The rising popularity of eCommerce opens a new opportunity for businesses to reach more customers and increase sales. As many eCommerce websites successfully drive more sales compared to brick-and-mortar stores, the options for building online stores seem to grow more plentiful by the year.
WordPress CMS is a popular website builder; today, there are 835 million WordPress sites in the World.
It’s a giant market of websites, isn’t it?
Though WordPress started as a Content Management System, the addition of plugins and premium WordPress themes make it user-friendly and one of the best eCommerce platforms for your online stores. With over 50k+ plugins, you can seamlessly build an eCommerce store that caters to your specific business goal.
But how do you choose the best? For many, choosing the best eCommerce plugins for a wordpress site can be overwhelming. With so many options to choose from, how do you know that caters to your specific goal?
In such a situation, popularity can be indicative of quality.
Popular plugin developers have devoted resources to support across a variety of compatibility factors, but they are more vulnerable to hacking attempts. Every WordPress eCommerce plugins have different features, and to help you out, we have compiled a list of the top 10 WordPress ecommerce plugins for your wordpress site.
Ready? Let’s dive in.
What is a WordPress plugin?
A WordPress plugin is a piece of software that can be added to a WordPress website to give it additional functionality. There are various plugins for various tasks, from social media integration to security and search engine optimization to add payment options.
Depending on their features, these plugins can make minor tweaks to your website. For example, if you run an eCommerce store, adding a wordpress ecommerce plugin to assist with payment gateways or allow visitors to book an online appointment can help you improve customer experience.
There are two types of WordPress plugins: free and premium. Free plugins are available to anyone and can be installed from the WordPress plugin directory. Premium plugins are usually sold by third-party companies and must be purchased before installation.
Most plugins are free, though some premium plugins are available for purchase. A wordPress plugin is a great way to add new features and functionality.
How to Pick WordPress eCommerce Plugin for your website?
As we discussed above, every plugin has different features and functionality. Some are compatible with your website; some might not. Some might help you grow your eCommerce sites, while some might not be that useful.
Choosing the right WordPress ecommerce plugin might be overwhelming, but it isn’t rocket science. With so many options and expert advice, how do you choose the best from those popular wordpress ecommerce plugins?
Do you choose from the most popular wordpress ecommerce plugin, or should you look for the most secure one? Or should you consider cost as the deciding factor? What about eCommerce functionality and features?
There are so many questions in your mind, right? Take a deep breath.
Let us help you out. Here are some general rules to consider when choosing a wordpress ecommerce plugin-
Customization
Personalization is key in attracting customers and improving their experience in an eCommerce store. Providing a seamless and enjoyable experience on your online store.
Choosing an eCommerce plugin that allows easy customization without having complicated setups or codes. A plugin that offers customization will allow you to tailor the look and feel of your store to match your brand. It will also allow you to add specific features and functionality to your business.
Integration
WordPress ecommerce plugins offering a wide range of integration options can help you grow your business and customer experience. Because integrating with other software or tools can allow you to use them at their full potential.
For example, using a lead generation plugin to capture email subscribers and then use those emails to send them promotional emails, welcome emails, exclusive offers, and more. And if your plugin does not integrate, you’ll have to put more time and work into transferring data between both.
Choose a plugin that can integrate with the software or tools that you use in your business.
Cost
When considering the WordPress ecommerce plugins, always consider the cost involved since you’ll be paying for the features and functionality they offer for your wordpress site.
For example, if you have just started to sell products through an eCommerce store, you might only need some basic features like payment options, responsive themes, good customer support, and more.
So, you might look for plugins that offer these basic features at a small cost or for free. Premium wordpress ecommerce plugins often come with advanced features and a high cost that you might not need early on.
As your business grows, you can switch to more advanced plugins and upgrade them accordingly.
Customer Support
Whenever the plugin fails to load, crashes, the payment system fails, and caches don’t cache, you need to run to customer support for help.
Ensure the plugin developers or the back-end support offers timely solutions. Whether it’s trouble with the installation, integration, maintenance, or a sudden crash, reliable support from the plugin developers can save a lot of money and time.
Payment solutions
A WordPress ecommerce plugin should provide seamless support to your preferred payment gateways as default or via simple integration.
Payment gateways are important as your eCommerce store survives online payments from your customers. Unstable or not having preferred payment solutions can cost you a loss of customers, time, and money and lead to other problems.
Updates and Compatibility
When eCommerce plugins are not updated frequently, they are less secure and reliable. Plugin developers need to keep up with the changes in data privacy law, so it is more reliable, secure from hackers, and resolves bugs or other issues.
Additionally, the eCommerce plugins should be compatible with the newest WordPress version because an older version of plugins might not work efficiently, crash frequently, and damage your brand’s reputation.
Reviews and Rating
A plugin with positive reviews and a large user base makes it reliable and indicates good quality. When a plugin has a large number of active installations, that means its users highly trust it.
It would be best to view the average and negative reviews to understand whether the plugin fits your online store.
Additionally, the rating goes along with the reviews and indicates how good the plugin is. The 5-star rating would be ideal; it shows the plugin is secured and safe.
What Do You Need to Run an eCommerce WordPress site?
The configuration of your WordPress eCommerce website depends upon the nature of your business and the product/service you want to sell. Only a wordpress plugin cannot help you to run eCommerce stores; there are other things needed too.
But before you start designing your online store, you need to pick a domain and host (wordpress managed hosting provider) for your website. Once you have both sorted out, you can start building your online store on WordPress.
Here are the steps to follow-
- Pick a WordPress eCommerce theme: Themes define your store’s appearance and layout.
- Select and Install WordPress ecommerce plugins: It helps to add functionality so you can start selling products/services.
- Add Product to Your Online store: After successfully installing the WordPress theme, it’s time to add products to the product pages.
- Add Payment Methods: Payment gateways can help you fulfill an important role in your online store by adding a transaction process between customer and merchant.
Top 10 Best WordPress eCommerce plugins
To choose the right wordpress plugin, you must first decide what features your business needs and what kind of plugin you need.
While we cover some best WordPress ecommerce plugins in this article, keep in mind that using too many plugins can slow the loading time and performance of your eCommerce site.
Let’s dive in to know more about these wordpress plugins.
#1 WooCommerce
With 5+ million installations, WooCommerce is one of the best and most popular eCommerce plugins for the eCommerce store. The core plugin has essential features that extend functionality to build amazing online stores.
It integrates seamlessly with WordPress, has very streamlined processes, and is a highly reliable core plugin with great customer support.
The free plugin is compatible, straightforward, and easy for beginners to set up your WordPress store step-by-step. The multiple built-in WooCommerce blocks make adding product listings to your Woocommerce store easier, and with hundreds of other options, it lets you sort out your product pages and show ratings on them.
The basic plugin is free and has many features, including payment gateways, product display options, a shipping plugin, a stock control plugin, sale funnels, a review plugin, and many more.
Features:
- Hundreds of extensions and themes are available to add new features to your eCommerce site.
- It supports physical products as well as digital products.
- Built-in support for payment gateways.
- It is equipped with tools to manage your inventory easily.
- Built-in Affiliate management program using Affiliate WP.
Pros:
- Support multiple product types
- Pre-build WordPress eCommerce themes.
- Highly Customizable
- Easy and Seamless integration with 100+ payment gateways.
- Open Source and Active community of developers.
Pricing: The basic is free, but some extensions might be paid.
#2 Easy Digital Downloads
Easy Digital Downloads is one of the freemium and best WordPress eCommerce plugins for selling digital products. It’s a perfect plugin for building wordpress sites to sell eBooks, music, software, or other products.
Easy Digital downloads provide plenty of options to sell digital products, such as embedded in a post or a page, and visitors can choose which version of the product they want to purchase.
In addition, easy digital downloads allow bundle downloads option for your customers. It lets buyers add multiple digital products in a single download with a special price. Further, easy digital downloads have built-in analytics that can be seen on its dashboard and track your business performance based on various metrics.
Easy digital downloads support multiple payment gateways, including Paypal, Stripe, Amazon, and more. It keeps things clean and tidy with great usability and speed.
It takes a few minutes to set up your online business, add digital downloads, add images and descriptions, and you are good to start selling digital products.
Features:
- Easy digital downloads provide hundreds of extensions, including add-ons for payment gateways, email marketing platforms, and other marketing tools.
- It is compatible with almost every theme.
- It supports robust software licensing that allows you to sell plugins and SaaS products.
- Seamless integration with tools like Monsterinsight, AIOSEO, OptinMonster, and many more.
Pros:
- Easy to use, even for first-timers.
- Support physical as well as digital downloads.
- Works with your existing tools.
- Useful extension library for adding new features.
- Customer management panel.
- Supports recurring and other payment options.
- Free support forums, videos, tutorials, and even an IRC chatroom.
Price: The basic plan starts at $ 99.50 per year.
#3 MemberPress
Memberpress is a great choice and one of the top WordPress eCommerce plugins! It is easy to use, offers powerful features, and provides excellent customer support.
It has many features, such as creating membership levels, managing subscriptions, accepting payments, setting up discount codes, etc. You can also customize it to match the look and feel of your site.
In addition, you can even use it while setting up your own Learning Management System (LMS) subscription website. It supports content dripping, online courses, digital downloads, corporate memberships, and other membership options.
Memberpress also has a library of add-ons to expand your membership site’s functionality and integrate international payment processors.
Features:
- Easily sell subscription-based products, membership plans, and more.
- Create unlimited free or paid membership levels.
- Integrate with popular payment gateways like Stripe, PayPal, and Authorize.net.
- Detailed reports about your site and easily managed members.
- Create courses and use flexible coupons to market your site.
- Easily manage your Members page from the WordPress dashboard.
Pros:
- Supports user levels, tiered pricing, and drip-fed content.
- Works seamlessly with any WordPress theme.
- Highly customizable and easy Setup.
- Customizable content dripping and expiration.
Price: The basic plans start at $179.50 per year.
#4 WiserNotify
This plugin provides an easy way to create custom notifications and alerts for your WordPress website. It’s a social-proof notification and FOMO eCommerce plugin that helps improve visitor engagement and increase conversion rates, sales, revenues, trust, and credibility.
It is user-friendly and has a range of features that make it easy to customize your notifications and integrate with your website, making it one of the popular wordpress ecommerce plugins.
It is highly customizable, offering data and timing control and the ability to choose from various display rules. With over 50+ design templates and 200+ integration options, Wisernotify is one of the most powerful wordpress ecommerce plugins for your eCommerce business.
Features:
- 50+ Eye-catching template design
- Seamless integration with 200+ business tools, including Optin Monster, AWeber, MailChimp, ConvertKit, and more.
- Manage notification loops and orders at the website level.
- Test multiple variants with A/B testing, and compare performance.
- Auto Sync your sales from the WooCommerce store, Easy digital downloads, Memberpress, and other plugins.
Pros:
- Easy Setup with a wide range of editable notification options.
- Advance reporting and analytics with weekly reports.
- Manage notification loop and order at the website level.
- 10+ Dynamic social proof notifications and urgency widgets.
- Show recent sales popups, subscribers, sales count, customer reviews, email subscribers, and more to attr
act customers.
Price: Starts with the Free version.
#5 LearnDash
LearnDash is one of the best wordpress ecommerce plugins that prioritizes creating, managing and selling high-quality courses on any eCommerce platform.
This plugin is a great way to create online learning experiences for your users. It allows you to create courses, quizzes, and other learning activities easily. It also has a range of features that make it easier to track student progress, assign certificates, and more.
With an easy Drag and drop Interface to manage your pages with simple, mouse-driven actions. You can also add lessons anywhere without dealing with any coding complexities. In addition, the quiz-building feature helps to easily edit, move, and delete any questions from your quiz.
Further, it is compatible with other plugins allowing to customize the website and integration seamlessly.
Features:
- Drag and Drop Interface to manage pages.
- Easy to use and Intuitive dashboard.
- Compatible with other WordPress plugins, including WooCommerce, BuddyPress, Restrict Content Pro, Paid Membership Pro, and more.
- Easy course organization and fantastic front-end learning experience.
Pros:
- Easy to use course builder.
- Sell one-offs and Subscriptions.
- Exclusive video progression feature.
- Modern learner experience with focus mode.
- Excellent quiz builder.
Price: The price starts at $199 per year.
#6 WP Simple Pay
It is an excellent tool for accepting payments on your WordPress site with Stripe.
It is easy to set up and use and provides various features such as custom payment forms, subscription plans, and more.
The easy drag-and-drop feature helps to add a custom amount entry, a coupon code field, different custom field types, a subscription plan section, and other options. In addition, it allows you to create an unlimited number of payment forms, including Stripe checkout forms, donation forms, billing forms, subscription forms, and many more integrated with Stripe checkout.
It also offers three different form display types embedded form, overlay form, and stripe checkout, in which the first two are fully customizable, and Stripe manages the third.
It’s perfect for selling single products, collecting payments, and accepting donations.
Feature:
- Simple payment collection.
- Easy drag-and-drop payment form builder.
- Accept recurring or one-time payments like subscriptions, installment plans, or trial periods.
- Offer discount codes.
- Supports 10+ payment methods.
Pros:
- Unlimited payment forms.
- Stripe checkout pages with brand image.
- Strong customer Authentication support.
- Customize payment failure and success pages.
- Testing and live modes.
Price: The basic plan starts at $99 per year.
#7 Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart
Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart is one of the best WordPress eCommerce plugins for setting up an online store.
It’s easy to use and provides many features, such as integrated payment methods, customizable design, and a range of shipping options. Plus, it’s mobile-friendly and allows you to manage orders, customers, and inventory from one place.
Ecwid eCommerce shopping cart is a hosted platform to support sales, and the plugin provides an API that works with WordPress. Unlike the Bigcommerce wordpress plugin, the Ecwid eCommerce WordPress plugin imports all dashboard and configuration panels into WordPress, making it easier to manage products, sales channels, and payment options directly from the WordPress dashboard.
It offers Ecwid inventory management, including out-of-stock product tracking, mobile inventory management, barcode scanning, stock control management, product duplication, and more.
In addition, it supports payment methods like Stripe, Square, and PayPal. It also accepts manual payments, such as bank transfers, Cash on delivery, and checks. Further, it calculates shipping rates if you integrate your store with major couriers.
Features:
- Built-in Google Ads configuration panel.
- Real-time Shipping Integration
- Seamless integration with WordPress.
- Fully compliant and PCI-DCC certified.
- Omnichannel Sales support for both iOS and Android buyers.
Pros:
- 45+ Languages supported.
- Offer a free plan.
- Create a custom iOS and Android app with an unlimited plan.
- GDPR compliant and POS functionality to put up a supplementary offline store.
Price: Free plan forever.
#8 All-in-One SEO
All in One SEO is a well-established and the best wordpress eCommerce plugin with tons of features and add-ons to improve your eCommerce functionality. This powerful plugin will help you optimize your site for search engines to get more traffic and sales.
The ALL-IN-ONE SEO Plugin is easy to use and comes with all the features you need to get your site ranking high in search engines. With this plugin, you can easily add title tags, meta descriptions, and keywords to your products and pages. You can also generate sitemaps and robots.txt files so search engines can easily index your site.
The rich snippet schema feature offers complete support for schema markup to get more clicks and traffic to your website. In addition, the advanced eCommerce support helps to optimize product pages, product categories, and more, making it one of the top eCommerce plugins.
Features:
- XML Sitemap and Google Analytic Support.
- Automatic optimization of the title for all search engines.
- Snippet preview to see how a page will look on search results.
- Headline analyzer and Technical SEO features like sitemaps, robots.txt, and schema markups.
- Site audit, SEO score, and Optimization recommendations.
Pros:
- Fast Setup
- Easy configuration
- Advance features to improve website ranking.
- Responsive support team.
- Social Media Integration.
Price: The basic plan starts at $124 per year.
#9 Schema Pro
Schema Pro is one of the popular eCommerce WordPress plugins for optimizing your website for better search engine visibility.
It helps you add Schema.org structured data markup to your WordPress site easily. It’s super easy to use and comes with features like automatic markup, custom fields, and more. Plus, it’s compatible with popular SEO plugins like Yoast SEO and All in One SEO.
With a user-friendly platform, Schema Pro offers 20+ types of Schema, including product schema, for the ecommerce platform. The product schema enriches your ecommerce business with product listing in search engines, enticing searchers to click into your store.
Adding Schema might take time when done manually, but Schema Pro does that automatically to boost your SEO and search engine ranking.
Features:
- Real-time testing with immediate feedback to validate your Schema in seconds.
- 20+ Schema options to choose the right Schema for your store.
- Schema Pro and Yoast SEO work hand-in-hand
. - Automatic custom field mapping for in-depth implementation.
Pros:
- Quick and easy setup.
- Automatic schema implementation on multiple pages.
- No coding knowledge is required.
#10 Cart Recovery for WordPress
A cart recovery plugin for WordPress can be a great way to increase sales by reminding customers of what they left in their cart and helping them complete the purchase.
It’s a free plugin that works and seamlessly integrates with the WooCommerce store and WP e-commerce and restricts content pro right out of the box. It helps you to track abandoned carts and customer details as soon as they check out, automate cart recovery emails, and many more.
In addition, it’s integrated with GDPR compliance tools for data access and removal requests.
Features:
- Capture customer details at the checkout.
- Trigger abandoned cart email campaigns automatically.
- Track in-progress carts, abandoned carts, and recovered carts.
Pros:
- User-friendly.
- Responsive and helpful support from the developer.
- Multi-step email campaigns.
- Overview and detailed reporting.
Price: The basic plan is free; the premium version starts at $39 per year.
Conclusion
To summarize, these are the best WordPress ecommerce plugins for launching, managing, and developing your online store in 2023.
Each of these WordPress plugins has advantages and disadvantages, so choose the one that best meets your requirements. With the right WordPress plugin, you can launch a successful online store that meets your customers’ needs. When adding multiple plugins to your WordPress site, make sure they are all compatible to avoid technical issues. Furthermore, consider using an A/B testing plugin to test different variations of your ecommerce’s design and content for improved performance and increased success.
With the right ecommerce plugin, you can streamline the process and ensure a successful launch. Adding eCommerce functionality to your wordpress sites can also be done by using multiple plugins; if a single plugin doesn’t fulfill all your requirements to manage an ecommerce platform.
