Store builds
WooCommerce on a hand-built theme, not a page-builder template. Product data modelled properly, checkout tuned for South African buyers, payments and shipping wired in.
WooCommerce stores that stay fast as they grow.
A WooCommerce agency in Johannesburg that builds on hand-written themes, wires in South African payments and couriers, and keeps the store fast, patched and measured once it is live.
What we do
Build, integrate, run.
Subscriptions and memberships
Recurring billing, digital downloads, member content and renewals that actually renew. We fix the edge cases that lose subscribers, like downloads that vanish after renewal.
Local payments and shipping
PayFast, PayJustNow, Peach, Ozow, PayGate and Payflex. The Courier Guy, Aramex, Pargo and rate tables that match what you are charged.
Performance
WooCommerce gets slow at scale. We serve the page cache from nginx, tune MariaDB, trim the plugin stack and put a CDN in front so product pages load in under a second.
Integrations
Accounting, ERP, email marketing, Google Merchant Center, Ads and Analytics with conversion tracking that reconciles to orders. Live API or file-based, with a reconciliation loop.
Security and upkeep
Patch schedules for core, plugins and PHP, hardened servers, backups that leave the building, and a team that has handled real WordPress compromises.
Why Chronon
We run WordPress at newsroom scale.
The same team that keeps some of South Africa's busiest WordPress newsrooms standing builds your store. That means we already know what WooCommerce does to a database at volume, which plugins fight each other, and how to serve a cached page without serving a stale cart.
We do not edit plugin or theme code that an update will overwrite. Fixes go in configuration, a small plugin of our own or a child theme, so your store survives every update without us.
Measurement is part of the build. Analytics, Ads and Merchant Center are set up so that reported revenue matches real orders, and a contact or checkout event is a tracked conversion from day one.
From the journal
How it goes in practice.
The publisher whose traffic collapsed and had never been real
Duplicate tags counted every view eleven times. How we found it and what we fixed on the server.
Anatomy of a storefront compromise
What an eCommerce breach looks like from the inside and the hardening that stuck.
More from the Chronon Journal
Case studies and field notes from building and running platforms.
Questions we get asked
Straight answers.
How much does a WooCommerce store cost to build in Johannesburg?
A focused store on a custom theme with local payments, shipping and tracking typically lands in the tens of thousands of rand; subscriptions, integrations and large catalogues push it higher. We quote fixed prices for defined scope after a short call, and offer a monthly retainer for hosting and upkeep.
WooCommerce or Magento?
WooCommerce when the catalogue is manageable, the content matters as much as the products, and the team already lives in WordPress. Magento when you need B2B pricing tiers, multiple stores from one install or deep ERP integration. We build and run both; see our Magento page for the other side.
Can you fix our existing WooCommerce store rather than rebuild it?
Usually yes. We start with an audit of plugins, theme, performance, tracking and security and give you a prioritised list. Most stores need a trimmed plugin stack, proper caching and a few targeted fixes, not a rebuild.
Do you handle hosting?
Yes. We run WordPress and WooCommerce on Linux servers we tune ourselves, with nginx serving the page cache and Cloudflare in front. We can also work on your existing hosting if you prefer to keep it.
Will our Google Ads and Analytics tracking be accurate?
That is a specific thing we check. Duplicate tags are common and inflate numbers badly. We set up GA4, Ads conversion tracking and Merchant Center so that reported revenue reconciles to WooCommerce orders.
Do you use page builders?
Not for stores we build. Builders are slow and fragile under WooCommerce. We write the theme by hand, which keeps pages fast and lets your team edit content without breaking layout.
Next step
Send us the store.
New build or existing store, the first step is the same: a short call and a look under the hood. You get a written list of what we would do and what it costs.
Also see eCommerce platforms, Magento development and hosting.