The best free ecommerce platform for wordpress and plugin is WooCommerce. At the time of this writing, WooCommerce has already been downloaded over 15 million times and is still growing rapidly. For making a comparison, the second most popular ecommerce platform for wordpress only has over one million downloads as at today. This should tell you something about the popularity and quality of this plugin.
The best free ecommerce platform for WordPress that is simple to set up, easy to use and you can customize it is undoubtedly WooCommerce. You will be guided in developing your own e-commerce store via shopping cart plugin that matches your style regardless of the customization that you want.
WordPress ecommerce is one of the most important features for many wordpress users and businesses. There are many free and paid ecommerce platforms available for wordpress. I have tested and reviewed some of the best ecommerce plugins for wordpress users and beginners. This article will help you find the best free wordpress ecommerce platform for wordpress.
WordPress is one of the most popular tools but there will always be dire need to ecommerce platforms. The reasons are many! An ecommerce based business website is capable of handling the highest volume of traffic. However, there are a ton of websites that run on wordpress platform but they need an ecommerce platform to run their business smoothly and efficiently. There could be several reasons for this scenario. Different businesses from different industries have unique requirements as per their business, branding, products range and so on. Every business is unique in its own way and hence every ecommerce store should be unique too!
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 an online store.
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.
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, a user-friendly 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. Having good customer support is also important in case you run into any issues.
3. Addon choices: It’s in your best interest to choose an eCommerce plugin that has a wide selection of addons / supported plugins. When your customization options are endless, you can create any type of eCommerce website you want.
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.
WooCommerce
After taking a look at all of the features above, WooCommerce reigns supreme in my comparison. As discussed before, you shouldn’t immediately think that WooCommerce is the right route for you. Is it the safest bet if going in blind? Yes. But should you really think about the type of selling you’ll be doing before making the decision? Absolutely.
I know we jumped over pricing before (since all of these plugins are free,) but WooCommerce has the most useful selection of themes and extensions for free or really cheap. Many of the themes and plugins are made by the WooCommerce company (such as the Boutique theme and Woo Sidebars,) while others come from all corners of the internet, opening up chances for you to develop a full online store without the need to destroy your wallet.
WooCommerce even recently launched a Facebook for WooCommerce extension that allows you to quickly create sponsored Facebook ads based on the products in your store. After that, it lets you find more customers with Facebook, measure the results and create a complete Facebook store without having to punch in any extra details that aren’t already on your WooCommerce site.
As discussed above, some of the other ecommerce plugins have extensions and themes as well, but none of them matches the quantity and quality of WooCommerce.
Seeing as how I broke down a huge selection of features that should mean the most to online store owners, let’s take a look at how WooCommerce fared in each of the categories:
- Integrations with the most credible payment gateways – The WooCommerce plugin comes with five installed payment gateways. For example, you can accept payments through direct bank transfers, cash on delivery and check payments. In addition, it allows for credit card payments through Simplify Commerce and PayPal. Smaller stores will do just fine with these, but I tend to think that medium-sized to large stores require more options. That’s why WooCommerce had some free and paid extensions for options like Amazon Payments, Stripe, Authorize.Net, PayPal Pro/Advanced/Express, FirstData, and Braintree. You can also improve the number of payment methods accepted because Apple Pay is now accepted through WooCommerce.
- Themes built just for the plugin – Whether you’re going for a theme built by WooCommerce or a premium solution from a third-party developer, the options are becoming more and more plentiful every day. For example, places like Tesla Themes, Elegant Themes and ThemeForest all have WooCommerce themes. You can also find an onslaught of WooCommerce extensions on the WooCommerce site or elsewhere online.
- Advanced user capabilities (wish lists, saving a cart, making a profile) – Users can login to your site using WooCommerce and WordPress, but the majority of the other user capabilities are achieved with extensions and add-ons. For instance, wish lists and rewards programs are handled with extensions, while full user profiles can be setup nicely without any support from an extension. Not to mention, the improved product gallery enables customers to scroll through thumbnails quicker and slide around on images for better views.
- Integrations with multiple CMSs – WooCommerce only integrates with WordPress. As discussed before, you’re better off going with a different ecommerce plugin if you have no interest in WordPress, or if you have a current site that’s running on an alternative CMS.
- Marketing tools (like email marketing and affiliates) – This is another area where extensions come into play. Loyalty marketing is provided through an add-on, while email marketing, social media buttons and more can be found with the help of WooCommerce themes and add-ons. The built-in marketing tools include SEO, discount coupons and codes, product reviews and owner verification.
- Tools to Sell Subscriptions and Memberships – Subscriptions, bookings, and memberships all come in the form of extensions. These aren’t exactly the least expensive extensions you’ll ever find, but you can get them all for one-time payments, meaning that making your money back is far easier with potentially just a few sales.
- Powerful customer management – The primary way to check out your customer information with WooCommerce is to look out the customer history list. In the plugin, you gain access to all of the personal information they punch into your site, including address, phone number, email and more. The payment information is protected, but exporting customer lists and evaluating which users are crucial to your business is easy.
- Discount codes and promotions – This was mainly covered in the marketing tools tab above. Overall, the discounts and promotions support is pretty solid. You can even integrate with MailChimp with extensions. Other than that, we don’t need to look at any of the other features since they were talked about above.
- Advanced reporting – It all depends on what you would like your WordPress dashboard to look like. I would assume most stores include a simple stats section in the dashboard, which is entirely possible through WooCommerce. In addition, all of the sales reports (from net to gross sales) can be exported from the dashboard and shared with people in your organization. One of the main reports covers the cost of goods sold, and you can even get email alerts when a new sales report is generated.
- Shipping and tax calculators – Choosing a shipping method takes place during the checkout. There’s also a shipping calculator built into WooCommerce. Flexible shipping destinations can be activated, and you can reveal multiple shipping methods right in the shopping cart. The good part is that all of these options are shown before the last page. You can hide the shipping calculator, too. WooCommerce provides custom tax calculations for both you and the customer. Not only that, but the geo-location tax calculator pulls information from mobile device GPSs to identify exactly where the person is located (for checking in on their tax rates).
- Variable product options – WooCommerce has top of the line product variables and they’re all managed in the product creation pages. This means that you always remember to set a product variable while constructing a product. The variables can be utilized for both digital and physical products.
Easy Digital Downloads
Easy Digital Downloads allows you to easily sell digital downloads online using WordPress. It is very easy to use and comes with powerful features to create beautiful and functional digital goods store.
We use Easy Digital Downloads to sell our software like WPForms and MonsterInsights.
Pros of Using Easy Digital Downloads
Designed To Sell Digital Goods – Easy Digital Downloads is built from the ground up to sell digital downloads. Unlike eCommerce plugins that can be used to sell all kind of products, EDD provides a far better experience for selling digital goods.
Easy To Use – Easy digital downloads is very easy to use, from the start you would instantly figure out how to add products and display them. This is really useful for the first timers.
Extensions – There are hundreds of extensions available for Easy Digital Downloads including addons for payment gateways, marketing platforms and services.
Themes – Easy Digital Downloads works with almost any WordPress theme, however if you have not choosen a theme yet, then Easy Digital Downloads has themes built specifically for the plugin.
Awesome Support – The plugin is very well documented, and you have free support forums, videos, tutorials, and even an IRC chatroom. There is also a priority support option for premium users.
Cons of Using Easy Digital Downloads
Digital Downloads Only – As the name suggests, Easy Digital Downloads makes it easier to create eCommerce sites for digital goods. But if you want to sell non-digital goods along with digital downloads then it will become quite complicated.
Selling External Products – If you want to add an external product or an affiliate product to your EDD store, then you will need to install a third-party add on for it.
When it comes to selling digital products online, we believe that Easy Digital Downloads is the best plugin to do that. We have used Easy Digital Downloads with great success, not only on client sites but also on a few of our own projects.
MemberPress
MemberPress allows you to sell subscription based digital products and services. It is the best WordPress membership plugin with tons of integration options. It can even integrate with WooCommerce.
Let’s take a look at pros and cons MemberPress.
Pros of Using MemberPress
Sell Subscription Based Products – Allows you to easily sell subscription based products, membership plans, pay per view content, and more.
Powerful Access Rules – Powerful access control allows you to define user access levels and content restrictions. Only users with permissions will be able to access restricted content.
Built-in Course Builder – MemberPress comes with a course builder that allows you to create & sell courses by offering your users an immersive online learning platform.
Content Dripping – MemberPress allows you to release paid content over time similar to episodes on Amazon Prime shows or other platforms.
Powerful Extensions – You can integrate it to your WooCommerce store or LearnDash LMS. There are tons of extensions to connect MemberPress with third-party services.
Cons of Using MemberPress
Limited Payment Options – MemberPress only supports PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net.
Yearly Pricing – Pricing plans are available on yearly terms alone.
MemberPress is the perfect eCommerce plugin to sell subscription based products, sell courses, or build a membership website. It is beginner friendly and can be easily extended with addons which allows you to take your eCommerce website in any direction you want.
HubSpot
HubSpot is an all-in-one marketing plugin from the HubSpot Digital platform. The tool is a growth catalyst. It maximizes the means of marketing in effecting growth in business. Over 100,000 businesses use HubSpot to attract, engage, and delight their prospects and customers. The WordPress e-commerce plugin improves sales, marketing, and services. It is integrated with more than 200 tools, including Shopify, Stripe, Zapier, and sign forms and email marketing software.
The plugin aids engagement tracking as you receive notifications every time your email is visited or clicks hit your link. Hubspot plugin offers features that make site-building easy and fast. With its drag and drop builder feature, you can build and add beautiful forms and popups to your website in no time.
It also aids CRM with its autos segmentation feature that categorizes contacts into lists and sees each interaction they’ve had with your website. The plugin also provides live chat and automated chatbots features for timely responses to your visitors’ questions. Automated emails are not left out when someone fills out a form or sends you a live chat message, allowing you to be in constant conversation with your potential customers. All emails get automatically logged into your CRM.
The built-in analytics help you improve your overall marketing efforts.
eCommerce Product Catalog
ECommerce Product Catalog is an easy-to-use, free plugin for WordPress e-commerce. Although free, the plugin comes in both free and paid versions. It integrates with any theme and works well with most WordPress plugins. It is known for its high customizability and simplicity. The plugin option offers full WordPress e-commerce functionality for creating online shops and stores. It organizes products into multi-level categories, tags, and multiple product catalogs to aid product searches and improve customer experience.
The CSS feature of the plugin makes for high-quality code and beautiful designs. It offers two different product page models- the simple template, and tabular template. The plugin provides a catalog feature for an unlimited number of products. So the catalog can display over 100,000 products without doing the performance enhancement or speed of the site.
The SEO feature of the plugin gives WordPress site visibility with search engines. The plugin has several extensions for Product Reviews, Product Gallery Advanced extension, Quote Form, Order Form, Shopping Cart, Upload PDF, and a long list of others.
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 eCommerce plugin for WordPress 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 solution.
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.
You can always read our in-depth comparison of WooCommerce vs Shopify to be sure you make the right choice.
However, if you’re looking to sell digital goods, then Easy Digital Downloads is the best platform. It has everything you need to create, sell, and automate the delivery of digital products online.
We hope this guide helped you choose the best WordPress eCommerce plugins for your needs.
When you’re running an eCommerce site, you’ll need to make sure you use a trusted web host that can handle your traffic and data requirements. See the best eCommerce hosting companies to find the right plan for you.
Conclusion
The WP eCommerce Plugin is everything you need to sell anywhere! Convert visitors to customers with a beautiful online store and a secure shopping cart. Powering over 26,584+ stores, WP eCommerce is one of the most relied upon open-source solutions for business owners across the globe.
With millions and millions of websites using WordPress, it has become a norm or custom to use WordPress even for an Ecommerce site. Many Software’s tend to make you believe they are the best but without a proper comparison you can never be sure.