Do you have a Shopify store and looking to connect Shopify store to WordPress? In this article, we will learn how to integrate Shopify with WordPress.
Shopify is a very popular e-commerce solution that helps you setup your online store within a few minutes. Setting up your own online store could prove to be a difficult task, especially if it’s your first time. Shopify simplifies all the technical tasks so that you can focus more on your business rather than tinkering with the website.
On the other hand, WordPress is the most powerful CMS in the world. The level of customization it gives you is simply amazing. It is possible to connect your Shopify store to WordPress to give you more freedom and flexibility.
In this article, we will learn how to integrate Shopify with WordPress. However, before you connect your Shopify store, there are a couple of things that you need to do first. But don’t worry about that, we’ll discuss all of that in detail. Let’s get started.
Why Connect Shopify store to WordPress?
As you all know, WordPress is the most popular CMS in the World. About 43% of all websites on the Internet are created with WordPress. All you need is a good domain and hosting for WordPress then you can start building your website for free. You will have access to thousands of WordPress themes and plugins (free and paid) to build your website the way you want.
Shopify on the other hand specializes more in e-commerce or online stores. You can create an eCommerce site with Shopify very easily and start selling items online. You can get a 14-day trial, after that you have to purchase one of the Shopify plans.
That’s basically what WordPress and Shopify are but for more details, check out our WordPress vs Shopify post. In that post, we’ve made detailed descriptions of both platforms along with the pros and cons.
Now if you integrate Shopify with WordPress, you get the advantages of both platforms. While Shopify makes selling products online easy, WordPress is fantastic at managing your website. So after you combine Shopify with WordPress, you get the benefits of selling products on Shopify while enjoying web development and management of WordPress!
Now that we understand what our goal is and what are the benefits. Let’s move on to the next step and see what we need before we get started.
Before you get started
First off, you need to have a Shopify store before you can connect it to WordPress. We are not going to show the process of creating a Shopify store because it’s only going to make this article lengthy. Also, it’s really easy to create a Shopify store. Simply create a Shopify account and create an online store, add some products, etc.
Next, you need to setup your WordPress site. There are 2 types of WordPress:
- WordPress.com: This is a hosting service from WordPress.
- WordPress.org: This is open-source and is also a self-hosted platform.
For now, wordpress.org is a good choice because you’ll have all the features (installing any themes and plugins) right out of the box. For more details, check out our WordPress.com vs WordPress.org post.
However, if you’re going to create a WordPress website, you do need a domain name and hosting. Also, in order to run ShopWP (the plugin that will connect Shopify to WordPress), you need an SSL certificate. The good news is if you purchase HostGator’s hosting, you’ll get an SSL certificate for free!
Once you have your WordPress website up and running, login to that with your username and password. The WordPress dashboard should look something like this:
Now you have a Shopify store and a WordPress website. That’s all you need and now you can combine your Shopify store with your WordPress website. But before continuing, let’s review the things that you’re going to need:
- A Shopify Store
- A WordPress website with SSL URL (https)
With that being said, let’s now learn how to integrate Shopify with WordPress.
Connect Shopify store to WordPress
Now that you have all the things, let’s see how to integrate Shopify with WordPress.
First, you have to log into your WordPress website. We are going to use a plugin called ShopWP. To install this plugin, go to Plugins > Add New from your WordPress dashboard. Then on the search bar type “ShopWP”. Install and activate the plugin.
Note: Recently the developer of ShopWP has announced that they stopped supporting the free version of ShopWP. You can still use the free version but no further updates will be released for the free version. If you want to get the best features of the plugin, then you’ll have to purchase ShopWP Pro.
After activating the plugin, you’ll see a new menu item on your WordPress admin sidebar. Click on ShopWP or hover your mouse over ShopWP and select ‘Connect’. Now if you’re not using SSL for your URL, then you might see a message like this:
If you have an SSL certificate for your WordPress website and you’re still seeing this message, that means you’re not using the https on your site URL. To change this, go to Settings > General from your WordPress dashboard. Then on the WordPress Address (URL) and Site Address URL change the http to https. Then scroll down and click on ‘Save Changes’.
After that, log out of your WordPress dashboard and login once again and you should see that you’re using the new https URL.
After fixing your URL, click on the ShopWP plugin and you won’t see that error message anymore. To begin integrating your Shopify with WordPress, you have to take 4 steps.
Step 1 – Connect
Now, on the ShopWP page you’ll see a button labeled “Begin the connection process”. Click on the button and then you will be asked to put in your Shopify site domain name or URL.
Just paste in your Shopify URL and click on the “Connect your Shopify store” button.
Next, you will be asked to allow ShopWP plugin to access your Shopify store. To allow access simply click on the ‘Install App’ button on top and the connection process will start. It might take a while to connect but after the connection is established, the plugin will confirm that your Shopify store is now connected.
When you see the message ‘Connected’ it means your Shopify site has been connected to your WordPress. This completes the Connection step of the setup. Click on ‘Continue to Next Step’ to move to the General Settings.
Step 2 – General Settings
In this section, you can configure different settings for your online store. The first option lets you choose the product listing page. You can click on the drop-down input box and select your product listing page.
You can enable the listing page and then choose a WordPress page or keep the default ShopWP products page. You can also enable/disable the product details page and collection listing page.
Once you’re done with the general settings click on the ‘Continue to Next Step’ button to move onto the Product Settings step.
Step 3 – Product Settings
In this step, you can decide what will happen when a user clicks on a product. You can either direct them to your Shopify site or your WordPress site. If you have individual product details page in WordPress, you can link your products with that page.
Next, you can choose the product links open in either the current tab or in another window.
After you’re done with this step, click on the ‘Continue to Next Step’ button to move on to the final step, which is the cart settings.
Step 4 – Cart Settings
In this section you can choose how to display your cart and some other cart settings. The first option is the ‘Load cart’. ShopWP has a built-in cart so if you’re redirecting users to your Shopify site, it is better to disable this option.
The next option is the fixed cart tab. If you enable this option, it will show a fixed cart tab on the side of every page of your website. This is a feature that’s seen on many popular e-commerce websites. You can enable or disable this feature if you want. Finally, you can choose whether the checkout page will be opened in the current tab or a new window.
Once you’re done with the cart settings, click on the ‘Save and Finish the Setup’ button to finish the setup.
Now you know how to integrate Shopify with WordPress. But there’s one more thing to do. You need to sync your products between your WordPress site, and your Shopify store. From your WordPress dashboard go to ShopWP > Sync.
Click on the ‘Sync details page’ and your WordPress site can fetch the details of every product. If you want to enable the auto post-sync function, you need to update to ShopWP Pro.
How to display Shopify products in WordPress
With ShopWP you can display your Shopify products anywhere on your WordPress website. By default settings, ShopWP will create a product page that will display your Shopify products.
You can display your products on any page or post by simply clicking on edit. If you’re using Gutenberg you’ll find some ShopWP blocks. Use the Product block to display your products. The block comes with different settings so you can configure the appearance of your products.
However, these Gutenberg blocks are only available on ShopWP Pro. There’s also a single product block that you can use to create a single product page. First, select the block then there’s a section called ‘Filter by Title’. Here, you can search for your product by typing the name of the title of the product.
There are various other options to modify the appearance of your products. Just explore these options and display the products on your WordPress site the way you want.
Conclusion
There are a lot of benefits to combining your Shopify store with WordPress. Maybe you have a WordPress site with a lot of money invested in the current architecture that you don’t want to change. That could be a reason why you want to connect to the Shopify store. Some users are also not satisfied with WooCommerce and want to switch to Shopify’s e-commerce system. There are various reasons why you might want to integrate Shopify with WordPress.
However, with the ShopWP plugin, it is now possible to connect both platforms as you’ve seen in this article. We haven’t shown you how to design the sites or design the products page. But it is fairly simple and we think that if you give yourself enough time, you’ll understand everything within a few minutes.
And now you know how to integrate Shopify with WordPress. We hope that this post was helpful to you. If you have any questions or queries related to this topic, you can ask in the comments section. Till then, keep on selling!
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