Not too long ago, we wrote about how anyone can venture into e-commerce by building their e-commerce sites without any codes. For those already familiar with WordPress, we also reviewed and curated a list of the best WordPress website builder. Now, if you are anywhere in-between, you are in luck! We are going to bring you the top WordPress ecommerce plugins that provide complete solutions to turning your WordPress site into a full-fledged ecommerce one.
The essentials (aka criteria) that we had chosen are carefully reviewed with our experience. That said, if you are here looking for good WordPress ecommerce plugins, you are unfortunately not quite in the right place! Our featured WordPress ecommerce plugins are COMPLETE Solutions! They don’t just provide that payment feature, lead capture form, inventory management etc.
Nonetheless, this article isn’t a long one (but don’t think it’s any less in quality!). Additionally, you may be here already using one of these plugins. Yet, you are pondering if you made the right choice. Well, you wouldn’t know without reading this article! So, here we go!
The world wide web is huge, and yet you had stumbled on my site looking for something. I hope you find it as we had taken huge efforts to create them. Best of all, its FREE! Hence, some of our content may include affiliate links (i.e. whenever you click on the links and purchase, I earn a small commission at no extra costs to you!). No worries! Some of these links may look like phishing, but I assure you they are not! Lastly, the affiliation does not affect my reviews towards them. Enjoy!
1. BigCommerce
Year Founded: 2009
Country: USA
No. of Users: 60k+ (Total)
Essentials
- Physical Goods Sales + Shipping: Yes
- Subscription Sales: No, Requires 3rd Party Integrations or App
- Order + Inventory Management: Yes
- Store Analytics: Yes, Requires Tracking Setup
- Multi-Currency: Yes
- Accept Major Credit Cards, BACS, & COD: Yes
- App Library: Yes, Check Integrations Library
- 3rd Party Integrations: 700+
- Mobile App Version: Yes
Buy Factor
- Headless Commerce API – Refers to a separation between the front-end architecture and backend. BigCommerce API works on most platforms anyone can have. Whether you want to sell on a frontend like Drupal, Adobe Experience Manager, or Sitecore, BigCommerce only powers the commerce backend. So, you don’t have to worry about disruptions to your selling in instances of frontend updates or design changes! Moreover, your developers will be happy they don’t need to work on frontend design too!
- Extensive Shopping Cart Features – Extensive customisations available for shopping cart made BigCommerce one of the best WordPress ecommerce plugins. Users can tap on this feature to offer a whole lot of fun (and testing) with its discounts and promotions of different forms. Find out what your customers love, that is!
- Multi-Channel Selling & Management – From a single BigCommerce control, you can sell across Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Google Shopping, and even Instagram all within your WordPress site! If you are looking to scale and reach out across various demographics and regions, BigCommerce readily enables you!
Pricing
- Free Plan: Yes
- Paid Plan: fr US$ 29.95/mo for unlimited product listings, storage and more!
- Free Trial: 15 Days
2. Easy Digital Downloads
Year Founded: 2012
Country: USA
No. of Users: 50k+
Essentials
- Physical Goods Sales + Shipping: Yes
- Subscription Sales: Yes
- Order + Inventory Management: Yes
- Store Analytics: Yes
- Multi-Currency: Yes
- Accept Major Credit Cards, BACS, & COD: No, Requires 3rd Party Integrations or App
- App Library: 200+
- 3rd Party Integrations: 100+
- Mobile App Version: iOS App Only
Buy Factor
- Built-In Customer Management – Like a CRM, all WordPress ecommerce plugins ought to have such tool built-in. Yet, not all of them have it! You could still install a separate CRM software though, but it wouldn’t be ideal for convenience, and glitch-free sake. Well, we like Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) for this customer management tool that records customer activity, and tracks their lifetime spending to greatly support data-driven targeting among other marketing activities.
- In-Depth Data Reporting – With EDD, you get a very extensive range of ecommerce data. From earnings by date and category, to taxes collected, store visits, payment history and many, many more! Above all, you can easily export them to csv for local storing and reporting. Simply well-though out feature!
- Growing List of Extension Apps – EDD have a very active developer user base that contributes to their list of extensions. Although not officially a partner extension of EDD, these extensions can go a long way to getting the most out of your WordPress store. In fact, it could plug a necessity here and there since these are built by EDD users themselves. Use these extensions with caution and seek assistance from the extension developer themselves if needed. Henceforth, we are sure you will reap the benefits!
Pricing
- Free Plan: Yes
- Paid Plan: fr US$ 99.50/yr (~US$ 8.30/mo)
- Free Trial: 14 Days 100% Moneyback
3. Ecwid
Year Founded: 2009
Country: USA
No. of Users: 20k+ (WP Users only)
Essentials
- Physical Goods Sales + Shipping: Yes
- Subscription Sales: No, Requires 3rd Party Integrations or App
- Order + Inventory Management: Yes
- Store Analytics: No, Requires 3rd Party Integrations or App
- Multi-Currency: No, Requires 3rd Party Integrations or App
- Accept Major Credit Cards, BACS, & COD: No, Requires 3rd Party Integrations or App
- App Library: est. 300+
- 3rd Party Integrations: Yes, via App Library
- Mobile App Version: Yes
Buy Factor
- PCI Certified Checkout – PCI stands for Payment Card Industry. That said, Ecwid is a Certified PCI Data Security Standards Level 1 provider. The standard itself is at the highest possible international level. Hence, users using Ecwid can rest assured that their customers will be making secure online payment transaction using this platform.
- Unlimited Backups – See, having an online store means 24/7/365 exposure to the world. Worry about getting hacked? Ought to! However, top WordPress ecommerce plugins such as Ecwid provides unlimited backups. So, in any case of technical glitch, server down, security breach etc., that causes your site to go down, simply one-click to restore your store from a backup point. Excellent!
- Unlimited Storage – Store data, backups, upgrades and all security updates are all stored in secure servers without any space limitations! Use as you need but never abuse it! Ecwid technically enables you to scale and grow. So, make use of that!
Pricing
- Free Plan: Yes
- Paid Plan: fr US$ 12.50/mo
- Free Trial: No
- Specials: Nonprofits get 6 months on the Venture Plan Free
4. WooCommerce
Year Founded: 2008
Country: USA
No. of Users: 3.8M+
Essentials
- Physical Goods Sales + Shipping: Yes
- Subscription Sales: No, Requires 3rd Party Integrations or App
- Order + Inventory Management: Yes
- Store Analytics: Yes
- Multi-Currency: No, Requires 3rd Party Integrations or App
- Accept Major Credit Cards, BACS, & COD: Yes
- App Library: 700+
- 3rd Party Integrations: Yes, via App Library
- Mobile App Version: Yes
Buy Factor
- WooCommerce + WordPress Optimised Themes – If you own a WordPress website, then you know how important themes are. Above all, themes that work glitch-free with both WordPress and your choice of ecommerce plugin should not be taken for granted. There, you have WooCommerce with a huge list of WordPress themes available for your choosing, in all forms and functions. You will take your time, but it will be worth it knowing how these themes fit in nicely with your requirement, and that of your plugin and CMS platform.
- Huge Base of User Community – This buy factor easily qualifies as the determining factor! If you use WooCommerce, you join the largest community in the world! Nah! Yes, but not quite this reason. With a huge user community, it means that whenever you need help, you can more easily find it. Whether is it in a forum, via agencies, or any freelance developers. Besides, having such a huge user base also means that WooCommerce can never rest! There will be feedbacks and suggestions coming in. So, improvements will certainly roll out, and out fast!
- Huge Choice of Extensions – WooCommerce is not the world’s most used ecommerce solution for nothing. Its huge numbers of extensions made by themselves and their user community makes users build the ecommerce website they want. Yes! Not just the front look, but its features too! From the payment, marketing, shipping, customer service, merchandising and more! You just need to use the right extension! That said, starting with WooCommerce is easy. But, to continually develop it requires a lot of learning curve and hard work. Regardless, using any WordPress ecommerce plugins requires your utmost commitment.
Pricing
- Free Plan: Yes
- Paid Plan: None. Fees chargeable for extensions, themes, hosting etc.
- Free Trial: No. 30 Days Moneyback for any purchase
Alternatively, are you looking to sell courses, or membership subscriptions? Stay tuned for our upcoming post on WordPress plugins for Learning Management System (LMS) and Memberships!
Final Comments
Fortunately, there aren’t too many fullsuite WordPress ecommerce plugins in the market! Yet, choosing one is a long-term commitment. Hence, you have to know what you want as much as what is available! If you are still unsure, take this one pointer from us. Consider one which can readily and easily integrate with other apps or 3rd party integrations. This one factor alone will go a long way to perfecting your WordPress ecommerce store in time to come. Again, it’s a lifelong commitment to operate a store online. So, always keep your eyes and mind open. Learn what is in demand and adapt to changes.
Activities
What do you wish to sell in your WordPress ecommerce store? Will it be physical or digital goods? Additionally, will payment be on a one-time basis or subscription? Tell with us with a COMMENT below and we will provide our take of ecommerce plugin!
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Tags for you WordPress and ecommerce enthusiast: Digital Advertising | e-Commerce | WordPress Plugin
