At the fifth edition of the Employment Forum, which we had previously announced on our platform, one workshop attracted particular interest from participants: building an online store in just one hour.
The workshop was led by Slobodan Mirić, representing Websites Workshop, in collaboration with colleagues from the Homepage team. Our goal was to demonstrate how accessible and free tools can be used to create a functional online store.
Alongside the practical website-building session, the programme also covered digital marketing and website promotion. Digital strategist Nikolina Andrić delivered a workshop titled "How to Become a Virtual Assistant."
Online Store Development Workshop
For the workshop, we used WordPress, one of the world's most popular free platforms for building websites.
To add e-commerce functionality, we used WooCommerce, a plugin that extends WordPress with features for selling products online.
We also discussed the Gutenberg block editor, which makes it possible to create and manage website content using blocks, as well as the wide range of free and commercial plugins available to extend a website's functionality.
Special attention was given to WordPress themes, which provide ready-made visual designs that can be customised without creating a website's appearance entirely from scratch.
Which Tools Did We Use?
For the demonstration, we selected the Simple theme developed by Themify, which offers straightforward options for customising a website's appearance.
We ran WordPress and WooCommerce on a local computer using Local WP. This allowed us to prepare the store and test its features without immediately needing public web hosting.
We also explained the difference between local website development and deploying a website to a live hosting server, using the hosting company Contrateam as an example.
From Installation to a Functional Online Store
After installing WordPress, the theme and the WooCommerce plugin, we created several pages and customised their appearance.
We also added blog posts, demonstrating how useful content can support an online store's promotion and help introduce products to potential customers.
During the session, we discussed the basics of search engine optimisation (SEO) and the importance of quality content. We demonstrated how a website can become more visible and how content creation contributes to its promotion.
The practical demonstration took approximately one hour, plus a few additional minutes. Within that time, we managed to launch a functional online store.
Watch the Workshop Recording
Watch the full recording below and follow the process of building an online store using WordPress and WooCommerce. The workshop was conducted in Serbian.