Are you searching for the best WordPress eCommerce plugin for your online store?
I’m sure you agree with me if I say:
Making the right choice when it comes to eCommerce plugins is crucial for the growth of your business.
Each store has unique purposes and requirements, and choosing the best eCommerce WordPress plugin can significantly impact your success. You are one step ahead when you have chosen the right plugin for your business purpose.
In this post, I will explore the 6 best WordPress eCommerce plugins, providing you with an in-depth analysis of their pros and cons. By the end of this post, you’ll have all the information you need to make a confident choice for your online store.
Let’s get started!
1. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is renowned as one of the “best WordPress eCommerce plugins,” with over 5+ million active installations. With its extensive feature set, WooCommerce allows you to transform your WordPress site into a powerful online shop.
You can sell physical and digital products, manage shipping, set taxes, and process payments through various payment gateways: PayPal, card payments through Stripe, Authorize.net, and others. WooCommerce boasts a vast number of extensions to enhance and customize your online store according to your unique requirements.
WooCommerce stands out with its extensive collection of both free and paid plugins and templates, a large community of users and developers, robust support for multilingual websites, and a wide range of free and paid support options.
Pros of using WooCommerce
Sell Anything: WooCommerce empowers you to sell a wide range of products, from physical items to digital downloads, bookings or appointments, and subscriptions. Its versatility enables you to cater to various customer preferences and expand your product offerings effortlessly.
Reliable Payment Options: With WooCommerce, you have access to popular payment gateways such as Stripe, PayPal, credit cards, direct bank transfer, checks, and cash on delivery. Offering multiple payment methods enhances the customer experience and maximizes sales potential.
Shipping Advantages: WooCommerce supports various shipping options, allowing you to provide free or paid shipping to your customers. The built-in shipping calculator simplifies the shipping process and improves overall customer satisfaction.
Easy to Extend: WooCommerce offers a vast library of plugins that allow you to add advanced e-commerce features without requiring coding knowledge. Whether you need enhanced product options, advanced inventory management, or integrations with third-party services, WooCommerce has you covered.
Exclusive Sales Reports: WooCommerce provides detailed sales reports, including graphs and statistics, allowing you to track your store’s performance. These insights help you make data-driven decisions, identify trends, and optimize your store’s revenue.
Complete Inventory Management: With WooCommerce, you can easily track stock levels, manage inventory, and automatically adjust stock after canceling an order. This ensures that you can effectively manage your product availability and avoid overselling.
Support and Documentation: WooCommerce offers comprehensive documentation and support through its website and WordPress.org support forums. Whether you’re a beginner or an advanced user, you’ll find resources to help you configure and develop your WooCommerce store.
Cons of using WooCommerce
Significant Learning Curve: While WooCommerce provides a setup wizard for basic settings, the advanced options can be overwhelming for first-time users. It may require some time and effort to familiarize yourself with all the settings and customization options.
Finding Add-ons: With a vast marketplace of WooCommerce add-ons, finding the right ones for your specific needs can be time-consuming. It’s essential to research and carefully select the plugins that align with your business goals.
Pricing
While WooCommerce itself is widely regarded as the best free eCommerce WordPress plugin (and always will be), it’s important to note that some premium extensions come at an additional cost. Depending on your requirements, you may need to invest in premium extensions to access advanced features and functionalities, with prices ranging up to $299 per year.
Best Suited to You?
If you want to run small to bigger stores for selling physical products, digital products, appointment bookings, and subscriptions, WooCommerce is the best fit for you. Its extensive feature set and flexibility make it suitable for a wide range of businesses.
2. Easy Digital Downloads
If you’re primarily focused on selling digital products, Easy Digital Downloads is an excellent choice. It offers a range of features tailored specifically for selling digital downloads and creating a dedicated digital marketplace.
The plugin provides a seamless shopping cart experience, allowing you to process payments directly on your website. After purchase, EDD automatically sends customers an email with the download link for their product.
With a wide range of additional extensions available, you can easily extend the functionality of your store to meet your specific requirements. Additionally, using a simple shortcode, you can display a detailed payment history on the user account page.
Pros of using EDD
Supports Digital Products: Easy Digital Downloads excels in selling various types of digital products, including ebooks, software, videos, music, and more. It provides the necessary tools and features to ensure smooth and secure digital product delivery to customers.
User-Friendly: Easy Digital Downloads is designed to be beginner-friendly, allowing for a simple setup and configuration process. Even if you’re new to WordPress and e-commerce, you can quickly get your digital store up and running.
Customer Management: Easy Digital Downloads enables you to maintain individual customer records, track their activity, and provide personalized support. By understanding your customers’ preferences and behavior, you can tailor your marketing efforts and improve customer satisfaction.
Payment Gateways: The plugin seamlessly integrates with popular payment gateways, ensuring secure and convenient transactions for your customers. You can choose from a range of payment options to accommodate diverse customer preferences.
Useful Data Reporting: Easy Digital Downloads offers robust data reporting features, allowing you to track earnings by date range and category. These insights help you evaluate the performance of your products, marketing campaigns, and overall store profitability.
Developer Friendly: EDD provides a comprehensive RESTful API, empowering developers to extend and customize the plugin according to their specific requirements. This flexibility allows for seamless integration with third-party services and the development of unique features.
Cons of using EDD
Focus on Digital Products: While Easy Digital Downloads excels in selling digital products, it may not be the ideal choice if you plan to sell both digital and physical products simultaneously. Additional development effort may be required to accommodate physical product sales.
Paid Payment Gateway: While Easy Digital Downloads supports payment gateways like PayPal, integrating more advanced payment options such as Stripe and PayPal Pro may require purchasing additional add-ons.
Pricing
Easy Digital Downloads provides both free and premium options. The core plugin is free, while premium extensions start at $99/year, offering advanced functionalities and support.
Best Suited to You?
If you’re looking for the best free WordPress eCommerce plugin to sell digital products exclusively and prioritize a lightweight plugin with a user-friendly interface, Easy Digital Downloads is the ideal choice for creating your desired online store.
3. Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart
Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart is a powerful plugin that allows you to build a professional online store for small businesses. It offers seamless integration with WordPress and provides a range of features to simplify your e-commerce operations.
Ecwid empowers you with effortless payment processing, streamlined delivery management, and the ability to offer enticing discounts. Additionally, in the pro version, it seamlessly integrates with popular platforms like Instagram and Facebook, expanding your sales channels and reaching a broader audience. This advanced feature allows you to maximize your online presence and unlock new opportunities for growth.
Pros of using Ecwid
Easy Integration: Ecwid can be easily installed and configured within minutes. Its user-friendly interface makes it simple to add and display products in your store, ensuring a smooth setup process.
Sell Everywhere: With Ecwid, you can sell your products not only on your WordPress site but also on multiple websites and social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. This multichannel selling capability expands your reach and potential customer base.
Automatic Backups: Ecwid hosts your products and data on a secure server, providing automatic backups. You can rest assured that your valuable data is safe and easily recoverable.
Easy Management: Ecwid offers a centralized dashboard for managing inventory, orders, pricing, and more. This streamlined management process allows you to efficiently handle all aspects of your online store.
Friendly Documentation and Support: Ecwid provides user-friendly documentation and offers support through forums, chat, and phone. You can find answers to your questions and receive assistance whenever needed.
Powerful Extensions and API: Ecwid offers a range of extensions and a comprehensive API, allowing you to extend the functionality of your store. Whether you need additional features, integrations, or custom solutions, Ecwid provides the flexibility to meet your specific requirements.
Cons of using Ecwid
Lack of SEO Performance: Ecwid has limitations when it comes to optimizing product URLs, which may impact your store’s search engine visibility. Additionally, some SEO features are not available in the free plan.
Limited Design Customization: While Ecwid offers customization options, beginners may find it challenging to fully leverage the design capabilities without prior experience or knowledge.
Pricing
Ecwid offers a free plan suitable for small businesses. If you have more than 10 products or require advanced features, premium plans are available, starting at $14.08 per month.
Best Suited to You?
If you are a small business owner looking to set up an online store on your existing WordPress site, Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart provides the necessary features and ease of use for your e-commerce journey.
4. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a SaaS-based eCommerce solution that offers seamless integration with WordPress. It is an excellent choice for small to medium-sized online shops.
BigCommerce lets you run a scalable eCommerce business using WordPress on the front-end, freeing up server resources and maximizing performance. It seamlessly integrates with WordPress, making product embedding and management a breeze.
BigCommerce offers an extensive range of features right out of the box, providing you with a robust and comprehensive eCommerce solution. With a wide selection of responsive eCommerce themes, you can easily choose a theme that suits your business and enhances your online store’s visual appeal.
Pros of using BigCommerce
Highly Scalable: BigCommerce provides all the essential features required for running an online store, including complex catalog support, global payment gateways, taxation, shipping, and more. It eliminates the need for additional plugins to access necessary functionalities.
Offload Backend Resources: With BigCommerce, you can integrate your products with your WordPress platform and free up server resources. This enables faster site loading times and improved overall performance.
Sell Over Multiple Channels: The core BigCommerce platform allows you to sell your products across various channels, such as Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, eBay, and more. This multichannel selling capability helps you reach a wider audience and expand your sales channels.
Flexible Shopping Cart: BigCommerce offers a flexible shopping cart with customization opportunities. You can easily offer discounts, promotions, and special offers to drive customer engagement and boost sales.
Developer-Friendly: BigCommerce follows standard coding practices and supports overriding template files, allowing you or your developer to customize the store’s design as needed. You can also leverage hooks and filters to modify and manage content.
Cons of using BigCommerce
Limited Integrations: While BigCommerce offers many features out of the box, you may encounter limitations when it comes to integrating with third-party plugins or services.
Annual Sales Limit: Depending on your chosen plan, BigCommerce imposes a limit on annual online sales. If you exceed this limit, you will need to upgrade to a higher-tier plan.
Pricing
BigCommerce is a free eCommerce solution too. You will need to pay if you want to use its premium features and themes. It offers a range of pricing plans, starting at $29 per month.
Best Suited to You?
If you want to run a small to medium-sized online shop and prioritize a faster loading site, BigCommerce provides the necessary features and scalability for your business.
5. WP EasyCart
WP EasyCart is a powerful free WordPress eCommerce plugin designed specifically for small business owners. It allows you to create a visually appealing online store without requiring extensive development knowledge.
It supports unlimited products, real shipping calculators, and high-level product variants. You can send invoices, post eBooks, and even accept donations.
Moreover, the WP EasyCart team provides comprehensive support through forums, video tutorials, and online documentation. Paid customer support and custom store development services are also available for those who require personalized assistance.
Pros of using WP EasyCart
Multiple Product Types: WP EasyCart supports a variety of product types, including retail products, digital downloads, subscriptions, gift cards, and donations. This versatility enables you to offer diverse products and monetization options.
Payment Options: The plugin integrates with popular payment gateways like Stripe, Square, PayPal Express, and Authorize.net. It also offers SCA and GDPR compliant options for secure payment processing.
Shipping & Taxes: WP EasyCart provides a flexible table rate shipping system, allowing you to calculate shipping costs based on price, quantity, weight, or percentage. It also offers TaxCloud API integration for accurate tax rate calculations.
Order Management: It simplifies order management, allowing you to efficiently handle orders, shipping, billing, payment details, and more. You can generate receipts and packaging slips, add custom shipping notes, and view comprehensive order information in one place.
Marketing: WP EasyCart provides robust marketing features, including SEO optimization options for each product, menu, and category. You can also easily share your products on popular social media platforms. With the premium version, you can connect your store with Facebook and Instagram for seamless multi-channel selling.
Cons of using WP EasyCart
Minimal Reports: WP EasyCart’s reporting capabilities are relatively simple compared to other plugins. While it provides basic sales and user data, it may not offer advanced reporting functionality required for comprehensive store analysis.
Multiple Checkout Pages: WP EasyCart requires users to go through separate checkout pages for each vendor’s products in a multi-vendor setup. This can potentially create a disjointed user experience.
Pricing
WP EasyCart offers a free version with basic features, as well as premium plans starting at $69 for additional functionalities and priority support.
Best Suited to You?
If you have general WordPress knowledge and want to run a small shop with various product types, WP EasyCart provides a suitable choice for your online store.
6. WP eCommerce
WP eCommerce is a versatile WordPress eCommerce plugin that enables you to effortlessly create stunning online stores. With its intuitive interface, you can set up shop in no time.
This plugin is optimized for SEO and compatible with popular platforms like Android, Windows, and Mac devices, ensuring seamless performance across different devices. It also provides essential features such as a secure shopping cart and advanced shipping options, giving you the tools to deliver a smooth and secure shopping experience to your customers.
Pros of using WP eCommerce
Free Shipping Modules: WP eCommerce simplifies the shipping process with built-in shipping modules, enabling you to handle shipping without additional costs.
Secure Payments Gateways: The plugin supports popular payment gateways such as ProPay, PayPal, and WorldPay, ensuring secure and reliable payment processing for your customers.
Powerful Coupon Control: WP eCommerce provides a robust coupon system that allows you to create coupons with expiration dates and one-time use options. This feature helps you implement effective marketing strategies and drive sales.
Topnotch Support: WP eCommerce offers reliable customer support, including a real-time ticketing system and live chat. If you encounter any issues or have questions, their support team is readily available to assist you.
Cons of using WP eCommerce
Lack of Developer Documentation: WP eCommerce has limited developer documentation, which may pose challenges if you need to extend the plugin’s functionality beyond its default features.
Speed Optimization: The plugin may introduce additional database queries, potentially impacting page load speed and overall site performance.
Compatibility Concerns: WP eCommerce may not be fully tested or supported with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress. This lack of compatibility could result in potential issues or conflicts when used with more recent versions of WordPress.
Pricing
WP eCommerce itself is free, but premium add-ons are available to extend store functionality. Additionally, premium support for setup assistance and troubleshooting is available for $49 per month or $499 per year.
Best Suited to You?
If you want to run a physical shop and handle the shipping process for free, WP eCommerce provides a suitable solution.
What’s the Best WordPress eCommerce Plugin? Decide what serves your store’s purpose.
Congratulations! Now you’re equipped with the knowledge to choose the best WordPress eCommerce plugin for your online store. While WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads are popular choices, it’s important to remember that the “best” plugin varies depending on your specific business requirements.
Consider your store’s unique needs, target audience, and desired customization options when making your decision. Assess the pros and cons of each plugin, and don’t hesitate to explore other options like Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart, WP eCommerce, BigCommerce, or WP EasyCart. These plugins offer solid foundations for your online business, each with its own strengths.
Remember, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. What matters is finding the plugin that aligns perfectly with your store’s goals and objectives. If you have any questions or need further guidance, please feel free to leave a comment below. We’re here to help you make the best choice for your online success. Happy selling!