Best Ecommerce WordPress Plugins (Free and Paid)

BigCommerce WordPress Plugin

The BigCommerce plugin for WordPress follows the headless ecommerce trend.

This plugin allows you to use WP to power your site and choose what functions you want BigCommerce features to cover. You could do catalog management and processing payment, or you could get the whole BigCommerce package.

I see a ton of potential for this plugin. That’s because it carries BigCommerce functionalities that work for every type of business model. It brings a nice sync of content and commerce. You have access to BigCommerce apps, fully integrated payment and shipping method/rates, multichannel sync, gift cards, and more.

If you’re already on BigCommerce, one plus this has for you is AMP. The plugin is AMP ready to support WP’s overriding of template files to crank up the speed of site on mobile.

It’s free; you can download it and install on your site. However, you’ll need a BigCommerce account to use it. Having a BigCommerce account means you have to subscribe to any of their plans – $29 – $249. That’s an added cost to your hosting fees. However, if having WordPress is important to you, then go ahead.

This plugin is a new kid on the block, having been released in June 2018. It’s still early to say how great it will be, but a lot of work has been ongoing.

Depending on how things go, in a year or so, I’ll probably add this plugin to the affiliate site I just launched.

BigCommerce Plugin Pros

• Integrates real-time shipping rates
• Better multi-channel selling
• Highly customizable
• All BigCommerce features

BigCommerce Plugin Cons

• Need to buy a BigCommerce plan
• No 1-click upsells
• Very new to the WordPress game

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is tried and true. Released in 2011, it holds the most ecommerce stores – over 28%.

It has come a long way; much improvement has been made on this plugin over the years, but it still feels a bit clunky compared to pure ecommerce SaaS like Shopify.

Nevertheless, there are many premium features to customize your store. Lots of design flexibility as well. My ecommerce site runs on WooCommerce. I launched on Woo but moved to Shopify for a while and came back because it worked better for me.

Many themes are compatible with Woo but they don’t all look good on mobile, so you have to be careful with that. From experience, you can totally upgrade your design with the combination of Elementor plugin and the Astra theme. That’s how I build most WP ecommerce sites.

That said, Woo is free, but you might spend a little cash on extra features.

Marketing automation is not bad. There are free and paid apps to integrate that. I only wish that it was built-in though. From the dashboard, you can activate user rating and reviews, coupon codes, social selling all come out of the box.

You can extend your store with wish lists and reward programs using extensions as well.

One thing you have to pay for which I don’t like is real-time shipping rates. If you want to integrate USPS with WooCommerce to get real-time shipping rates, there’s an official WooCommerce extension for $79. Or you could get a third-party plugin. US Postal Service USPS Woocommerce Shipping Plugin costs about $20.

WooCommerce Store Pros

• Social selling is built-in
• Syncing multi-channel selling is free
• Many advanced design options

WooCommerce Store Cons

• Many functions require paid extensions
• Zero support

Ecwid

EcWid allows you to add a shopping cart to any website.

Getting a simple store set up with the Ecwid plugin is pretty easy. There’s also an onboarding checklist that helps first timers know the essential things they need to do as well.

Many things you will need extensions for on Woo are built-in for Ecwid. You can sell on social media, Google Shopping, Amazon, and eBay. They also have in-store POS.

You can sell digital products, but each cannot be more than 10 GB. Premium features like abandoned cart recovery are available as well.

When it comes to translations, it’s better than WooCommerce and most other plugins. There are 50+ languages available, and stores automatically translate as they detect the settings of your customer’s browser.

Much like the BigCommerce plugin, they have pricing plans. There’s a free plan that works if you have just 10 products and you want to keep things as simple as possible. However, if you want more options like multi-channel selling, abandoned cart auto recovery, inventory management, discounts, and EcWid support, you’ll have to pay between $15 to $99 per month.

Ecwid Plugin Pros

• Real-time shipping rates built-in
• Multi-channel selling available
• Free plan for simple stores

Ecwid Plugin Cons

• Phone support is only available on top-tier plans
• Free plan is very restricted
• Limited number of extensions

Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is a great plugin for selling digital goods. It also has a physical goods system, but its core features revolve mostly around digital products. It has tools for selling subscriptions and memberships as well, but that is only gotten from EDD’s extension store.

I like the content restriction feature. There’s also cross-sell and upsell built-in to increase average order value.

If you’re looking to blow up sales, you can use affiliates on your store. It integrates the AffiliateWP plugin that allows you to have affiliates for your products. That can increase your visibility and sales.

Other marketing tools include advanced options for discount codes, promotions, and email marketing with MailChimp and AWeber. It integrates with many payment processors like Stripe, PayPal and Bitpay. But most of these are not free. I hate that you have to pay $89 to integrate a payment processor when many other plugins do it for free.

You can avoid paying for a payment processor and other extensions by purchasing the EDD plugin rather than taking the free route. Pricing plans go from $99 to $499 per year.

EDD WordPress Plugin Pros

• Great for digital products
• Affiliate marketing integration
• Timed discount codes and promotions
• Great support

EDD Cons

• Extensions are pricey
• Pricing plans for the plugin can go high
• No advanced features for physical products

WP Easycart

WP Easycart tries to make selling easy regardless of the type of product; it supports, physical, digital downloads, donations, services, subscriptions, and gift cards.

Some sweet features are abandoned cart recovery and real-time shipping rates. Another plus is that It’s easy to use so small business owners can set up whatever they want without needing a developer.

I like the business tools. It connects with Quickbooks, Mailchimp, TaxCloud, and ShipStation. But these tools are only available if you take their premium plugin of $99/year.

There’s a free version, but you don’t get marketing options, and you pay a 2% fee on integrating Square, Paypal, and Stripe. You could also go for the middle plan at $69 per year. While that’s better than the free plan, you’ll be limiting yourself from integrated email marketing, connecting affiliates, and the business tools. Those may not matter to you though.

WP Easy Cart Pros

• Abandoned cart auto recovery
• Works with many business models
• Marketing and business tools available

WP Easy Cart Cons

• 2% application fee for payment gateways
• No upsell/cross-sell

Paypal

Sometimes, you don’t want to spend time on building the platform when we have a few products. In this case, the PayPal buy button will come in handy. It’s the simplest ecommerce solution.

You can place the button anywhere on your website. With it, you can accept payments, allow users to add items to their shopping cart and checkout.

Customers pay with their PayPal account, credit card, or debit card. It’s not much because you are not getting an ecommerce platform or a fully-integrated ecommerce plugin. Rather, the plugin makes collecting payment easy.

You can also manage your inventory, create subscriptions and gift certificates. But don’t expect more advanced features like upsells and cross-sell.

Paypal Plugin Pros

• Great option for simple ecommerce stores
• Hosting-space effective

Paypal Plugin Cons

• Not an ecommerce platform
• Not enough features for most store owners
• No marketing features