Top 12 Ecommerce WordPress Plugins

Selecting the right ecommerce WordPress Plugins is important before doing online business. selecting an opposite platform might result in operational challenges, hindered scalability, and potential financial losses.

To help you in this decision-making process, we’ve carefully checked some of the leading online store plugins available. Our assessment focused on aspects such as user-friendliness, pricing structures, feature sets, and supplementary marketing tools.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore our expert recommendations for the top 12 ecommerce WordPress Plugins.

Rank ecommerce WordPress Plugins For Pricing

1. WooCommerce General online stores Free + paid options

2. Easy Digital Downloads Music, eBooks, software, and downloads Free + pro

3. MemberPress Membership websites $179.50/year

4. BigCommerce Hassle-free online store $29/month

5. Shopify Beginner-friendly platform $29/month

Essential Considerations for Choosing ecommerce WordPress Plugins

To identify the ideal WordPress eCommerce plugin for your specific requirements, we strictly assessed each plugin within our demo online store environment. Our evaluation criteria enclose usability, feature richness, and particular advantages that warrant support.

Key factors we studied during our testing included

Ease of use – Particularly crucial for novices in the world of online store creation.
Customization capabilities – Availability of diverse templates and customization options to elevate your store’s aesthetics.
Core online retail functionalities – Ability to easily add products, integrate with payment gateways, manage inventory, and dispatch order notifications.
Compatibility with product types – Ensuring alignment with your merchandise category, be it digital or physical goods.
Incorporation of marketing functionalities – Provision of promotional tools like discount coupons or gift cards to engage customers.
Scalability – Ability to accommodate business growth via app integrations for services like email marketing, CRM, and accounting.
Ultimately, the significance of these factors may vary depending on your business model and expertise level. Thus, we recommend a thorough evaluation of each listed option to discover its suitability.

Testing and Evaluating ecommerce WordPress Plugins

• Our assessment requires firsthand deployment on our websites and projects.
• We explored a spectrum of popular solutions beyond our existing toolkit, considering customer feedback and adoption rates.
• We adopted a trial-and-error methodology, extensively testing each plugin to uncover its inherent strengths and limitations.

Why Trust in QuickezTools?

At QuickezTools, our team serves expertise in WordPress website design and development, eCommerce, and online marketing. We carefully check and review each plugin recommendation based on real-world usage scenarios.

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WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the unique ecommerce WordPress Plugins, and there are solid reasons behind its popularity. Drawing from our own hands-on experience, we find this open-source platform to be exceptionally user-friendly and customizable.

To start with, WooCommerce comes free of charge. Utilizing its default settings, you can swiftly establish a basic online store capable of accepting payments through various methods such as bank transfers, cash on delivery, checks, and major online payment gateways like Stripe or PayPal.

Getting your store up and running is a breeze. Simply install the plugin, follow the setup wizard, pick a suitable storefront theme, add your products, and activate shipping options. Right from the outset, the plugin furnishes essential online store pages, spanning from product showcases to the final checkout process.

Much like WordPress, the true potency of this plugin lies in its array of options. These extensions serve to enrich your online store, allowing you to offer subscriptions, integrate with social media or online marketplaces, incorporate additional payment gateways, and much more.

Pros

• Default support for both digital and physical goods, expandable with addons.
• User-friendly inventory management tools for seamless order tracking.
• In-built marketing features like discount codes and analytics for business insights.
• Native support for multiple currencies and languages.
• A plethora of extensions and integrations, from Advanced Coupons for enticing deals to All in One SEO for enhanced search engine visibility.

Moreover, WooCommerce benefits from a robust community support system, including forums and a comprehensive knowledge base.

Cons

• The abundance of options might overwhelm newcomers.
• Real-time support is not readily available unless opting for a paid Woo Express plan. Otherwise, assistance is limited to submitting a ticket.

Pricing: while the plugin itself is free, the cost of premium themes and addons can vary significantly, ranging from a few dollars to hundreds. Additionally, WooCommerce offers Woo Express plans, starting from $39 per month, which include web hosting and direct customer support. Alternatively, more budget-friendly hosting plans are available through Bluehost or SiteGround.

Our preference for WooCommerce stems from its interface and extensive adaptability, making it an ideal eCommerce solution suitable for businesses of any scale. As your business grows, WooCommerce can easily evolve alongside it, ensuring a huge and sustainable online retail presence.

Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is the optimal WordPress eCommerce plugin for your needs.

We’ve seen EDD trusted and utilized by industry leaders like WPForms, MonsterInsights, SeedProd, among others, which boost our confidence in recommending it for establishing a digital goods storefront.

For newcomers selling license-free items such as eBooks, the free version of EDD suffices. This version allows you with essential features like Stripe or PayPal payments, a comprehensive shopping cart, and eCommerce analytics.

In digital download analytics, if your aim is business expansion, we strongly advocate for the premium version. Here, you gain access to functionalities like free downloads, integration with Apple Pay and/or Google Pay, creation of trial subscriptions, implementation of software licensing, and expanded discount options.

Pros

1. Made for digital download sales, simplifying setup and management compared to broader eCommerce solutions.
2. Compatibility with most WordPress themes, with its own themes optimized for EDD usage.
3. ecommerce analytics facilitating revenue tracking and enhancing customer management.
4. Diverse array of extensions to foster business growth, including campaign tracking, purchase incentives, and an add-to-cart popup offering users the choice to proceed to checkout or continue shopping.
5. Easy third-party combinations offer additional payment options, integration with email marketing tools like Constant Contact and Mailchimp, and secure file hosting through platforms like Amazon S3 and Dropbox.
6. Comprehensive support avenues encompassing forums, videos, tutorials, ticket submission, and extension assistance (for premium subscribers).

Cons

1. If plans involve selling physical products alongside digital ones, exploring alternative eCommerce solutions is advisable

Pricing: While a free plugin is available, premium plans commence at $89.55 per year. Additionally, consider exploring SiteGround’s managed EDD hosting for a hassle-free start to your Easy Digital Downloads venture.

The reason behind our selection of Easy Digital Downloads stems from its unparalleled suitability for handling digital products within a WordPress store. It’s user-friendly, versatile, and scalable, whether you’re vending photos, music, or digital artwork.

MemberPress

MemberPress is the ideal solution for you into online course sales or providing exclusive content to your subscribers.

This WordPress membership plugin allows you to sell digital products on a subscription basis, offer various membership plans, deliver pay-per-view content, and much more. It easily merges with popular payment gateways such as PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net, enabling you to set up your products and receive payments promptly.

MemberPress allows you to establish different tiers of access to your content. For example, if you offer Premium, Silver, and Gold plans, you can grant access to certain content to all users while reserving others for those who upgrade to a specific plan.

Rest assured, unauthorized access is not a concern. One standout feature of MemberPress is the ability to redirect unauthorized users to a designated URL, such as your pricing page, prompting them to choose a plan to gain membership.

Pros

• Best access control for defining user access levels and content limitations.
• User-friendly client portal ensuring customers can easily access all their paid content in one centralized location.
• Content dripping functionality, enabling the gradual release of paid content over a specific period, akin to episodic releases on platforms like Amazon Prime.
• Membership-specific extensions, including CoachKit™ for online coaching businesses, MemberPress Courses for selling online courses, and Blubrry for generating paid podcasts.
• Automated email reminders to keep members informed about important upcoming events, such as subscription renewals or membership expirations.

Cons

• While MemberPress itself is user-friendly, incorporating extensions to tailor the platform for specific types of membership sites may increase complexity.

Pricing: Starting from $179.50 annually for unlimited members, memberships, restricted content, courses, quizzes, and certificates.

Why We Recommend MemberPress

With the creator economy, we believe it’s important to validate a straightforward WordPress eCommerce plugin for online content creators seeking to expand their audience. MemberPress fits the bill perfectly.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce serves as a fully-hosted eCommerce platform, complemented by a WordPress store plugin for perfect combination with your website. From small businesses to online retailers and enterprises, this software facilitates online sales.

Upon installation and activation, the plugin easily imports all your BigCommerce products into WordPress. Ensuring synchronization every 5 minutes, it guarantees that any new additions reflect instantly on your WordPress site.

Moreover, it takes the hassle out of creating essential eCommerce pages like sign-in, cart, and account pages by generating them automatically.

Pros

1. Smooth integration with WordPress using the plugin and Gutenberg blocks, streamlining the creation of your eCommerce site.
2. Default PCI-compliant checkout, ensuring secure transactions from the outset.
3. Real-time shipping rates from reputable providers like UPS, USPS, and FedEx.
4. Multichannel selling capabilities, facilitating sales on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Amazon.

Cons

1. Limited options in the theme and app stores compared to WooCommerce.
2. Sales threshold per plan annually, triggering automatic upgrades if exceeded in the preceding 12 months.

Pricing starts at $29 per month, offering zero transaction fees, unlimited products and storage, and staff accounts. A 15-day free trial is also available.

We recommend BigCommerce for those seeking a dedicated platform for managing their online business, thanks to its robust features and strong WordPress support. Yet, it’s essential to monitor revenue growth, as surpassing thresholds may prompt significant plan upgrades, notably from the $29 per month tier to the Plus plan at $79 per month.

Shopify

Shopify is a comprehensive eCommerce platform. However, unlike BigCommerce, Shopify lacks an official plugin for linking your store to WordPress.

Nonetheless, owing to Shopify’s burgeoning popularity, numerous third-party plugins facilitate easy integration between WordPress and Shopify, such as ShopWP. Alternatively, you can manually insert code to incorporate a Shopify Buy button into your WordPress site.

Shopify is the best platform, furnishing over 100 eCommerce themes, a user-friendly drag-and-drop online store builder, and AI tools for crafting product descriptions and engaging in chat interactions.

Pros

1. Availability of numerous eCommerce plugins for integrating Shopify with WordPress.
2. User-friendly features for constructing and optimizing your storefront, including a drag-and-drop website builder, AI-powered content generation tools, and personalized product recommendations.
3. Capability to establish multiple localized versions of the same eCommerce store, beneficial for international businesses.
4. Inclusion of advanced built-in tools across all plans, such as abandoned cart recovery and automatic updates for tax regulations.

Cons

1. Necessity to closely monitor additional fees charged by Shopify, such as transaction fees for non-utilization of their payment solution, credit card processing rates, and fees associated with optional features like Shopify Tax.

Pricing for Shopify starts from $29 per month for unlimited products, with an additional card processing rate of 2.9% + $0.30 for each online transaction. A complimentary 3-day trial is offered, and for the initial three months, Shopify can be utilized for $1 per month before transitioning to the standard subscription rate.

We selected Shopify due to its increasing popularity and user-friendliness, along with its array of advanced features conducive to optimizing business operations. However, it’s important to bear in mind the potential accumulation of additional transaction fees. For assistance in selecting between Shopify and WooCommerce, refer to our comparison guide.

WP Simple Pay

WP Simple Pay is a full-fledged Commerce plugin to facilitate payments, even when they’re only dealing with a single product or service. However, upon using such plugins, they often discover that many features are unnecessary for their needs.

In such conditions, selecting a plugin like WP Simple Pay proves to be the wiser choice. This Stripe payment plugin simplifies the process of accepting payments on your WordPress site without the need for a complex shopping cart setup.

Setting up WP Simple Pay is a breeze, taking only 5 minutes. It enables you to easily create unlimited payment forms through its intuitive drag-and-drop form builder and provides pre-designed form templates. This makes WP Simple Pay an ideal solution for businesses offering paid services, classes, consultations, and similar offerings.

Pros

• Swift setup facilitated by a 5-minute onboarding wizard and drag-and-drop form builder.
• Pre-designed form templates tailored for various purposes such as payment for sports lessons, dance classes, cleaning services, and more.
• Recurring payment functionality for automatic billing of subscribers or clients.
• Customizable fields for gathering additional information as required.
• Secure Stripe payments ensured by Stripe’s PCI-compliant servers and robust fraud protection measures.

Cons

• It’s primarily recommended for businesses with a limited range of services or products.
• The free WP Simple Lite version incurs a 3% fee per transaction along with Stripe fees.

Pricing: WP Simple Pay offers a free version along with paid plans starting from $49.50 per year. The paid plans include features such as support for one website, unlimited payment forms, unlimited transactions, zero transaction fees, and compatibility with over 10 global payment methods.

Our selection of WP Simple Pay is driven by its suitability for businesses with a wide range of products or services, or those who prefer a streamlined payment process without the need for a traditional checkout experience.

WC Vendors

WC Vendors is a top-notch WordPress store plugin made for marketplaces. This tool facilitates the easy onboarding of sellers, efficient order supervision, and the establishment of commissions both for you and your vendors. It easily merges with WooCommerce, serving as a vital component for managing your products and orders.

While the free version of WC Vendors provides fundamental features like commission settings and a user-friendly frontend dashboard for vendors to manage their orders and clients, opting for a WC Vendors plan unlocks a bundle of additional benefits. This upgraded version offers diverse commission structures, the ability to issue discount coupons, a verified seller badge, and automated payouts for vendors.

Pros

• Allow sellers with detailed sales reports to monitor their store performance.
• Ensures effective communication through email notifications for both marketplace administrators and vendors, keeping everyone informed about store activities.
• Offers flexibility with multiple commission types, including fixed fees, percentage fees, and commission structures based on membership plans.
• Enhances marketplace functionality through seamless integration with WooCommerce addons, enabling features like bookings, subscriptions, and auctions.

Cons

• Certain features of paid plans require the installation of specific official WooCommerce extensions, which may involve additional costs.

Pricing: WC Vendors provides a free plugin with the option to upgrade to premium plans starting from $99.50 per year. These premium plans offer unlimited vendors and a single website license.

Our recommendation stems from the handsome capabilities of WC Vendors. If you’re in online marketplaces, WC Vendors stands as an excellent choice among WordPress eCommerce plugins. While the free version covers essential functionalities, investing in the paid plan can significantly streamline the management of your marketplace operations.

Ecwid

Ecwid is an excellent option for budding entrepreneurs into eCommerce, The free plan is lacking of transaction fees and accommodates up to 5 products, ensuring GDPR compliance for your online store.

Similar to BigCommerce, Ecwid offers a handy ecommerce WordPress Plugins, the Ecwid eCommerce Shopping Cart, facilitating easy engagement with WordPress. What sets it apart is its plugin page, mirroring the platform’s control panel, granting you the flexibility to manage your store directly through WordPress if preferred.

Moreover, Ecwid simplifies the process of incorporating products into your content with Gutenberg blocks, enabling effortless addition of items, Buy Now buttons, product search bars, and more.

Pros

• A free version supporting up to 5 products, along with features like tax invoices, social media ads, and a link-in-bio function, all sans transaction fees.
• Intuitive plugin page allowing direct store management from WordPress.
• Gutenberg supports simplifying storefront construction.
• Premium versions offer expanded features such as multichannel selling, inventory management, discount coupons, and advanced WordPress SEO tools.

Cons

• Digital goods cannot be sold under the free plan.

Pricing: While a free plan is available, paid options start from $14.08 per month, offering benefits like up to 100 products, a store management app for smartphones, access to the app market, and chat support.

Reasons for Choosing Ecwid

If you’ve using WooCommerce as ecommerce WordPress Plugins but find it troubling, Ecwid presents a free alternative. Its user-friendly interface coupled with no transaction fees makes it a compelling choice for eCommerce novices.

WP EasyCart

WP EasyCart is one of the premier ecommerce WordPress Plugins. While its interface differs significantly from that of WooCommerce, navigating through it remains a breeze.

One notable feature is the compact yet informative sales report positioned conveniently on the left side across all pages within the plugin. This ensures you stay updated on your business’s performance, whether you’re adding new products or managing orders.

WP EasyCart offers a free plugin option, but for enhanced functionality, users can opt for the Pro or Premium cart versions, which unlock additional features. However, certain extensions are exclusively available with the Premium plan

Pros

• Wide eCommerce reporting with detailed filters showcasing various metrics like payments, revenue, refunds, customer count, and abandoned carts.
• Compatibility settings with caching plugins to tackle cart caching issues and enhance the checkout process.
• Easy migration from WooCommerce through the built-in product importer.
• Assurance of PCI compliance handled by the WP EasyCart team.

Cons

• Absence of marketing features in the free plugin variant.
• Limited customization compared to WooCommerce; extensive features require opting for the highest-priced plan.

Pricing: users have the option of a free plugin with a 2% application fee or selecting paid plans starting from $69 annually, which waive application fees. Paid plans include perks like support for over 30 payment gateways, real-time shipping rates, and abandoned cart recovery.

Our decision to WP EasyCart stems from its nature, serving as a viable alternative to WooCommerce. With WP EasyCart, concerns about accumulating extension costs are alleviated, as all features are bundled together.

WPForms

WPForms is a flexible tool for WordPress users, primarily known for its drag-and-drop form building capabilities. However, it goes beyond mere form creation by offering easy payment processing functionality directly within your WordPress website.

By combining with leading payment gateways like Stripe, PayPal, Square, and Authorize.net, WPForms facilitates secure online transactions. Its drag-and-drop interface allows users to create payment forms to their specific requirements with ease.

One notable advantage of this ecommerce WordPress Plugins over competitors like WP Simple Pay is WPForms’ expansive library of over 1400 form templates. These templates cover a wide range of needs, from order forms and event registrations to Stripe QR code payments and donation forms.

Pros

• Supports popular payment methods such as Stripe, PayPal, Square, and Authorize.net, without imposing transaction fees.
• Offers an extensive collection of 1400+ form templates catering to diverse payment needs.
• Provides a user journey report feature to optimize form conversion rates effectively.
• Includes advanced features like recurring subscriptions, coupon fields, and a form calculator to enhance payment forms.
• Features an abandoned form recovery tool that captures incomplete submissions and sends reminders to users via email, encouraging completion.

Cons

• Users of the free WPForms plugin who activate Stripe integration are subject to a 3% transaction fee in addition to Stripe’s own fees.
• While comprehensive, the range of supported payment methods may not be as extensive as some competing plugins.

Pricing: WPForms offers a free plugin option, with paid plans starting at $49.50 per year for a single website license, granting access to unlimited forms.

Why Choose WPForms?

If you’re dissatisfied with the limited payment form templates offered by WP Simple Pay, WPForms presents a compelling alternative. Beyond its expansive template library, WPForms gives a bundle of features designed to optimize form conversion rates and bolster revenue generation for WordPress users.

MonsterInsights

MonsterInsights is used for determining the effectiveness of your business can be efficiently done through Google Analytics, providing a wealth of data-driven insights, from website traffic to conversion rates.

For easy combination of Google Analytics into your WordPress site, MonsterInsights is the best. Among various analytics tools tested, this plugin boasts the simplest setup process and the most comprehensive tracking capabilities.

Pros

1. easy setup, requiring no coding, to link your website with Google Analytics.
2. Specialized commerce tracking and reporting for platforms like WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, and MemberPress. This feature enables monitoring of vital metrics such as conversions, revenue, and top sources of conversions.
3. Convenient display of your most popular WooCommerce products utilizing data from Google Analytics, via Gutenberg blocks, widgets, or shortcodes.
4. Compliance with EU regulations, including IP address anonymization, consent box integration, and privacy protection to safeguard personal information from being shared with Google Analytics.

Cons

1. Commerce tracking and reporting features are only accessible in the Pro version and higher tiers.

Pricing: While a free version is offered, access to eCommerce tracking requires the Pro plan, priced at $199.50 annually.

Our preference for MonsterInsights stems from its ability to provide detailed Google Analytics analysis directly within the WordPress admin interface, which might surpass the capabilities of other WordPress eCommerce plugins.

FunnelKit Automations

FunnelKit Automations is a unique plugin used for effective customer management is important for both retaining and maximizing the value of your cutomer. In WooCommerce, a bundle of options cater to various sides of management, from addressing abandoned carts to implementing SMS marketing and follow-up strategies.

However, the accumulation of costs associated with these extensions can quickly become harsh. Enter FunnelKit Automations, offering an all-encompassing solution for customer relationship management. This not only simplifies your efforts but also saves you a substantial amount of both time and money.

Pros

1. Automated creation of email and SMS marketing campaigns, either through pre-existing workflows or custom designs.
2. Targeted messaging based on specific purchase behaviors, such as previous purchases, average order value, and total expenditure.
3. Over 100 app integrations available for seamless workflow incorporation, including popular platforms like WooCommerce, WPForms, ActiveCampaign, MailChimp, and Twilio.
4. Comprehensive analytics functionality to monitor and evaluate the efficacy of your campaigns.

Cons

1. Compatibility issues may arise if using plugins outside of WooCommerce or WPForms in conjunction with FunnelKit Automations.

Pricing: FunnelKit Automations offers a free plugin option, with paid plans commencing at $99.50 for access to all features across a single website.

Selecting FunnelKit Automations, we recognize the extensive array of extensions within the WooCommerce ecosystem as immensely beneficial. However, the sheer breadth of options can be overwhelming for those unsure of where to begin. With FunnelKit Automations, you gain a comprehensive toolkit to effectively manage your customer base and bolster revenue streams.

Conclusion

In conclusion, selecting the best ecommerce WordPress Plugins depends on your specific business needs, whether you are selling physical or digital goods, managing memberships, or operating an online marketplace.

All ecommerce WordPress Plugins offer unique features and capabilities, catering to a wide range of ecommerce requirements. Whether you opt for the robust WooCommerce, specialized solutions like Easy Digital Downloads and MemberPress, or platforms such as BigCommerce and Shopify, your choice should align with your business goals for optimal success in the world of online commerce.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is WordPress suitable for ecommerce?

Certainly, WordPress is well-suited for eCommerce purposes. It serves a bundle of user-friendly shop plugins such as WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads, which can perfectly transform your website into a fully functional online store.

What exactly is ecommerce WordPress Plugins?

An eCommerce plugin for WordPress is a specialized tool combined into the platform to convert a standard website into an online store. These plugins facilitate product management, payment processing, order tracking, and various other functionalities essential for eCommerce operations.

Which free ecommerce WordPress Plugins are ideal for small businesses?

For small businesses dealing with physical and/or digital products, WooCommerce stands out as the top choice among free WordPress eCommerce plugins. However, for those primarily selling digital downloads such as PDFs or audiobooks, Easy Digital Downloads would be more suitable.