Do you want to create an online store? Do you want to know which WordPress eCommerce plugin is the best?
Choosing the best eCommerce plugin for your business is critical because a better platform means more opportunities for growth. Users frequently lose money because they did not conduct adequate research before deciding on an eCommerce platform to launch their store.
This article will compare the top 5 WordPress eCommerce plugins for 2021. We’ll also go over their benefits and drawbacks to help you decide which eCommerce plugin is best for your company.
What Should You Look for in a WordPress eCommerce Plugin?
There are numerous WordPress eCommerce plugins available on the market. However, not all of them have the right set of features for your application.
Some eCommerce plugins, for example, are designed to sell digital goods such as eBooks, photos, music, and so on. Others are better suited to selling physical goods that must be shipped.
If you want to run a drop-shipping business, you’ll need an eCommerce solution that offers better drop-shipping support.
Essentially, you must consider what you will be selling and what features you will require to run your online store efficiently.
Aside from that, the following are some of the most important factors to consider when selecting an eCommerce platform.
- Payment solutions – By default or via an extension, your eCommerce plugin should support your preferred payment gateways.
- Design and customization – The design of your store is your customer’s first point of contact with your company. Make certain that there are a plethora of templates and simple customization options available.
- Apps and integrations – Look for integrations for third-party apps such as email marketing services, CRM software, accounting software, and so on. You’ll need those tools to effectively manage and grow your ecommerce business.
- Support options – Check to see if there are any available. In the long run, good support can save you a lot of money.
Things You Need to Run an eCommerce Website
Because ecommerce websites require a lot of resources, the first thing you’ll need is the best WordPress hosting you can afford.
When you’re on a tight budget, Bluehost is a good starting point. The Ecommerce plan includes an SSL Certificate, which is required to securely collect payments, a dedicated IP address, and a dedicated support line. Additionally, WooCommerce, the most potent WordPress Ecommerce plugin (as you’ll see later in this article), is included by default.
If money isn’t an issue and you want the best performance, we recommend using a managed WordPress hosting provider such as WPEngine.
Following that, you should select a domain name for your website. Here’s our guide to choosing the best domain name for your eCommerce site.
Finally, you will need to select essential business plugins such as OptinMonster to help you reduce shopping cart abandonment and increase sales.
Having said that, let’s look at the best WordPress eCommerce plugins.
The Best WordPress Ecommerce Plugins – The Rivals
Now that you know what to look for in an eCommerce platform and what you’ll need to get started, here are our top recommendations for the best eCommerce platforms for WordPress users.
- WooCommerce
- BigCommerce
- MemberPress
- Easy Digital Downloads
- Shopify
Let’s take a look at each of them and weigh their Pros and Cons.
1. WooCommerce
WooCommerce has been the most popular eCommerce plugin for WordPress. It is the biggest and most popular eCommerce platform. In 2015, Automattic (the company behind the WordPress.com blog hosting service) purchased WooCommerce.
WooCommerce has a plethora of addons and themes to choose from. They are also supported by a dedicated developer community. Several hosting companies have recently begun to develop specialized WooCommerce hosting solutions.
Pros of Using WooCommerce
Some of the benefits of using WooCommerce as your WordPress eCommerce plugin are as follows:
Extensions and Themes – There are hundreds of WooCommerce extensions and themes available, making it simple to add new features to your eCommerce site. A large collection of themes means you have a plethora of options when it comes to the design and layout of your site.
Allows for both digital and physical goods – You can sell both physical and digital downloads with WooCommerce (such as ebooks, music, software, and more).
Sell Affiliate or External Products – You can add affiliate or external products to your site using WooCommerce. Affiliate marketers can create product websites and improve the user experience.
Complete Inventory Management – WooCommerce includes tools for easily managing your inventory or assigning it to a store manager.
Payment and Shipping Options – WooCommerce includes built-in support for popular payment gateways, and extensions allow you to add a variety of additional payment options. It can also compute shipping costs and taxes.
Support and documentation – WooCommerce has excellent documentation available online. In addition to the documentation, there is a knowledge base, a help desk, and community forums.
Cons of Using WooCommerce
Too Many Options – Although WooCommerce is simple to use, the number of options available on the settings page can be intimidating to a new user.
Finding Addons – There are many WooCommerce addons available; however, a user may not always find the right addon for the features that they require.
Theme Support – While WooCommerce works with any WordPress theme, it is not always as simple to set up or as visually appealing with all themes. To take full advantage of WooCommerce’s features without too much difficulty, you’ll need a WooCommerce ready theme.
Scalability – As your store grows in size, you will need to migrate to a managed hosting provider, such as WP Engine, to scale your WooCommerce store.
WooCommerce is the ideal solution for any type of eCommerce website. It has a large developer and user community, a large number of addons and themes, excellent support for multilingual websites, and the best free and paid support options.
2. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a fully-hosted eCommerce platform that integrates seamlessly with WordPress. This enables you to use a scalable eCommerce platform while managing your content and running your website with WordPress.
It has a powerful WordPress integration plugin that makes it very simple to embed your products in WordPress. It creates the sign in, cart, account, and other important pages for you automatically.
Let’s look at some of the benefits and drawbacks of using BigCommerce as your WordPress eCommerce platform.
Pros of Using BigCommerce
High scalability – It includes all of the features you’ll need, including enterprise-grade security, high performance, and simple scalability.
Less Upkeep – Separating your eCommerce engine from other content makes it easier to manage your WordPress site.
Sell on Multiple Channels – You can use it to sell not only on your website, but also on Facebook, Instagram, and Amazon.
There are no transaction fees – Unlike some other eCommerce platforms, it does not charge fees for each transaction. You can select from dozens of leading payment gateways and pay only the payment service provider
Cons of BigCommerce
Limited Integrations – BigCommerce integrates with all of the leading third-party apps and tools. However, its app store is still growing, and some less popular apps may not have an integration.
Yearly Sales Threshold – Each plan has a yearly sales threshold. If you reach that point, you will be upgraded to the next plan. As your company expands, your costs may rise.
BigCommerce is an incredibly powerful yet extremely user-friendly eCommerce platform. It is a SaaS eCommerce platform, but you can have the best of both worlds with their BigCommerce WordPress plugin.
It alleviates the burden of scaling your hosting requirements as your business expands. At the same time, you don’t have to worry about security, performance, or finding SEO and caching extensions.
BigCommerce is a rising WordPress headless eCommerce contender. It manages your technology infrastructure so you can concentrate on growing your business.
3. MemberPress
You can sell subscription-based digital products and services with MemberPress. It is the best WordPress membership plugin, with a plethora of integration possibilities. It can even work with WooCommerce.
Pros of Using MemberPress
Sell item based subscription – Makes it simple to sell pay-per-view content, membership plans, and other subscription-based products.
Powerful Access Rules – You can define user access levels and content restrictions with powerful access control. Only users with the necessary permissions will be able to access the restricted content.
Built-in Course Builder – MemberPress includes a course builder that allows you to create and sell courses by providing an immersive online learning platform to your users.
Dripping Content – Like episodes of Amazon Prime shows or other platforms, MemberPress allows you to release paid content over time.
Extensive Extensions – It is possible to integrate it with your WooCommerce store or LearnDash LMS. There are numerous extensions available to connect MemberPress to third-party services.
Cons of Using MemberPress
Payment Options are Limited – MemberPress only supports PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net.
Yearly Pricing – Pricing plans are only available on a yearly basis.
MemberPress is an ideal eCommerce plugin for selling subscription-based products, courses, or creating a membership website. It is user-friendly for beginners and can be easily expanded with addons, allowing you to take your eCommerce website in any direction you want.
4. Easy Digital Downloads
Easy Digital Downloads makes it simple to sell digital downloads online through WordPress. It is simple to use and includes powerful features for creating a beautiful and functional digital goods store.
We sell our software, such as WPForms and MonsterInsights, through Easy Digital Downloads.
Pros of Using Easy Digital Downloads
Sell Digital Goods – Easy Digital Downloads is designed to sell digital downloads from the ground up. Unlike eCommerce plugins, which can be used to sell any type of product, EDD offers a far superior experience for selling digital goods.
Easy To Use – Easy digital downloads is very simple to use; you will quickly figure out how to add products and display them. This is extremely helpful for first-timers.
Extensions – There are hundreds of Easy Digital Downloads extensions available, including addons for payment gateways, marketing platforms, and services.
Themes – Easy Digital Downloads works with almost any WordPress theme, but if you haven’t chosen one yet, Easy Digital Downloads has themes designed specifically for the plugin.
Excellent Assistance – The plugin is extremely well documented, and there are free support forums, videos, tutorials, and even an IRC chatroom available. Premium users can also request priority support.
Cons of Using Easy Digital Downloads
Only available as digital downloads – Easy Digital Downloads, as the name implies, makes it simpler to create eCommerce sites for digital goods. However, if you want to sell non-digital goods alongside digital downloads, things get a little more complicated.
Selling External Products – If you want to sell an external product or an affiliate product in your EDD store, you must first install a third-party add-on.
When it comes to selling digital products online, we think Easy Digital Downloads is the best plugin to use. We’ve had great success with Easy Digital Downloads, not only on client sites but also on a few of our own projects.
5. Shopify
Shopify is one of the most used eCommerce platform that looks after everything for you and is quickly growing. Shopify isn’t a plugin, but it is a one-stop shop that is completely hassle-free. For a detailed side-by-side comparison of the two platforms, see our Shopify vs WooCommerce guide.
Pros of Using Shopify
So easy for Beginners – There is no need to be concerned about the technical aspects of an eCommerce store, such as setting up SSL, integrating with various payment gateways, handling shipping, dealing with taxes, and so on. Shopify takes care of everything.
Allows for both digital and physical goods – Shopify can handle it all, whether you’re selling physical goods like shirts or digital downloads like music.
Complete Inventory Management – Shopify includes an inventory editor, bulk importer, and order tracker, making inventory management a breeze.
Payment and Shipping Methods – Shopify allows you to accept credit cards both online and in person. Their shipping system streamlines your fulfillment process by integrating directly with popular providers such as USPS.
Shopify integrates with everything, including Facebook Store and Buyable Pins. Shopify allows you to create a Facebook store as well as buyable Pins on Pinterest.
Cons of Using Shopify
Monthly Platform Fee – Shopify charges a monthly platform fee, which is comparable to purchasing hosting and individual addons with the other plugins on this list.
Payments on Shopify – Shopify encourages you to use their payment platform, which is powered by Stripe and is an excellent choice for beginners. However, if you want to complicate things and use third-party systems, Shopify will charge you an additional fee.
If you want a powerful platform without having to deal with technical issues, Shopify is the way to go. While the monthly fee may appear to be excessive at first, the hassle-free approach and peace of mind are well worth it because it allows you to concentrate on what you do best, your business!
Shopify does not have a native WordPress integration. BigCommerce, the second solution on our list, provides everything that Shopify does while also integrating seamlessly with your WordPress site.
Conclusion
The Best WordPress eCommerce Plugin is: WooCommerce is the best solution for you if you want maximum control, flexibility, and features.
BigCommerce is the best option if you don’t want to deal with all of the technical details. It enables the use of a SaaS eCommerce platform alongside WordPress as your content management system.
If you only sell digital goods, Easy Digital Downloads may be the best option for you.
That’s all we have for now; we hope this article has assisted you in locating the best WordPress eCommerce plugins for your site. You might also be interested in our comparison of the top 5 drag-and-drop WordPress page builders.
If you liked this post, please find and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
