Top 3 WordPress eCommerce Plugins
Thinking about launching an online store with WordPress? You’ve picked the right platform — now you need the right WordPress eCommerce plugin.
Whether you want to sell physical products, digital goods, or even services, WordPress provides a solid foundation on top of which you can build a flourishing store.
Since WordPress doesn’t come with built-in eCommerce functionality, you’ll need to add an eCommerce plugin. Fortunately, there are several excellent options available that can add everything that’s required to sell online, from product pages and shopping carts to checkouts and payment processing.
In this post, we’ll cover the best WordPress eCommerce plugins available in 2023, with the goal of helping you decide which option best suits you and your online business.
1. WooCommerce
With over 5 million active installs, WooCommerce is the most popular, flexible, and customizable WordPress eCommerce plugin.
Originally launched in 2011 as a fork of Jigoshop and acquired by Automattic (owner of WordPress.com) in 2015, WooCommerce has grown to become the world’s most popular eCommerce technology. It now powers over 40,000 of the world’s top 1 million websites.
With WooCommerce, you can sell anything, including physical and digital goods. It’s hugely scalable — you can sell one product or thousands of products — and there are plugins that will extend WordPress to do just about anything.
👍 Pros:
Easy to extend. There are hundreds of WooCommerce extensions (aka plugins) available, which you can use to add just about any functionality to your store, from marketing and shipping to social media and subscriptions.
Hundreds of WooCommerce themes. There are also hundreds of WooCommerce-compatible themes available, which you can use to make the most of WooCommerce’s full feature set.
Supports physical and digital products. With WooCommerce, you can sell anything, from healthy meal subscriptions to t-shirt printing and designer dog collars.
Payment and shipping options. WooCommerce comes with built-in payment processing via WooCommerce Payments, which enables your store to accept credit cards, debit cards, Apple Pay, and other digital wallets. You can add other payment options using extensions, and also calculate shipping and taxes.
Inventory management. Track stock levels, hold stock after an order is canceled, get notifications for low and out-of-stock items, hide out-of-stock items, and more.
Support and documentation. The official WooCommerce site provides extensive documentation on how to set up and use WooCommerce. You can also find help in the WordPress.org support forums.
👎 Cons:
Can be overwhelming. When you install WooCommerce for the first time, there’s a wizard that can help you set up the basics. But it can still be quite intimidating for beginners.
Theme customization can be tricky. If you don’t have a theme that supports WooCommerce, it will be tricky trying to make your store look good on the front end for your customers.
The extension you need might not be available. There are hundreds of add-ons available, but if you can’t find something that provides the specific functionality you need, you may need to hire a developer (aka WooExpert) to build it for you.
💵 Pricing:
WooCommerce is free, but you’ll need to pay for any premium extensions you use, which can cost as much as $299 a year.
Best suited to: Whether you want to sell one PDF file or thousands of t-shirts, you can do it with WooCommerce. If you want maximum control, flexibility, and features, then this WordPress eCommerce plugin is the best solution for you.
For more on WooCommerce, don’t miss 9 Top WooCommerce WordPress Themes on the Market + Why They’re Best and 26 Beautiful eCommerce Websites Running on WooCommerce Plugin.
2. Easy Digital Downloads
Easy Digital Downloads markets itself as the easy way to sell digital products with WooCommerce.
EDD (as it’s often abbreviated to) was first released in 2012 by Pippins Plugins and now powers .14% of the world’s top 1 million websites. While it might not seem like an impressive figure, EDD has proven to be hugely popular in the WordPress community as the go-to plugin for selling digital goods.
EDD is built to handle digital products — music, videos, ebooks, plugins, PDF files, and more. The core plugin is free to use and there are hundreds of extensions available that can add all kinds of functionality, from recurring payments and Stripe support to software licensing (for selling license keys) and commission tracking.
👍 Pros:
Supports digital products. If you want to sell digital goods, you can do it easily with EDD. Unlike other eCommerce plugins, you can use EDD to sell all kinds of digital goods.
Intuitive and easy to use. Whether you’re setting up an online store for the first time or you’re a seasoned pro, it’s easy to figure out how to get your store up and running. Ideal for beginners.
Hundreds of extensions. There are hundreds of free and premium extensions available to extend your store your way.
Works with any theme. You can integrate EDD with almost any theme. If you’re just getting started setting up your store, there are EDD themes available.
Developer-friendly. A complete RESTful API provides easy access to sales and product information in either jSON or XML format.
Support and documentation. EDD comes with comprehensive documentation. There’s an active community of users and developers, and priority support is available.
👎 Cons:
Supports digital products. You can sell physical products with EDD, but it was built from the ground up for non-physical things. So selling physical goods is not its main focus.
💵 Pricing:
Easy Digital Downloads is free, but you’ll need to pay for any premium extensions you use. A Personal Pass that includes everything you need to get started costs $99.50 a year, and the top-range All Access pass costs $499.50 a year.
Best suited to: If you want to sell digital goods, it’s worth checking out Easy Digital Downloads. It’s built specifically to handle digital products and it’s easy to get your store up and running quickly with its intuitive interface.
3. Shopify
Shopify has grown quickly to become one of the most popular platforms for selling online. Over 4 million websites currently use Shopify, including almost 26,000 of the web’s top one million sites.
Most people know Shopify as a standalone eCommerce site builder, and you can certainly use it to build an online store from scratch. If you already have a WordPress site, you may have discounted Shopify. But it’s possible to integrate into your WordPress site with Shopify Buy buttons.
How it works:
- Sign up for a Shopify account
- Create your online store and add products
- Paste the Shopify Buy Button code into your website wherever you want to sell products.
The Buy button creates a standalone mini storefront on your WordPress site that connects directly with Shopify’s shopping cart.
You can create a Buy button for a single product or a collection.
You can also use the third-party ShopWP plugin to display and sell products from your Shopify store on your WordPress site more easily. Instead of using iframes like Shopofy Buy Buttons, ShopWP syncs product data between the two platforms. This makes for a better user experience and faster integration, particularly if you’re selling a lot of products. However, this is a premium plugin that you’ll have to budget for annually.
👍 Pros:
Use features of both platforms. You benefit from the flexibility of WordPress with the ease of use and built-in eCommerce features of Shopify
The technical side of your store is managed for you. Shopify takes care of security, payments, backups, and inventory management, so there’s no complicated setup.
Extensive support is available. 24/7 customer support is available via chat, phone, and email. However, this support doesn’t include third-party platforms, including WordPress
👎 Cons:
It’s more expensive than some other options. There’s a monthly cost for using Shopify, starting from $39 a month. You’ll also pay additional transaction fees on every sale.
The WordPress plugin is very limited. Unless you’re only selling a couple of products, a full WordPress eCommerce plugin is a better option for most people wanting to set up an online store on an existing WordPress site.
💵 Pricing:
From $39 a month (you can pay more monthly for extra features and lower transaction fees). The ShopWP plugin starts from $199 a year for use on up to 3 WordPress sites.
Best suited to: People who already have a Shopify site and want to sell products from their WordPress site without sending site visitors to Shopify.
So which WordPress eCommerce plugin is the best solution for your site?
If you want full control, flexibility, features, and scalability, then WooCommerce is the best WordPress eCommerce plugin for you.
If you want to sell digital products, check out Easy Digital Downloads — it’s been built specifically to handle digital goods.
Many people like the simplicity of Shopify, so if you’re not keen on the pure WordPress options or already have a Shopify store, you may want to look into integrating it with your WordPress site.
