Do you want to create an eCommerce store on your website? Not sure which WordPress eCommerce plugin you should go with? You’re not alone.
In this article, we’ll compare the best WordPress eCommerce plugins on the market.
WordPress eCommerce – How to Choose the Right Plugin
Since the eCommerce industry is booming, you’ll find dozens of different WordPress eCommerce plugins that let you easily add a storefront to your WordPress website.
Choosing the correct eCommerce plugin for your needs is vital for your business because it’s hard to back out from your original decision if it turns out to be a poor match.
In fact, over 60% of medium to large eCommerce site owners claim they should have conducted better due diligence on the platform they’d selected for their stores.
We also have a list of the best WordPress plugins that you must use.
Let’s take a look at a few factors you need to consider for choosing the right WordPress eCommerce plugin.
1. Ease of use:
Whether you want to add a product, create a coupon or do any other task, an easy-to-use interface makes it easy and simple. That way you don’t have to waste time in your WordPress dashboard figuring out how to do it.
2. Support:
Before choosing an eCommerce platform, you’ll need to double check whether the plugin’s been constantly updated and maintained.
3. Addon choices:
It’s in your best interest to choose an eCommerce plugin that has a wide selection of addons / supported plugins.
4. Overhead costs:
WordPress is so flexible that it allows you to integrate a hosted eCommerce platform into your WordPress site.
A hosted platform might be a good choice for you if you don’t want to spend resources on optimizing your WordPress eCommerce store. In other words, a hosted platform may help reduce overhead costs down the line.
7 Best eCommerce Plugins for WordPress
- WooCommerce – Best WordPress eCommerce Plugin
- BigCommerce – Best Hosted eCommerce Platform
- Easy Digital Downloads – Best Digital eCommerce Plugin
- Shopify – Easiest Hosted eCommerce Platform
- MemberPress – Best Subscription-based eCommerce Plugin
- WP eCommerce – The Original eCommerce Plugin for WordPress
- Jigoshop eCommerce – Yet Another Free eCommerce Plugin
1. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce platform for WordPress. It is the most comprehensive solution that enables you to sell both digital and physical goods on your WordPress website.
With hundreds of free and paid extensions, WooCommerce makes it super easy to build and enhance your store, so you can start selling products in mere minutes. If you want a custom-built online store, then you can hire WooCommerce developers thanks to the large community.
WooCommerce comes bundled with PayPal (for accepting credit card and PayPal account payments), BACS, and cash on delivery for accepting payments. For more payment gateways, you can install addons to your WooCommerce store.
WooCommerce also provides easy-to-follow documentation that walks you through different aspects of building an online store. The support requests are handled on the official forums, so if you need assistance, they’ve got you covered.
Get started with WooCommerce today.
2. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is another cloud-hosted eCommerce platform to get your online store up and running quickly. BigCommerce is best suited for small to medium-sized online stores.
Unlike Shopify, BigCommerce comes with an absurd amount of features out of the box, without costly addons or transaction fees. BigCommerce is also shipped with a lot of responsive eCommerce templates to choose from. Having a ton of options to choose from is nice, of course, but may be overwhelming if you’re looking for something more streamlined.
Additionally, BigCommerce has bundled discounting and segmentation tools that let you seamlessly offer promotions for driving more sales.
You can even integrate BigCommerce into your WordPress website. That way you can manage your content with WordPress and eCommerce storefront with your Bigcommerce account. The benefit is that you can offload eCommerce requests on to BigCommerce and free up your WordPress site’s server resources. You’d also like to check out this comparison between BigCommerce vs WooCommerce.
Get started with BigCommerce today.
3. Easy Digital Downloads
Easy Digital Downloads is the best way to sell digital products with WordPress. It was built as a lightweight plugin that comes with all the essential features you’ll need to sell digital products without hassle. You can also find dozens of extensions that enhance the functionalities of your storefront and customize it to your heart’s content.
Although WooCommerce also allows you to sell digital products from your store, the downside is that it comes bundled with many features you’ll never need for running an exclusively digital goods storefront (such as shipping options).
It’s easy to get bogged down by the bloated user interface of WooCommerce if you don’t intend to sell physical goods from your store. On the other hand, EDD is built for selling digital goods specifically. This makes it super easy to list your products and start selling on your store quickly and easily.
Get started with Easy Digital Downloads today.
4. Shopify
Shopify is one of the best cloud-hosted platforms that lets you easily get started with selling online. You can sell your Shopify products on any website, including your WordPress website, but a native integration isn’t available.
Since WordPress already has many eCommerce plugins, you might be wondering why you should consider Shopify instead. There are actually several reasons why powering your online store with Shopify will be beneficial for your online business:
Getting started with Shopify is easier compared to using native WordPress eCommerce plugins. All you have to do is to sign up for an account with Shopify and get your eCommerce store up and running. Since it’s a cloud-hosted solution, you don’t have to worry about upgrading your server due to traffic outages as your eCommerce business grows.
Not convinced yet? Check out our complete list of Shopify alternatives and competitors.
However, you don’t have to worry about site speed, security, or other technical things because Shopify takes care of it all for you.
Shopify also comes with many different attractive themes to choose from, so you can change the look and feel of your storefront to give it that personal touch you crave.
Read our complete Shopify review.
Get started with Shopify today.
5. MemberPress
MemberPress allows you to sell subscription-based digital products and services on your website. It is actually a full-featured WordPress membership site plugin that also allows you to start charging your users to access your digital goods.
Subscription-based economy is rapidly becoming a norm in the eCommerce industry. It’s one of the best ways to generate recurring income from your online digital store.
MemberPress also allows you to integrate your website with WooCommerce, so you can easily enhance the functions of your online store. With MemberPress, you can manage your members by granting and revoking access to digital goods. That way you get more control over your inventory.
MemberPress supports a lot of payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net. Besides selling goods in a subscription model economy, it lets you create forums and social communities on your online store with the necessary extensions.
Get started with MemberPress today.
6. WP eCommerce
WP eCommerce is the oldest WordPress eCommerce plugin, but it’s not as popular as WooCommerce.
WP eCommerce comes with a lot of features out of the box that let you create a beautiful online store from the ground up. It offers integration with tons of different payment gateways.
The main drawback is that it is often reported as buggy which makes people switch their platform to WooCommerce or other eCommerce solutions down the line. Another disadvantage is that you can’t find as many as extensions when compared to WooCommerce or Shopify.
Get started with WP eCommerce today.
7. Jigoshop eCommerce
Jigoshop is yet another free eCommerce plugin for WordPress. The team Jigoshop is focused on providing blazing fast loading time for eCommerce sites, so they’ve redeveloped their legacy plugin. The claim that the new plugin is 2X faster than the legacy plugin.
Jigoshop has now a core-integrated RESTful API, which helps for seamless integration with third-party applications.
The main downside of the plugin is that it’s not as popular as other WooCommerce or WP eCommerce.
Get started with Jigoshop eCommerce today
Which is the Best WordPress eCommerce Plugin?
Choosing the best WordPress eCommerce plugin is tricky and it all depends on your personal needs.
Strictly from a WordPress point of view, WooCommerce is the best WordPress eCommerce plugin if you want to sell physical goods on your website. Integrating a WooCommerce storefront with your existing WordPress site is easier than any cloud-hosting solutions.
However Shopify is easier to get started with and is completely hassle-free from scalability and security points of view. They also offer 24/7 support which makes them more reliable than a native WordPress eCommerce plugin like WooCommerce.
Related: 6 Best eCommerce Platforms for Multivendor Marketplaces.
We hope this guide helped you choose the best WordPress eCommerce plugins for your needs.
If you want to make money by promoting products through affiliate marketing, check out the best WordPress affiliate marketing plugins.
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