If you want to build an eCommerce store using WordPress, you probably need a WordPress shopping cart plugin. There are different options available and we’ll walk you through the pros and cons of each.
In this article, I’ll share some of the best WordPress shopping cart plugins you can use to create a WordPress-based online eCommerce store. I’ll share the features of each plugin to help you choose one depending on your needs.
So, without any further ado, let’s jump straight into the article.
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What is a WordPress Shopping Cart Plugin?
It is a plugin that you can install into your WordPress website to transform it into a fully functional eCommerce store where you can sell any type of product online. These plugins add a shop, product, cart, checkout, account, and other pages to your WordPress site.
With the help of these plugins, you can easily manage your inventory, products, orders, payments, and user accounts. The following are the key features of a good WordPress shopping cart plugin:
- Ease of Use: A user-friendly interface is crucial. The plugin should be easy for both you as the website owner and your customers to navigate. The checkout process should be intuitive, making it simple for users to add products to their cart, review their orders, and complete purchases.
- Payment Gateway Integration: It should support a variety of payment gateways, such as PayPal, Stripe, and major credit cards, to give customers flexible and secure payment options. This is essential for smooth and trustworthy transactions.
- Product Management: The plugin should provide robust tools for managing your products, including the ability to add, edit, categorize, and showcase product images, descriptions, and prices. This is vital for showcasing your offerings effectively.
- Inventory Management: Effective inventory management is critical to prevent overselling and to ensure that customers are aware of product availability. Look for features that allow you to track stock levels, set low-stock notifications, and manage product variations if applicable.
- Shipping and Tax Options: A good plugin should offer flexibility in setting up shipping options, including various shipping methods (e.g., flat rate, free, or real-time calculations) and support for international shipping. Additionally, it should have tools for configuring tax rates based on your business’s location and applicable tax regulations.
- Customization and Design: The plugin should allow you to customize the appearance of your online store to match your brand and website design. This includes themes and templates, as well as the ability to add custom CSS if needed.
While these are the most essential features, many WordPress shopping cart plugins offer additional features such as discount and coupon management, customer account capabilities, reporting and analytics, security measures, SEO optimization, and integrations with other software and services.
The choice of which plugin to use will depend on your specific business needs and your customer’s preferences. Now that we are aware of the features of a good shopping cart plugin, let’s dive into the list of 5 best WordPress shopping cart plugins.
5 Best WordPress Shopping Cart Plugins
The following are the 5 best WordPress shopping cart plugins that can help you add eCommerce functionality to your WordPress website.
1. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is one of the best WordPress shopping cart plugins and the most used eCommerce solutions in the world with over five million active installations. It provides all the features you want to run an online store.
It gives you everything from shopping carts to checkout and customer account management to order management. It is the first choice for anyone who wants to build a WordPress-based eCommerce store.
With the help of this WordPress shopping cart plugin, you can sell to customers in different countries and accept payments in multiple currencies. Moreover, WooCommerce can be easily translated and localized, allowing you to reach a global audience.
You can create different types of products like physical, digital, grouped, or variable products. Besides that, it also allows you to manage taxes and add different types of payment and shipping methods right from its dashboard.
For example, AovUp provides several WooCommerce extensions that allow you to offer discounts, add different types of conditions, and improve WooCommerce’s default cart and checkout pages.
Features
- Adds a WordPress shopping cart and the checkout system.
- It allows you to create product categories and add products to them.
- It allows you to manage and process payments.
- It allows you to create and manage taxes.
- It gives you three built-in shipping methods(flat rate, free shipping, and local pickup) and you can add custom shipping methods as well.
- You can access reports and analytics to gain insights into your store’s performance, sales, and customer behavior.
- It includes marketing tools such as discount codes, coupons, and the ability to run sales and promotions.
- There are several themes, templates, and plugins available to enhance its design and add more features to your store.
| Pros | Cons |
| It is an open-source and free platform. It will significantly reduce the initial cost of creating your online store. | It offers a lot of flexibility, which can be overwhelming for beginners. |
| It gives you a vast library of plugins and extensions that allow you to extend the functionality of your online store | As there are a vast number of plugins available, compatibility issues may arise if you use multiple extensions/plugins. |
| It gives you full control over the design and functionality of your store. | It requires regular updates and maintenance for security and performance. |
| It allows you to use various payment methods. | While there’s a large user community, getting direct support for complex issues may require paid support or developer assistance. |
Pricing
It is a free plugin that you can download from your WordPress dashboard.
2. Shopping Cart & eCommerce Store
Shopping cart & eCommerce store or WP EasyCart is another great WordPress shopping cart plugin that can help you create a WordPress eCommerce store. It allows you to sell both physical and digital products.
It is a user-friendly and feature-rich plugin that is designed specifically for WordPress. With the help of this plugin, you can easily add products to your store, customize them, create product categories, and handle product variations.
It also allows you to use different payment methods including Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.Net, and more. Moreover, the plugin offers features like inventory management, shipping and tax configurations, and integration with popular marketing tools, making it a comprehensive e-commerce solution.
Its premium version also allows you to create subscription-based products without using any other plugin. Moreover, only in the premium version, you’ll be able to create and offer coupons to your customers.
Features
- It allows you to create, edit, and manage different product types.
- It allows you to sell digital products like music, ebooks, services, etc.
- It has built-in features to allow you to create subscription-based products.
- It gives you built-in shipping options and you can add more as well.
- You can integrate multiple payment methods.
- You can also keep track of your inventory.
- It supports multiple languages and currencies.
| Pros | Cons |
| It is designed to be user-friendly so beginners can easily set up their online stores. | In the free version, the payment processing fee is 2%. |
| It allows you to sell products with different options like sizes and colors, which is essential for many online stores. | It might not be a good choice for large online stores. |
| It has a free version. |
Pricing
It gives you a free plugin that you can download from your WordPress dashboard. In the free version, the payment processing fee is 2%.
It has a premium version that will cost you $69 per year for the PRO package which has a 0% payment processing fee.
3. Easy Digital Downloads
It is another excellent WordPress shopping cart plugin that was developed to help its users sell any type of digital product effortlessly. With the help of this plugin, you can sell music, ebooks, services, or any other type of digital product.
It allows you to add a download limitation to your files to protect them from being shared. You also can easily integrate different payment methods like Stripe and PayPal making it easy for customers to complete their purchases using their preferred methods.
It also allows you to manage the user profiles, orders, payment status, and email notifications.
You can use it with other add-ons and extensions, to tailor the platform to your specific needs. For example, you can use it with the WooCommerce Product Tables plugin to create a list layout for your digital products.
Overall, it is an excellent WordPress shopping cart plugin if you only want to sell digital products and services online with ease and efficiency.
Features
- It is straightforward to set up and easy to use.
- You can easily create different types of digital products.
- It provides a shopping cart system to allow customers to add multiple products to their cart before purchasing.
- It supports multiple payment methods.
- You can create discount codes and coupons to offer special promotions to your customers.
- You can easily manage products, orders, and users.
- It supports software licensing and activation for digital products to enhance the security of your products.
| Pros | Cons |
| It is an excellent choice for selling digital products like ebooks, music, etc. | It is only for selling digital products. If you want to sell physical products, it might not be the best choice. |
| It has different add-ons that you can add to your store. | It is a free plugin but you might have to pay for the extra features. |
Pricing
It also has a free version that will pretty much do the job but for enhanced security and other advanced features it provides different pricing packages. Its ‘Personal’ package will cost you $99.50 per year for one site.
4. Ecwid E-commerce Shopping Cart
It is a versatile and user-friendly e-commerce solution that allows small to medium-sized businesses to sell their products or services online for free. With the help of their WordPress shopping cart plugin, you can connect your Ecwid store with your WordPress site easily.
It integrates successfully with popular shipping methods like USPS, UPS, FedEx, Canada Post, and more to automatically calculate shipping prices. Moreover, it also allows you to automatically calculate the taxes for U.S., Canada, and EU VAT.
This plugin also allows you to integrate your store with Facebook and Instagram to sell over there as well, without using any other extension. Besides this, if you have a physical store you can use Ecwid’s POS integration for in-store transactions and inventory management.
Its mobile application also helps you manage your store easily. The best thing is you can synchronize your store’s data on all the platforms using it.
It gives you 10 different blocks to custom-design your eCommerce pages. With this plugin, you can create your store in 45 different languages and accept payments via more than 40 payment methods including PayPal and Stripe.
Features
- It allows you to sell anywhere online.
- You can sell physical and digital products.
- It allows you to sell subscription-based products.
- It has a solid security features.
- It gives you mobile applications to manage your store from anywhere.
- It allows you to sync your data for different platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WordPress, WhatsApp, Ecwid store, and more.
- It supports multiple languages and payment methods.
- It integrates easily with popular shipping companies.
| Pros | Cons |
| It is easy to use and doesn’t require much technical knowledge. | It doesn’t provide you complete control over the technical aspects compared to other eCommerce platforms like WooCommerce. |
| You don’t need to worry about hosting your store because Ecwid hosts your store. | |
| It supports various payment methods. |
Pricing
Its WordPress shopping cart plugin is free and you can download it from your WordPress dashboard. Its venture or basic package will cost you $14.08 per month.
5. BigCommerce
It is a robust e-commerce solution that gives you various features, making it a good alternative to traditional WordPress shopping cart plugins.
While it’s not directly integrated with WordPress like some other plugins, it serves as a standalone e-commerce solution, ideal for businesses that require advanced functionality and are looking to expand beyond basic WordPress shopping carts.
Besides selling via WordPress, It also allows you to sell on multiple channels, like Amazon, Etsy, and other platforms. This helps you reach more customers and get more sales.
Moreover, you can easily manage your products, orders, and payments. You can also integrate your BigCommerce store with various shipping methods. It has a responsive design to ensure your store looks great on all devices.
There are several extensions available to help you improve your store’s functionality by adding advanced analytics, email marketing capabilities, or inventory management tools.
Features
- It allows you to sell on multiple channels.
- You can add different payment and shipping methods.
- It offers a responsive design for cart, checkout, and other pages.
- It provides in-depth analytics and reporting tools to track your store’s performance, customer behavior, and sales data.
- It supports subscription and membership models.
- It provides several security measures to protect sensitive information.
| Pros | Cons |
| It is easy to set up a store. | It has less number of free themes. |
| You can start small and grow your store as the business expands. | |
| It provides robust security and reliability. |
Pricing
It is a free WordPress shopping cart plugin but it also has a premium version whose standard package will cost you $29 per month.
Conclusion
That’s it for today’s article.
I hope you were able to choose one of the above-mentioned WordPress shopping cart plugins that fit your requirements.
For example, You can use WooCommerce to sell any type of products or If you only want to sell digital products, you can use Easy Digital Downloads. However, you can use BigCommerce, if you want to sell on multiple channels.
