Do you have a WordPress website and want to turn it into an ecommerce site?
You’ll need some plugins for that.
But how to choose the right ones when there are so many of them?
That’s where we come in.
We’ve looked into every nook and cranny to compile the only list of WordPress ecommerce plugins you’ll ever need. We cover the plugins that give your website the ecommerce functionality in the first place and those that will help you make the most of your online store.
Get the best live chat plugin for your ecommerce on WordPress
To choose the right ecommerce plugin for a WordPress website you need to first define what’s important for your business and what kind of plugin you actually need.
Is it a shopping cart or something to help you with the payment methods? Maybe you want to make your store more secure or add shipping options or improve your customer service?
Here’s a handy list of the 15 best WordPress ecommerce plugins we cover.
Plugin | What is it for? |
---|---|
WooCommerce | Online store with the most payment options |
WP Shopify | Online store for small business |
BigCommerce | Online store with great marketing tools |
Ecwid | Online store for selling on multiple channels |
WP EasyCart | Shopping cart |
Yoast SEO | SEO optimization |
Tidio | Live chat and chatbot |
WP ERP | Bookkeeping |
MC4WP | MailChimp for email marketing |
Jetpack | Security |
Cost Calculator Builder | Calculate costs |
Flexible Shipping | Shipping |
Blog Designer | Creating a blog |
Advanced Custom Fields | Custom fields |
Site Reviews | Display reviews on-site |
Essential WordPress ecommerce plugins
The first five plugins on our list are the ones that let you turn an otherwise ordinary WordPress website into a fully functional ecommerce store.
These WordPress shopping plugins are the foundation you can build upon. You’ll need to set one of them up before you choose any other plugins for your online business.
1. WooCommerce
Rating: 4.5/5 stars (5+ million installations)
This WordPress shopping plugin is the most popular open-source ecommerce solution in the world. It’s easy to use for beginners and helps you set up your online store step by step. There are WooCommerce community meet-ups and great support for easy onboarding.
With this software, you can add an unlimited number of products and images, accept payments by debit and credit card, and manage orders on the go. On top of that, this ecommerce WordPress plugin lets you sell physical and digital products. It also lets you sort your product pages and show ratings on them.
Main features:
- Highly customizable
- Various integrations available (Google Ads, Mailchimp, Facebook, etc.)
- 100+ payment gateways (Stripe, PayPal, Square, etc.)
- Easy digital download and to set up
- Mobile app available for iOS and Android
Pricing:
- Free version available (but you need add-ons to help you run your WordPress ecommerce)
PHP Version: 7.0 or higher
WordPress Version: 5.6 or higher
How to add this eCommerce plugin and use it on your website?
Suggested reading:
- The Best WooCommerce Plugins—a list of 12 useful apps for an online business
- WooCommerce vs Shopify—a comparison of key features of two major ecommerce platforms
2. WP Shopify
Rating: 4/5 stars (6,000+ installations)
Shopify is an ecommerce platform for selling your goods but it discontinued its official plugin for WordPress. To fill that gap, WP Shopify was created. It allows you to sync your Shopify products and sell them on your WordPress site. And you get great support during the setup if you come across any issues.
This is one of the best ecommerce plugins for WordPress sites that lets you embed and sell your Shopify products on your website. There is a single buy button or a whole list of products provided for easy use. It also creates a seamless checkout and cart experience for your users.
Main features:
- Optimized for SEO
- Track sales and growth trends
- Global tax and currency support
- Shopify button embedded
- Checkout and cart available
Pricing:
- Free version of the plugin available (but you need to have a Shopify account that starts at $9/mo to use the plugin)
PHP Version: 5.6 or higher
WordPress Version: 5.4 or higher
Suggested reading:
- Shopify Apps for Your Site—a list of 14 best Shopify apps for your online store
- How Does Shopify Work?—a step-by-step tutorial on how to use Shopify
- Shopify Marketing Strategy—tactics to scale up your marketing strategy
3. BigCommerce
Rating: 4/5 stars (1,000+ installations)
BigCommerce for WordPress is a plugin that allows you to sell across multiple channels and marketplaces from a single location. But you need a BigCommerce account to start using this plugin effectively.
You don’t need to worry about PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliance and customer security. This ecommerce WordPress plugin is PCI compliant to ensure your store will be as well. It also lets you build catalogs and manage large volumes of traffic and orders. On top of that, it helps you keep track of your store’s performance with analytics.
Main features:
- AMP support enabled
- One control panel for multiple sites
- PCI-compliant checkout
- Highly customizable
- No iFrames or JavaScript necessary
Pricing:
- Free version available (but you need a BigCommerce plan to use the ecommerce integration. Plans start at $29.95/mo)
PHP Version: 7.4.0 or higher
WordPress Version: 5.2 or higher
Suggested reading:
- The Best BigCommerce Apps To Optimize Your Store—a list of 11 essential BigCommerce apps for your business
- BigCommerce vs Shopify—a comparison of key features of the two ecommerce platforms
4. Ecwid
Rating: 4.5/ 5 (30,000+ installations)
Ecwid ecommerce shopping cart is the number one ecommerce app for Facebook. So, if you are a business owner who wants to integrate your WordPress store with Facebook, this is a plugin for you. And it comes with great customer support to get you started.
It is also easy to use and has many payment options like PayPal and Stripe. This is one of the top WordPress ecommerce plugins with unlimited storage and regular backups. To help with that, Ecwid hosts your online store’s data on a secure server.
Main features:
- Gutenberg friendly
- 45 languages supported
- Real-time shipping integrations
- Integration with Facebook
- Free mobile app for iOS and Android provided
Pricing:
- Free plan available
- Venture $15/mo
- Business $35/mo
- Unlimited $99/mo
PHP Version: 5.2 or higher
WordPress Version: 3.7 or higher
5. WP EasyCart: WordPress ecommerce plugin for a shopping cart
Rating: 4.4/5 stars (6,000+ installations)
You can sell physical goods, subscriptions, digital products, gift cards, donations, services, and more with this ecommerce plugin for WordPress. It is an international ecommerce cart for easier cross-border selling of your products.
This means that you can manage orders, deal with taxes, and collect payments with this WordPress shop plugin. You can also add shipping notes and view order information—all in one location.
Main features:
- Offers various digital payment methods (Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Microsoft Pay)
- Multi-currency and multi-language
- International taxes available
- Built-in Google Analytics
- Ads tracking available
Pricing:
- Free plan available
- Professional $69
- Premium $99
PHP Version: PHP 5.6 and higher
WordPress Version:
Suggested reading:
- Abandoned Cart Email Strategies for Cart Recovery—a 5-step strategy for a successful abandoned cart email sequence
- Reduce Abandoned Cart Rate with Chatbots—a list of 6 solutions to reduce abandoned cart rate
- 10 Best WooCommerce Chatbot Plugins—a comparison of the best chatbots for your WooCommerce store
Best WordPress ecommerce plugins to help your website
Let’s move on to the popular WordPress ecommerce plugins that help you run, protect, and customize your online store.
6. Yoast SEO: WordPress ecommerce plugin for SEO
Rating: 4.8/5 stars (5+ million installations)
This is the number one SEO plugin for your ecommerce WordPress site. It dates back to 2008 and helped millions of users in their SEO efforts. Yoast SEO also provides courses to improve your knowledge about SEO and your site’s content.
It helps you rank higher in search engines and keep your content easy to read for visitors. This WordPress store plugin helps you beat the competition and ensures search engines can understand your website better.
Main features:
- Automated improvements to SEO (canonical URLs, meta tags, etc.)
- Advanced XML sitemaps available
- Title and meta description templates available
- Readability and SEO analysis
- Faster loading times
Pricing:
- Free plan available
- Premium version $89/year for one site
PHP Version: 5.6.20 or higher
WordPress Version: 5.6 or higher
Suggested reading:
- Guide to SEO copywriting—a guide on how to write content that users and search engines love
- What is SEO?—all you need to know about search engine optimization
- How Does SEO Work for Small Businesses?—a general guide on what SEO is and how it works
7. Tidio: WP ecommerce plugin for customer service
Rating: 4.8/5 stars (100,000+ installations)
Tidio is an easy-to-use live chat plugin for your WordPress website. It has a drag-and-drop visual editor to create chatbots from scratch without any coding. It lets you offer customer support with a pop-up widget and actively generate more leads and sales from your site.
You can choose from over a dozen Tidio chatbot templates that will perform specific tasks like recovering abandoned shopping carts, giving discounts to returning customers, and automatically collecting qualified leads. You can also find out who is visiting your website, see what they are currently viewing, and easily engage them to increase the chances of conversion.
Main features:
- Live chat
- AI Chatbots
- Integrations (Instagram, WhatsApp, Zapier)
- Mobile app available
- Ability to see viewed pages list
- Live typing preview available
- Quick responses available
- 7-day free trial available
- Free version available
- Starter ($29/mo)
- Growth (starts at $59/mo)
- Plus (starts at $749/mo)
- Premium (starts at $2999/mo)
WordPress Version: 3.0 or higher
Learn how to install Tidio on WordPress.
Read more: Discover the best WordPress chatbot plugins for your website.
8. WP ERP: WordPress store plugin for bookkeeping
Rating: 4.4/5 stars (10,000+ installations)
This is the first full-fledged ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system to manage your WordPress site and online business from a single platform.
It is simple and intuitive, with an easy-to-use interface to help you get started on keeping track of your finances. It also helps you with organizing the process of converting leads to customers. On top of that, it enables you to create an HR system for your company that fits your needs. Beyond doubt, this is one of the best WordPress ecommerce plugins for bookkeeping and accounting.
Main features:
- Overview & tracking of income, expenses, receivables, etc.
- Reports like ledger reports, trial balances, income statements, sales tax reports, balance sheets, etc.
- Make payments to vendors, purchase products and services
- Create unlimited bank accounts, manage, view economics in the graph
- Create tax rates, tax agencies, tax zones & tax categories for invoices
Pricing:
- Free plan available
- Pro starts at $9.99/mo
PHP Version: 5.6 or higher
WordPress Version: 4.4 or higher
9. MC4WP Mailchimp: WP ecommerce plugin for email marketing
Rating: 4.8/5 stars (2+ million installations)
This WP ecommerce plugin helps you create user-friendly sign-up forms in no time. It will make it easier for your website visitors to subscribe and consequently for you to generate more leads.
Moreover, this is one of the free WordPress ecommerce plugins that help you grow your Mailchimp lists. It assists you in writing better newsletters and creating good-looking opt-in forms. You can then integrate the opt-in forms with any existing form on your site, like your comment, contact, or checkout form.
Main features:
- Connect with your Mailchimp account in seconds.
- Sign-up form templates
- Various integrations (Contact Form 7, WooCommerce, WPForms, etc.)
- Reporting and logging available
- Customizable form appearance using a visual interface
Pricing:
- Free plan available
- Hobbyist $59/year
- Professional $99/year
- Agency $149/year
PHP Version: 5.3 or higher
WordPress Version: 4.6 or higher
Suggested reading:
- How to Build an Email List
- Email Automation Best Practices, Benefits, and Examples
- How to Write a Professional Email?
10. Jetpack: ecommerce plugin for WordPress security
Rating: 3.9/5 stars (5+ million installations)
Hands down this is the most popular WordPress plugin for ecommerce businesses’ security. But it’s not just security that you can use it for. Performance, marketing, and design are the tools integrated into this plugin.
This WordPress store plugin helps to make your site safer, faster and help you grow your traffic. It is easy to use and includes site security like real-time auto backups, easy restores, malware scans, and spam protection. One of the essential features of this plugin is brute force protection to keep your store’s login page protected.
Main features:
- Automatic site back up in real-time and restoration
- Activity log available for coordination, debug, maintenance, or troubleshooting
- Automatic scans for malware and security scans for other code threats
- Anti-spam features
- Brute force attack protection for login page protection
Pricing:
- Free plan available
- Pro products start from $3/mo
PHP Version: 5.6 or higher
WordPress Version: 5.7 or higher
11. Cost Calculator Builder: ecommerce plugin for calculating costs
Rating: 3.4/5 stars (20,000+ installations)
You don’t have to worry about cost estimation forms anymore. This is the best ecommerce plugin for WordPress to help you with it and other cost calculations. It provides your customers with information about your services and products costs.
You can fully customize the forms with colors, fonts, and various backgrounds to create the desired look for your storefront. This WordPress store plugin helps you configure any type of estimation form with a drag-and-drop builder. You can also create as many calculation forms as you like and insert them on any of your pages or posts.
Main features:
- Easy to build estimation forms available
- Instant estimation for immediate projects cost estimation
- Calendar field for a date picker
- Horizontal or vertical calculators
- Required fields available
Pricing:
- Free plan available
- Pro for a single site: $29.99/year
- Pro for 5 sites: $79.99/year
- Pro for 25 sites: $199.99/year
PHP Version: 5.6 or higher
WordPress Version: 4.6 or higher
12. Flexible Shipping: WP ecommerce shipping plugin
Rating: 4.9/5 stars (100,000+ installations)
This is the most advanced shipping ecommerce plugin for WordPress. It allows you to calculate the shipping costs based on various variables like weight or cart total. It also saves you time and money, so you can focus on customers and make sales.
Flexible Shipping is one of the WordPress shopping plugins that give you a competitive edge and help you boost your sales. How? It lets you offer flexible shipping rates that adjust to cart contents and apply discount codes to slash cart abandonment. You can also set extra costs for specific products or categories, add the cost of shipping insurance and provide discounts.
Main features:
- Unlimited shipping options and costs calculation rules
- Shipping cost based on cart total, weight, products, etc.
- Free shipping override available
- Option to display the selected shipping methods only for logged-in users
- Enable/disable shipping method based on the time and day of the week
Pricing:
- Free plan available
- Pro version $89/year
PHP Version: 7.0 or higher
WordPress Version: 5.2 or higher
13. Blog Designer: blog plugin for WordPress ecommerce store
Rating: 4/5 stars (20,000+ installations)
If you want to set up a responsive blog page with your website this one is for you. With this ecommerce plugin for WordPress, you can design and manage your blog’s content and appearance.
It provides a variety of templates to set up your blog easier and faster. You can modify the layout and design to fit your needs. In addition, this WP ecommerce plugin lets you integrate your social media buttons and increase the number of your followers. You can use it in any language thanks to its multilingual feature.
Main features:
- Fully responsive
- Available on various browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc.)
- Social share buttons available
- Various fonts (800+ Google font-family and 600+ Font Awesome icons)
- WooCommerce integration available
Pricing:
- Free plan available
- Pro version $59
PHP Version: 7.0 or higher
WordPress Version: 5.0 or higher
Suggested reading:
14. Advanced Custom Fields: plugin for WP ecommerce custom fields
Rating: 4.9/5 stars (2+ million installations)
This WordPress ecommerce plugin lets you take control of your edit screens and custom fields data. You can add fields anywhere on your site with a field builder quickly and easily. There’s also great help from the customer support team if you come across any troubles.
Moreover, it lets you create field groups and define location rules. There are over 30 field types included—if that’s not enough you can create hundreds more to match your needs. Also, there are free resources, such as code examples, tutorials, and guides to help you use this ecommerce plugin to its full potential. You can learn more about fields, functions, actions, and filters from the resources provided.
Main features:
- Repeater Field for creating a set of repeating subfields
- Flexible Content Field to define, create, and manage content
- Multiple layouts and subfield options
- Fully customizable image galleries
- Clone Field for reusing existing fields and field groups on demand
Pricing:
- Personal $49/year
- Freelancer $149/year
- Agency $249/year
PHP Version: 5.6 or higher
WordPress Version: 4.7 or higher
15. Site Reviews: ecommerce plugin for displaying reviews on-site
Rating: 4.9/5 stars (30,000+ installations)
Site Reviews allows your visitors to submit reviews with a 1-5 star rating on your website, just like you would on TripAdvisor or Yelp. The plugin provides blocks, shortcodes, and widgets, along with full documentation.
You can pin your best reviews so that they are always shown first, require approval before new review submissions are published, require visitors to be logged-in in order to write a review, send custom notifications on a new submission, and a whole lot more!
Main features:
- Reviews assigned to categories, pages, users, etc.
- Built-in CSV importer for importing third-party reviews
- Ability to block review submissions containing specific words, phrases, emails, etc.
- Notifications are sent to an email when a review is submitted
- Ability to write responses to reviews
Pricing:
- Free plan available
PHP Version: 5.6.20 or higher
WordPress Version: 5.5 or higher
WordPress ecommerce plugins comparison table
Let’s start with a little comparison—
There are five WordPress ecommerce plugins for turning your website into an online store in the list above. How do you know which one is the right one for you?
So—let’s compare the WordPress ecommerce plugins:
Plugin | Best for | Seamless integration with WordPress | Price | Main benefit |
---|---|---|---|---|
WooCommerce | Medium to large business | Yes | Free plan available | Most payment options |
Shopify | Small business | Not an original Shopify plugin | $9 for Shopify Lite | Sales and growth tracking |
BigCommerce | Medium to large business | Yes | $29.95 for BigCommerce plan | Great marketing tools |
Ecwid | Cross-channel business | Yes | Free plan available | Available on multiple channels |
WP EasyCart | International business | Yes | Free plan available | Multi-currency and multi-language |
Do you have your favourite now? You can make use of the free versions or a free trial to play around with the plugin and make sure it’s the right option for you. Check out some of the best WordPress themes for your ecommerce store.
Now, let’s see what you should look out for when embedding ecommerce plugins onto your WordPress site.
What to look for in WordPress store plugins?
Let’s now look at what you need to pay attention to when choosing a plugin for your WordPress store. The three most important aspects include speed, support, and regular updates. The rest of the features depend solely on the type of business you have and its needs.
1. The impact on page speed
It’s not about the number of plugins but about their quality. Some of them can slow down your website by as much as 30% and decrease the user experience.
Plugins will add additional code that a browser has to load, and this can slow it down. To explain it simply: a website with a simple codebase will (most of the time) load faster than the one with a complicated codebase.
But some plugins have simpler code than others and don’t slow down your site. That’s why it’s important to choose the right ones and test your WordPress ecommerce plugins from time to time:
- Run a speed test for your website
- Check the performance of your site on WP Checkup
- Make a copy of your website in a staging environment (test site)
- Deactivate all your plugins on the test site
- Reinstall your WordPress plugins one by one
- Check the speed of the test site after installing each plugin
- Delete the slow plugins from your website
Read through the process more in detail and use the test to find out if any of your WordPress ecommerce plugins are slowing down your page. You can also check this list of the slowest WordPress plugins to see what to avoid and the alternatives.
2. Community and support
You may run into issues once you install a new WordPress plugin. Don’t get discouraged—you’re not the only one.. But that’s why it’s important that the plugin you choose has good customer support and a community to help you out.
The people on the forum and in the community can be great resources for troubleshooting uncommon issues because chances are they already experienced them. So, check the reviews and the number of active installations to see the size of the group of people you can reach out to with problems.
Also, check what the reviewers are saying about the customer service. Is it quick in responding? Do they fix issues? And do developers respond to bad reviews to try to turn them around?
You need to be sure that customer support will solve your issues in a timely manner if your plugin crashes or your payment system fails. You can also see if you can pay extra for personalized support if that’s what your needs are.
3. Recent updates
WordPress changes quickly. And new versions are released constantly. In fact, it was updated 64 times in 2020 alone. This can create compatibility issues for the WordPress ecommerce plugins that don’t keep up.
Good plugins are frequently updated. And it is important for them to stay up to date with the latest WordPress version to avoid compatibility issues. It’s important because these issues can end up breaking your website.
So, when choosing your new ecommerce plugin for WordPress, make sure that it has a recent update and that it works well. Also, look at the reviews and updates log to find out how often it is updated and if developers do a good job at fixing bugs.
These are the top three aspects you need to watch out for.
The rest?
It depends purely on your business and what you’ll be selling. If you want to create a store with physical products, then you’ll need a WordPress eCommerce plugin that has features like shipping and inventory management. If you plan on selling digital goods, then you should focus on your SEO efforts for clients to find you. So, go through what’s important for your store and find your perfect match from our list above.
Key takeaways
One more time, here’s our selection of the top 15 WordPress ecommerce plugins:
- WooCommerce
- Shopify
- BigCommerce
- Ecwid
- Yoast SEO
- WP EasyCart
- Tidio
- WP ERP
- MC4WP
- Jetpack
- Cost Calculator Builder
- Flexible Shipping
- Blog Designer
- Advanced Custom Fields
- Site Reviews
For starters, get one that will turn your website into an ecommerce store, one that will keep it safe and secure, one that will help you with SEO activities, and one for customer support.
All the others are optional and depend on the type of business you want to conduct.
That’s all for today. Go ahead and explore the plugins from the list for yourself to choose your perfect fit.