A decade back, WordPress wasn’t the best solution for ecommerce. Today, I think no other platform can do better than WP e-Commerce. One of the most trusted and popular WordPress services providers has developed it. They have a satisfied customer base as well. You will get installation and updates of this plugin for free. It should be installed on every site. You need to take care of some things to set up the store properly with this plug in.
Ecommerce is a booming business, with millions of new customers flocking to the internet for their shopping needs. In fact, a study by Research and Markets suggests that the ecommerce market will grow steadily in the upcoming years.
An ecommerce plugin is something that has a range of features like making payment process easier and secure, inventory management, full customer support, multi-vendor management, shipping rate calculators, etc. that might be difficult to build yourself while you are running.
If you have ever tried to find a free wordpress plugin for your e-commerce website, then you know that there are plenty of them. Sadly, not every free WordPress ecommerce plugin is great. And that’s why we need to know what are the best free ecommerce plugins and which is the worst one. In this article we will show you how to be sure whether the wordpress product plugin will fit perfectly to your needs or not.
Who is This For?
Many companies and individuals make money without selling through an online store. You have physical, retail shops, along with bloggers who make money with affiliate links. There are also service-oriented companies like law firms and cleaning services.
On the surface, the service businesses don’t look like they would be selling anything online. However, technically, any type of business has something to offer in terms of online commerce.
Let’s start with the obvious. Some organizations start off with a great product idea. Others would like to purchase items from a manufacturer or become a drop shipper. Both of these businesses need an ecommerce platform. Whether or not you go with WordPress depends entirely on your company. The reason we want to cover WordPress plugins (and the reason these plugins are so popular,) is that about 19% of websites run on WordPress. Therefore, there’s a good chance a new or experienced ecommerce pro needs to know these things.
The reason we want to cover WordPress plugins (and the reason these plugins are so popular,) is that about 19% of websites run on WordPress. Therefore, there’s a good chance a new or experienced ecommerce pro needs to know these things.
I would recommend WordPress to those who want a fairly basic system but also worry about scaling up. With WordPress, you don’t need to be a coding wiz with all of the plugins and themes available. However, if you would like to learn a little something about the more advanced modifications, or you’d like to hire a freelancer to improve your site, the options are there.
On the other hand, we have a more “cookie-cutter” platform like Shopify. I like it for the simplicity and feature-set, but some people feel like the customization falls flat.
Overall, businesses that are strictly centered around ecommerce should highly consider WordPress, since you never know how often you would like to make a change to the code or ramp up your server space. In addition, plugins like these ensure that you can always add functionality to your site.
We also like these WordPress ecommerce plugins for bloggers. The CMS of choice for blogging has been WordPress for quite some time since the installation takes like two minutes and you can get themes, plugins and a wide range of post formats. Therefore, the best WordPress ecommerce plugins integrate with your current blog, just in case you plan on selling that eBook or webinar.
The final group involves regular brick and mortar businesses and services. WordPress ecommerce plugins may not apply to you right now, but if you ever think about selling services or expanding your retail business online, these plugins give you the right tools. For example, a local hardware store might eventually decide that they’d like to sell some Weber grills on their site due to popular demand. A WordPress site and plugin would do the trick.
Finally, we recommend these plugins for people who don’t want to break the bank. You don’t have to pay a dime to download them, which is pretty neat considering you can test them out before committing. In addition, solutions like WooCommerce have various free themes and plugins with the whole open source community. The options are limitless for an organization with a budget.
SendinBlue
We mentioned SendinBlue above as one of our top choices for eCommerce. Although this tool might not come with the same inventory management tools and other features as traditional WordPress eCommerce plugins, it has a lot to offer.
Unlike other solutions such as ECWid ecommerce, SendinBlue is all about nurturing your relationships with your target audience. When you’re trying to earn repeat customers and regular sales, email marketing is absolutely essential.
With SendinBlue, you can transform the user experience for your online shop, get real-time reports, and so much more. You can even build custom subscription forms to improve your chances of getting more people for your newsletter. The drag-and-drop tool mimics a lot of other high-level tools on the market today. You can build your emails with ease, without any knowledge of javascript.
SendinBlue also makes it easy to segment and automate newsletters so that you can send more unique messages to your target audience. Just like Yoast helps you to improve your presence on the search engine result pages, SendinBlue improves your appearance as a reputable and supportive brand.
SendinBlue’s plugin for WordPress is available as part of a free plan, so you don’t have to worry about extra expenses until you send more than 300 emails per day. Premium plans start at a reasonable price of around $25 per month.
HubSpot
HubSpot All-in-One Marketing brings the power of the HubSpot Growth Platform to WordPress. Over 100,000 businesses use HubSpot to attract, engage, and delight their prospects and customers. The plugin is built to handle and improve your sales, marketing, and services.
With it, you can build and add beautiful forms and popups to your website in minutes thanks to the easy-to-use drag and drop builder.
And if you already have forms of your own, that’s okay too! Your forms will automatically sync with your HubSpot CRM (read our HubSpot CRM review) so you can easily segment your contacts into lists and see each interaction they’ve had with your website.
You can also easily add live chat and set up automated chatbots to respond to your visitors’ questions when you aren’t online.
You can send automated emails 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 are automatically logged in your CRM. You receive notifications any time someone opens your email or clicks on a link so you can track engagement. The built-in analytics help you improve your overall marketing efforts.
HubSpot’s plugin integrates with over 200 tools, including Shopify, Stripe, Zapier, and major forms and email marketing software.
Easy Digital Downloads
EDD holds the crown for digital products. This is a solution that was made just for selling non-physical goods, so all you have to do is install the plugin and upload the items to your dashboard. Both Buy Now and Add to Cart buttons come along with EDD, and customers can save their carts and their past files to come back and download them later. Another primary reason EDD is the top solution for digital goods is that of the file access control. Basically, this means that you can specify how many people can download the file, or even make the file inaccessible after a certain period of time.
The iThemes Exchange plugin is yet another plugin that has a solid set of features for your digital products. Digital downloads, physical products, and memberships are available to sell through the system. Not to mention, the digital product pages include settings for product tags, categories, purchase messages and emails that get sent out when a purchase is made.
Cart66 Cloud
If your need for a WordPress e-commerce plugin is to accept donations or publish digital magazines, then Cart66 is your go-to.
The plugin supports the sale of both digital and physical products and comes with over 100 built-in payment gateways. Cart66 is what you will call a composite plugin. It has an in-build of all the necessary features needed to sell online. So, with Cart66, you do not need extra plugins like Automattic and other e-commerce business tools.
The WordPress E-commerce plugin doesn’t cause too much weight to your site, so if the issue of site weight is a concern, Cart66 should help out. It keeps the site lightweight and straightforward. It offers excellent customer support features that make launching quite easier than it would be.
Although the plugin is free, it has a paid version; the premium version which comes at a $49 price per month.
WP eCommerce
WP eCommerce was the original eCommerce plugin for WordPress. They have been around for a very long time and had unrivaled experience in open source e-commerce business management. The plugin features tools that configure taxes and shipping details, manage and update product catalogs, monitor sales and reporting, provide reliable customer support, and integrates with several industry-leading payment gateways. Over 36,186 stores around the world depend on the plugin for optimized e-commerce business earnings.
Unlike many other WordPress e-commerce platforms, WP eCommerce is not product-limited. It allows for the sale of just about any type of product, digital goods, physical goods, and even the combination of both.
The plugin ensures secure payment with available free gateways such as ProPay, PayPal, and WorldPay to choose from. It also offers premium payment gateways such as Stripe, Authorize.net, and others.
Talking about its tax management feature, it is bliss. WP e-commerce has one of the most advanced tax management systems of any eCommerce platform.
The plugin offers multiple tax classes, exclusions, and tax bands. Its reporting system is another highlight feature. You can print packing slips, invoices, update your order statuses. The management of your entire inventory online becomes seamless with WP eCommerce.
The easy-to-setup plugin runs an automated marketing feature. Its integration with Google Base, Google Analytics, Share This, and some other extensions make marketing quite simple.
WP eCommerce is famous for its excellent customer support service. On this feature, it even beats our overall best: Woocommerce. The plugin has an extensive and rich store of information in the form of articles and how-to videos, to help users get started and seamlessly run their site. Asides the free support, the plugin offers a 30-day paid access to premium support at a $49 cost and $499 for annual access to premium support.
Considering the dashboard interface, and even the pricing plan, you will conclude that WP Ecommerce is a very similar product to Woocommerce, in fact for some people, both plugins are direct substitutes of one another.
Take, for instance, in terms of price, the only difference with the pricing plan of both plugins is WPecommerce’s Gold cart extension- its Premium version. Given their striking similarities, for most people, it becomes challenging to choose between both WordPress plugins.
Although this shouldn’t be a problem, categorically, the choice of plugins to choose for your website should generally depend on the need which the plugin is to meet.
The needed functionality on your WordPress site should inform your decision of the plugin to choose from. That established, although Woocommerce and WP e-commerce are similar in interface and pricing, their functionality differs a great deal. So, that should be an excellent point to note.
A noticeable difference between both plugins is the product review feature. On Woocommerce, the product review feature is free, while WP eCommerce requires that you pay for an add-on to enable the feature. Another difference in functionality is the advanced shipping feature on WP eCommerce. For WP Ecommerce, the shipping feature is advanced and free while it comes as a paid add-on on WooCommerce.
WooCommerce
Active Installs: 5 million+
Ratings: 4.6/5
When it comes to the most popular and user-friendly eCommerce solution, WooCommerce is the first name that strikes to my mind. It is the #1 free eCommerce plugin for WordPress with over 1 million of active installs across the globe.
This free WordPress eCommerce plugins makes it easy for you to add unlimited product pages within your site. You will also get a variety of eCommerce functionalities, including shopping cart, checkout, order management, product and inventory management, control over shipping, coupon management, interactive statistics and a lot more that can help you make a successful online storefront.
After installing WooCommerce to your site, you are free to use its exciting range of features, such as:
- Fully-responsive
- Highly-customizable
- Multiple payment options (accept major credit cards,PayPal, Bank transfers, and cash on delivery)
- Integrated with Authorize.Net, Stripe, and Amazon Payments
- Developer-friendly and a lot more.
What to Look for in a WordPress eCommerce Plugin for Your Site?
There are plenty of WordPress eCommerce plugins in the market. But not all of them have the right set of features for your use-case.
For example, some eCommerce plugins are made for selling digital goods like eBooks, photos, music, etc. Others are better suited for selling physical products that need shipping.
If you want to run a drop-shipping business, then you’ll need an eCommerce solution that provides better support for drop-shipping.
Basically, you need to consider what you will be selling and what kind of features you would need to efficiently run your online store.
Apart from that, following are some of the most important factors you need to look for when choosing an eCommerce platform.
- Payment solutions – Your eCommerce plugin should have support for your preferred payment gateways by default or through an extension.
- Design and customization – Your store’s design is your customer’s first interaction with your business. Make sure there are plenty of templates and easy customization options available
- Apps and integrations – Check out integrations available for third-party apps like email marketing services, CRM software, accounting software, etc. You’ll need those tools to manage and grow your eCommerce business more efficiently.
- Support options – Make sure that there are support options available. Good support can save you a lot of money in the long run.
Conclusion
Your site should be an extension of your business, a brochure if you may. Whether it’s an online store or any other type of site, it should showcase your business and what you offer. Besides being pretty, your site should attract visitors who are interested in what you have to say. But how do you make that happen?
Not everyone needs an eCommerce plugin, which is great because it leaves more opportunities for those of us who do. eCommerce powered websites are valuable as they offer greater opportunities to book sales and promote your brand.