Opening an online store is a business goal that many people share today. Selling products and services to an audience that can reach unimaginable numbers is enticing and smart, so why wouldn’t anyone want to do this today? Fully functional, well branded online stores can yield amazing results for the seller and boost sales faster than any of the traditional strategies before the Internet.
With the growth in interest in e-commerce stores, we are also witnessing a growth in opportunities. Right now, there are plenty of SaaS platforms available to online sellers, as well as WordPress plugins that are just as essential and just as powerful.
Are you considering a WordPress ecommerce plugin for your online store? This is definitely a wise idea since some of the greatest plugins available on the platform provide many of the benefits you’ll get with SaaS products, plus you can enjoy the advantage of integrating them with the most popular content management system known to the world.
To help you out with this particular matter, we’ve narrowed down the huge list of choices WordPress offers to the top ten you can use for your ecommerce business.
Best WordPress ECommerce Plugins
WooCommerce
this plugin is now known to power 8% of the ecommerce websites online and an incredible number of 21% of the top 1 million websites.
The limitations of this plugin are almost non-existent. One can create an online store with as little as five items, or sell thousands of different products by using the plugin. And most importantly – it is free for everyone. The plugin provides the necessary support for visitors and products of unlimited numbers, just as long as your infrastructure and hosting can handle this.
Now, you can pay extra for some elements that can be integrated with this plugin. Some of the best Word Press themes are created specifically to work with WooCommerce. There are also extensions that users purchase to boost the functionality of their store. Thankfully, WooCommerce has an extension store, too, making this a very simple process.
Easy Digital Downloads
EDD is a rather simple and very useful plugin for ecommerce stores. It has a support system that allows users to sell their digital products on the platform. Even though it is rather similar to WooCommerce in this sense, EDD has more numerous features in terms of digital sales, and a much cleaner interface.
So, WooCommerce might be the most widely used plugin, but EDD is more used by people who sell PDF files, eBooks, audio clips, and other, non-physical products and services. This is also a free plugin.
Easy Digital Downloads offers an option to use a shopping card and process payments on the site without adding extra clicks that might chase away the visitors. For more features, you can choose to upgrade the plugin at a rate that starts at $199 per year and can go up to $899 per year. These plans all include updates, site licenses, and full customer support.
If you aren’t interested in purchasing one of their plans, you might want to opt for their extensions that come at a much more affordable rate and are sold separately.
WP eCommerce
Many sellers nowadays use WP eCommerce as an alternative to WooCommerce. The reason for this is that the plugin is quite similar to WooCommerce, especially when you take a look into the pricing model and the dashboard interface. Once again, you can use the plugin for free and add some extra features later.
If both are the same, why do people choose one over the other? Well, there are some differences between this plugin and WooCommerce. The main difference is that this particular plugin has an extension called the Gold Cart extension, somewhat of a premium version of itself. For one website, users pay $99 for this extension and enjoy features such as a grid view for the product galleries, live search, and some premium payment gateways.
They also differ in terms of functionality. For example, WooCommerce offers free product reviews, but these are actually paid on WP eCommerce. On the other hand, the first charges for advanced shipping, while the latter has many free options for it.
It is more of a preference than a competition. If you are thinking between the two, you should base the decision on your specific needs.
Cart66 Cloud
Cart66 Cloud is yet another popular ecommerce plugin used by sellers of all kinds and preferences. It has a minimalist approach. The goal is to minimize the add-ons one needs to ensure a smooth functionality of their website, making it perfect for those with little experience in handling extensions and add-ons.
Most of the features of this plugin are already built in. This makes it real simple to configure.
The thing that differentiates this plugin from the rest is their approach toward add-ons. It is a plugin used by those who don’t consider themselves to be advanced developers or don’t want to bother with a complex system.
Once again, their core plugin is free. But, for the extra features, you can purchase their premium version that costs $49 per month.
Jigoshop eCommerce
Jigoshop eCommerce is the oldest WordPress ecommerce plugin that was created back in 2011. The idea of the Jigowatt Company was to create an e-solution that helps WordPress users turn their websites into stores. So, even though it is not the most popular plugin at this very moment, it is the inspiration for them all.
Since the inception of Jigoshop eCommerce, the company has rebranded and further developed and updated the plugin. Now it is a modern and rather fast plugin, open for free to everyone. It is also one of the top ten plugins used among ecommerce stores, even after all this time.
Their set of features includes digital products, variable products, physical goods, as well as simple products. The plugin has various styling tools, detailed reports, and an easy management system.
In addition to the free product, users can pay for updates and themes provided by various developers, including those from Jigoshop. Most of them come around the price of $50.
Shopify
If you’ve had the interest for opening an online store for at least a little while, you’ve surely come across the popular plugin named Shopify. It is a cloud-hosted WordPress platform that lets you sell products on WordPress sites and any other website you want.
Some of the native ecommerce plugins on WordPress are more complex than Shopify since all you have to do to use this plugin is sign up and open the store. You don’t have to upgrade the server, not even when your business grows, nor do you have to worry about the security, speed, and other technical matters.
On top of all this, Shopify is popular for their attractive themes that allow you to give your store more of a personal touch.
WP EasyCart Shopping Cart and eCommerce Store
This particular plugin has reached a certain level of popularity in the past few months, and for several reasons. It is specifically created for the small business owners who have no training for using such plugins and platforms. The store runs on WordPress, but with a fast process of configuration and much simpler tools.
Basically, it is the ‘ecommerce plugin for dummies’. Small businesses who aren’t experienced developers seem to love it, which is where their popularity began.
You can synchronize this plugin with MailChimp, ShipStation, QuickBooks, etc. Moreover, you can sell everything, including digital products such as subscriptions and e-books.
BigCommerce WordPress Plugin
The ninth plugin in our list has been on the web for a while now, but they’ve just recently got into the WordPress ecommerce space. They have an early version of the developer beta, so you’d have to apply in order to gain access. Their grand goal is to attract WordPress ecommerce users and bloggers that decided to sell some products.
The best part about this plugin is that you can finally combine its features with that of WordPress. You can place its module on various sites and sync them, as well as manage your sales and inventory from a single dashboard.
MemberPress
Finally, MemberPress allows users to sell digital services and products that are subscription-based on a WordPress website. It also allows users to charge their customers to access digital goods on the website. In other words, this is the plugin mostly used by bloggers and other sellers who focus on selling e-books, pdf files, and other digital goods. It can also be integrated with WooCommerce.
Selecting the best ecommerce plugin for your website is challenging and tricky. All of these plugins are highly popular and functional. However, the biggest factor toward your decision is your personal need as a seller. ” width=”625″ height=”357″>
WooCommerce is, without a doubt, the most popular plugin used for ecommerce stores. It’s widely used among online sellers since it is an easy and fully functional solution.
At the very beginning of the creation of this plugin, WooCommerce was created as a Jigoshop fork. Once the themes named WooThemes were acquired in 2015 by a company named Automattic, the company that operates the platform, the popularity of this plugin reached enormous numbers. In fact, this plugin is now known to power 8% of the ecommerce websites online and an incredible number of 21% of the top 1 million websites.
The limitations of this plugin are almost non-existent. One can create an online store with as little as five items, or sell thousands of different products by using the plugin. And most importantly – it is free for everyone. The plugin provides the necessary support for visitors and products of unlimited numbers, just as long as your infrastructure and hosting can handle this.
Now, you can pay extra for some elements that can be integrated with this plugin. Some of the best Word Press themes are created specifically to work with WooCommerce. There are also extensions that users purchase to boost the functionality of their store. Thankfully, WooCommerce has an extension store, too, making this a very simple process.
Easy Digital Downloads
EDD is a rather simple and very useful plugin for ecommerce stores. It has a support system that allows users to sell their digital products on the platform. Even though it is rather similar to WooCommerce in this sense, EDD has more numerous features in terms of digital sales, and a much cleaner interface.
So, WooCommerce might be the most widely used plugin, but EDD is more used by people who sell PDF files, eBooks, audio clips, and other, non-physical products and services. This is also a free plugin.
Easy Digital Downloads offers an option to use a shopping cart and process payments on the site without adding extra clicks that might chase away the visitors. For more features, you can choose to upgrade the plugin at a rate that starts at $199 per year and can go up to $899 per year. These plans all include updates, site licenses, and full customer support.
If you aren’t interested in purchasing one of their plans, you might want to opt for their extensions that come at a much more affordable rate and are sold separately.
WP eCommerce
Many sellers nowadays use WP eCommerce as an alternative to WooCommerce. The reason for this is that the plugin is quite similar to WooCommerce, especially when you take a look into the pricing model and the dashboard interface. Once again, you can use the plugin for free and add some extra features later.
If both are the same, why do people choose one over the other? Well, there are some differences between this plugin and WooCommerce. The main difference is that this particular plugin has an extension called the Gold Cart extension, somewhat of a premium version of itself. For one website, users pay $99 for this extension and enjoy features such as a grid view for the product galleries, live search, and some premium payment gateways.
They also differ in terms of functionality. For example, WooCommerce offers free product reviews, but these are actually paid on WP eCommerce. On the other hand, the first charges for advanced shipping, while the latter has many free options for it.
It is more of a preference than a competition. If you are thinking between the two, you should base the decision on your specific needs.
Cart66 Cloud
Cart66 Cloud is yet another popular ecommerce plugin used by sellers of all kinds and preferences. It has a minimalist approach. The goal is to minimize the add-ons one needs to ensure a smooth functionality of their website, making it perfect for those with little experience in handling extensions and add-ons.
Most of the features of this plugin are already built in. This makes it real simple to configure.
The thing that differentiates this plugin from the rest is their approach toward add-ons. It is a plugin used by those who don’t consider themselves to be advanced developers or don’t want to bother with a complex system.
Once again, their core plugin is free. But, for the extra features, you can purchase their premium version that costs $49 per month.
LemonStand
LemonStand is a cloud-based platform for ecommerce stores that’s easy to create and manage. It gives users the opportunity to customize the experiences of their customers, including their checkout process with the help of their development tools.
Moreover, this plugin has a content management system that ensures easy management and publishing of your ready content. You can integrate it with over a hundred web applications for various purposes, such as payment, accounting, shipping, and marketing.
Jigoshop eCommerce
Jigoshop eCommerce is the oldest WordPress ecommerce plugin that was created back in 2011. The idea of the Jigowatt Company was to create an e-solution that helps WordPress users turn their websites into stores. So, even though it is not the most popular plugin at this very moment, it is the inspiration for them all.
Since the inception of Jigoshop eCommerce, the company has rebranded and further developed and updated the plugin. Now it is a modern and rather fast plugin, open for free to everyone. It is also one of the top ten plugins used among ecommerce stores, even after all this time.
Their set of features includes digital products, variable products, physical goods, as well as simple products. The plugin has various styling tools, detailed reports, and an easy management system.
In addition to the free product, users can pay for updates and themes provided by various developers, including those from Jigoshop. Most of them come around the price of $50.
Shopify
If you’ve had the interest for opening an online store for at least a little while, you’ve surely come across the popular plugin named Shopify. It is a cloud-hosted WordPress platform that lets you sell products on WordPress sites and any other website you want.
Some of the native ecommerce plugins on WordPress are more complex than Shopify since all you have to do to use this plugin is sign up and open the store. You don’t have to upgrade the server, not even when your business grows, nor do you have to worry about the security, speed, and other technical matters.
On top of all this, Shopify is popular for its attractive themes that allow you to give your store more of a personal touch.
WP EasyCart Shopping Cart and eCommerce Store
This particular plugin has reached a certain level of popularity in the past few months, and for several reasons. It is specifically created for the small business owners who have no training for using such plugins and platforms. The store runs on WordPress, but with a fast process of configuration and much simpler tools.
Basically, it is the ‘ecommerce plugin for dummies’. Small businesses who aren’t experienced developers seem to love it, which is where their popularity began.
You can synchronize this plugin with MailChimp, ShipStation, QuickBooks, etc. Moreover, you can sell everything, including digital products such as subscriptions and e-books.
BigCommerce WordPress Plugin
The ninth plugin in our list has been on the web for a while now, but they’ve just recently got into the WordPress ecommerce space. They have an early version of the developer beta, so you’d have to apply in order to gain access. Their grand goal is to attract WordPress ecommerce users and bloggers that decided to sell some products.
The best part about this plugin is that you can finally combine its features with that of WordPress. You can place its module on various sites and sync them, as well as manage your sales and inventory from a single dashboard.
MemberPress
Finally, MemberPress allows users to sell digital services and products that are subscription-based on a WordPress website. It also allows users to charge their customers to access digital goods on the website. In other words, this is the plugin mostly used by bloggers and other sellers who focus on selling e-books, pdf files, and other digital goods. It can also be integrated with WooCommerce.
Selecting the best ecommerce plugin for your website is challenging and tricky. All of these plugins are highly popular and functional. However, the biggest factor toward your decision is your personal need as a seller.
