The best WordPress e-Commerce plugins out there to help your online store run as efficiently as possible.
One of the most common reasons people choose to build their own website is to start their own e-commerce store to sell products and services online. Naturally, WordPress, being the largest website-building platform on the internet, is best suited to this task. Not all business owners are adept at CSS and HTML, and there is not a lot of good use to be. WordPress offers you drag-and-drop solutions to build your website, integrate email newsletters, check the demographics of your customers, and a whole lot more.
What’s more is, that a lot of these plugins automate tasks that you would otherwise require human input for in a business. For example, taking the address details of someone and generating an order number for them would be something a sales assistant would do. However, using a plugin you can automate this entire task. Wouldn’t that be great?
So without further ado, here are the 10 plugins you need on WordPress for you e-commerce store:
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is the largest open-source e-Commerce solution available in the world. What’s more is it is developed by Automattic, the team responsible for giving us WordPress. 1 in every 5 WordPress sites uses WooCommerce and with how well it integrates and the plethora of features it has, that fact should come as no surprise. It offers SEO optimization, configurable shipping options, multiple payment gateways, and even allows you to let your customers pre-order items before they’re in stock.
The huge global community means you are always covered in case you run into a problem. Best of all, this plugin comes at no cost to you except when you decide to upgrade for some advanced features.
ShopWP
If WooCommerce doesn’t quite cut it for you, there’s always the biggest competitor in town; Shopify! Although Shopify has since discontinued its official WordPress plugin in favor of a JavaScript snippet, the folks at ShopWP remain persistent at bringing the two worlds together. The result is ShopWP; a solution to bring your entire Shopify store over to the WordPress CMS. It also lets you add different variants for a single product, lets your customers choose one-time subscriptions or products, and does away with iFrames.
Easy Digital Downloads
A lot of sellers want to sell digital media like music, movies, courses, e-books or even subscriptions. Although that can be done by using the other plugins mentioned in this post, Easy Digital Downloads is a cut above the rest. It has customer management options, allows multiple payment methods with recurrent payments if needed, and even allows your customers to view their purchase history.
The real bonus of this plugin comes in where it can let many different customers add the same product to their cart and check out since there is no real stock shortage of digital products. Other plugins do not optimize this well. Easy Digital Downloads are free with a paid upgrade available.
Ecwid
Ecwid is one of the foremost, well-established e-commerce plugins for WordPress. It is highly cost-effective in comparison to other, less feature-packed plugins. It’s Content Management System (CMS) allows you to synchronize with Tumblr, Facebook, and Instagram among others.
You also get support for Google Ads, PCI compliance for bank transfers, and mobile optimization. Ecwid also lets you choose from their vast array of themes and lets you implement your storefront on multiple websites with just a single click if needed. It also does a fantastic job of storing all of your inventory and transactional data and lets you export it to other platforms. Ecwid is a free plugin with scalable monthly subscriptions for their premium plans.
WP eCommerce
The oldest plugin on the list, WP eCommerce is quite literally, the grandfather of WordPress e-commerce plugins. It has adapted to the changes in the e-commerce sphere over time but still has a lot to learn. As a result, the plugin is very barebones in its functionality with basic features like multiple payment methods, stock management, and shopping cart systems present and well integrated into the plugin.
Where it really shines, however, compared to other plugins is in two key areas. Because there are so few add-ons to the plugin and due to its lightweight nature, your customer will feel lightning-fast speed while browsing your website. Moreover, it allows savvy developers to make tweaks to their heart’s content in HTML and CSS code. It comes free with a few paid add-ons.
WP EasyCart
WP EasyCart is based on what its name suggests; an easy way to establish an online shopping store. Small business owners who are not adept at WordPress or running an online store will feel right at home with this plugin. It offers the usual features like integrated payment gateways, digital product inventory, and marketing tools.
It is very easy to work with, allowing you a plug-and-play experience. EasyCart also allows your customers to give you donations and allows multiple languages and currencies for your platform. All this comes for free with affordable premium plans. The only caveat is it charges you a commission per transaction as part of the free plan.
MemberPress
MemberPress is another alternative to the brilliant Easy Digital Downloads plugin. It is a comprehensive solution to selling memberships, subscriptions, and courses online. You can also integrate other products with recurrent payments as well. The setup is extremely beginner-friendly, requiring you to only set up your products and payment gateways while the plugin does the rest for you.
Since it is a recurrent payment model, MemberPress allows for the integration of coupons and vouchers that you can give to your customers. The plugin also lets you schedule times for when your products will be available for purchase.
A neat feature of MemberPress is that it lets you divide your subscription model into multiple levels and the automated billing lets the users transfer whenever they wish. MemberPress is not free and comes with yearly pricing plans according to your requirements.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a giant in the world of WordPress e-commerce and for good reason. Best suited to the needs of large businesses, it has no limit on the amounts of products you wish to display. The plugin allows you to manage multi-channel sales from one place and syncs your inventory automatically.
It is also PCI compliant and offers the lowest card transaction rates among any plugin due to its partnerships with credit card processors. BigCommerce offers a whopping 65 payment channels and provides real-time shipping for all international clients.
There is also support for Accelerated Mobile Pages and the performance is insanely fast due to their back-end management. However, as of now, BigCommerce is in beta and requires users to apply in order to use the plugin.
WooCommerce B2B
This list would be incomplete without a B2B platform solution. Introducing WooCommerce B2B! A premium plugin that can be used in conjunction with the standard WooCommerce plugin or as a standalone plugin itself. As a result, you can use this plugin to add B2-B elements to your B2C store or make your very own B2-B store.
It offers all the standard features of a B2B outlet like tax exemption, discounts on specific purchase quantities, and minimum purchase amounts. It comes only in a paid version.
Cart66
Cart66, a lot like EasyCart, is built for the simpletons out there who want to run their online store on WordPress. Cart66 is very comprehensive on its own, offering all the features a normal store would need to run properly.
It also has its own marketplace of vendors so you can market your business through that avenue as well. Cart66 claims that they do not compete with WooCommerce as they are geared towards novices that have little to no knowledge of WordPress and online stores. Couple that with their 24/7 standby support and you have a winner.
Those were our picks for the top 10 WordPress plugins you need if you want to run your very own online store. Let us know down in the comments below if we forgot to mention your favorite plugin.
Keep following this blog for more stuff like this!
