WordPress is quickly becoming the front runner in terms of website content management, and it is certainly powerful enough to run a small, medium or large online storefront. It doesn’t matter if you’re running a blog, a business website offering services, a portfolio, or an eCommerce site… WordPress is a fantastic option.
Why is WordPress a Top Choice Platform for eCommerce Sites?
Aside from the fact that WordPress is completely open source, it offers a plethora of great features and functionality that combine that of other popular CMS (content management system) options. For example, WordPress offers easily thousands of plugins to choose from to optimize your website. On top of that, because it’s free, programmers and designers have full access to play around inside and bend it for their every whim.
Simply put, WordPress manages content. And the content can be a hybrid of blog posts and product listings and more. With the right plugin, and in some cases theme, WordPress lends itself as a very simplified way to build and manage a store online.
Let’s have a look at some of the different plugins that instantly convert a blog into a commerce powerhouse. I’ll have a look at some free and paid eCommerce plugin options in this article.
1. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is one of the most commonly used WordPress eCommerce plugins on the market. The great thing about the Woo team is that they’ve been used so widely and for so long, they’ve had a lot of time to really perfect their product.
To adjust to the market, they’ve taken users concerns and implemented solid fixes for them one by one over the years bringing us what exists now which is WooCommerce 2.0. In this version, they’ve added some awesome security benefits, improved their SEO tools (in collaboration with Schema.org) and optimized their CSS, making using WooCommerce elements much more streamlined.
In terms of functionality, WooCommerce offers several shipping and payment processing options. For example, you can use payment gateways like PayPal or Mijireh and there are a variety of shipping options including free shipping, flat rate, or local delivery.
WooCommerce is free with some paid add ons. These aren’t ranked in any particular order, but are numbered for convenience.
2. Ready! eCommerce
Ready! eCommerce has slightly less publicity than the well known WooCommerce, but the features are just as vast. This plugin offers a full control panel in the WordPress dashboard; additionally, you’ve got options to use features like adding products using shortcodes, widgets that offer “featured products” and slideshows, along side the standard features like applying tax and various currencies.
Another feature about Ready! eCommerce that’s great is their expansive plugin specific templates. Some are free and some are paid, and this feature isn’t unique to them but it is something that I would consider an “Added Bonus” especially for those who aren’t extremely versed in setting up a WordPress site.
Ready! also offers several payment processors like PayPal, PayPal Pro, Google Wallet, and 2Checkout. It seems like Ready! is a product focused intently on making it’s use as convenient as possible for customers with four shipping options as well.
3. Jigoshop
Jigoshop is another really well known shopping cart plugin for the WordPress platform. With this plugin, you can offer virtual products and physical products tracking all purchases with a really simple stats page that offers easy to understand analytics as well as visuals to see and chart your growth.
By default, the Jigoshop plugin offers four standard payment methods and you can also purchase extensions that allow you to add five more. You can also use external linking tools to add affiliate products to your storefront.
One of my personal favorites of the features offered, is the Coupon system which allows you to offer coupons by product or by cart. One downfall to Jigoshop is that a lot of the extensions for functionality are paid extensions.
4. WP eStore
For around $50 you can get WP eStore and use it on as many of your sites as you like. This is my ecommerce tool of choice. I manage a lot of sites for different people so I get my hands dirty with other tools, but I really like this one and WooCommerce for my own needs.
With WP eStore I like that it is a light weight plugin. It does not try to reinvent the wheel, in that it leaves the capabilities that WordPress provides to WordPress. It doesn’t attempt to mimic WordPress features, but leverage them, resulting in a light weight package that is still sophisticated enough to accommodate the needs of many people that simply require a shopping cart for their site.
It’s roots are as a PayPal driven store for secure auto-delivery of digital goods, so you can be sure it handles that need like a charm. I quickly moved from the hosted PayLoadz service to the even lighter weight Simple PayPal shopping cart (the free version to WP eStore) when I discovered it.
The developer really emphasizes digital asset security with this plugin, but it’s more than that.
For my business, for example, it’s used for much much more than just secure digital delivery. I tie in the affiliate management software from the same company as a tracking system for media buys. I also like that it will automatically (and silently) add customers to your AWeber (or other) mailing list. The features that I use it for can take up it’s own post, and this is meant as only an introduction so I’ll leave for your to explore further.
5. MarketPress
MarketPress was developed by WPMudev.org and it’s part of a paid membership program. Essentially, to use or try one of the membership’s plugins (for example, MarketPress) you can pay $19.00. Otherwise, you can sign up for access to all 350 plugins / themes.
The MarketPress plugin itself offers some great features like 7+ Payment gateway options, Google Analytics integration, and the ability to sell both physical and virtual products. The one downfall to MarketPress is that they offer less visual analytic options when compared to competitors.
A few years back I put this product through it’s paces. In the end I canceled my membership and sought other avenues. It may have improved a lot since then though.
6. WP Marketplace
WP Marketplace is a full featured shopping cart that allows selling memberships, and as with most, allows you to sell digital or tangible products. It also features affiliate functionality and even invoicing for those who don’t actually use the shopping cart to checkout. You can download the plugin free from WordPress.org or pay for a membership at the site that developers it.
One thing that does set this shopping cart apart from others, is that it offers live pricing updates for your end customer and offers many product variations. Your customer can change product sizes, colors, or other options and see the price adjust accordingly.
7. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is making a name for itself more recently than ever before; its clean and user friendly design make it super easy to use for even the novice. Sprinkled in with the standard features available from it’s competitors like multi-currency processing and many payment gateways you will find email newsletter integration as well.
This plugin offers ticket, chat, and phone support making the big ticket price tag more reasonable than you might think. BigCommerce costs anywhere from $24.95 to $149.95 per month. The reason for the cost is because BigCommerce by default is a full website solution offering hosting, a domain, and shopping cart functionality. The price range depends upon how many products you have and how much space you’re using. You can try the plugin for free, or see pricing and sign up on their site.
8. FoxyShop
FoxyShop is an eCommerce plugin made with developers and end users alike in mind. Feature rich was their angle when this plugin was developed offering sale pricing, bundled product options, discounts, CSS hooks, expansive price variation options, and packing slips / invoice capabilities.
It may seem like a lot to take in, but once you start working with the cart you will see that the features are ultimately very helpful in creating an efficient and well-rounded shopping cart.
9. Simple PayPal Shopping Cart
Simple PayPal shopping cart is a free eCommerce plugin that allows you to sell products from your WordPress blog. With shortcodes you can create “Add to Cart” buttons and embed in your post/page. The plugin makes selling digital products easy. The checkout process is simple and quick. You also have the options to sell digital products. The digital download is automatically sent to the customer via email once the purchase has been completed.
For usage and instructions please see the Simple PayPal shopping cart plugin page.
10. Cart66 Lite
Cart66 is the last stop on our top 10 eCommerce WordPress plugins list, but that doesn’t mean that it’s least inclusive. Accepting integration with over 25 plugins, you can sell everything from physical objects, to virtual objects, all the way to memberships with this shopping cart. This means that not only can you process one time payments, but recurring memberships as well.
The dashboard for Cart66 is clean and user friendly with a nine page “Settings” sub-set in the WordPress dashboard.
Which Plugin is Best for Me?
Truth be told, the best plugin for you really depends on your needs. Do you want seamless integration with affiliate and membership management? WP eStore is probably the best choice. Just need a simple PayPal buy button with automatic delivery of digital goods? WP eStore’s free little brother, Simple PayPal Shopping Cart is the answer.
Do you need a ready to go theme/plugin combo? WooCommerce might be the answer for you.
Some very important questions that you need to consider before deciding on an eCommerce plugin to use are:
- What is the level of support that I require? To determine the level of support offered, check the provider’s forums for example to see if questions are answered in a timely fashion.
- What payment providers do I need now or in the future? Do I need to accept check, money order, or offline payments? You can see a list of payment processors for each plugin. Do you need just PayPal? 99%+ will support that. Some will even support PayPal Pro. Will you take credit card numbers on your site with Authorize.net or send the customer to the Authorize site to accept credit cards? With that, look into how simple it is to setup SSL with the plugin. SSL is a requirement when accepting credit cards on your own domain.
- What types of shipping methods do I require? Do I need a local delivery option? Look through the various options for each piece of software.
- How sophisticated are their coupon systems? Is there an auto-discount feature? Do I even need that?
- Do I need to generate invoices, use multiple currencies, change the tax based on geographic location, or can I rely on PayPal for all that?
- How good is the reporting for sales? Is it simple to process refunds?
- What types of “products” am I selling? Am I offering services, memberships, digital products, tangible goods? Can the software handle my needs easily?
- Is there enough people that use this software where it makes sense for the developer to provide enhancements when requested?
As you can see, there is a lot to consider, and only you really know your needs for your store. Ask yourself those questions and more. Put yourself in the buyers shoes and make sure things are able to be done as you would expect for a good, secure buying experience.
Then put yourself in the manager’s shoes, and perhaps the accountant. Are things simple enough to run and are the reports available to satisfy your needs?
Another thing. Some tools are just too bulky and bloated for the average user’s needs. There is definitely a tool to satisfy your needs that exists though, it’s just a matter of determining your precise needs first. Heck, there are even niche ecommerce tools available. For example, from the same folks who brought us WP eStore, there is a plugin to cater just to the sale of photos. It didn’t quite make the top 10 list but certainly would have made the top 15.
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