shop, product page, basket, checkout, account). When a user adds a product to the basket and clicks “Place order”, WooCommerce processes the data, connects to the payment gateway, records the order in the database and sends an email confirmation. The whole process happens within WordPress, with no need for an external platform.
The difference from hosted solutions like Shopify is fundamental: with WooCommerce you own the code, the database and the files. You can migrate hosting, change any behaviour through code or a plugin, and there is no monthly subscription for the platform itself. We have made a detailed comparison of the two approaches in our article WordPress vs Shopify.
WooCommerce Foundation Stack: a framework for building a shop
One of the most common mistakes when building a WooCommerce shop is jumping straight to design and products without laying the right technical and functional foundation. The result: a shop that looks good but is slow, insecure or loses half its customers because of a missing payment method. This framework, which we call the WooCommerce Foundation Stack, organises the build into 5 levels, each built on top of the previous one.
| Level | What it covers | Why it is critical |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 – Platform Foundation | WooCommerce core, PHP 8+, MySQL 8+, HTTPS, Redis hosting | The foundation without which nothing runs reliably |
| Level 2 – Payment & Shipping | Stripe/myPOS/BORICA, Econt/Speedy, Bulgarisation | No payment and delivery, no sale |
| Level 3 – Core Plugins | SEO, security, backup, speed | Protects the investment and keeps it visible |
| Level 4 – Conversion Optimization | Block checkout, cart recovery, Product schema | Turns traffic into orders |
| Level 5 – Growth & Marketing | Email marketing, analytics, segmentation | Growth after the first sales |
The principle of the stack: each level builds on the previous one. Level 1 (Platform Foundation) without proper hosting makes everything else unstable. Level 2 (Payment & Shipping) without both methods (card + cash on delivery) loses 60-70 % of Bulgarian customers. Level 4 (Conversion) without Level 3 (protection and speed) is like a beautiful shop window on a broken shop.
Applying the framework: build from the bottom up. First hosting and the WooCommerce core, then payments and shipping, then the protection plugins, conversion optimisation and finally the marketing tools for growth. Skipping a level almost always comes back later as an expensive problem.
WooCommerce in numbers – why it is the global leader
The statistics for 2026 speak clearly. WooCommerce holds around 37 % of the global e-commerce market by number of shops, followed by Shopify with around 20 %. More than 4 million active shops run on WooCommerce. The platform processes approximately 30-35 billion dollars in annual gross merchandise volume (GMV). In the official WordPress repository, the WooCommerce plugin has over 7 million active installations (WordPress.org). The total number of WooCommerce extensions exceeds 6,000, both free and premium.
These figures do not mean WooCommerce is perfect for every case. For a shop with 5 products and a need for maximum simplicity, Shopify may be the more sensible choice. For a shop with 500+ products, specific pricing logic, multilingual needs or B2B functionality, WooCommerce offers flexibility that hosted platforms cannot provide. You will find more on choosing a platform in our article WordPress vs Shopify.
What WooCommerce can do “out of the box” – without extra plugins
The free WooCommerce core covers more than most people expect. Product management includes simple products, variable products (with sizes, colours), grouped products and virtual/digital products. Each product has an SKU, price, sale price, image gallery, categories and tags. Order management provides the full cycle (new, processing, completed, cancelled) with notes, manual actions and email notifications. Coupon management allows percentage and fixed discounts with rules for minimum spend and restrictions. Basic shipping settings allow zones, flat rates and free shipping above a set amount. Tax configuration supports different rates by country and product class. Customer accounts include registration, order history and address management. The REST API provides access to products, orders and customers from external applications. Reports on sales, orders and products show basic analytics.
What is missing out of the box: a payment gateway beyond bank transfer and cash on delivery, advanced shipping (weight-based calculation, courier integration), SEO optimisation, security, backup, caching, email marketing, abandoned cart recovery and Bulgaria-specific functionality (invoices under Ordinance N-18, integration with Econt and Speedy). These are exactly the gaps that plugins fill.
Level 1 – Platform Foundation: system requirements
WooCommerce is more demanding than an ordinary WordPress blog. The minimum recommended requirements are: PHP 8.0 or newer (8.2+ recommended), MySQL 8.0 or MariaDB 10.6+, WordPress 6.4+, an HTTPS certificate (mandatory for accepting payments), a PHP memory limit of at least 256 MB (512 MB for a shop with more than 500 products) and hosting optimised for WordPress: a LiteSpeed or Nginx server with Redis/Memcached for object caching.
Cheap shared hosting that works for a blog with 1000 visits a month will not cope with a WooCommerce shop with 100 concurrent users. Investing in quality hosting is the first step before installing anything. You will find more on the topic in our article on quality web hosting.
Level 2 – Payment: payment gateways for Bulgaria
The payment gateway is the plugin that directly generates revenue. The wrong choice means lost sales, high fees or a lack of customer trust. For the Bulgarian market, the three main solutions are Stripe, myPOS and BORICA.
Stripe is the global leader in online payments, available to Bulgarian companies since 2023. The WooCommerce plugin “Stripe Payment Gateway for WooCommerce” (free) installs in a few clicks and connects the shop to a Stripe account. The fee for European cards is 1.5 % + 0.25 € per transaction, and for international cards 3.25 % + 0.25 €. There is no monthly fee and no setup fee. An additional 2 % is charged for currency conversion. From 1 January 2026, Stripe charges Bulgarian merchants in euros because of the upcoming transition to the eurozone.
Stripe’s strengths for WooCommerce are: support for Apple Pay, Google Pay and Link (Stripe’s one-click checkout) with no extra configuration; built-in 3D Secure 2 for SCA compliance; Stripe Radar for automatic fraud protection, included in the price; subscription support (Stripe Billing) for recurring products; a marketplace model (Stripe Connect) for multi-vendor platforms; a dashboard with detailed analytics on payments, disputes and refunds. The weaknesses: support is in English only; initial payouts to a Bulgarian bank account take up to 7 working days (2 days once established); it is not a familiar brand to Bulgarian consumers, although the checkout form inspires trust.
myPOS is a Bulgarian fintech company offering a full range of payment solutions, from online payments to physical POS terminals. The myPOS Checkout plugin for WooCommerce is free and integrates in a few steps from your myPOS account. The fee for domestic consumer cards starts at 1.10 % (one of the lowest in Bulgaria), 2.90 % for all other consumer and commercial cards, and 2.50 % for American Express. There is no monthly fee for an online shop.
myPOS strengths: instant receipt of funds in a myPOS account with a free business Mastercard for withdrawals; support in Bulgarian; your own IBAN; online and POS payments combined in one system (if you also have a physical store). Weaknesses: more limited features compared with Stripe, with no built-in support for subscriptions or a marketplace model; sparser API documentation; no equivalent of Stripe Radar for fraud detection.
BORICA is the national payment operator. The BORICA Payments plugin for WooCommerce is developed by BORICA AD and allows payments to be accepted via a virtual POS terminal provided by your bank. Fees are set individually by the bank, usually between 1.5 % and 2.5 % + a fixed fee. BORICA is the most familiar solution for Bulgarian consumers, and the BORICA logo on the checkout page inspires trust. The downsides are a more complex integration (it requires a contract with a bank and technical setup), the lack of modern features such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, and a more dated interface.
Payment gateway comparison
| Feature | Stripe | myPOS | BORICA |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domestic card fee | 1.5 % + 0.25 € | from 1.10 % | 1.5-2.5 % (bank) |
| International fee | 3.25 % + 0.25 € | 2.90 % | individual |
| Monthly fee | None | None | depends on the bank |
| Apple Pay / Google Pay | Yes | Yes | No |
| Subscriptions | Yes (Stripe Billing) | No (without an extra plugin) | No |
| Fraud protection | Stripe Radar (incl.) | basic | 3D Secure |
| Receipt of funds | 2-7 working days | instant (myPOS account) | bank schedule |
| Support in Bulgarian | No | Yes | Yes |
| WooCommerce plugin | free | free | free |
| Ideal for | international sales, subscriptions | local focus, fast access | maximum trust from Bulgarian customers |
For most new WooCommerce shops in Bulgaria, we recommend Stripe as the main gateway: it covers the widest range of features, has free fraud protection and supports Apple Pay and Google Pay, which increase conversion on mobile devices. We add myPOS as a second option for clients who want instant access to funds or already use myPOS terminals in their physical store.
Cash on delivery – the reality in Bulgaria
Despite growing trust in online payments, cash on delivery still accounts for 60-70 % of orders in Bulgarian online shops. A shop without cash on delivery effectively loses more than half of its potential customers. Integration with Econt and Speedy for cash on delivery is standard, and we include it in every e-commerce project.
The Bulgarisation for WooCommerce plugin (free, open source, available in the official WordPress repository) adds shipping methods with Econt, Speedy and CVC, courier office selection at checkout, waybill generation and compatibility with the simplified regime under Ordinance N-18. The separate “Speedy and Econt Shipping” plugin offers an alternative interface for selecting offices by region and city.
At the same time, we recommend encouraging online payment: a 2-3 % discount for card payment gradually reduces the share of cash on delivery. The reason is practical: cash on delivery has a significantly higher rate of uncollected and refused parcels, which generates return shipping costs.
Shipping – plugins for Econt, Speedy and international shipping
For the Bulgarian market, the two main couriers are Econt and Speedy. Both offer WooCommerce integration: Econt through its official module, Speedy through its API documentation for online shops. Bulgarisation for WooCommerce combines both in a single plugin with additional invoicing functionality.
For shops with international sales, add WooCommerce Shipping (free, from Woo) for USPS, DHL Express, or Table Rate Shipping for manual rates by weight and destination. Shippo and Easyship are alternatives with multi-courier support.
Correct shipping setup is critical for conversion. Hidden shipping costs at the final checkout step are the No. 1 reason for abandoned baskets: 48 % of consumers abandon an order because of unexpected extra costs. Show calculated shipping as early in the process as possible.
Level 3 – Core Plugins: SEO, security, backup, speed
SEO for WooCommerce
WooCommerce generates dozens (or hundreds) of product pages, categories, tags and filter URLs. Without proper SEO configuration, these pages cannibalise each other, create duplicate content and eat into your crawl budget. An SEO plugin configured specifically for WooCommerce solves these problems.
Rank Math (our recommendation, covered in detail in SEO plugins for WordPress) has a built-in WooCommerce module that automatically adds Product schema (with price, availability, rating), optimises titles and meta descriptions for products and categories, manages noindex for tags and filter pages, generates a WooCommerce XML sitemap with the right priorities and adds breadcrumbs. Without this module, your product pages have no structured data, don’t show price and availability in Google and compete with each other. You can read more about the link between SEO and web design in our separate article, and about the technical SEO structure that prevents duplicate content in a dedicated guide.
Security for WooCommerce
An online shop processes personal data (names, addresses, emails) and, with an integrated checkout, card data too (although this is processed by Stripe/myPOS, not by your server). A security breach is not just an inconvenience: it means lost customer trust, a potential GDPR penalty and being blocked by Google. You will find a detailed protection guide in our article on security plugins; here we highlight the WooCommerce specifics.
A WooCommerce shop requires everything an ordinary WordPress site needs (firewall, 2FA, brute-force protection), plus: an SSL certificate is absolutely mandatory, as without HTTPS payments don’t work and Google flags the site as insecure; PCI DSS compliance, where Stripe and myPOS handle PCI compliance at payment form level (tokenisation), but your server must be free of malware; restricted access to the admin panel, never giving the “administrator” role to an operator who only processes orders; file monitoring, with Wordfence or MalCare detecting changes to WooCommerce files that may indicate a backdoor.
Backup for WooCommerce
For an ordinary blog, data loss is unpleasant. For a WooCommerce shop, losing a database of orders, customer accounts and product information is direct financial damage. The minimum configuration we set up is: a daily database backup, a weekly full backup (files + DB), storage in at least two locations (server + cloud: Google Drive, Amazon S3 or Dropbox) and a restore test at least once a quarter. UpdraftPlus is our standard choice, covered in detail in backup plugins for WordPress.
Speed and caching
A WooCommerce shop is heavier than an ordinary site: more database queries, more images (product galleries), dynamic content (basket, prices, stock). Caching is mandatory, but with important exceptions: the cart, checkout and my-account pages are never cached because they contain personalised information. Object cache (Redis or Memcached) is critical for WooCommerce: product database queries are heavy, and Redis serves them from memory. LiteSpeed Cache on a LiteSpeed server is the optimal choice: a free, server-level cache with built-in WooCommerce exclusions. We have covered the options in detail in speed plugins.
Product image optimisation is critical, as a typical WooCommerce shop has hundreds to thousands of images. WebP/AVIF conversion, lazy load and correct dimensions reduce page weight by 40-80 % and improve Core Web Vitals.
Level 4 – Conversion: email marketing and abandoned cart recovery
The average cart abandonment rate in WooCommerce is around 70 %. This means 7 out of 10 users who add a product to the basket don’t complete the order. Abandoned cart emails achieve a 50.5 % open rate and a conversion rate of between 10 and 30 %: these are sales that had already been lost.
For this purpose you use an abandoned cart recovery plugin: FunnelKit (CartFlows), AutomateWoo or the free WooCommerce Cart Abandonment Recovery from CartFlows. The plugin records the user’s email when it is entered in the checkout field and sends an automated series of emails: the first after 1 hour (a reminder), the second after 24 hours (with the products in the basket) and the third after 72 hours (with a 5-10 % discount).
For email marketing beyond cart recovery, use MailPoet (built into WordPress, free for up to 1,000 subscribers) or Klaviyo (more powerful, with deep WooCommerce integration, automated purchase series, browse abandonment and win-back campaigns). We cover a complete approach to conversion optimisation in a separate guide.
Bulgarisation – invoices, Ordinance N-18 and a Bulgarian interface
A shop for the Bulgarian market cannot operate fully without: invoicing compliant with Bulgarian legislation; the simplified regime under Ordinance N-18 (for online shops accepting card payments); a Bulgarian translation of the checkout, emails and account pages; integration with Econt and Speedy (already mentioned above).
Bulgarisation for WooCommerce is the main plugin covering most of these needs: it generates invoices, supports the simplified regime and integrates the courier companies. WooCommerce itself has an official Bulgarian translation, but quality assurance matters, as some strings are translated inaccurately and are corrected manually.
CreateWeb’s full WooCommerce stack for a Bulgarian shop
When building an e-commerce site for a Bulgarian client, we install the following plugin stack, each of which has passed the 7 evaluation criteria from our central article on WordPress plugins:
| Category | Plugin | Price | Function |
|---|---|---|---|
| E-commerce core | WooCommerce | Free | Products, orders, coupons, shipping |
| Payment gateway | Stripe for WooCommerce | Free (1.5%+0.25€) | Cards, Apple/Google Pay, 3DS2, fraud |
| Payment gateway (option) | myPOS Checkout | Free (from 1.10%) | Domestic cards, instant access |
| Bulgarisation | Bulgarisation for WooCommerce | Free | Econt, Speedy, invoices, Ordinance N-18 |
| SEO | Rank Math | Free / Pro $59 | Product schema, sitemaps, breadcrumbs |
| Security | Wordfence | Free / Premium $149 | Firewall, malware scan, 2FA |
| Backup | UpdraftPlus | Free / Premium $70 | DB backup, weekly full, cloud |
| Caching | LiteSpeed Cache | Free | Server-level cache, image opt, object cache |
| Contact form | WPForms Lite | Free | Feedback, enquiries |
| Cart recovery | FunnelKit / CartFlows | Free / Pro | Abandoned cart emails |
| Email marketing | MailPoet | Free up to 1,000 | Post-purchase emails, newsletter |
In total: 11-12 plugins. The stack is minimal but complete, covering payments, shipping, SEO, security, backup, speed, marketing and Bulgarian specifics. For larger shops, we add WooCommerce Subscriptions (for subscriptions), WPML (for multilingual sites) or WooCommerce Product Bundles (for bundle offers).
WooCommerce and speed – why hosting is the foundation
A WooCommerce shop with 1,000 products and 100 concurrent users generates a significant load. Shared hosting at $3/month will not cope: pages will take 5-8 seconds to load, and 53 % of mobile users will leave before seeing a product. The minimum investment is managed WordPress hosting with a LiteSpeed server, Redis for object cache and a CDN.
Speed is not just a convenience, it is directly linked to revenue. Improving LCP by 1 second increases conversions by up to 27 %. For a shop with monthly revenue of 10,000 BGN, that is an extra 2,700 BGN every month.
The mistakes we see most often in WooCommerce shops
The first mistake is installing a heavy multipurpose page builder (Elementor Pro + WooCommerce Builder + dozens of add-ons) to create product pages. The result is a DOM with 3,000+ elements, 2 MB of HTML and a 6-second load time. Native WooCommerce templates with the lightweight block editor are faster and easier to maintain.
The second mistake is missing Product schema. Without structured data, products don’t appear in Google with price, availability and rating, and it is exactly these rich results that generate up to 30 % more clicks.
The third mistake is a single payment method. A shop offering only cash on delivery loses customers who prefer to pay by card. A shop offering only card payment loses 60-70 % of potential customers in Bulgaria.
The fourth mistake is a checkout with 5 steps and 20 fields. Every additional field reduces conversion. Since version 8.3, WooCommerce supports a native block-based checkout that is faster and simpler than the classic shortcode checkout.
The fifth mistake is having no abandoned cart recovery. 70 % of baskets abandoned and not a single recovery email: that is money left on the table.
WooCommerce trends for 2026
HPOS (High-Performance Order Storage): WooCommerce is migrating order storage from the WordPress wp_posts table to dedicated custom tables. This significantly improves performance for shops with thousands of orders. As of 2026, HPOS is the default option for new installations.
Block-based checkout and Cart: native Gutenberg blocks are replacing the classic shortcode checkout, offering faster rendering and more flexible customisation without a page builder.
AI-powered product recommendations and dynamic pricing are arriving through plugins such as WooCommerce Product Recommendations and integrations with Clerk.io or Recombee.
Stripe already processes more than 1 trillion dollars in annual volume globally and keeps adding new payment methods, such as BLIK, Bancontact and iDEAL, which expands the options for international sales directly from WooCommerce.
Frequently asked questions
What is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is a free, open-source WordPress plugin that turns any site into a fully functional online shop. It lets you add products, manage orders, accept payments and calculate shipping. WooCommerce powers around 37 % of all online shops in the world.
Is WooCommerce free?
The core is free and includes product, order and coupon management plus basic shipping and tax settings. Additional costs come from hosting (from 5-30 €/month), a domain (10-15 €/year), the payment gateway (a percentage per transaction) and possibly premium plugins and themes. You can read more about the cost of a WordPress website in a separate article.
Does Stripe work in Bulgaria?
Yes. Stripe has been available to Bulgarian companies since 2023. The fee for European cards is 1.5 % + 0.25 €, and for international cards 3.25 % + 0.25 €. There is no monthly fee. From 1 January 2026, Stripe charges Bulgarian merchants in euros.
What is the difference between Stripe and myPOS for an online shop?
Stripe offers a wider range of features: subscriptions, a marketplace model, Apple Pay, Google Pay and fraud protection. myPOS is a Bulgarian company with a lower fee for domestic cards (from 1.10 %), instant transfer to a myPOS account and support in Bulgarian. Stripe is better for international sales; myPOS suits a local focus with fast access to funds.
How many plugins does a WooCommerce shop in Bulgaria need?
A typical WooCommerce shop for Bulgaria needs 10-15 plugins: WooCommerce (core), a payment gateway, shipping (Econt/Speedy), SEO (Rank Math), security (Wordfence), backup (UpdraftPlus), caching, a contact form, email marketing and Bulgarisation. The approach to choosing them follows our framework from our central article on WordPress plugins.
What is the WooCommerce Foundation Stack and how is it applied?
It is a 5-level framework for building a WooCommerce shop: Level 1 Platform Foundation (core, hosting, Redis), Level 2 Payment & Shipping (Stripe/myPOS, Econt/Speedy), Level 3 Core Plugins (SEO, security, backup, speed), Level 4 Conversion Optimization (block checkout, cart recovery, Product schema) and Level 5 Growth & Marketing (email, analytics). The principle: build from the bottom up, with each level building on the previous one.
Does CreateWeb build WooCommerce shops?
Yes. We build WooCommerce shops with full integration: payment gateway (Stripe, myPOS or BORICA), shipping (Econt, Speedy), Bulgarisation (invoices, Ordinance N-18), SEO, security, backup and speed optimisation. See examples in our portfolio or get in touch with us.
Conclusion: WooCommerce means flexibility, but it needs the right foundation
WooCommerce is the most flexible online shop platform on WordPress: free, fully under your control and with an ecosystem that covers every need. But “free” does not mean “no investment”. The right hosting, the right plugins and the right configuration are the difference between a shop that sells and a shop that merely exists.
The WooCommerce Foundation Stack in this article provides a clear structure: Level 1 Platform Foundation (core + hosting), Level 2 Payment & Shipping (payments + delivery), Level 3 Core Plugins (SEO, security, backup, speed), Level 4 Conversion Optimization (checkout, cart recovery) and Level 5 Growth & Marketing (email, analytics). For the Bulgarian market, Stripe and myPOS cover payment needs, Econt and Speedy cover delivery, and Bulgarisation for WooCommerce takes care of the legal requirements.
If you want a WooCommerce shop that is fast, secure and ready to sell from day one, discuss your project with us in a free consultation. We will apply the WooCommerce Foundation Stack to your specific project.
Related in-depth resources: building a website for online sales, WordPress vs Shopify, our central article on WordPress plugins, SEO plugins, security plugins, backup plugins, speed plugins, Core Web Vitals, quality web hosting, technical SEO, SEO web design, conversion optimisation, keyword research, local SEO, WordPress website cost, WordPress as a platform, website development, website maintenance.
If you would like a team to handle this for you, see online shop development.
