How to Integrate Shopify for WordPress (best tutorial)

Reading Time: 11 minutes

You’ve probably heard that using Shopify and WordPress together isn’t worth the effort and you should just pick one or the other. After all, Shopify includes web hosting as part of its plans, so why not use it instead of WordPress? Wouldn’t combining them take a lot of work?

The reality is that integrating Shopify with WordPress is much easier than you might think, and it allows for the best of both worlds.

Combine the design flexibility of WordPress with Shopify’s ecommerce tools, run a blog alongside your store, or add ecommerce functionality to your existing WordPress website. You could even use this as a stepping stone to migrate from Shopify to WooCommerce.

So, if your interest is piqued, stick around. Here, we’ll show you how to add Shopify to WordPress.

What is Shopify?

Shopify has become one of the most popular ecommerce platforms available since it launched in 2006. Thanks to its beginner-friendly interface and powerful features, it’s capable of hosting both small startups and sprawling enterprises.

This is reflected in Shopify’s pricing. They have a simple Starter plan for only $5/month, which you can use to create quick product pages and link to them on social media, your WordPress site, or nearly anywhere else. Shoppers can then complete their purchase through Shopify’s streamlined checkout process. 

You can also upgrade to higher-tiered plans to create complete ecommerce websites and access advanced selling features. 

Primary features of Shopify

• A user-friendly dashboard: Manage your products, inventory, orders, and customers from one central location
• A website builder: Choose from a wide variety of professionally designed themes to create a visually appealing store, then customize it with the comprehensive website editor
• An app store: Enhance your store with apps, ranging from marketing and SEO tools to advanced inventory management
• Secure payments: Shopify integrates with many payment solutions, including Shopify Payments and third-party gateways
• Shipping and fulfillment tools: Use Shopify Shipping and Shopify Fulfillment Network and worry less about logistics
• The Shopify POS: Sell in your physical store with advanced Point of Sale software

One of Shopify’s biggest benefits is that everything is included in one seamless package — store capabilities, hosting, security tools, email, speed optimization, support, and more. That means that you don’t have to worry about finding solutions for these aspects or managing them on your own.

Shopify also shines when it comes to scalability — it’s very friendly to small stores, but won’t lock you out as you begin to grow. You can stick with the plan that’s most cost-effective for you and upgrade when you’re ready. 

For inspiration, check out some of the top Shopify stores and successful Shopify clothing stores thriving on this platform.

But despite its all-in-one capabilities, you may not want to rely solely on Shopify’s closed-source, proprietary technology. That’s why many business owners also look to WordPress.

What is WordPress?

If you’ve used the internet at all, you’ve certainly seen a WordPress website — the powerful content management system (CMS) powers over 40% of the web. Launched in 2003, WordPress has grown from a simple blogging tool to a powerful website platform that powers everything from ecommerce stores to enterprises.

The best part of WordPress is that it’s open-source and free to use. Anyone can build on its code, which has led to the release of over 59.000 free plugins and thousands of themes. While you do need to pay for a domain and web hosting, WordPress is completely free otherwise. And like with Shopify, you can also purchase add-ons to enhance site and store functionality.

But unlike with Shopify, you’re free to code any customizations yourself or hire a developer to add specific functionality. If a tool isn’t available for your needs, you’re not stuck — you can just create your own. 

Primary features of WordPress

• Powerful blogging tools: WordPress was originally built for blogging, and its CMS system is super flexible. The editor allows you to easily create posts and pages, while categories and tags help with organization.
• Maximum flexibility: With WordPress, you don’t need to worry about running into any walls. You can extend your site, download as many plugins as you want, and add code to further enhance functionality. It’s your site and you make the rules.
• Thousands of themes and plugins: WordPress has thousands of both free and premium themes and plugins. These make it possible to add any feature you can think of. Check out these examples of the best WordPress plugins for a glimpse.
• User-friendly interface: The WordPress dashboard and block editor are very beginner-friendly and easy to use. Site management and creation is simple, no matter your experience level.
• Extensive community: With detailed documentation, active forums, and plenty of resources to teach you how to use WordPress, it’s very easy to find a solution when you get stuck.

Overall, WordPress is a powerful and flexible platform that simplifies the process of creating an online presence. You can learn more about how it works in our WordPress review.

But as WordPress doesn’t come with ecommerce functionality out-of-the-box, many people turn to platforms like Shopify to add the ecommerce element to their websites.

Can Shopify integrate with WordPress?

You’ve probably seen a few workarounds for connecting Shopify to WordPress — paid plugins, custom code solutions, and more. But the best way to integrate Shopify and WordPress is actually much simpler than you might think. 

The answer is Shopify’s Buy Button. This seamless integration works with nearly any online platform. With the Buy Button, just copy and paste an embed code into WordPress, where you want to feature a product or collection, as shown below: 

Then, visitors can purchase your Shopify products from there. The Buy Button comes with all Shopify plans, including the $5/month Starter plan. Here’s what the Buy Button includes:

• Unlimited products: There’s no need to worry about strict product caps or other limitations
• The ability to embed products or collections: You can tailor your Buy Button to showcase whatever products or collections you want
• The ability to embed your shopping cart: Embed the Shopify shopping cart right into your website for quick and easy checkout
• A customizable Buy Button: You have full control, so you can customize your Buy Button to fit into your WordPress theme
• The ability to extend functionality with the JS Buy SDK: If you’re familiar with code, you can use JavaScript to enhance the Buy Button’s functionality (or hire someone to do so)

It’s super simple to set up. All you need to do is create a product and add the code to your existing WordPress site. This is great if you already have a website and want a no-hassle way to start selling products, or you want to run a blog or content-heavy site alongside your store.

There are alternative WordPress shopping cart plugins to help you start an online store, but the Shopify Buy Button is simple and straightforward.

Why you might want to use Shopify for WordPress

There are many reasons you might want to integrate Shopify and WordPress rather than using one or the other. Combining them is a great way to take advantage of each platform’s unique strengths. 

Take advantage of WordPress flexibility and Shopify ecommerce tools

What if you could combine the flexibility, powerful customization, and blogging features of WordPress with the excellent product management, fulfillment, and inventory tracking of Shopify?

With a Shopify Buy Button, you get the best of both worlds. 

Since WordPress lacks built-in ecommerce features, you’ll need some sort of integration to start an online store. While you could go with a traditional WordPress plugin, Shopify’s Buy Button is a simple way to add ecommerce functionality, too.

You can take full advantage of WordPress’s extensive customization and content management — notably the ability to install plugins to add functionality — but also get access to Shopify’s seamless checkout process, secure payment gateways, and comprehensive sales analytics.

Set up inexpensive, cost-effective ecommerce

At only $5 per month, a Buy Button is one of the cheapest ways to add ecommerce functionality to your website.

To be fair, WooCommerce and similar WordPress plugins are often free, but these may require investing in paid extensions and can take a while to set up.

With the Shopify Buy Button, small businesses can easily start selling products on their existing WordPress site. Since WordPress is free and web hosting is quite affordable, it’s also a great way for new stores to get off the ground with minimal investment.

Enjoy simple setup and integration

Most web hosts provide one-click WordPress installation, so setting up a WordPress website isn’t difficult. And adding a Shopify Buy Button to that website is as easy as pasting in a line of code.

Even those without advanced technical skills can create an online store. There’s no confusing setup to deal with, and you can get your ecommerce site up and running quickly.

Just purchase WordPress hosting, create a Shopify account, add your products, and paste the code to embed them on your site. 

Run a blog alongside your store

One significant advantage of integrating Shopify with WordPress is the ability to publish content alongside your online store. While Shopify’s website builder does include blogging tools, they don’t stack up to WordPress’ sophisticated CMS.

Blogging is a powerful tool for driving traffic, engaging your audience, and improving your site’s SEO. WordPress makes it easy to blog about your products or industry and share helpful resources to bring attention to your store.

You can even integrate Shopify products within your blog posts themselves. Create product roundups with one-click checkout, recommend useful items, and convert readers on the spot.

How to set up Shopify for WordPress

As mentioned earlier, the simplest and most straightforward way to add Shopify to WordPress is with the Buy Button. You can add this to any platform or website, including WordPress, and it allows for unlimited products. You can see the page dedicated to the Buy Button on Shopify’s website below: 

If you’re not ready to commit to Shopify, no problem! There’s a three-day trial, and the first month is only $1. You’re free to try out the platform and see how you like it. 

Let’s now go over how to set up Shopify and WordPress so they work well together.

Step 1. Build your WordPress site

The first thing you need to do is get your WordPress site up and running. You’ll need a domain name to identify your site and web hosting, which stores your site files and makes them visible to the public.

Most web hosts provide one-click WordPress installation or will even install WordPress for you. Check their documentation for assistance. Some hosting, like unmanaged hosting, will require you to install WordPress yourself. Luckily, this process isn’t too complicated.

For a full step-by-step tutorial on installing WordPress, read our guide on how to build a WordPress website from scratch.

Once you have a WordPress site, you should also pick out a good theme. You can pick from 12,000 free WordPress themes, or browse the premium themes on sites like Themeforest. Spend some time picking out a color palette and setting up the basic design of your website.

Step 2. Set up your Shopify store

Next, you’ll need to create a Shopify account and sign up for the free trial. Every Shopify plan comes with the Buy Button, so you can get whichever one makes sense for you.

After you enter your email, follow the checklist. Make sure when they ask you where you’d like to sell, you tick An existing website or blog, as seen in the image below:

Once you create an account, you’ll be dropped into Shopify’s dashboard, which looks like this:

The helpful Setup guide will walk you through everything you need to do, but the first step is creating a product. Click Add product in the Setup guide menu, or click Products in the left-hand sidebar to add one from there.

Next, you’ll see the product creation screen. Give your product a name, add some images and a description, and set details like the price, inventory, tags, and shipping weight. When you’re done, scroll down and click Save.

You can add more products through the Products menu, and if you’re using the Basic plan or higher, you can also create a collection of similar products through the Products > Collections screen.

Just click Create collection to get started and select either a hand-picked collection or an automated one that will add new products that meet certain criteria. After you create and save your collection, you can Browse products to add them, as shown here:

Step 3. Generate the Shopify Buy Button

Once you have a few products and/or collections, you can create your Buy Button. Head back to the Home screen and click the Install Buy Button channel button, which looks like this:

You can also install the Buy Button channel for free from Shopify’s app store.

After that, you’ll have a new Buy Button option in your left-hand menu. Open it and click Create a Buy Button. You can create a button for an individual product or collection — and you can create and add as many Buy Buttons as you want.

After you pick a Buy Button type and a product/collection, you’ll be taken to the Customize screen. Here, you can customize the layout and colors so that your Buy Button fits in with your website’s design. Here’s how it looks:

When you finish editing a Buy Button, there’s no way to save it for future use. So be sure to copy the code and paste it on your site right away. However, your customization settings are saved in the editor, so your preferred colors and other modifications will be easily available when you go to create your next button.

When you’re done, click Next. You’ll see the code for your Buy Button. Click Copy code.

Step 4. Add the Buy Button to your WordPress website

There are a few ways to add your Buy Button to WordPress, depending on where exactly you want to put it. Here’s what you need to do.

From your WordPress dashboard, head to Posts > All Posts or Pages > All Pages. Open the post or page you want to work with. Click the blue + icon to add a new block, and search for Custom HTML. Add that to your content and paste the Shopify Buy Button code into the HTML block, as shown below:

Then, click Save or Publish. It should look something like this:

If you’re using a block theme, you can also add the code directly to your website templates. For example, you could add it to a sidebar or blog post template. Open the Appearance > Editor, then click Navigation, Pages, or Templates. Use the Block Editor to add the custom HTML code, as shown above. Here’s an example of the buy button added to the 404 page template:

If you’re not using a block theme, you can open Appearance > Widgets and drop the code into your sidebar or other widgetized area from there.

Now, you should have a beautiful, functional Shopify Buy Button displayed on your WordPress website.

Growing your ecommerce store

Now that your store is up and running, what’s the next step? You’ll want to focus on growth and getting new customers. But where do you start?

Every winning marketing strategy centers around effective customer communications. You need to reach shoppers with the right message, at the right time. That’s where Omnisend’s all-in-one marketing platform comes into play. Here’s what Omnisend has to offer:

• Email and SMS marketing: These are the two places where customers are nearly guaranteed to see your message. Use the drag-and-drop email builder to handcraft custom messages or send out engaging SMS notifications that draw back visitors.
• Automation: Save time with automated workflows, including a drag-and-drop workflow editor.
• Targeting and segmentation: Personalize your marketing efforts based on common customer lifecycles and other variables.
• Popups and forms: Capture email subscribers and leads with innovative popups and forms.
• WordPress and Shopify integrations: Integrate seamlessly with a one-click integration with WordPress and Shopify. Try the Omnisend WordPress plugin or the Omnisend Shopify app.

Omnisend’s Shopify integration is more advanced, with extra features to benefit Shopify merchants, like the landing page builder. If you’re considering building on Shopify, try Omnisend for Shopify. And make sure to read our Shopify launch checklist to set you up for success.

Wrap up 

Using Shopify alongside WordPress offers the best of both platforms: WordPress’ flexible CMS and customization and Shopify’s powerful ecommerce tools. With Shopify’s Buy Button, you can start selling from anywhere — including a WordPress site — in just a few minutes. 

Once this is set up, it’s time to start marketing. Omnisend is the perfect partner to automate your marketing communications so you can do more in less time.

Try Omnisend today and unlock the full potential of your Shopify and WordPress store.