Ecommerce web design services have reached its peak; there are more e-commerce websites than any other website in the world.
But the question is how eCommerce reach till here?
A decade ago, there were hardly a handful of trusted ecommerce websites like Amazon and eBay, today we have a million of them, and they are equally competitive to these big guns when it comes to the user experience of the website.
It’s the tools used to build these websites, which made this possible in significantly less time.
Tools that help build some of the most robust ecommerce websites with the smoothest user experience, impeccable security, and some of the most stunning visuals. These tools are called frameworks!
Many frameworks could build unique websites, but WordPress has its place in web development.
WordPress initially started as a tool for building blog sites, later conquered the world of custom web development with its easy to use functions. Functions help your WordPress website to perform better.
What are these functions which contribute?
WordPress Plugins!
WordPress plug-ins are considered as Samson’s hair; plug-ins are what makes WordPress a platform to choose over other platforms in the market.
In this article! We are going to learn more about the Best WordPress Ecommerce Plugins.
Source: WpBeginner
What to look for in a WordPress ecommerce plug-in for your website?
There are thousands of plug-ins for your WordPress website out there; you could customize your website into any option you would want to have. But not all of them have the basic set of features you would need to start your ecommerce site.
Some ecommerce plug-ins are suitable for selling digital goods like eBooks, photos, music, etc. Others are better suited for selling lifestyle goods that need shipping and inventory management.
Some plug-ins could do both.
All you need to do is choose a plug-in depending on what you will sell and what features you need to run your online store efficiently.
After that, you need to consider which payment gateways you would like to use to accept payments.
Also, make sure that the plug-in you choose supports those payment gateways by default or through add-ons.
Your ecommerce plug-in will not come with a theme. You would need to see that the plug-in you choose has themes that work with the plug-in.
It not possible for a single plug-in to have all the features you are expecting for your ecommerce site, but most of the problems can be solved by adding more plug-ins or add-ons. But an add-on is always a better option than choosing another plug-in. Also, make sure that there are enough add-on plug-ins to connect your WordPress ecommerce website with other services.
Finally, you need to see what kind of support options are available for the plug-in you have installed on your WordPress website. Even if you will be hiring a developer to work on your site, you would still need help from time to time. Make sure that the plug-in has a support system where you can get help.
WordPress Plug-ins
WordPress’s robust plug-in architecture makes it possible for anyone to transfer an ordinary website into a perfect ecommerce site.
But you can’t just use any plug-in and ask for it to serve the purpose. There are different types of plug-ins with different functionalities that serve different ecommerce; choosing the right plug-in for your website is something where you could find yourself in a hassle.
Factors like your product, and what are you selling? Your target audience, payment gateways, delivery patterns, and a lot more come into play while selecting a plug-in.
Finding a plug-in that is perfect for you isn’t that easy to find because there is no such plug-in, which is perfect. But you could always go for an add on.
Moving forward, let’s look at some of the best plug-ins which you could use for your ecommerce website.
WooCommerce
Yep every best WordPress plug-in list starts with this name, and it’s the best WordPress has to offer for an ecommerce website.
WooCommerce has more than two million downloads, and it is the most popular plug-in for ecommerce platforms.
It helps transform a simple blogging platform into a beautiful online store; it’s easy to customize; it’s scalable and highly extendable. You can showcase products, collect orders, display offers and discounts, and get some impeccable secure payment features.
There are many reasons which I may not even mention in this blog, but WooCommerce has grown out to power more than half a million e-commerce portals.
PayPal integration, full compatibility with WordPress themes, intuitive dash offering widgets, and the ability to track sales, stock, orders, and other statistics, Google Analytics support, multiple shipping options, and easy social sharing enable by ShareThis and Sharedaddy are all features of WooCommerce.
The core plug-in is free, and for advanced needs, you can purchase powerful extensions that can meet virtually any of your needs; you can buy storefront themes and support as you scale up and expand.
Shopp Plugin
Shopp plugin is a premium ecommerce plug-in for WordPress with a rich and polished feature list. It is effortless to get adapted to, easy install and easy management and is compatible with almost all the WordPress themes you could name.
Some of its essential features are supported for physical & digital products, order history, email notifications, fast product search, shipping rate calculations, discounts, and promo codes.
Since it’s a Premium plug-in, you would get multiple payment gateways, like PayPal and Google checkout and 2Checkout.com, and nope that’s not it; there are add-ons can choose. Add-ons like Authorize.net, PayJunction, FirstData/LinkPoint, HSBC ePayments and eWay Payments.
Shopp plug-in is free if you don’t need any support, but for a single site license, it costs about $75, and for a full developer license, it costs about $299.
Ecwid
Ecwid caters to companies that do not want to start a new website to sell online. This powerful plug-in allows you to build an ecommerce system into your existing website without making any drastic changes to the site framework.
Ecwid is a free plug-in and integrates easily with your social media profiles as well. The free plan is fully capable of powering small and medium-sized ecommerce portals, which can enable you to sell on mobile devices and syncs with multiple devices.
Ecwid allows you to mirror the site elsewhere and sell it on multiple channels. A single dashboard will allow you to manage all the channels conveniently.
Ecwid is available for free, but with limited functions, paid plans start at around $15 per month and give you additional features like volume discount, coupon codes, and stock management.
WordPress ecommerce
WordPress ecommerce claims to be the original ecommerce plug-in for WordPress, there are mixed opinions about this plug-in on the internet; some say it is only for a handful of products, but I’ve seen sites with more extensive inventories.
WordPress ecommerce has umpteen free and premium themes built using its code and its seemingly infinite list of features; it is an essential powerhouse of a plug-in.
WordPress ecommerce plug-in is supported with payment Gateways like Authorize.net, DPS, Chronopay, Paypal, and many other add-ons.
The free version has a limited payment gateway options and features; the premium version is about $100.
WordPress shopping cart plug-in
WordPress shopping cart plug-in: Tribulant developed this plug-in to be super easy to set up. With its reasonably easy to use interface, you can set up your multiple products and categorize them into multiple product categories.
Add additional images to showcase your product to know what they are buying and add digital downloads to products if needed to download paid files from the website securely.
The price point starts from $69 for a single installation and $325 for an unlimited license.
Since this is a premium plug-in, there are many options; payment Gateways supported are PayPal, 2CheckOut, MoneyBookers, First Data (Linkpoint & YourPay), Realex Payments, matters, Ogone PSP, Authorize.net, eWay, credit card (POS), and wire transfer.
MarketPress ecommerce
WPMU DEV creates MarketPress ecommerce. It comes with everything you need to sell and deliver physical or digital products. One of the significant advantages of MarketPress is multi-site integration. This means you can create an Etsy-like store network that you control.
MarketPress ecommerce comes at an affordable $19/month. It has a ton of payment Gateways being supported, which are 2checkout, Authorize.net AIM, Bitpay. It also includes eWay shared payments, eWay rapid 3.0 Payments, iDEAL, Manual Payments, Skrill Moneybookers, PayPal Payflow Pro, Paymill, PayPal Chained Payments, PayPal Express Checkout, PIN, Simplifies Commerce by MasterCard, Stripe, and WePay.
ShopperPress Plugin
ShopperPress is an open-source fully-features shopping cart theme for WordPress that is perfectly suited for selling all types of merchandise, services, and digital downloads.
It is packed with all of the features you would expect from an ecommerce; with a few extras added in, it allows for Adsense integration with dedicated advertising slots. You can have the option to import from Amazon, eBay. CSV and Datafeedr.
The price point of ShopperPress has a flat price of $79, which has been recently reduced from $200.
Payment gateways supported for Shopperpress are quite incredible, it has an integration with 20 payment gateways, all of which are easily activated through the admin area; they include:
Paypal, PayWeb.ca, PayFast, 2C0, Google Checkout, Sagepay, and many more, which I don’t feel the need to mention.
Cart66 Cloud
Cart66 Cloud is one of the most popular WordPress e-commerce plug-ins that helps make your checkout page, product pages, and sensitive e-commerce data PCI-compliant, safe, and secure.
Cart66 cloud is highly cost-efficient and gives you a fantastic deal where the core plug-in that comes with additional features like inbuilt PCI – compliance for the checkout process, customer data, and billing information is free.
You also get 70+ payment gateways, recurring billing options, and free storage on Amazon S3, enabling you to sell digital products in the package securely.
The Powerful plug-in connects your WordPress site to the customized super-secure Cart66 Cloud account. You get a fully functional e-commerce portal for less than what you would pay for a payment gateway add-on and an SSL certificate if you set up a web shop on your own.
With Cart66 Cloud, you get to set up and run a business entirely on your WordPress site, All your product pages will be in WordPress, and you have the freedom to host your site Whenever you want.
This fantastic plug-in comes with a 14-day free trial, and if you wish to continue, it’s only $95 per year.
Easy Digital Downloads
Easy Digital Downloads is tailor-made for ecommerce portals that sell digital files and software.
Easy digital downloads plug-in is robust, feature-packed, and powerful, yet lightweight and clean at the same time.
The plug-in is free and only has the basic and essential features to allow for streamlined, quick, and efficient selling.
The plug-in is super easy to install and set up, and all that you need to do is enter your payment information, product data, and other necessary details, and you are good to go.
The plug-in also helps you analyze sales and earnings with lucid and straightforward sales graphs and data tables.
The easy digital plug-in is developer-friendly and allows you to customize and build features according to your need.
There are several payment gateway options, and you can also choose from add-ons that are being developed continuously by the huge WordPress development community.
The plug-in is extremely user-friendly and makes data export, discounts, coupons, and promotions super easy.
Pros and Cons of WordPress plug-ins
Plug-ins are different with different features and different advantages depending upon the
the requirement, some plug-ins might be an advantage for one type of website and disadvantage for the other site, so what are we discussing here?
Pros of WordPress plug-ins
Just as you add a plug-in, you should get many features to choose the plug-ins that provide the features you want and need for your site.
We believe in tested plug-ins and discourage freebies because they always break websites or get hacked, so not a great option.
Plug-ins will let you customize your website and provides options that make it look more relaxed and nothing like anything on the internet; no matter how your website looks, it functions exactly the way the user expects it to, so no surprises there for your customers.
Another major pro is when you get bored of your current plug-in, you could uninstall it and go for a new one, and you don’t have to spend anything on the development part.
Plug-ins come with unique add-ons, which means you don’t have to change the plug-in too, find some add-ons, and attach them to your plug-in, and you are good to go.
Cons on WordPress Plug-Ins
Cons of plug-ins include freebie non-updated plug-ins break sites or get hacked easily.
Updated become overbearing. We have seen websites with more than 20 plug-ins, and we were shocked.
Plug-ins conflict with each other and break sites; in case of more than one plug-in on a website. While coming, suck up the server’s resources, and the site won’t load or respond.
So, it’s not a question of “Should I use a Plug-in?” but it’s about which plug-in is more suitable for your ecommerce website.
Conclusion
Plug-ins are a great way to customize your ecommerce website, and there are many ways you
could improve your website. But before you do that, do thorough research about the plug-ins available and their pros and cons, and how will it help your ecommerce website.
If you are planning to build you eCommerce website on WordPress, then you must read “Why is WordPress the perfect solution for your small business?”
Feel free to get in touch for any queries related to WordPress eCommerce development and don’t forget to leave your valuable comments and feedbacks.
Mohit Maheshwari is Chief Strategist at NMG Technologies, a full service IT Company offering world class user friendly WordPress website design and development services. He has been in the industry since 2000 and focuses on long-term strategies, intuitive user experience and successful customer acquisition. Follow Mohit on Twitter and LinkedIn