Automattic’s WooCommerce ecommerce platform now connects with Square

Keeping online and brick-and-mortar stores in sync is one of the biggest challenges for modern retailers, especially smaller ones. To help out, Automattic’s ecommerce platform, WooCommerce, has announced it is now integrated with offline payments platform Square.

In a blog post announcing the extension, Automattic Content Manager Nichole Kohler noted that this has been the most requested integration for WooCommerce and added:

“If you have both an online store and retail presence, you might sometimes feel as if they’re operating in different worlds. This goes double for managing your offline inventory, which usually requires a manual update to keep accurate for online sales.

“Now you can kiss those tedious manual updates goodbye. The Square integration will keep your WooCommerce inventory completely up-to-date automatically, syncing any online or offline stock changes for you.”

Kohler noted that a retailer only needs to set up products once to make them available both online and in the brick-and-mortar store, with synching of an unlimited number of SKUs, product categories, images or descriptions between Square or WooCommerce.

WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin for Automattic’s popular WordPress publishing platform, with additional features available as premium add-ons. Created in 2011, it was acquired in the spring of last year by Automattic and claims to be employed by over 37 percent of all online stores.

WooCommerce already supports other popular payment extensions like Stripe, PayPal and Amazon Payments, but the Square integration was missing.

Square allows small and medium-sized physical stores to take payments via small devices that read credit cards and connect to a smartphone or tablet. Merchants can also set up their own ecommerce site through Square, as well as obtain other business-related services.

Once the Square plugin is installed into WooCommerce, a user simply connects the WooCommerce and Square accounts.  Currently available only in the US and Canada, the Square integration is priced at $79 to $179 annually, depending on the number of sites.