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This is a guest post from Syed Balkhi, founder of WPBeginner.com
Are you ready to take the next big leap on your website?
If yes, you’re likely interested in starting or growing your current online store. There are a whole host of things you must take into consideration before you build a new storefront for your website.
It all starts with having the right plugins.
The great thing about WordPress is that it allows you to blend together different plugins to create a unique experience for your customers. If you have the right tools, you’ll be able to grow your business, generate more leads, and sell your products quickly and efficiently.
There are a number of different things that you must consider before choosing which WordPress plugins you’d like to add to your website. They all have different functions depending on whether you want to sell physical items, digital downloads, or access to information. Couple these factors with the availability of plugins that help you expand on your eCommerce storefront and things can get overwhelming.
eCommerce WordPress plugins
After reviewing all the best eCommerce solutions available for use with WordPress, we narrowed it down to just ten.
So without further ado, here are our top 11 picks for the best WordPress eCommerce plugins to get your storefront flourishing in 2020.
1. WooCommerce
Plugin Description
WooCommerce earned this spot on the list because it is the most popular eCommerce plugin for WordPress. There are currently over four million active installations. WooCommerce offers a blend of outstanding features including literally hundreds of different extensions including brand new themes for your storefront.
This online store builder also offers a good blend of digital and physical good sale options. If you’re going to offer different products, downloads, and physical merchandise, WooCommerce will be an excellent choice for your website.
If you’re an affiliate marketer, you can easily add links and sell the products you’re marketing directly from your website. Overall, this is a great plugin for small-medium size storefronts who want a wide range of features and accessibility.
2. Ultimate WooCommerce Gift Cards
Plugin Description
If you use WooCommerce for your website, you’ll probably want to add a plugin like Ultimate WooCommerce Gift Cards. You see, the WC plugin only includes basic discounts and doesn’t have any features like gift vouchers. These can give your sales a serious boost.
This eCommerce plugin lets you create, sell, and manage gift cards from your WP admin dashboard. This includes customizable templates, which make the digital cards look beautiful. Your gift cards can also include QR codes and barcodes, making them easy to redeem both online and in-person. On top of this, the plugin includes advanced features like balance notifications, sharing cards via email and SMS, and PDFs for offline printing.
3. MemberPress
Plugin Description
MemberPress is a plugin specifically designed for those who wish to sell memberships. When you install this membership plugin on your WordPress site you’ll have access to a list of tools that allow you to establish digital downloads, create membership-style websites with varying subscription plans, and deliver exclusive pay-per-view content.
The best part about MemberPress is how it allows you to control the way you sell your subscriptions of downloads with precision. Your customers will be able to buy what they want when they want it.
You can also integrate MemberPress with WooCommerce or LearnDash if you’re interested in creating and selling online courses.
4. Shopify
Plugin Description
Shopify is one of the most popular ways to create your eCommerce storefront for your WordPress website. Out of the box, Shopify is easy to use and install, making it an excellent choice for those who are new to creating a store online. The eCommerce tool also has tons of well-designed Shopify themes to choose from and affordable pricing for small and large shops.
After installing this tool, you’ll be able to sell your physical and digital items through their intuitive system. The best benefit of Shopify is the fact that they handle all of the challenging aspects of owning an eCommerce store. This tool can handle your payment gateway, help you figure out tax rates, and even take shipping costs into account.
There are also a number of extensions you can use to integrate Shopify into other areas where your customers gather. For example, one extension allows you to translate your storefront over to the Facebook Store.
5. OptinMonster
Plugin Description
OptinMonster is a WordPress plugin that is designed to improve your conversion rate and generate more leads to your storefront an website. OptinMonster comes out of the box with a ton of great tools you can use to improve the quality of your eCommerce website.
One of the most popular features of this plugin is the ability to retarget customers who abandon their cart on your site with retargeting pixels, or cookies. You can also use exit-intent popups that can help sweeten the pot and secure more sales.
Here’s a good example. Let’s say you program a popup to appear when a customer goes to leave your website. The popup may offer a one time offer of 15 percent off their first order. This incentive may drive more customers to land on your storefront and make a purchase.
6. Easy Digital Downloads
Plugin Description
Easy Digital Downloads is a fantastic plugin to use if you’re only going to sell downloadable content on your website. This plugin was designed from the ground up to help new sellers get their digital content on the market.
When you install this plugin, you’ll be able to set it up in minutes and get your storefront looking good. You can use one of the preset themes, or use your own themes for your store. Everything is smooth and easy to use–perfect for beginners.
Easy Digital Downloads is easy to customize too. You can choose from hundreds of different extensions in order to tweak your experience the way you want. There are extensions that help add payment gateways, those that add new themes, and much more.
7. WP eCommerce
Plugin Description
WP eCommerce was one of the first WordPress eCommerce plugins available. The official launch for this product occurred way back in 2006, and it has grown dramatically since that time. WP eCommerce boasts that you can use their plugin to make your store truly one of a kind via customization options with HTML and CSS.
They also offer a slew of video tutorials to help you if you get stuck. Despite their old–at least in digital years– framework, WP eCommerce is still one of the useful eCommerce plugins on the market. Out of the box, this tool comes with payment portal options, marketing features, the ability to figure out shipping costs automatically, and much more.
8. Big Commerce
Plugin Description
Big Commerce, as the name implies, is the best way to sell your product when you have multiple sales channels. You can set Big Commerce up to work with your website, Facebook page, and Amazon account, and even a WordPress site all with ease.
This feature means that as your business scales up, you’ll be able to scale BigCommerce alongside your company for maximum growth. It also allows you to separate your e-commerce storefront from your website so you can manage each aspect of your business individually.
The only feature that many people will miss when using BigCommerce is the ability to edit your store on the go from a mobile application. There’s currently no mobile support for this plugin. However, if you do all of your storefront work from home this is still a viable option.
9. ShopLentor
Plugin Description
ShopLentor is a modern feature-packed WooCommerce plugin, making it simple to create the perfect online WooCommerce shop with no coding knowledge required.
It offers 105+ powerful Elementor widgets, 54+ Gutenberg blocks, a library of readymade page templates, plus access to over 24 advanced modules such as multistep checkout, customized wishlists/product comparison functions/quick view capacity & multiple checkouts, which facilitates and speeds up your WooCommerce store customization process. With all these multifunctional features, you’ll no longer need multiple WooCommerce plugins for your store. A free plan for ShopLentor is also available, which you can check out and try.
Therefore, if you’re looking for an advanced but easy-to-use interface to build your store, ShopLentor can be the ideal choice, as it has seamless compatibility with both Elementor and Gutenberg page builders for intuitive website creation. A dedicated customer support team is also available to provide you with excellent and dedicated after-sales support.
10. Simple PayPal Shopping Cart
Plugin Description
Sometimes when selling your product online, all you need is a simple PayPal gateway for payment. Obviously, PayPal needs no introduction. It’s one of the quickest and easiest ways to send money virtually anywhere in the world.
The addition of the Simple PayPal Shopping Cart plugin will allow you to accept PayPal payments and donations from customers. Installation is very easy, and once installed, your customer can simply click on the product that they want, choose to pay with PayPal, sign in to their PayPal account, and send the money for your product or service.
11. Sticky Mini Cart
Plugin Description
If you’re using WooCommerce and want a way to upgrade the shopping experience on your site, check out the Sticky Mini Cart plugin. You can view the demo here.
Normally, shoppers will have to click the cart icon to reach a page listing the contents of their cart. With this plugin installed, every page of your site will keep the customizable cart fully accessible via an icon on the side of the screen. Each time a visitor adds an item to their cart, an animation plays showing the item move into the cart. When they click on the cart icon, it expands into a small modal window including details about their cart items including the product images, prices, and a checkout button.
Sticky Mini Cart is an excellent way to improve conversions and reduce abandoned carts if you use the WooCommerce plugin for your online eCommerce store.
12. WPForms
Plugin Description
WPForms is at its core a form building software. However, if you combine this plugin with your WooCommerce and Stripe payment plugin you can create excellent checkout forms without the customer adding their product to a shopping cart.
After you apply the additional supplemental plugins, you’ll be able to create an order form that accepts regular credit card payments, PayPal payments, and more. WPForms is known for its intuitive drag-and-drop builder, and that technology translates well to their payment form creator.
In an ideal world, you’re going to want to use this plugin if you sell a single product or service, sell digital downloads, or if you’re just looking for an easy way to add a payment method to your eCommerce storefront.
13. 3D Cart
Plugin Description
3D Cart is another eCommerce plugin for your WordPress site. The feature that sets this plugin apart is the ability to add and tweak your storefront content in a way that boosts your SEO. You’ll be able to learn what words help your store rank, and which ones need some additional use through content creation and your marketing efforts.
After you’ve established your storefront with 3D Cart, you’ll have access to 50 pre-made themes, over 100 different ways for your customer to pay for your product or service, and their plugin is mobile-friendly and easy to use for both customers and business owners.
Which eCommerce plugin is best?
What did you think?
Have a plugin picked out for your site?
For most sites, WooCommerce will be the best solution because of its popularity. Besides being a mature and reliable eCommerce platform, the wide use of this plugin has created a huge aftermarket of add-ons and compatible themes.
If you have a question about any of the eCommerce WordPress plugins listed above, ask away in the comments section.
