8 Best eCommerce Plugins for WordPress in 2020 (Compared)

Are you looking for the Best eCommerce Plugins for WordPress to build an online store? 

eCommerce Plugins are the medium using which you can create a store for your online business. Since there are plenty of eCommerce plugins for WordPress available in the market, choosing the best out of them can be difficult. 

No worries! We’re to help you out. In this article, we have picked some of the best eCommerce plugins for WordPress that you can use to create your online store. Let’s get started. 

What to Look for in an eCommerce Plugin for WordPress

As mentioned before, you can find various eCommerce plugins for WordPress in the market. All of them are different from one another as they have different features, pricing plans, themes, etc.

So, to decide which WordPress eCommerce plugin best suits your requirement, you need to look at some of the factors. 

i) Ease of use

The WordPress eCommerce plugin should be simple and easy to use. The setup process, adding desired themes, products, etc. shouldn’t be a headache for you. This will save your time from learning the complicated process.

ii) Features

WordPress eCommerce plugins come with a variety of features. Some of them can only create a store with physical products such as T-shirts, jewelry, etc. While some can only create stores with digital products such as photographs, ebooks, etc.

So, you must look at the features before selecting an eCommerce plugin for WordPress.

iii) Design and Themes

Design and Themes help to make your eCommerce website look good. Your online store must look professional and attractive to grab more attention from the customers. So, you must choose one of the WordPress eCommerce plugins that come with plenty of design options. 

iv) Apps and Plugins

You’ll require apps and plugins to add some extra features to your online store. So, you must check the apps and plugins as well as third party integrations that are available in a WordPress eCommerce plugin. 

v) Payment Gateways

You must check which payment gateways do an eCommerce plugin for WordPress accepts. Be sure that it supports your desired payment option either by default or through adding an extension before selecting one. 

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8 Best eCommerce Plugins for WordPress (Expert Pick)

Now, let’s discuss the best eCommerce plugins for WordPress. You can use them to create your store and sell products online. Also, they’ll help you to grow your business globally. 

1. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the #1 popular WordPress eCommerce plugin used to create an online store. It’s free and lets you sell both digital and physical products in your store. When you build your eCommerce site using WooCommerce, it can be translated into 51 different languages.

WooCommerce was officially developed by Woo Themes, one of the WordPress theme developers. However, today Automattic company owns it. 

You can add unlimited products to your WooCommerce store. It comes with a limitless customization feature. The WooCommerce store can be easily customized using hundreds of WooCommerce themes and plugins. 

Various apps and plugins can be integrated with WooCommerce to enhance its features. You can find a variety of third-party extensions and plugins to integrate with WooCommerce. Some of them are:

• Customize My Account for WooCommerce
• Everest Forms
• User Registration

Similarly, a variety of WooCommerce readymade and third-party themes are available in the marketplace. You can use them to modify the look of your WooCommerce store. Some of the best WooCommerce themes are: 

• Storefront
• Zakra
• eStore

Advantages of WooCommerce:

• Limitless feature for customization and adding products
• Possible to sell both digital and physical products in the store
• Easy policies for refund
• Affiliate or external products can be sold
• The payment gateway “Stripe” is free 
• Variety of options in themes and plugins

Disadvantages of WooCommerce:

• With the growth in store, you’ll need to switch to a managed hosting provider to level up your business.
• Difficult to learn for new users
• All official themes are not free

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2. Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is one of the popular WordPress eCommerce plugins. You can use this plugin to create a store for digital products and sell them online. It’s specifically designed to sell and promote digital products globally through the internet. Moreover, the EDD eCommerce site can be translated into 10 different languages. 

Easy Digital Downloads is a product of the WordPress plugin developers called Sandhills Development Company. Pippin Williamson who worked in this company developed the EDD plugin in 2012.   

This plugin is easy to use even for new users. The process to add products to your EDD store, customize the eCommerce website isn’t complicated. It also has a shopping cart feature which makes buying multiple digital products easier with just a few clicks. 

Also, you can easily track the number of products downloaded by your customers with details like date, address, etc. It has a strong recording system that lets you track your earnings as well. Overall, the EDD plugin has great features to help you sell your digital products.

Easy Digital Downloads can be integrated with extensions and apps to enhance the functionality of your store. You can also use third-party extensions and apps that are compatible with the EDD plugin. Some of the extensions and plugins are:

• Stripe Payment Gateway
• Recurring Payments
• Mailchimp

You can also use various themes to change the design of your store. There are 6 official themes of Easy Digital Downloads that you can download from its theme marketplace. Both free and paid third-party themes are available for an EDD store. Some of the themes are:

• DGWork
• Themedd
• Stocky

Advantages of Easy Digital Downloads:

• Easy to use
• Create a store to sell digital products 
• Free official themes
• Plenty of options for selecting a payment gateway
• Strong reporting and shopping cart features

Disadvantages of Easy Digital Downloads:

• Selling physical products is complicated and difficult as it needs a paid add-on.
• Needs third party extension to sell external products
• Limited features for shipping

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3. Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart

Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart is one of the best eCommerce plugins for WordPress. Using this plugin, you can add an online store to your WordPress site. It has a similar installation process like WooCommerce but unlike WooCommerce, this plugin can be used in other websites like Drupal, Tumbler as well. It supports 45 languages. 

Like every other eCommerce plugin, it’s also full of features. From the automatic calculation of shipping and tax rates to free mobile applications to manage the store, you can use its features and upgrade your online shop. 

Moreover, you can also add your online store to Facebook without any addons and reach to the new users. Also, there is unlimited storage, regular backups, seamless upgrades, and security updates in your Ecwid online store. You can add up to 10 products without any cost but to add more products, you have to pay monthly fees. 

You can find a lot of in-house and third-party extensions on the Ecwid Ecommerce APIs. They can be used to add some extra functionality to your store. Some of the extensions are:

• TaxJar
• ShipStation
• LiveChat

It comes with mobile responsive designs that work great on any WordPress website. The theme automatically adjusts to the customer’s screen size and makes your store look more attractive. 

Advantages of Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart:

• Quick setup with automatic updates
• Supports all WordPress hostings and themes
• Can sell on other platforms like Facebook, Instagram
• Unlimited store backups that are free
• Payment options like PayPal, Stripe, etc.

Disadvantages of Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart:

• Free plan up to 10 products only. After that, you need to pay.
• Adding inventory and items to the store takes times
• No variety of designs if you want to sell different products

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4. MemberPress 

MemberPress is a subscription-based eCommerce plugin for WordPress. Through it, you can promote subscription-based digital services and products on your eCommerce site. You can build WordPress membership sites, accept credit cards safely, sell online courses as well as digital download products easily without any difficult setup. 

MemberPress is the easiest membership site software. This means using it you can charge your customers before they access your digital products.  It’s really easy to set up. You just need to install the plugin, add your payment gateway, and set up some products. 

While using MemberPress, you can also integrate your website with WooCommerce. This will help to enhance the features of your online shop. You can also control the access of the members to your digital products by allowing and rejecting their access requests. Also, MemberPress supports payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net.

MemberPress can be integrated with different third-party services and software. Some of them are: 

• ActiveCampaign
• Zapier
• Drip

Advantages of MemberPress:

• Selling subscription-based products
• Easy setup
• Tons of extensions available
• Can be integrated with WooCommerce
• Power control over access to digital products

Disadvantages of MemberPress:

• Supports limited payment options
• Pricing plans on a yearly basis

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5. BigCommerce for WordPress

BigCommerce for WordPress is an eCommerce plugin through which you can upgrade your online business. Actually, BigCommerce itself is a fully hosted eCommerce platform used to build an online store however it can be integrated with WordPress as well. 

BigCommerce is rich in features. When integrated with WordPress, it makes adding products to WordPress sites simple. It creates important pages like a sign-in page, cart account page, checkout page, etc. automatically. You can also sell your products on other channels like Amazon, Facebook, etc. 

Furthermore, you can easily customize your store using BigCommerce apps. It also offers a wide range of options for shipping. It has a huge range of payment gateway integration as over 65 payment gateway integrations are available. Additionally, you can customize the look of your store using any WordPress theme as BigCommerce is compatible with WordPress. 

Advantages of BigCommerce:

• Selling the products through multiple channels
• Helps to scale up your business through its features
• Helps to run WordPress site easily by keeping the eCommerce engine separate from other content 
• Single control panel to manage multiple sites sales
• You don’t need to pay for each transaction. You can pay the payment service provider after selecting a payment gateway. 

Disadvantages of BigCommerce:

• Integrations are limited as the BigCommerce apps are still growing.
• You get upgraded if you meet the yearly sales criteria which can increase your cost.

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6. Shopify for WordPress

Shopify is an eCommerce platform that helps you build an eCommerce site and start selling online. You can integrate it with WordPress and convert your website into an online store. You can add Shopify Buy Button in your feature product and connect with Shopify’s secure shopping cart platform.

With Shopify, you can add unlimited products to your WordPress site. It generates codes that you can use to add products to your WordPress website. It also offers a secure, responsive checkout experience to the customers. Moreover, you can track the sales and growth trends of your website easily.  

The eCommerce website built on your WordPress site is fully customizable. You’ll have full control over your website and can modify its look as per your need. Moreover, the eCommerce site accepts more than 100 payment gateways and has easy integration with orders and shipping. 

Advantages of Shopify for WordPress:

• Sell unlimited products
• Accepts more than 100 payment gateway
• Secure, responsive checkout experience
• Quick setup and easy customization
• Global tax and currency support

Disadvantages of Shopify for WordPress:

• Monthly payment to use the online platform
• Additional fee for using an external payment platform

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7. Shopping Cart & eCommerce Store

Shopping Cart & eCommerce Store is one of the free eCommerce plugins for WordPress eCommerce store and shopping cart. It’s especially designed for small business owners who are beginners and want to start an online business on a minimum budget. You can install this plugin either in new or already created WordPress blogs and websites.  

Shopping Cart & eCommerce Store plugin has three different editions. They are:

• Free eCommerce Edition
• Professional eCommerce Edition
• Premium eCommerce Edition

You can upgrade to its Professional and Premium edition as your requirement and unlock various other additional features as well. 

With Free eCommerce Edition, you get features like selling unlimited products, taking unlimited orders, payment collection using PayPal Express, Stripe, etc. 

With Professional eCommerce Edition you get features like no fees required, more than 30 additional payment gateways, coupons, digital wallet payment, subscription products, etc.

Premium eCommerce Edition lets you sell your products on Facebook and Instagram with premium extensions. You’ll get more than 10 premium extensions like ShipStation, MailChimp. Also, you can have access to apps for desktop, tablet, android, and iPhone. 

Advantages of Shopping Cart & eCommerce Store:

• Good for small budget online startups
• No technical knowledge required to use
• Can choose between three different editions as per the business requirement

Disadvantages of Shopping Cart & eCommerce Store:

• Need to pay for the extensions
• To access more features, you’ll need to upgrade and pay as well.

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8. WP eCommerce

WP eCommerce is an eCommerce plugin for WordPress. It’s easier to use and considered as the best alternative to WooCommerce. The installation process and dashboard of this plugin is also similar to that of WooCommerce. It was developed by Justin Sainton in 2006. 

WP eCommerce lets you sell any type of product either physical or digital. You can sell products like digital downloads, physical inventory, subscriptions, and memberships through WP eCommerce.   

It offers easy shipping features that include in-built shipping tools and integration with popular couriers. Using its in-built marketing tools, you can increase your sales and promote your products. You can also use various other tools to manage the orders and catalogs. 

WP eCommerce can be integrated with other WordPress plugins too. You can use add-ons such as Stripe, Gold Cart, FedEx, etc. for shipping products and receiving payments. 

Advantages of WP eCommerce:

• In-built marketing tools
• In-built shipping tools
• Easy to add products to the catalog
• Sell any type of product
• Easy reporting and monitoring of sales

Disadvantages of WP eCommerce:

• Not suitable for a big eCommerce company
• Difficulty in changing the code to increase efficiency

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Conclusion

So, that’s it. These are some of the best WordPress eCommerce plugins that you can use to build your desired online store. All of them are rich in features that will help you to promote and sell your products in an easier way.

WooCommerce is the best and most popular WordPress plugin. It’s better for beginners because there’s plenty of resources beginners can learn from. You can use WooCommerce and easily convert your WordPress site into an online store. Using themes like Storefront, Zakra, etc. you can modify the look of your store.

If you want to sell only digital products, the Easy Digital Downloads plugin can be the best option for you. It has great features for digital products which will help you to grow your online business. You can also use themes like ColorMag, eStore, etc. and customize your store.

You can also choose BigCommerce and Shopify if you’re a fan of these platforms. They might be a bit costly but if it suits you, you’re ready to go. 

Since all of them have their strengths and weaknesses, you can select any one of them according to your need, budget, and knowledge. 

We hope this article gave you a clear understanding of the best eCommerce plugins for WordPress. If you found this article resourceful, don’t forget to share it on social media. 

Also, you can check our articles on speed optimization WordPress plugins and lead generation plugins.