Building a successful online store begins with choosing the right foundation, and WordPress is a great place to start. With thousands of themes and plugins, you can easily create and customize a store that suits your vision.
WordPress is an open-source platform, which means you can launch your business with a small budget and scale up when it starts to take off. However, most store elements will be managed solely by you, the store owner.
So, you need to be careful of which ecommerce plugin you choose, as the right plugin can make the process easy and efficient. This guide will explore the best WordPress ecommerce plugins available, considering factors like ease of use, pricing, features, and integration capabilities.
Stay tuned to find the WordPress ecommerce plugin to suit your business!
6 Best Ecommerce Plugins for WordPress Success
While various WordPress ecommerce plugins are suitable for launching your business, we will only focus on the six that are the most successful within the industry.
Follow along to find the perfect WordPress ecommerce plugin to launch your business online!
1. WooCommerce
WordPress Rating: 4.5
Best for: All ecommerce Businesses
Price: Free, add-ons range from $0 to $150/year
When we think of WordPress ecommerce plugins, WooCommerce is usually the first one that comes to mind. It’s a highly versatile plugin that handles everything from physical products to digital downloads and even memberships.
Get access to hundreds of free and paid themes to design your store, however you want. This level of customizability is hard to come by, which makes it one of the main reasons merchants prefer to use WooCommerce over its alternatives.
You can also use the WordPress Extension Store to add almost any functionality to your store, but keep in mind that having too many plugins activated on WordPress can slow down load times and performance significantly.
Highlighted Features
- Built-in reports and analytics
- Easy product catalog management
- Extensive plugin ecosystem
Downsides
- Requires multiple payment gateway add-ons
- No dedicated customer support
- Needs third-party hosting
[Download]
2. Shopify’s Buy Button
WordPress Rating: 3.7
Best for: All ecommerce Businesses
Price: $5/month for WordPress integration
While WooCommerce is a popular WordPress ecommerce plugin, Shopify offers an alternative approach as a hosted ecommerce platform. While it doesn’t integrate directly as a plugin, Shopify’s Buy Button feature allows you to easily add products to your WordPress website.
Compared to WooCommerce, Shopify works as an all-in-one ecommerce solution that includes hosting, payment processing, and marketing tools. This can be especially appealing to merchants looking for a simpler setup and management experience.
Shopify’s built-in SEO features and responsive themes let you edit the robot.txt file to encourage Google’s crawlers to target specific URLs to get better rankings.
And when it comes to payment gateways, Shopify has a built-in processor (only available for these countries) but you can integrate third-party gateways, which comes with a 0.5-2% transaction fee.
Here’s a comprehensive blog on Shopify vs WooCommerce to help you learn more.
Highlighted Features
- Built-in SEO features
- Multi-channel selling
- Detailed reporting and analytics
- Dropshipping integration
Downsides
- Third-party payment gateways require transaction fees
- Paid WordPress integration
[Download]
3. Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart
WordPress Rating: 4.5
Best for: Small and Medium-sized Businesses
Price: Freemium, paid plans start at $12.50/month
When it comes to user-friendly SaaS platforms, Ecwid stands out with its seamless integration with WordPress and social media as sales channels. You can directly import its dashboard and configuration panels into your WordPress site to easily manage products, sales channels, and payment options.
With its built-in Google Ads integration helps you set up advertising campaigns to expand your online reach. While the analytics tool requires a third-party app, it’s readily available and can be installed directly from your dashboard.
Ecwid supports popular payment gateways like Stripe, Square, and PayPal, as well as manual payment options. You can also integrate with major courier options to automate shipping rate calculations.
If you are running a small business, Ecwid’s free plan has all the basic features you’ll need but for more advanced functionalities like social media store integration, mobile point-of-sale capabilities, and Amazon integration, you’ll need to opt for the premium plan.
Highlighted Features
- Dashboard integration with WordPress
- Built-in Google Ads configuration panel
- Free to use (paid plans available)
- Multi-channel sales integration
Downsides
- The free plan allows up to 10 products
- Limited scalability for large stores
[Download Free / Get Pro]
4. BigCommerce
WordPress Rating: 3.9
Best for: Small and Medium-sized Businesses
Price: Free to download, accounts start at $29.95/month
BigCommerce allows you to create your own front-end design on WordPress, where you can directly manage product catalogs, fulfillment logistics, payment processes, and more.
It takes a headless approach to separate ecommerce infrastructure from the WordPress core, so you only have to connect your BigCommerce account to your WordPress website to manage your business. You can also add product blocks to embed product listings on different pages, similar to WooCommerce.
BigCommerce has a list of features to streamline your operations, such as marketing tools for promotions and discount codes, abandoned cart recovery emails, and comprehensive analytics. It has three core plans and an enterprise solution to cater to businesses of all sizes.
Highlighted Features
- Easy-to-use and integrated blocks
- Built-in reporting and SEO tools
- PCI-compliant checkout experience
- Supports multi-channel selling
Downsides
- BigCommerce accounts are pricey
- Themes and app stores are not extensive
[Download Free / Get Pro]
5. Easy Digital Downloads
WordPress Rating: 4.7
Best for: Businesses selling Digital Products
Price: Freemium, paid plans start at $99.50/year
Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is the top WordPress ecommerce plugin for businesses specializing in digital products like eBooks, music, software, or other downloads. This WordPress ecommerce plugin comes with plenty of options for businesses that want to sell multiple versions of a product.
EDD has a bundle download functionality, enabling merchants to create and sell curated packages of digital products for a special price. It also comes with built-in analytics to track different metrics, directly from its dashboard.
Its detailed download logs and customer management tools let you track transactions and understand your customer behavior. You can also implement popular payment gateways, or simply add extensions from third-party developers to expand your payment options.
Although you can download EDD for free, the premium options come with personal and professional plans – each adding to the list of features and functionalities.
Highlighted Features
- Easy-to-use customer manager
- Third-party payment gateway integration
- Extensive support options
Downsides
- Designed to only sell digital products
[Download Free / Get Pro]
6. MemberPress
WordPress Rating: 4.9
Best for: Membership WordPress sites
Price: Plans start from $179.50/year
For merchants looking to create a subscription-based online store, MemberPress stands out as a top contender. This powerful WordPress ecommerce plugin lets you sell exclusive content, online courses, downloadable products, and more, all behind secure paywalls.
With subscription-based stores, secure payment is always a cause for concern. MemberPress ensures a safe transaction process by integrating with popular payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net.
With a flexible approach to content access control, you can design tiered membership plans to grant access to specific content based on the level the user chose (e.g., Premium, Silver, Gold). It also encourages unauthorized users to upgrade for full access by redirecting them to designated URLs.
While there’s no free plan available, MemberPress has tiered subscriptions with intuitive features right from the base level, so you don’t need any additional plugins.
Highlighted Features
- Content drip feature
- User-friendly portal
- Automated billing system
- Integrations for scalability
Downsides
- No free plan
- Steep learning curve
[Download]
Wrapping Up
Finding the right WordPress ecommerce plugin can be a tricky process, which ultimately depends on the specific needs of your business. In this blog, we’ve taken an in-depth look at the top six ecommerce plugins in the market to professionally curate your online presence.
Explore each option carefully before picking the one to launch your business and thrive online!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is an ecommerce plugin?
An ecommerce plugin is a software application that adds online store functionality to a website. It typically includes product management, shopping cart, payment processing, and order fulfillment.
Does WordPress have an ecommerce plugin?
Yes, WordPress has many ecommerce plugins available. Some popular options include WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, and MemberPress.
Is WordPress good for ecommerce?
Yes, WordPress is a great platform for ecommerce. It’s flexible, customizable, and has a large community of developers and users.
What are the requirements for running an ecommerce website?
To run an ecommerce website, you’ll need:
- A domain name
- A web hosting account
- A WordPress installation
- An ecommerce plugin
- A payment gateway