Building an online store seems to be now easier than ever. There are plenty of SaaS (Software as a Service) products like Shopify, BigCommerce, and thousands of other WordPress e-commerce plugins—all designed to get your store up and running in full functionality.
The catch is…
WordPress has over 58,000 plugins that you can choose from. Such a number can be more overwhelming than being an opportunity. With so many options, how do you pick the best WordPress e-commerce plugins for your specific needs?
To help you cut down the list, we will round up the top plugins for varying e-commerce business needs and get you to start making money online.
Short List of The Best WordPress Ecommerce Plugins
Feel free the jump to the plugin you want to see from the table below:
Since plugins are not always fully reliable and secure, there are things you should do before picking a plugin for your store. You must strengthen the foundation of your WordPress website first. Here are the must-have elements:
A Powerful WordPress Web Host
Yes, you can pick a cheap plan and get away with it. But Google and other search engines prioritize page speed as a vital ranking factor. Page load time is also critical for better e-commerce user experiences.
So, if you want your store to show up in SERP (search engine results page), then you should find a reputable web host. A premium-tier service is worth your investment.
An SSL Certificate
Since e-commerce stores process both personal and transactional information, you can’t jeopardize your WordPress security.
By installing an SSL certificate, you keep user data secure, verify the ownership of your website, and prevent hackers from creating a fake version of your site. It redirects URLs from HTTP to HTTPS.
Plus, HTTPS is also a Google search ranking signal.
Here we will provide a list of the best e-commerce plugins for WordPress as well as a tool that requires no plugin installation.
WooCommerce is currently the most popular WordPress plugin, so you might have already heard of it. When it comes to turning WordPress sites into e-commerce stores, the top choice is often WooCommerce.
What makes WooCommerce one of the best WordPress e-commerce plugins?
Out of the box WooCommerce Features
If you’d like to boost your WooCommerce store’s organic traffic, we have a complete WooCommerce SEO guide for you.
There are many direct WordPress exit popup plugins but loading up your website with plugins of all kinds is not a great idea for its speed and security. Popupsmart popup builder is a fast and advanced solution for modern popup designs with smart triggers. Plus, it has a free version.
Integrating Popupsmart into your WordPress or WooCommerce store is very easy. You just need to copy and paste a provided single-line code; no coding, no plugin installations, or unending updates.
Using popups is a big plus to drive email leads, promote products, and offer discounts and coupons.
Smart Features:
Pricing: Popupsmart has a free plan. Premium plans start at $29/mo.
BigCommerce is, in fact, one of the largest managed e-commerce platforms today, being on the same list of leading e-commerce platforms like Shopify. It has recently launched an e-commerce plugin for WordPress that helps create a headless commerce solution, incorporating the WordPress CMS.
What makes BigCommerce one of the best WordPress e-commerce plugins:
Cons:
Pricing: BigCommerce price plans start at $29.95/mo.
The Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart has excellent ratings, allowing users to turn their WordPress site into a fully functioning e-commerce store. This plugin is designed to help you sell from multiple sales channels.
It looks pretty similar to WooCommerce, but they have some differences.
One major difference is that Ecwid can be used on any website. For example, if you own a Drupal website, you can still use Ecwid to turn it into an e-commerce store.
The list goes further than Drupal, and alike, it includes Facebook, Tumblr, and many more, while WooCommerce is only a WordPress plugin.
Ecwid offers a reasonable and cost-effective monthly payment plan. The core plugin is completely free and covers more built-in features than WooCommerce, in contrast to a library of add-ons.
An e-commerce store with fewer than 100 products get some of the following features:
Pricing:
When compared to WooCommerce, Ecwid might seem costly at first glance but keep in mind that WooCommerce may require expensive add ons to cover your needs.
Shopify is one of the fastest-growing e-commerce platforms, with over 1.7M merchants using it to sell online. Shopify is a standalone platform, but it’s also an all-in-one solution that you can use to turn your WordPress site into an online store with the Shopify Buy Button.
Pros:
Shopify SEO Checklist to Rank Your Store #1
Cons:
Pricing: Shopify Buy Button is $9 per month.
Easy Digital Downloads enables WordPress site owners to sell digital downloads online. It comes with powerful out-of-the-box features to create a digital goods store.
WooCommerce also has this fun function, but EDD offers more features with a sharp focus on digital sales. Moreover, its interface is much cleaner and better suited for digital goods.
So, if you plan to sell Ebooks, audio clips, or PDF files and nothing physical, you should definitely consider EDD.
What makes EDD one of the best WordPress e-commerce plugins?
Pricing: The core plugin is entirely free. But if you want to upgrade your version, the subscriptions start at $199 per year and go up to $899 per year.
MemberPress is designed to let you sell subscription-based digital products and services. It is the best WordPress membership plugin with various integration options, including WooCommerce.
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing: MemberPress’s pricing starts at $279 per year.
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WP Product Review lets you add product reviews easily and choose how you want to manage and display them on your site. After selecting the product review option when writing a blog post, the plugin displays all the settings to write a review.
Features:
WP EasyCart is a simple WordPress e-commerce plugin for people who want to launch an e-commerce store without spending a lot of time or money. It has integration options with MailChimp, Quickbooks, and more.
You can use WP EasCart to sell both digital and physical goods.
Pricing: It has a free plan available, but you need to upgrade to access all extensions for $99/year.
Yoast SEO is also one of the most popular WordPress plugins out there, and there’s a good reason for that. It may not be a direct e-commerce plugin, but it will help your store comply more with Google’s ranking factors.
Yoast SEO enables WordPress sites with essential onsite SEO elements and technical SEO maintenance, which are necessary to generate organic traffic for your store.
This plugin is free, but it also offers premium versions to unlock additional functionality. Its premium plans start at $89 for one site license.
Note: There’s also a Yoast SEO plugin for WooCommerce.
You will need to comply with GDPR, which applies to all websites worldwide collecting data related to people in the European Union. Having a GDPR-ready badge on your e-commerce store builds trust in your customers and shows your respect for consumer data.
There are a lot of WordPress GDPR plugins to help you with that. CookieYes is one of them with over 1 million active installments.
Pricing: The core version is free. Premium plans start at $49 per year.
SeedProdis a WordPress coming soon plugin. Again, it is not a direct e-commerce solution, but if you want to hype up your customers about your store launch, it’s a perfect choice.
Coming soon plugins help you display a coming soon and maintenance page to amplify your SEO earlier.
SeedProd Features:
Pricing: Price plans start at $79 per year.
Some plugins can slow down WordPress websites because of high CPU usage. Therefore, it’s best to check out the plugin reviews and stars before installing and choose lightweight ones instead.
Since new WordPress versions are constantly released, some plugin developers can’t keep up and update their plugins. This creates compatibility issues and causes possible website breakdowns.
Additionally, WordPress warns users attempting to download outdated plugins (that aren’t updated within two years.)
Plugins crash, payment systems fail, and caches don’t cache—it happens every once in a while. The important thing is that the available plugin support should be enough for your needs.
Many WordPress plugins have communities full of users that are more than willing to help troubleshoots. A community can be an excellent source to understand how to deal with uncommon issues that aren’t addressed in the support documentation.
The best WordPress e-commerce plugin is indisputably WooCommerce, but there are more plugins that serve different business needs as well. WordPress users typically go for WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads. However, that doesn’t mean they are the right ones for your goals.
For example, if you want to sell on many channels, Ecwid is a great choice.
Do you have another plugin that we forgot to mention? Share with us below!