WordPress Plugins expand on and extend the functionality of WordPress. These are things that you can add to WordPress to make it easier for you to use and for it to become more customizable. There are thousands of plugins that are available. WordPress is a one of the most user friendly and feature filled publishing platform that is available today. In order for you to take advantage of all that it has to offer, you will want to make sure that you take advantage of the most useful free plugins.
Here is a list of best ecommerce plugins for wordpress, however not all of these are free, therefore we have come up with this article that focus only on free plugins.
Once you have determined your e-commerce theme for WordPress, the next step should be to determine what e-commerce plugins you should add to fit your needs the best. These are the top ten most useful free plugins that you can get for WordPress.
This plugins list includes recommended plugins by wordpress experts and good wordpress books.
These plugins are also supported by all major wordpress hosting providers therefore you need not worry about complicated installation process. They will change the way you have been doing business and allow you to get more out of the program.
WP e-Commerce
This plugin has been around for a while and has been very popular since the beginning. This option was available before many of the other e-commerce options on the market for WordPress today. It has been out long enough to get the kinks out and to cater itself to the growing amount of users.
The plugin is free and it offers an assortment of add-ons and upgrades that are available to buy.
WP e-Commerce offers tons of features which include flexible discounts and coupon codes, control over the shipping calculations, multilingual, category and product RSS feeds, support for different currencies, Google checkout, and PayPal integration, administration dashboard for sales inquiries, single page checkout, inventory control, and so much more.
It is a comprehensive choice that allows you to take hold of your business.
Jigoshop
This is one of the other e-commerce plugins that has been around for a while for WordPress users. It is available as a free download and also has the option of adding on extensions and themes for a fee. The themes will help you make your site look more professional. It will save you from paying those high costs associated with developing and designing an e-commerce site.
There are several options that add to the functionality include various payment gateways and marketing enhancements. There are even some 3rd party developers that offer some of the extensions.
Some of the features that you can enjoy with Jigoshop include a customer account section, order management, product import and export, inventory tracking, control over shipping and tax, product search, and much more.
Woo Commerce
Woo Commerce is a great plugin that will save you time when you are importing products. It also allows you to advertise products from Amazon right on your Woo commerce website so that you can earn money for advertising qualifying purchases.
Not to mention the 90 days cookie feature that allows you to receive advertising fees for all of the products that your visitors visit and buy. There is an On Site Cart that gives your customers the opportunity to purchase multiple items at a time and that gives you the opportunity of getting multiple commissions at one time.
Ecwid Shopping Cart
Ecwid is an e-commerce widget that works with WordPress and other content management systems. The plugin for Ecwid for WordPress is available for free. It works with your social profiles like Facebook.
The free plan offers the standard features for e-commerce and then you can add on paid plans that start at as low as $15 per month. The paid plans will add on features like volume discounts, inventory management, and discount codes.
eShop
Check out the free e-commerce plugin, eShop. It has been downloaded around half a million times. The features include basic sales data and stats, various product options, sales tax and shipping options, basic inventory control, email templates that can be configured to meet your needs, and so much more.
Easy Digital Downloads
When you are in the business of selling digital products, Easy Digital Downloads is the perfect option. It was designed for the sale of digital products and won’t include additional features that you won’t use. It doesn’t include the functions for a physical inventory so you don’t have to worry about dealing with these sorts of functions.
This free plugin offers themes and extensions that are available for purchase. The simplicity of this plugin is the biggest advantage. But the best part is that it also offers some features that usually cost more on other plugins. These features include discount codes, sales reports, user purchase history, file download log, and so much more.
MarketPress
MarketPress is the plugin that sets the standard for WordPress solutions for e-Commerce to provide an excellent shopping experience which can be supported for the many payment gateways that allows you to manage the shopping costs including customizable shipping options and distribution costs easily.
It is created in a way to offer many different free plugins in one product that stands alone. Some of the features include coupons and sales pricing, stock tracking, multiple shipping choices, choice of selling physical or digital products, support for major currencies, unlimited product variations, and more.
WP EasyCart
WP EasyCart is a plugin that offers a basic shopping cart that can install into your existing or new WordPress blogs or sites. You can sell retail products, gift cards, digital downloaded goods, and more.
Quick Shop Plugin
Quick Shop Plugin is a great option because it adds a sidebar on your site. It will display your visitor’s shopping card right there on the page. It also supports email and PayPal built-in functionality. Also, it provides the ability to add products onto your pages with TinyMCE button and visitors can easily remove an item from their cart if necessary.
iThemes Exchange
iThemes Exchange is yet another simple but comprehensive and extendable plugin for WordPress. Product creation becomes fun with its user friendly interface. One of the distinguishing features of this plugin is that it capitalizes on WordPress’s built-in database tables instead of creating its own, to add customer info to its own page. This is really helpful in managing customers, viewing products purchased and available downloads, editing transactions as well as adding notes to customer information.
Cart66 Lite
Previously known as PHPurchase, Cart66 Lite is not only lightweight, but highly secure and efficient ecommerce solution if you want to create any type of “PCI compliant” store on WordPress. It resorts to Mijireh Checkout for collecting and transmitting any credit card information over to your favorite payment gateway. Another notable perk it offers is the seamless integration with Amazon S3 to help you with selling any digital products without much of a hassle. In short, it’s easy yet powerful ecommerce plugin to be used with WordPress.
Cart 66
Cart 66 offers a professional version along with various license options and a free version. The free version includes basic features for e-commerce like promotions, order management, control of shipping and tax charges, email reports that can be customized, support for various currencies, and much more.
There are also a few features that allow it to be customized to fit your needs more specifically. The professional version offers extra support for entering membership access and recurring payments. Both versions allow the products to be sold from any post or page.
Article Updates
- Updated On Oct 2016: Updated links and fixed minor formatting issues.
This article is contributed by John S. and Khawar Zaman.
John S. has worked in E-Commerce industry for over 15 years and now works for A+ Digital, a superior technology company. When he isn’t at work he enjoys reading E-Commerce magazines, white water rafting, and spending time with his two boys.
Khawar Zaman is a software engineer by profession, busy nurturing his startup named Technorian. He is also an avid blogger and a pet lover.
