Build an E-commerce Store
Run WooCommerce through a custom ability, and build the storefront with widgets.
BuildPress has no built-in WooCommerce ability. E-commerce works through a custom ability your AI writes for WooCommerce (or the REST fallback before you have one) for the catalog and store settings, plus widget-first storefront building for the shop, product, cart, and checkout pages.
WooCommerce registers its own REST routes under the wc/v3 namespace. Ask your AI to study WooCommerce and it writes a custom ability from those routes, so it can read and write products, categories, and settings with tools that are checked on your site. For the storefront itself, your AI builds standard pages out of design-system-bound widgets, the same way it builds any other page. Read more in Custom Abilities.
What you need first
- An active license, with MCP connected and set to Read + Write.
- One base builder chosen.
- Your design system marked ready before any page build.
- The WooCommerce plugin installed and active.
Step 1: Install and activate WooCommerce
Install WooCommerce from the WordPress plugin directory and activate it. Once active, its wc/v3 REST routes become reachable, which is what your AI uses to manage the catalog.
Step 2: Write a WooCommerce ability
- 1
Open the Abilities page
Go to WordPress Admin, then BuildPress, then Abilities, open the Custom tab, and find the WooCommerce row.
- 2
Ask your AI to study it
Copy the row's prompt into your AI client. BuildPress AI studies what WooCommerce registers, writes a set of tools, and checks every read tool on your site. Reads work straight away, so listing products needs nothing more.
- 3
Approve writes
Creating or updating products and settings needs writes, which stay off until you approve them on the row. Approval is tied to the exact tools you reviewed, and every write reads its own change back when it runs.
Step 3: Manage the catalog and settings
Your AI manages the catalog and store settings through the WooCommerce ability, built on the wc/v3 namespace: products, categories, and store settings. Reads work as soon as the ability is checked. Writes (creating or updating products, prices, and settings) need your approval on the ability first. Every call runs internally through WordPress core under your user's capabilities and is written to the audit log.
I've installed WooCommerce and approved writes on its ability. Create 6 products in an "Apparel" category with prices and short descriptions, then list them back so I can confirm they're live.Your AI discovers the WooCommerce namespace, creates the category if it does not exist, creates each product, then reads the results back to verify. You can also ask read-only questions, for example "List my WooCommerce products and tell me which are out of stock."
Step 4: Build the storefront with widgets
Build the shop, single-product, cart, and checkout pages as widget-composed pages, exactly like any other page. The design system, render verification, and header, footer, and menu wiring all apply. Dynamic product data binds through Dynamic Tags (Elementor Pro includes WooCommerce tags), never typed-in values.
Build a shop landing page using my design system: a hero, a featured products row, a category grid, and a newsletter CTA band.Design the single-product page layout, plus a clean cart page and checkout page, all bound to my design system. Bind the product title, price, and gallery through Dynamic Tags.Adding commerce to an existing site
If you already have a site and want to add a store, your AI can run a read-mostly audit first. It snapshots your pages, templates, menus, design system, and content model, builds a "missing pieces" report, and proposes what to add. Nothing is written until you approve, then the work routes into the design-system, foundation, page, and catalog flows.
Audit my existing site and tell me what's missing to add a store. Propose the pages and settings I'd need, then wait for my approval before building anything.