20 Best E-commerce WordPress Plugins of 2015
What
can’t you possibly do with WordPress? You can create a nice tiny blog
for your animal friend – the dog. You can build an impressive
professional website complete with a portfolio to woo clients. Big
brands such as Coca-Cola have a thing for WordPress too, and the best part is you can set up an e-commerce store (e-store) on the platform as well.
WordPress is no longer just a blogging platform, it has come of age. Speak of new and exciting functions, and it hasn’t stopped evolving yet.
So, what exactly do you need to transform WordPress into a fully-fledged digital shop? Fifty points to you if your first guess was plugins! You need a few e-commerce plugins, an appealing e-commerce theme and, of course, great products.
In today’s post, we will explore twenty e-commerce plugins you need to build and run your own successful e-store. Enjoy!
The Shopping Cart:
The
first step to building an e-store involves priming your WordPress
platform. You need to transform WordPress from a mere blogging software
into an e-commerce engine that will showcase products, collect orders
and ultimately, take money from people.
The following ten (10) WordPress e-commerce plugins will help you set up shop in no time.
WooCommerce:
With over two (2) million downloads and an impressive rating of 4.1/5.0 (courtesy of WordPress.org), WooCommerce is the plugin you need to build and run your online business.
According
to WooThemes – the guys behind the plugin – WooCommerce will
“…transform your WordPress website into a thoroughbred e-commerce
store.” It’s not only powerful, but also very extendable, which gives
you the power to sell any product under the sun in a beautiful way.
This WordPress e-commerce plugin is popular for the following features:
- Flexibility and strength since it’s built around WordPress best practices
- An intuitive dashboard with widgets and detailed reports to help you keep track of sales, stock, store performance and statistics
- Fully customizable
- Fully compatible with WordPress themes
- WordPress 3.8 compatible
- PayPal gateway
- Mijireh checkout to secure all payments
- Several payment options including credit cards, cash on delivery and cheque
- Google Analytics
- Social sharing powered by ShareThis and Sharedaddy
- Et cetera
WooCommerce is free but you can purchase powerful extensions on CodeCanyon.
WP E-COMMERCE:
With
over 2.6 million downloads, WP e-commerce beats WooCommerce in
popularity, but with a rating of 2.8 out of 5 stars, it has very little
(or nothing) on the latter in terms of functionality.
However, WP e-commerce has some great features such as:
- Seamless integration to WordPress
- Compatibility with most WordPress themes and other plugins
- WordPress widget support
- Shortcode and template tag features
- Works out of the box
- Compatible with WordPress and WordPress Multisite
- Fully customizable using custom HTML and CSS
- Priority support for the premium version
- Numerous Paypal options i.e. PayPal Payments Standard, PayPal Payments Pro and PayPal Payments Express
- Multiple payment gateways including Google Wallet, Chronopay, iDEAL, BluePay, Sagepay, Paystation, Authorize.net and FirstData/LinkPoint amongst others
- Marketing-ready with multiple options such as New Products widgets, Cross-sells, flexible coupon rules, quantity discounts, Google Analytics, Google Sitemaps, Google Base integration etc
- Drag and drop shopping for better user experience
- SEO-ready
- SSL certificates
- Catalog management
- And much much more
WP
e-commerce might have little on WooCommerce in terms of functionality
based on user ratings, but feature-wise, it is well endowed. The plugin
was developed by Dan Milward, Gary Cao and Justin Sainton and is maintained at Getshopped.org.
ITHEMES EXCHANGE: SIMPLE ECOMMERCE:
Are
you looking for a simple yet powerful e-commerce solution for your
WordPress site? Well, look no further, iThemes Exchange got you covered.
The plugin, which was developed by iThemes,
has over fourteen (14) thousand downloads and a rating of 5/5. It
enables you to set up and run an e-commerce store quickly by eliminating
the challenging aspects and concentrating on simplicity.
Some
of its unique features include a simplified interface that helps you to
add product easily, PayPal and Stripe integration, fully extendable,
and custom management to let you run your estore your way. The plugin
boasts of so many other features not mentioned above. You can also
purchase the Pro pack that comes with additional features including 24/7 support.
CART66 LITE : WORDPRESS ECOMMERCE:
According to reality66,
the author, Cart66 is “…the easiest to use WordPress e-commerce
shopping cart plugin.” Let us look at some of its features and make our
own judgement.
To begin with, Cart66 allows you to receive credit card payments securely with the Mijireh checkout system.
Other
than that, you can integrate Cart66 to Amazon S3, manage orders, run
promotions, calculate taxes, provide multiple shopping options to your
customers, place products whenever you want on your website, integrate
affiliate platforms, send out custom-made email receipts and set custom
currencies.
Other features are available in Cart66 Professional even though the free version gives you everything you need to get your store up and running.
It’s easy to configure and use, and with the numerous options, nothing should stand between you and your online dreams.
JIGOSHOP:
Jigoshop
is a professional WordPress e-commerce plugin built by designers with
years of experience developing e-commerce solutions for big brands.
To
guarantee excellent customizability and performance, the authors
developed the feature-rich Jigoshop upon WordPress core functionality.
While
still keeping it simple and straightforward, Jigoshop offers you all
the features you need “…to set up an e-commerce website lickety-split.”
The plugins boasts of unique e-commerce features such as:
- Multiple product options i.e. you can offer downloadable digital products, affiliate products, variable products and grouped products
- Detailed reports of sales, orders and store performance
- Stock tracker
- Multiple shipping methods
- Fully extendable
- Multiple payment gateways
- Easy to set up and use
- Secure and highly customizable
- An ever-growing support community to hold your hand
Jigoshop
is free, has over about 300,000 downloads and a user rating of 3.9/5.0.
If you’re looking for a feature-packed e-commerce plugin for WordPress,
this is it.
MARKETPRESS – WORDPRESS ECOMMERCE:
If you’re a fan of WPMUdev plugins,
you will most likely love MarketPress. According to WPMUdev,
“…MarketPress is the easiest to use, best designed and most powerful
e-commerce/shopping cart plugin available for WordPress today.”
MarketPress
is a simple WordPress e-commerce plugin that will help you set up a
stylish store from the ground up in a few minutes. The plugin offers all
the features you need such as:
- Compatible with all WordPress themes
- AJAX based
- Several payments gateways including PayPal, Google Checkout, Authorize.net, MoneyBookers (Skrill), 2checkout etc
- Internationalization options
- 100% BuddyPress, WordPress and WordPress Multisite compatible
- Google Analytics
- Countless product variations
- Shipping coupons
- Sales pricing
- And so much more!
WPMUdev
developed MarketPress because “…so many of the existing WordPress
e-commerce plugins out there offer a pretty awful user experience.”
Therefore,
if you are looking for an e-commerce plugin that has a great user
interface and offers an experience worth a lifetime, MarketPress is your
answer.
EASY DIGITAL DOWNLOADS:
Easy
Digital Downloads was made just for that – to facilitate easy digital
downloads. If your e-store is all about selling digital products (i.e.
you don’t sell physical products), Easy Digital Downloads is the best
e-commerce plugin for you.
As opposed
to having all the e-commerce features under the sun, Easy Digital
Downloads offers just the features you need to take the challenge out of
selling digital products.
On top of
200,000 downloads and a rating of 4.8/5.0, the following are the toned
down features that make Easy Digital Downloads such a darling:
- Multiple payment gateways
- Payment history feature
- Promotional code system
- Cart system
- Multiple files per download
- Bundle purchases
- Extensible
- Sales charts
- Ability to re-download files
- Et cetera, et cetra
While I did mention the features are toned down, the plugin is still very powerful and elegant at the same time.
SHOPP:
Shopp’s
catchphrase is, “Publish with WordPress. Sell with Shopp.” It’s clever,
straightforward and lets you know what you’re signing up for without
trying hard.
Shopp is a
high-performance and professional e-commerce plugin for WordPress. It
adds a secure shopping cart to your WordPress website in a matter of
minutes.
I checked out the plugin and these are the features I found:
- The plugin comes with its own secure cart so you don’t need security add-ons
- Catalog management
- Customer accounts
- Responsive design
- Javascript enabled
- Discount feature
- Easy to install and use
- Secure and resumable downloads
- Multiple image options
- Compatible with WordPress themes and plugins
- SEO friendly
- And much much more
This plugin is bursting at the seams with features. You can download the plugin free at WordPress.org or purchase the starter package at just $75. They also have a “Go Pro” version that comes with developer access amongst other features.
According to shopplugin.net, Shopp is a “…simply usable, fully flexible, e-commerce framework.” Do I agree? Yes I do.
ESHOP
If you’re ready to flesh out your online business dream, you need a feature-rich but accessible e-commerce plugin that won’t let you down along the way.
eShop is that plugin, and the following features will show you why:
- Create products using WordPress posts and pages
- Compatible with custom post types
- Create customer sign ups easily
- Multiple ways of listing products
- Create multiple options for your products
- Offer downloadable products
- Several shipping methods
- WordPress, WordPress Multisite compatible
- Multiple payment gateways
- Taxes
And so much more!
Didn’t I mention eShop is feature-packed? The plugin has a user rating of 3.8/5.0 and over 500,000 downloads at WordPress.org.
QUICK SHOP:
If you are a fan of keeping things simple, Quick Shop is the e-commerce solution you need for your WordPress e-store.
Quick
Shop comes with built-in email and PayPal functionalities (the two main
features), which give you the ability to set up shop, take orders and
make money right away.
Oh yeah, it’s that simple.
What’s
more, the Quick Shop plugin is compatible with WordPress themes with
sidebars since the plugin adds a sidebar widget to show your customer
what they have in their cart.
The
plugin is fully customizable using custom CSS, compatible with
WordPress, WordPress Multisite and has shopping cart and checkout pages
amongst other features.
With over 100,000 downloads and a rating of 3.7/5.0, Quick Shop is gaining traction by the day.
Extra WordPress E-Commerce Plugins
Now
that we have the shopping cart covered thoroughly (you have a pick of
the best ten), how about we extend your e-store. The following ten (10)
plugins will add extra functionalities to your WordPress e-store, making
your work way easier and more fun.
TABLE RATE SHIPPING FOR WooCommerce
With
the Table Rate Shipping plugin, you can add rates to orders depending
on various factors such as shipping destination, weight and shipping
class amongst others.
The plugin will
completely redesign the shipping option on your WooCommerce store. It
is easy to set up and use, and comes with unique features such as:
- You can choose multiple zones
- Multiple customer options e.g Standard/Express shipping, one/multiple shipping costs
- You can set rates depending on per item, per order or per shipping class
- You can include handling fees and taxes
- The bundling and volumetric shipping feature
- TBR Shipping plugin is fully customizable
It
you would like to add these and more features to your e-store, this
plugin has a buyer rating of 4.6/5.0 and costs $19 bucks only.
SOCIAL COUPON FOR WORDPRESS
Reward your customers with discounts if they share your products on social media with the Social Coupon plugin.
The plugin gives you the power to draw in more customers and new fans for your online brand.
When
a customer shares a page as they shop, a coupon code is automatically
added to their cart. The coupon is the carrot you dangle, and since
everybody loves a discount, they will be glad to share your products and
become fans. Generosity is power.
This
plugin works with the WooCommerce couponing system and you can choose
your own Cart and Checkout URLs to encourage social distribution. People
will only share well written and short links, so make it easy for them.
Moreover,
you can control where the sharing buttons appears on your website using
shortcode. The plugin supports various social networks such as
Facebook, Twitter, Vkonktakte, LinkedIn and Google+. Additionally, it’s
fully customizable using CSS. Social Coupon for WordPress comes with an
AJAX admin panel that is fun to use.
Give
your users a huge reason to share your products and spread your brand’s
vibe like wild fire. Buyers have rated Social Coupon plugin 4.16/5.00,
which means it works. It costs just $20 bucks at CodeCanyon.
PAYPAL FILE DOWNLOAD WORDPRESS PLUGIN
Selling digital products doesn’t need to be difficult thanks to the PayPal File Download plugin.
When
the customer gets to your store, they want to buy and be on their way.
This plugin will provide the necessary Buy Now, Checkout and Email
Delivery options. The purchase will be over in these three steps!
PayPal
File Download plugin integrates with PayPal Payments Standard without a
problem. In addition, you can offer multiple products, automatically
expire links after a period to curb abuse, and view customer and
transaction details in the transaction viewer.
You
don’t need any kind of special knowledge to use PayPal File Download,
and with over twenty-six (26) different currencies to choose from, you
can provide quite a shopping experience.
The plugin goes for $25 and you won’t regret investing in it.
WOOCOMMERCE SEO
Setting up a WooCommerce and uploading products alone won’t get you to your online dreams. People have to find your e-store.
Now,
it is a fact that WooCommerce is a superb e-commerce plugin.
Unfortunately, it is not as SEO friendly as we would like. Someone had
to come up with an SEO plugin just for WooCommerce, so the WooCommerce
SEO plugin was born.
WooCommerce SEO will help you a great deal as far as ranking high in search engines goes.
Apart from refreshing SEO on your website, the WooCommerce SEO plugin is also known for (these features):
- Ability to remove the product-category base to create cleaner and shorter URLs
- Ability to add keywords to URLs
- Generate meta descriptions and page titles automatically
- Create custom titles and descriptions
- Add noindex and nofollow rules
- Better breadcrumbs
Get WooCommerce SEO
PRODUCT COUNTDOWN WORDPRESS PLUGIN
One of the oldest tricks in the (business) book is called creating scarcity.
Its an illusionary attack on the part of the brain that controls fear, anxiety and desperation. When customers are faced with impending scarcity, they go into anxiety mode. They will also feel a little desperate if you make it clear the price will rise once the countdown hits zero.
Nobody likes fear and anxiety and desperation. Others just want to beat the countdown. And to release pressure in both cases, they will end up buying the product. Scarcity mentality at work. By the way, it’s the real reason why people stock up the fridge with stuff they will throw out later on.
With a few clicks, you can create timers on your WooCommerce store using the Product Countdown WordPress plugin. Just add a date, a price and hit activate. Then sit back and let the scarcity mentality work in your favor.
It is a great tool to boost conversions, has a buyer rating of 3.88/5.00 and will set you back $13 bucks only.
Get Product Countdown WordPress Plugin
KISSHERDER
You cannot run a successful online business without tracking your visitors. You need to know what happens on your website or who does what when and who was where. This kind of information is important and will help you optimize your business accordingly.
The KissHerder plugin lets you add your KISSmetrics code to your WordPress store so you can track traffic, comments, shares, tweets et cetera. It keeps track of everything, this KissHerder plugin.
The installation process is simple. Just install the plugin via the admin screen and activate it. Then enter your KissMetrics API Key once the plugin is open.
If you don’t have a KISSmetrics API Key, the company provides three paid plans and a free 14-day trial. Their starter plan costs $150/month, which comes down to $5 per day for top-of-the-class analytics service.
Download KissHerder
CLICKY BY Yoast
If you hold a web analytics account with Clicky.com, the Clicky plugin by Yoast will help you integrate the service into your WordPress e-store.
The plugin comes with some cool features including (but not limited) to:
- The ability to add your Clicky tracking code anywhere on your site
- You can ignore admins
- You can disable cookies
- You can store name of commentators
- Ability to track page and posts as goals
- Add outbound link patterns
- Et cetera
BOOTSTRAP CDN – WORDPRESS CDN PLUGIN BY MAXCDN
Nothing sends customers away faster than a slow website. If your pages take a lifetime to load, you are losing money. You’re losing a lot of green.
Don’t be so quick to assume any caching plugin will do the trick. Caching plugins are without a doubt good for static content such as images, but if you have an e-commerce store (where pages are generated dynamically per user), you need something that won’t “chop up” the user experience.
Bootstrap CDN is a WordPress CDN plugin by content delivery giant MaxCDN. It’s a free service, that will help you lessen the load on your server, save bandwidth and increase page load speed.
Bootstrap CDN’s features include:
- Compatible with other caching plugins
- Font Awesome, Bootstrap and Bootswatch integration
- Ability to rewrite all URLs automatically (NO EDITS TO THE SOURCE CODE)
- Automatic updates
Download Bootstrap CDN
WooCommerce CURRENCY CONVERTER
Selling is all about the customer. Of course, you need to have a great product to last the longest in the game. But your oh-so great products won’t sell if you don’t make your customer feel important. The customer needs to feel they belong; they are needed, wanted, loved.
Once you pull this off, they will trust you, and products will “fly off the shelves”. They will also feel obliged to let their family and friends try your products.
The WooCommerce Currency Converter will tell your customers you think about them. Your customers will be happy they can choose their home currencies! It is the small things that matter.
WooCommerce Currency Converter sets you apart from the competition. You will be known as the person who cares enough about his or her customers to translate prices into the customers’ local currencies. It is a win-win for everyone.
The plugin detects currency automatically depending on user location and utilizes responsive design techniques to deliver a user experience like no other.
Other cool features include:
- Shortcode
- Use converted currency as base currency or display it next to the base currency
- Localization support
- Easy to set up and use
- Integration with WooCommerce and WordPress
- Et cetera
Get WooCommerce Currency Converter
WOOCOMMERCE SOCIAL LOGIN AND CHECKOUT PLUGIN
People have shorter attention spans when online, so the faster they complete an order on your estore, the better for you. Speed up conversions on your website by allowing your customers to log in and checkout with their social networking accounts.
The plugin supports eight popular social networks including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare and Google+ amongst others. This gives your users a lot of options to login and checkout.
In addition, the plugin is easy to use since users just click their preferred social network to login and complete an order. The plugin automatically fills forms to collect over 20 pieces of information about your customers, which will help you in defining your target audience.
The plugin has a great buyer rating of 4.00/5.00 and costs $23 bucks only.
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