Setting up a WooCommerce store is the easy part. Getting it to actually sell is where the work begins. A good-looking shop does nothing on its own. You need to give customers reasons to buy, and reasons to come back.

This guide shares six practical ways to increase online sales on WooCommerce. We start with the most powerful one, selling on marketplaces, then cover five proven tactics to get more from the customers you already have. Each is something you can set up this week.

6 ways to increase online sales on WooCommerce

1. Sell on marketplaces (the biggest win)

If you only do one thing on this list, do this. Every other tip squeezes more out of the visitors you already have. Selling on marketplaces brings you brand new ones, by the million, which is why it is the single fastest way to grow your sales.

Here is the core idea. Building an audience of your own takes years of SEO, ads and content. Marketplaces already have that audience, sitting there, ready to buy. Instead of waiting for customers to find your store, you place your products where the customers already are.

Take Bol.com. It is the biggest marketplace in the Netherlands and Belgium, with millions of active shoppers who arrive already intending to buy. Or Kaufland, one of Germany’s fastest-growing marketplaces, which opens the door to the largest eCommerce market in Europe right next door.

eBay adds reach across the rest of the continent. Listing on even one of these puts your products in front of more buyers than most webshops see in a year.

And you do not have to choose between your store and the marketplace. Your WooCommerce store stays your home base, where you own the customer and keep full margin. The marketplaces become extra sales channels feeding it, catching buyers who would never have found you otherwise.

The catch is managing it all. Listing products by hand, updating stock on every channel, and matching prices is slow, and one mistake means overselling an item you no longer have. That is exactly the problem Woosa’s free marketplace plugins solve.

They connect your WooCommerce store to Bol.com, Kaufland and eBay, and keep products, prices, stock and orders synced automatically across every channel. Sell an item on Bol.com and your WooCommerce stock drops instantly, so you never oversell. You reach millions of new buyers without doubling your workload, which is why this beats every other tactic for pure growth.

New to a platform? Our guides on selling on Bol.com and the best German marketplaces walk you through where to start. Or browse the free WooCommerce marketplace plugins to connect your first channel today.

2. Use discounts and coupons

Discounts feel old school, but they work. Research shows most online shoppers hold off buying until a product goes on sale. A well-timed coupon turns a browser into a buyer, and it builds loyalty that pays off in repeat orders.

The trick is to use them with intent, not to slash prices constantly. A first-order discount converts new visitors. A win-back coupon pulls in customers who have not bought in a while. A minimum-spend coupon (“10% off orders over 50”) lifts your average order value instead of shrinking your margin.

You can create coupons straight from your dashboard. Go to Marketing, then Coupons, then Add coupon. Pick a percentage or fixed discount, set any conditions like a minimum spend or expiry date, and optionally enable free shipping to sweeten the deal.

3. Upsell and cross-sell

Upselling means nudging a customer toward a higher-value version of what they are already buying. Cross-selling means offering a related product alongside it. Both lift your average order value, and both start with knowing your customer well enough to suggest the right thing.

Think of how the big stores do it. Buy a camera, and they suggest the better model (upsell) and a memory card and case (cross-sell). You can do the same. The key is relevance: a suggestion only works if it genuinely fits what the customer is buying. A random add-on gets ignored, a useful one gets added to the cart.

To set them up, open a product, scroll to the Product Data panel, choose Linked Products, and add the items you want to upsell or cross-sell. WooCommerce then shows them on the product and cart pages automatically. Done well, this quietly turns one sale into a bigger one, every single order.

4. Run flash sales

A flash sale is a short, time-limited promotion, sometimes just a few hours. The magic is urgency. When customers know a deal ends soon, they buy now instead of “maybe later”. Cyber Monday is the famous example, but you can run one any time of year.

Urgency works because it removes hesitation. A shopper who might have thought it over for a week suddenly has a reason to decide today. That psychological push is why a 24-hour sale often outsells a permanent discount of the same size.

Offer the discount on all products or a chosen category, then push it hard on social media, email your list, and put it front and centre on your store with a banner or countdown. Urgency plus visibility is what makes a flash sale convert. Run them now and then, not constantly, or customers learn to wait for the next one.

5. Reward loyalty with points

A points system gives customers a reason to keep coming back. They earn points on each purchase and redeem them for discounts or free products. It drives repeat sales, and it quietly gives you data on what your customers love.

This matters because keeping a customer is far cheaper than finding a new one. Someone who already bought from you and had a good experience is your easiest next sale. A loyalty program makes staying with you the rewarding choice, so they come back to you instead of shopping around.

A WooCommerce points and rewards extension lets you set this up by product, category or across your whole store. You decide how many points a purchase earns and what they unlock. Loyalty is cheaper to keep than to win, so this one compounds over time.

6. Send abandoned cart emails

Most shoppers who add to cart never check out. They get distracted, compare prices, or simply forget. Abandoned cart emails bring them back, reminding them what they left behind and nudging them to finish. It is one of the highest-return things you can automate, because these are people who already wanted to buy.

A good sequence is gentle. A first email a few hours later as a simple reminder, a second the next day, and sometimes a small discount on the third to tip them over. You are not chasing strangers here, you are recovering sales that were almost yours.

An abandoned cart extension lets you set triggers for all products or specific categories, so the reminders go out on their own once a cart is left behind.

Turn more visitors into buyers

Increasing online sales on WooCommerce is not about one magic trick. It is a handful of small, proven moves working together: better offers, smarter product links, urgency, loyalty, recovery emails, and more sales channels.

Start with one or two, measure what works, and build from there. And when you are ready to reach new customers, Woosa’s free plugins connect your store to the biggest marketplaces so you can grow without the manual work.

If you run a dropshipping store, the same plugins keep your supplier products, stock and orders in sync too, so scaling your sales does not mean scaling your admin. Download the free plugins here to get started.

Frequently asked questions

How can I increase sales on my WooCommerce store?

Use a mix of proven tactics: discounts and coupons, upselling and cross-selling, flash sales, a loyalty points system, abandoned cart emails, and selling on marketplaces. Combined, they lift both the value of each order and the number of customers you reach.

Do abandoned cart emails really work?

Yes. Most shoppers who add items to their cart do not check out, and a reminder email brings a meaningful share of them back. Because these people already showed intent to buy, the return on abandoned cart emails is among the highest of any tactic.

How do I sell on marketplaces from WooCommerce?

Use a marketplace plugin. Woosa’s free plugins connect your WooCommerce store to Bol.com, Kaufland and eBay, and sync your products, stock, prices and orders automatically, so you can sell on multiple channels from one dashboard.

What is the fastest way to reach more customers?

Selling on marketplaces is the fastest, because platforms like Bol.com and Kaufland already have millions of active buyers. A marketplace plugin lists your products there and keeps everything in sync, so you tap that audience without building it yourself.