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woocommerce developer sydney
A Sydney WooCommerce developer
who runs the server too.
You've chosen WooCommerce, or you're on it and it's slow, broken, or quietly losing orders. We set up, repair, speed up and migrate WooCommerce stores, then host and monitor them on servers we run, so the checkout, the database and the phone number belong to one team. Still deciding between WooCommerce and Shopify? That decision lives on our ecommerce page. This one is for stores staying on WooCommerce.
Sydney based · Set up, hosted and monitored by one team · 18 years behind us as part of Alien IT Solutions.
the honest version
WooCommerce is more work than Shopify.
That's the trade you're making.
WooCommerce runs more online stores than any other platform, and it's free to install. You get a store you own outright, with no platform fee and no cut of each sale beyond your payment gateway. You take on software: WordPress, WooCommerce, PHP, a database and every extension, on a server that has to carry a checkout that can never be cached. Shopify does that work and charges rent. WooCommerce hands it to whoever runs the store, and most of what goes wrong comes from nobody picking that job up.
The server is half the store
Product pages can be cached. The cart, checkout and account pages can't, so each of those loads hits PHP and the database live. A shared host that looks fine on the homepage falls over at the moment a customer is paying you.
Fixed scope, fixed number
A speed pass, a GST and shipping setup, a migration off Shopify or a store rescue is quoted as a piece of work with a written number before it starts. No hourly meter.
Who shouldn't choose it
If nobody in the business will own updates, backups and stock, or you sell fewer than about ten products, WooCommerce is the wrong tool and we'll say so. A payment link or Shopify will serve you better, and we build on Shopify too.
why woocommerce stores get slow
It's rarely the theme.
It's usually one of these.
We measure the checkout rather than the homepage, because the homepage is cached and the checkout isn't. Here's what we find, in rough order of frequency.
| Cause | What you notice | What fixes it |
|---|---|---|
| Shared hosting | Seconds before anything appears, worse in the evening, worst during a sale. | Enough PHP workers and memory for uncached requests, not a bigger shared plan. |
| No object cache | Every page rebuilds the same product, tax and shipping queries. | A persistent object cache such as Redis, configured for WooCommerce sessions, measured before and after. |
| Cart fragments everywhere | An extra request on every page, blog included, to refresh a mini-cart nobody opened. | Load the cart script only on store pages. |
| Plugin bloat | Forty plugins, each adding scripts and database calls to every page. | Audit, then remove. Most stores lose a third of their plugins without losing a feature. |
| Database bloat | Millions of rows of expired sessions, transients and scheduler logs. | Clean the tables, add the missing indexes, schedule the cleanup. |
| Oversized images | Four-megabyte product photos served to a phone. | WebP, sized to the layout, lazy loaded below the fold. |
The order matters, and it starts at the server. Our PageSpeed guide covers the general WordPress fixes; the WooCommerce-specific ones above are where store speed is won.
woocommerce store setup, australian edition
Set up for Australia,
not for a tutorial written in Ohio.
Most WooCommerce guides assume US sales tax and a US courier. Australian stores have their own layers, and each one skipped at setup becomes a wrong invoice or an underpriced parcel later.
GST configured in the store, not on a spreadsheet
Prices entered and displayed GST-inclusive, a single 10 per cent rate, GST on shipping, a separate tax class for GST-free goods, exports going out GST-free. Your accountant says which products are exempt; we make the store agree. Tax invoices carry your ABN and the GST line.
Australia Post shipping that matches what you'll pay
Australia Post charges on the greater of actual and cubic weight, and regional WA or the NT costs a multiple of metro Sydney. We set up zones with weight-banded or live Australia Post rates, plus local pickup. A free-shipping threshold goes in only once we know your real average shipping cost.
Payment gateways your customers use
Stripe, Square or PayPal as the base, with Afterpay or Zip only if your customers ask, because instalment services charge merchants several times a card rate. Every gateway is tested with real transactions: a sale, a refund, a partial refund and a declined card, with the webhook confirmed so orders don't stall at "pending".
The parts that break quietly
Order emails from your own domain with SPF and DKIM in place, so they reach the inbox. Stock alerts that reach a person. A test order from a phone on mobile data. And a full backup before launch, restored once to prove it works.
shopify to woocommerce
Moving from Shopify.
Here's what doesn't come with you.
A Shopify to WooCommerce migration is an export-and-import job for the parts Shopify lets you export, and a rebuild for the parts it doesn't. The second list is longer than most people expect.
| What | Moves across? | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Products, variants, prices, images | Yes | CSV export and import. Images are re-fetched from Shopify's CDN, so alt text and variant SKUs need a check afterwards. |
| Customers | Names and addresses, not passwords | Passwords never leave Shopify. Every customer sets a new one on first login. |
| Order history | As records | Past orders import for reference. Refund detail is often thinner. Archive a full Shopify export regardless. |
| Saved cards, subscriptions, gift cards | No | Card tokens belong to Shopify Payments and gift card balances can't transfer. Subscribers re-enter a card, and some won't. |
| Reviews and app data | Only if exported first | Reviews, loyalty points and wishlists live in apps. Export them while the store is open. |
| Theme and design | No | A Shopify theme is Liquid. Nothing carries. The store is redesigned, which is often the point. |
| URLs | With work | /products/ and /collections/ paths mapped one-to-one to the new addresses with single-hop 301s before the switch. The method is written up here. |
What you stop paying is the Shopify subscription and its third-party fee. At Australian list prices checked 2 September 2026, Basic is $42 a month on an annual plan or $56 paying monthly, plus a card rate of 1.75 per cent and 30 cents, plus 2 per cent on every order through a gateway other than Shopify Payments. What you start paying is hosting and maintenance for a store you own; our Shopify comparison page weighs the two. Two rules we don't bend: the old store stays open until the new one has taken real orders for two weeks, and the full Shopify export is archived before anything is cancelled.
the plugin sprawl trap
Forty plugins isn't a store.
It's forty bills and forty ways to break.
Every extension is a licence that renews silently, an update that can conflict with the others, and a script loaded on every page. On a store we run, every plugin has one job nothing else does, has been updated in the last six months, works on the current PHP version, and would be missed if removed. Anything that fails that list goes. A store that needs fifteen extensions to sell a product is telling you something was chosen wrong earlier, and we'd rather say so than keep patching around it.
- WooCommerce
- WordPress
- Redis
- Stripe
- Australia Post
- Cloudflare
- Backups
- Monitoring
what ongoing maintenance actually involves
A store is a running system.
Maintenance is the job, not an add-on.
A brochure site can sit untouched for a year and lose nothing. A store holding customer data and taking money can't. This is what a care plan with us covers; the cost starts with an audit and comes back as a fixed number.
Updates on a copy first
WordPress, WooCommerce, PHP and every extension, applied on staging one layer at a time, with WooCommerce's own database upgrades checked before anything goes live.
Backups you've seen restored
Orders can't be collected from customers twice. Off-server backups on a schedule, with a test restore, so the backup is known to work rather than assumed to.
Monitoring the checkout, not just the homepage
Uptime checks tell you the server answers. A test that adds a product to the cart and reaches the payment step tells you the store works. We run the second kind.
Gateway and courier housekeeping
Stripe, PayPal and the shipping providers retire old API versions on their own timetables. Someone has to read those emails and act before the deadline, not after orders fail.
good to know
WooCommerce questions.
What does a WooCommerce developer in Sydney cost?
A new WooCommerce store build starts at $3,490 +GST ($3,839 including GST), with a fixed written quote before work starts. Smaller jobs, a speed pass, a GST and shipping setup or a migration off Shopify, are quoted as a fixed piece of work rather than by the hour. Rebuild tiers are published on our rebuild packages page.
Can you fix a WooCommerce store somebody else built?
Yes, and it's most of the WooCommerce work we do. Stores arrive with a checkout that fails on some cards, shipping rules never finished, GST never configured, or a plugin stack nobody dares update. We back up, audit and tell you honestly whether to repair or rebuild, because sometimes the repair costs more than a fresh store.
Why is my WooCommerce store so slow?
Usually because the cart and checkout can't be cached, so they expose the server underneath, and that server is a shared plan with no object cache. Plugin bloat, a database full of expired sessions and oversized images come next. We measure the checkout, find which layer is spending the time, and fix that first.
Can I move my store from Shopify to WooCommerce?
Yes. Products, variants, images, customers, past orders and blog posts export and import. Passwords, saved cards, subscriptions, gift card balances, the theme and app data do not, and reviews survive only if exported while the Shopify store is open. The old store stays open until the new one has taken real orders, and every old URL gets a single-hop redirect.
How do I set up GST in WooCommerce?
Enter and display prices GST-inclusive, create a single 10 per cent rate for Australia, apply it to shipping, put GST-free goods in their own tax class, and let exports go out GST-free. Your accountant confirms which products are exempt; we make the store match. Tax invoices show your ABN and the GST amount.
Send us the store's address and we'll tell you what we find. Get a tailored quote →
woocommerce enquiry
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your store.
Builds, rescues, migrations, integrations and speed work. Tell us what the store needs and we will tell you what it takes.