Do you want to construct your online business using the finest WordPress ecommerce plugins?
Choosing the best ecommerce plugin for your business is critical since a better platform equals more potential for growth. Users frequently lose money because they did not conduct adequate research before deciding on an ecommerce platform to launch their business.
We will compare the finest WordPress ecommerce plugins in this post. We will also discuss their benefits and drawbacks to assist you in determining which ecommerce plugin is best for you.
What Should You Look for in a WordPress Ecommerce Plugin?
There are several WordPress ecommerce plugins available on the market. However, not all of them offer the necessary set of functionality for your application.
Some WordPress ecommerce plugins, for example, are designed to sell digital commodities like eBooks, photographs, music, and so on. Others are better suited to selling real items that require shipping.
If you want to start a drop-shipping business, you’ll need an ecommerce solution that supports drop-shipping.
Essentially, you must consider what you will supply and what features you will require to run your online business properly.
Aside from that, the following are some of the most significant aspects to consider while selecting an ecommerce platform.
- Payment solutions: Your selected payment gateways should be supported by default or via an extension in your ecommerce plugin.
- Design and customization: Your store’s design is your customer’s initial point of contact with your company. Make certain that there are several templates and simple modification choices accessible.
- Apps and integrations: Examine the available integrations for third-party programs like as email marketing services, CRM software, accounting software, and so on. You’ll need such tools to better manage and expand your ecommerce firm.
- Support options: Check to see if there are any help alternatives available. In the long term, good assistance may save you a lot of money.
Now that you know what to look for in an ecommerce platform and what you’ll need to get started, here are our top recommendations for the best WordPress ecommerce plugins.
- WooCommerce
- Easy Digital Downloads
- BigCommerce
Let’s take a look at each of them and analyze their advantages and disadvantages.
Best WordPress Ecommerce Plugins
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is the most popular ecommerce plugin for WordPress. It is also the world’s most popular ecommerce platform. In 2015, Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com’s blog hosting service) purchased WooCommerce.
WooCommerce has a plethora of extensions and themes available. They are also supported by a dedicated development community. Several hosting firms have recently begun to develop specific WooCommerce hosting solutions.
WooCommerce Pros
Some of the benefits of using WooCommerce as your WordPress ecommerce plugin are as follows:
- Extensions and Themes: WooCommerce has hundreds of extensions and themes available, making it simple to add new functionality to your ecommerce site. A wide theme selection means you have a variety of alternatives when it comes to designing and laying out your website.
- Compatible With Both Digital and Physical Goods: You can sell both physical and digital files using WooCommerce (such as ebooks, music, software, and more).
- Sell Affiliate or Third-Party Products: You can add affiliate or external items to your site using WooCommerce. Affiliate marketers may construct product sites and improve the customer experience.
- Complete Inventory Control: WooCommerce has features to help you manage your inventory and even assign it to a shop manager.
- Payment and Shipping Options: WooCommerce includes built-in support for common payment gateways, and plugins may be used to add many more payment alternatives. Shipping and taxes can also be calculated.
- Assistance and Documentation: There is good WooCommerce documentation accessible online. In addition to documentation, there is a knowledge base, a support desk, and community forums.
WooCommerce Cons
- Too Many Options: WooCommerce is fairly simple to use, but the large number of choices accessible on the settings page might be overwhelming to a new user.
- Finding Addons: There are several WooCommerce plugins available. Nevertheless, a user may not always find the perfect addition for the functionalities that they want.
- Theme Support: WooCommerce works with any WordPress theme, but it’s not always as easy to set up or good-looking with all themes. You can use a website builder plugin to create bespoke WooCommerce pages with a drag-and-drop interface.
WooCommerce is ideal for any type of ecommerce website. It boasts a strong developer and user community, a great number of extensions and themes, good support for multilingual websites, and the finest free and commercial support options.
Easy Digital Downloads
Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is a WordPress plugin that allows you to effortlessly sell digital downloads online. It’s simple to use and packed with powerful features for building a stylish and functional digital products shop.
Easy Digital Downloads Pros
- Designed for The Sale of Digital Goods: Easy Digital Downloads is solely intended for the sale of digital downloads.
- Simple to Use: Easy Digital Downloads is really simple to use; you will quickly learn how to add and display items. This is quite helpful for first-timers.
- Extensions: Easy Digital Downloads has hundreds of extensions available, including addons for payment gateways, email marketing platforms, and other marketing tools.
- Themes: Easy Digital Downloads is compatible with practically any WordPress theme. However, if you have not yet chosen a theme, Easy Digital Downloads includes templates designed exclusively for the plugin.
- Software Licensing: Easy Digital Downloads comes with robust software licensing support that allows you to sell plugins as well as SaaS products with proper digital rights management.
- Support: The plugin comes with extensive documentation, as well as free support forums, videos, tutorials, and even an IRC chatroom. Premium customers can also request priority help.
Easy Digital Downloads Cons
- Digital Downloads Only: Easy Digital Downloads, as the name implies, makes it simpler to develop ecommerce sites for digital items. However, selling non-digital items with digital downloads becomes rather tricky.
- Selling External Products: If you wish to add an external or affiliate product to your EDD shop, you must first install a third-party add-on.
When it comes to selling digital things online, we think Easy Digital Downloads is the greatest plugin. We’ve used Easy Digital Downloads to produce tens of millions of dollars each year, not only on client sites but also on our own projects.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a fully hosted ecommerce platform that works together with WordPress. This enables you to use a scalable ecommerce platform while managing your content and running your website using WordPress.
It includes a powerful WordPress integration plugin that makes it extremely simple to insert your items into WordPress. It builds the sign-in, cart, account, and other crucial pages for you instantly.
Let’s go through some of the benefits and drawbacks of using BigCommerce as your WordPress ecommerce platform.
BigCommerce Pros
- High Scalability: It has all of the features you need, including enterprise-grade security, great performance, and easy scalability.
- Less Maintenance: Keeping your ecommerce engine distinct from other content makes running your WordPress site easier.
- Sell across Multiple Channels: It may be used to sell not just on your website but also on other platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Amazon.
- No transaction charges: It does not charge you for each transaction, unlike some other ecommerce sites. You may select from dozens of trustworthy payment gateways and pay only the payment service provider.
BigCommerce Cons
- Limited Integrations: BigCommerce interfaces with all of the industry’s leading third-party applications and solutions. However, its app market is still expanding, and some less popular apps may not have an integration.
- Yearly Sales Threshold: They have an annual sales threshold for each plan. If you achieve that point, you will be promoted to the next plan. Costs may rise as your company expands.
BigCommerce is a strong yet user-friendly ecommerce platform. It’s a SaaS ecommerce platform, but you can have the best of both worlds with their BigCommerce WordPress plugin.
It alleviates the burden of growing your hosting requirements as your organization expands. At the same time, you don’t have to worry about security, performance, or finding SEO and caching plugins.
BigCommerce is an emerging WordPress headless ecommerce challenger. It manages your IT infrastructure so you can concentrate on building your business.
Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart
Ecwid is a great software as a service (SaaS) eCommerce platform for connecting your online store with WordPress and selling across multiple social media sites.
Unlike BigCommerce, the Ecwid WordPress plugin imports all of the dashboards and control panels. From your WordPress dashboard, you can manage goods, sales channels, and payment choices.
Ecwid accepts online payments using Stripe, Square, and Paypal. Manual payments, such as bank transfers, cash on delivery, and checks, are also accepted by this WordPress plugin. Furthermore, if you combine your business with major couriers, the plugin automatically calculates shipping charges.
Let’s take a look at some of the highlights of Ecwid.
Ecwid Pros
- Free Plan: Eucwid allows you to use it for free with limited functions.
- Multi-currency and Multi-language Support: This plugin allows you to pay in different currencies and supports up to 45 different languages.
- Automatic Shipping and Taxes: To automatically calculate shipping prices, the Ecwid ecommerce plugin interfaces with major carriers such as USPS, UPS, FedEx, Canada Post, Australia Post, and others. Taxes are likewise automatic and can be set up in a matter of seconds. For the United States, Canada, and the European Union, automated tax rate estimates are available.
- Mobile Apps: Ecwid Shopping Cart offers free mobile applications for iOS and Android that allow you to manage and sell from your store while on the road.
Ecwid Cons
- Ease of Use: The settings panel is not user-friendly for beginners, and the controls are quite difficult to understand.
- Limited Customization Options: Ecwid, although allowing for some customization, cannot be completely tailored to your preferences and needs.
If you already have a website with a significant amount of traffic that you can drive to your ecommerce pages, Ecwid is a really strong solution. We strongly advise using Ecwid as a plugin for existing websites rather than as a separate online shop builder.
Memberpress
You can use MemberPress to sell subscription-based digital products and services. It’s the finest WordPress membership plugin, with a plethora of integration possibilities. It can even be integrated with WooCommerce.
Let’s take a look at the benefits and drawbacks of MemberPress.
Memberpress Pros
- Offer Subscription-Based Items: With this feature, you can simply sell subscription-based products, membership plans, pay-per-view content, and more.
- Course Builder: MemberPress includes a course builder that allows you to design and sell courses by providing your users with an immersive online learning environment.
- Dripping Content: MemberPress allows you to drip-feed paid content over time, much like episodes of an Amazon Prime series or other platforms. This is referred to as “automated drip content.”
Memberpress Cons
- Limited Payment Methods: MemberPress only accepts PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net as payment methods.
MemberPress is an ideal ecommerce plugin for selling subscription-based items, courses, or creating a membership website. It’s user-friendly for beginners and easily expandable with extensions that let you take your ecommerce website in whatever direction you wish.
WordPress Ecommerce Plugins: Conclusion
WooCommerce is the ideal choice if you want the most control, flexibility, and functionality.
Easy Digital Downloads is the greatest WordPress ecommerce plugin for selling digital items such as eBooks, software, music, or other assets.
If you don’t want to deal with the technical aspects of creating an internet business, BigCommerce is the ideal solution. It enables you to employ a SaaS ecommerce platform with WordPress as your content management system.
That’s all for now; we hope this post assisted you in finding the best WordPress ecommerce plugins for your site.
