WordPress and WooCommerce

What you get from this

After this guide you have a shop on your WordPress site where customers add products to a cart, enter their address and place an order that you see in the dashboard. Prices are in SEK, shipping is calculated automatically and the customer gets a confirmation email. You also get VAT set up correctly from the start, depending on whether the company is registered for VAT or not. That is the box that most often ends up wrong.

WooCommerce is a plugin for WordPress, meaning a small program that is added on top and gives the site shop functions. The plugin itself costs nothing. Everything in this guide happens in the browser, and you need no server and no terminal.

VAT and terms of purchase in this guide follow how we read the rules. Check VAT with the Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket) and the terms of purchase with the Swedish Consumer Agency (Konsumentverket) before the shop opens.

What you need before you start

• A WordPress site that is already up and running and that you can install plugins on. If you do not have one, start with Install WordPress. On WordPress.com a paid tier is required to install plugins, while a regular web host allows it right away.
• At least three products that are fully decided: name, price in SEK and one sentence about what it is.
• One image per product, taken against a clean background. The image sells more than the text, and a blurry image on a cluttered kitchen table costs you orders.
• A decision on how the goods reach the customer: are they sent by post, picked up at the office, or both?
• The company's Swish number or bank account, the one you already use in Bookkeeping.
• The company's address, the one you want to appear as the sender, since the store must have a sender address.

Time and difficulty level

The basic installation and settings take about one morning if two of you work together. Adding the products then takes ten to fifteen minutes per product, mostly to write the text and crop the image. The difficulty level is medium: no single step is hard, but there are many boxes to fill in, and two of them matter more than the rest. The VAT box and the shipping zone are those two.

Install WooCommerce

1. Log in to the site and go to Plugins and then Add New Plugin in the left menu.
2. Search for WooCommerce in the search box at the top right. Choose the one called just WooCommerce with Automattic as the developer. There are hundreds of plugins with Woo in the name, and this is the only one you need now.
3. Click Install Now and then Activate when the button text changes. The installation takes half a minute to a minute.
4. WooCommerce now starts its setup guide. The first question is about who you are. Choose the option that means you are new and starting a store.
5. Fill in the store details: store name, country Sweden, address, postal code, city and company email address. All of these can be changed later, so do not get stuck.
6. The next step suggests free plugins for payment, shipping, VAT, marketing and security. Uncheck everything and continue. You set up the same things by hand further down in the guide, and then you know what is actually turned on.
7. Skip the step that wants to connect the site to a WordPress.com account, if it appears. The store works without it.
8. The guide ends on a start page with a checklist. Leave it open, you will come back to it.

Set the currency and countries you sell to

1. Go to WooCommerce, then Settings and the General tab.
2. Check that the store address is correct and that the country is Sweden.
3. Under Selling location(s), choose to sell to specific countries and enter Sweden to start with.
4. Under Shipping location(s), choose to ship only to the countries you sell to.
5. Set the currency. Choose Swedish kronor. Set Currency position to Right with space, thousand separator to space, decimal separator to comma and number of decimals to 2. A price is then written as 249,00 kr, which is how a Swedish customer expects to see it.
6. Click Save changes at the bottom. The button is easy to miss and nothing is saved automatically.

If you later want to sell to private individuals in other EU countries, special VAT rules apply. As long as sales there are at most 10,000 euro per year in total, in Sweden 99,680 kronor, you charge Swedish VAT. Above that limit, the buyer's country's VAT applies, and it is reported through the EU's joint scheme (OSS) in a quarterly return. Read the Swedish Tax Agency's information on OSS before you open up to more countries.

Set up VAT

The right choice depends on one thing: is the company registered for VAT or not?

• Registered for VAT: check Enable tax rates and calculations under the General tab and save. The Tax tab then appears. Under Prices entered with tax you choose whether the prices you enter include or exclude VAT; if you sell to private individuals, choose included, so the same amount appears in the store as in your price list. Then enter the VAT rates for Sweden: 25 percent is the standard rate, and some goods have 12 or 6 percent. Food has 6 percent from April 1, 2026 through December 31, 2027, and books 6 percent. Give each product the correct Tax class.
• Exempt from VAT: a company based in Sweden that sells for no more than 120,000 kronor per calendar year, and has not exceeded the limit in the two previous years, is automatically exempt from VAT. Leave the box unchecked. You do not add VAT to prices and no VAT line appears at checkout. If sales exceed the limit during the year, VAT must be charged from the sale that passed the limit, and the company must then register for VAT and check the box.

Decide on prices including or excluding VAT before the first product is added. Just ticking the box does not change any prices as long as no VAT rates exist, but once the rates are in place, every price you enter is interpreted according to the choice, and what the customer pays at checkout can shift. The same applies to importing products from a CSV file: the price column is read as including or excluding VAT depending on what is selected when you import.

Add the products

1. Go to Products and then Add new product.
2. Write the product name in the top field. Write what the item is, not what you think of it. Oak candlestick 22 cm says more than Our finest candlestick.
3. Write a description in the large text field: material, dimensions, color and what it is used for. Three to five sentences is enough. The short description further down is shown next to the price, and there you write a single sentence.
4. In the Product data box, select Simple product and enter the price in the Regular price field. Write only the number, that is 249, without SEK and without spaces.
5. Open the Inventory tab in the same box and check Track stock quantity for this product if you have a limited number. Enter the number you actually have. Then the store stops selling when the stock runs out, and you avoid selling five candlesticks you cannot make.
6. Open the Shipping tab and fill in weight in kilos and dimensions in centimeters. That is needed so the shipping price can be calculated, and so you know which envelope or parcel you need.
7. Upload the image under Product image on the right. If you have more images, put them in the Product gallery below.
8. Select or create a category in the Product categories box. With three products it feels unnecessary, but the category controls the menus in the store and becomes a hassle to add later.
9. Click Publish. Repeat for each product.

Set up shipping

Shipping in WooCommerce is based on zones. A zone is a geographic area with its own shipping options, and a customer is matched against the first zone that fits their address.

1. Go to WooCommerce, Settings and the Shipping tab.
2. Click Add zone. Name the zone Sweden and select Sweden as the region.
3. Click Add shipping method and select Flat rate. Set a fixed amount that covers what postage actually costs you, for example 59 kronor. Calculate on a real package, not a guess, otherwise you pay the shipping out of your own profit.
4. Turn on Local pickup under Settings, Shipping, the Local pickup tab, and add at least one Pickup location with an address. Set the cost to 0 if you want. This becomes the option for customers nearby, and for many smaller shops it becomes the most common delivery method.
5. If you want free shipping over a certain amount, add Free shipping and select the condition Minimum order amount. Set the limit so that it covers the postage, for example 500 kronor.
6. Leave the zone Locations not covered by your other zones empty. A customer outside Sweden then gets the message that shipping is not available, which is exactly what you want when you only sell in Sweden.
7. Save.

Set up payment

Card payment requires an agreement with a payment service, and a company with a registration number can sign it itself. The agreement takes a few days. In the meantime, start with the payment methods already available in WooCommerce.

1. Go to WooCommerce, Settings and the Payments tab. Find the section Take offline payments.
2. Turn on Bank transfer and click Manage. Change the title to Swish or bankgiro, whichever you actually use.
3. In the Instructions field, write exactly what the customer should do: the number to Swish to, that the order number should be written as the message, and that the item is shipped once the payment has arrived. The text appears both on the thank-you page and in the order confirmation, so it needs to be understandable without you being there.
4. Turn on Cash on delivery if you sell at markets and fairs. Change the title to Pay on pickup.
5. Save and go back to Payments to check that the right methods are listed as active.

For card payments there are ready-made plugins for Klarna and Stripe. If you want Klarna, Swish, card and bank transfer in the same checkout without signing separate agreements with the bank and Klarna, install the plugin Mollie Payments for WooCommerce and sign an agreement with Mollie. You pay a fee per payment and no monthly fee; Swish via Mollie usually requires a Swedish bank account and a company registration number. The options and what they cost are compared in Payment gateways.

How to know it worked

Open the store in a private window, so you are logged out, and place a real test order. Add a product to the cart, go to checkout, fill in an address and choose Swish as the payment method. Complete the order.

Four things should be correct. The price at checkout should be exactly what you entered. If the company is registered for VAT, the VAT should be on its own line; if it is VAT exempt or a UF company, there should be no VAT line at all. The shipping should appear with both options and the right amount. The order should show under WooCommerce and Orders with the status On hold, which is the status an order with payment outside the internet gets until you have marked it as paid. And the confirmation email should land in the inbox with your Swish instructions in plain text. If no email arrives, check the spam folder before you troubleshoot anything else.

Then repeat the whole test on your mobile. Delete the test order afterward, otherwise it stays there and disrupts your bookkeeping.

If something goes wrong

• The checkout says no shipping method is available: the address does not match any zone, or the zone has no shipping options. Check that the zone has Sweden as its region and that at least one option is listed under it.
• Prices show with VAT even though the company is not VAT registered: the Enable tax rates and calculations box is checked under Settings and General. Uncheck it, save, and then open each product and check that the regular price still shows the right figure.
• No confirmation emails arrive: web hosts are often bad at sending email from WordPress. Install the WP Mail SMTP plugin and connect it to the company email address, then the emails are sent through the same mail server you use yourselves and end up in spam far less often.
• The shop page is empty even though the products are published: the page that should show the products has not been selected. Go to WooCommerce, Settings, the Products tab and choose the page under Shop page. The pages for cart, checkout and my account are chosen on the Advanced tab.
• The site became slow after installation: WooCommerce adds some work. Make sure the product images are no wider than about 1600 pixels, and uninstall plugins you do not use. More plugins never make a site faster.
• A customer has paid with Swish but the order is still marked as unpaid: WooCommerce cannot see your Swish, it has to be done by hand. Open the order under Orders and change the status to Processing when the money has arrived, and to Completed when the item has left you. Enter the date in your bookkeeping the same day.
• Two people in the company edit at the same time and overwrite each other: give each person their own account under Users instead of a shared login. The person who runs the shop gets the Shop manager role (it gives full access to products and settings, not just orders), the person who writes texts gets Editor.

Never uninstall WooCommerce once you have received real orders. The plugin is then removed along with the ability to see orders and products in the dashboard, and the records you need for bookkeeping disappear from view. If you need to close the shop, remove the link to it from the menu instead, and export the orders to a file first.

What you do next

Before you make the store public, terms of purchase, right of withdrawal and privacy policy need to exist as their own pages, and they are reviewed in the Legal checklist. If you are going to send marketing to private individuals in Sweden, the GDPR applies, and you need to know the rules before the first mailing. How we read them is in GDPR for companies. If you want to accept card payments, Payment gateways is the next step. Every order must then go into the bookkeeping the same week, and how you do that is described in Bookkeeping. If you need your own address instead of a free address, take Domain and email.