12 WooCommerce stats and 3 key trends for 2021 (+ infographic)

With online retail at an all-time high, your e-commerce store has the potential to reach a huge audience. And, with more people shopping online than ever before, the world of e-commerce is evolving at a rapid pace – and WooCommerce is increasingly to the fore. In this article, we’ll share some the latest stats for 2021 and an amazing infographic showing how the WooCommerce platform is developing.

The latest WooCommerce stats include:

• How many websites use WooCommerce?
• How many e-commerce websites use WooCommerce?
• What is WooCommerce’s market share?
• How many times has WooCommerce been downloaded?
• How much revenue does WooCommerce generate?
• How many WooCommerce themes are there?
• How many WooCommerce plugins are there?
• How many people contribute to WooCommerce?
• How many WooCommerce meetups are there?
• How many languages has WooCommerce been translated into?
• How many people work for WooCommerce?
• How many WooCommerce jobs are there?

WooCommerce stats infographic

Here are the latest 2021 WooCommerce stats and timeline in an infographic. Feel free to embed this on your own site – please ensure you link back to this page. You can just copy and paste this embed code:

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An introduction to WooCommerce (and how it became a top ecommerce platform)

Before we get to the latest stats, let’s look at some figures which illustrate how WooCommerce has got to this point.

Originally created by WordPress theme developer WooThemes, WooCommerce made its debut on September 27th, 2011. However, in April 2012 the popular e-commerce platform experienced a major setback, when WooCommerce was hacked. The hacker managed to delete the WooThemes database and all the content on the WooThemes server, including the team’s backups. 

Despite this crisis, the e-commerce platform managed to recover, and in January 2013 the team announced that WooCommerce had reached half a million downloads. WooCommerce 3.0 arrived shortly afterwards, in March 2013. This version revamped the gallery for individual product pages, and added support for mobile touch gestures. Just a few months later, WooCommerce hit one million downloads.

In 2014, the community saw the release of WooCommerce “Peppy Penguin” 2.1. Peppy Penguin added support for the Representational State Transfer (REST) Application Programming Interface (API). This gave WooCommerce users the ability to create, read, update, and delete data using the JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format.

Shortly afterwards, WooCommerce hit the four million downloads mark:

The WooCommerce team kicked 2015 off with a bang, with the release of WooCommerce “Handsome Hippo”. Just one month later they announced that WooCommerce had been acquired by Automattic, shortly before the platform officially reached seven million downloads.

Since then, WooCommerce has grown to become one of the most popular e-commerce solutions in the world, with over five million active installs and 86 million all-time downloads. On November 25th, 2020 alone WooCommerce was downloaded over 700,000 times. 

Okay, so those are the stats for WooCommerce’s early years. Let’s take a look at the most up to date stats for WooCommerce.

WooCommerce 2021 stats

WooCommerce and WordPress is a powerful combination that’s made it easier than ever before to launch and run a successful e-commerce business. However, the best way to gauge WooCommerce’s popularity is to look at some cold hard facts.

Here are 12 WooCommerce statistics you may not be aware of:

How many websites use WooCommerce?

Nearly 4.5 million websites use WooCommerce. That’s 7.5 percent of all sites! WooCommerce is also the most popular plugin in any category, accounting for 81 percent of all websites that are known to use a plugin or module. 

How many e-commerce websites use WooCommerce?

As of January 2021, WooCommerce powers 30 percent of the top one million e-commerce stores. This has grown from 26 percent in August 2020, and 22 percent in 2019. This makes WooCommerce the most popular choice among the top million e-commerce sites, ahead of major competitors like Magento and Shopify. If we narrow the focus to WordPress, an impressive 93.7 percent of all WordPress e-commerce websites rely on WooCommerce. 

What is WooCommerce’s market share?

WooCommerce has the largest market share of the top 581 e-commerce platforms and technologies, powering over 29 percent of all online stores. This places WooCommerce firmly ahead of major competitors Squarespace Online Stores (21.12 percent), Shopify (12.66 percent), and WixStores (4.88 percent). 

How many times has WooCommerce been downloaded?

WordPress users have downloaded WooCommerce over 123,000,000 times. On November 25th, 2020 alone WooCommerce was downloaded over 700,000 times.

How much revenue does WooCommerce generate?

A study conducted in 2017 by the Head of WooCommerce suggested that WooCommerce stores would collectively account for nearly $10 billion in sales. In the same year, WooCommerce extension sales were expected to generate over $30 million.

Fast forward a few years to 2019, and WooCommerce’s General Manager stated that if all WooCommerce stores formed a single country, its revenue would be greater than 35 percent of the world’s actual countries. By October 2019, WooCommerce stores had generated around $11.8 billion in sales.

How many WooCommerce themes are there?

The WordPress.org Theme Directory boasts over 1,100 WooCommerce themes. You’ll find another 1,360 WooCommerce themes and templates over at ThemeForest, almost 300 at Mojo Marketplace, and 23 at the official WooCommerce site.

In addition, there are hundreds available via independent websites and smaller marketplaces. This means the true number of WooCommerce themes is likely more than 3,000.

How many WooCommerce plugins are there?

There are over 6,000 WooCommerce plugins in the WordPress Plugin Directory, and you’ll find a further 1,800+ WooCommerce plugins on CodeCanyon.

However, the total number of WooCommerce plugins is likely far higher, as there are many websites that sell WooCommerce-ready plugins independently or via smaller marketplaces. This means many WooCommerce plugins aren’t included in the official figures.

The WooCommerce Extensions Store has over 500 free and paid add-ons.

How many people contribute to WooCommerce?

WooCommerce’s GitHub repository has over 1,000 contributors. 

How many WooCommerce meetups are there?

There are over 80 WooCommerce meetups worldwide. 

How many languages has WooCommerce been translated into?

The community has translated WooCommerce into 65 languages. In addition, WooCommerce is integrated with 140 region-specific payment gateways.

How many people work for WooCommerce?

WooCommerce has 150 employees.

How many WooCommerce jobs are there?

At the time of writing, Indeed.com has over 300 jobs that specifically mention WooCommerce. 

Furthermore, Codeable has over 390 developers who list WooCommerce as a specialty.

Clearly, WooCommerce is already a hugely popular and successful e-commerce platform – but what’s next?

If these stats have sparked your interest, you may be wondering what’s in store for WooCommerce throughout 2021 and beyond. 

3 key WooCommerce trends for 2021

Regardless of whether you’re hoping to launch a new e-commerce business or grow an existing one, it’s important to keep ahead of the competition and give consumers exactly what they want.

To help keep you at the cutting edge, let’s talk about where WooCommerce is heading. Here are three key WooCommerce trends for 2021!

1. There will be an increasing use of the WooCommerce Representational State Transfer (REST) API

WooCommerce’s REST API enables developers to interact with the platform’s data. This includes performing administrative actions such as editing product details, creating orders, and generating reports. 

You can access WooCommerce’s REST API settings by navigating to WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced. You can then select the REST API link:

WooCommerce’s REST API gives developers the flexibility to use their e-commerce data in other contexts. This includes single page and mobile applications. We predict that in 2021, we’ll continue to see an increase in the number of online stores using the REST API, particularly when it comes to mobile app development. 

In 2019, mobile devices accounted for 65 percent of all e-commerce traffic, and 53 percent of sales. With the number of smartphone users forecast to grow by several hundred million in the next few years, building a mobile shopping app could be a powerful way to boost your sales. 

Since you’re only receiving text data, the REST API can deliver a performance boost when performing complicated actions. This data can also be cached, which is great for performance. Studies suggest that 79 percent of customers who are unhappy with a site’s performance are less likely to make a purchase. This means the REST API can be a powerful way to drive conversions. 

WooCommerce is a hugely popular platform, but that popularity also means that it’s a recognisable technology. As the ongoing pandemic pushes more shops online, it’s only going to become more important to stand out from the crowd. The REST API isn’t constrained to any particular front-end technology. This gives you the flexibility to create exciting new layouts that don’t rely on WordPress plugins and themes, which could be the secret to getting ahead of your competitors. 

2. You can expect continued growth in WooCommerce extensions, themes, and plugins

WooCommerce may be a free plugin. However, WooCommerce extensions, add-ons, and additional plugins all generate revenue. In August 2020 there were 1,900 WooCommerce plugins on CodeCanyon. As of January 2021, there are 2,134. 

Meanwhile, in August 2020 there were 331 plugin extensions in the official WooCommerce extensions store. As of January 2021, there are over 500. It’s safe to predict that this upwards trend will continue throughout 2021. Check the stats above for more detail.

It’s difficult to estimate just how much revenue is generated by the WooCommerce community. Back in April 2015, WooThemes co-founder Magnus Jepson stated that: “I can’t disclose our exact income unfortunately, but we do process several million dollars per year. Our revenue has been climbing steadily over the past few years, and we are regularly breaking monthly revenue records.”

While it’s impossible to get an exact figure, many successful WooCommerce themes and plugins publish their total number of sales. By crunching the numbers, we can gauge how much revenue a successful WooCommerce project could generate.

Let’s start with Avada. This popular website builder for WooCommerce has been sold to over 655,000 WordPress users, according to ThemeForest. Priced at $60, we can calculate that this theme has brought in an excess of $39.3 million. 

Flatsome is the most popular WooCommerce theme on ThemeForest. This theme has sold over 150,00 times. With a price tag of $59, it’s generated in excess of $8,850,000. 

If you’re interested in becoming a WordPress plugin or theme developer, you may be facing lots of competition, but the figures suggest that an exceptional WooCommerce theme or plugin could earn you thousands or perhaps even millions of dollars. With healthy profits to be made, we can expect continued growth in WooCommerce extensions, themes, and plugins throughout 2021.

You can check out our own range of WooCommerce plugins here.

3. The WooCommerce user interface is likely to receive further updates

WooCommerce 4.0 introduced a new JavaScript-powered interface for managing your store. This new UI provides a powerful analytics dashboard covering important metrics such as sales, revenue, taxes, and your most popular products.

This updated admin dashboard is more intuitive and user-friendly. WooCommerce 4.0 also features a simplified onboarding process, which should help news users create their first WooCommerce stores.

This streamlined onboarding process and UI appears to indicate the direction WooCommerce is heading in. A big part of WooCommerce’s popularity lies in being beginner-friendly. At some point in the future, we may see WooCommerce expand this redesign to other parts of the platform. This would create a more intuitive experience, which could attract even more users to the WooCommerce platform.  

Conclusion

Stats don’t necessarily tell the full story but the figures above should give you an idea of the pace that WooCommerce is growing.

Do you have questions about any of these WooCommerce stats and trends for 2021? Ask away in the comments section below!