More than 58,000 WordPress plugins are out there, but not many of them are built with eCommerce capabilities. Hence, it’s challenging to choose the right eCommerce plugins that work seamlessly with your WordPress site and help you create a successful online business.
To make the process easier for you, we hand-picked the top 7 eCommerce plugins for WordPress, including WooCommerce, Shopify, PACK & SEND Live, OptinMonster, Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart, MonsterInsights, and All In One SEO. Here is a short description of each of these.
1. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is the best customisable, open-source eCommerce plugin for WordPress, with over 5 million installations. You can easily add this plugin to your established website by going to the plugin library, enter WooCommerce, and you’ll see it right away.
If you plan to build a WordPress site from scratch to sell online, it’s good to choose a WooCommerce-enabled WordPress theme from the WooCommerce Theme Store.
WooCommerce allows you to sell almost anything. That said, if you’re using any service provided by Automatic (the company behind WooCommerce), you can’t sell cannabidiol (CBD) and other hemp-derived products online.
WooCommerce’s key features:
- Support full features to set up products, categories, shipping, and the like
- Accept major credit cards, bank transfers, cheques, and cash on delivery
- Offer an intuitive dashboard for updating products and fulfilling orders
- Provide a marketplace with hundreds of free and paid extensions like store enhancement, marketing integrations, point of sales, and more
Pros:
- High customisation and flexibility
- Free to install
- Affordable for merchants with a tight budget
Cons:
- Require a certain amount of technical knowledge if you want to build a sophisticated online store
- For WordPress sites only
2. Shopify
Shopify is a subscription-based eCommerce platform that allows you to create an online store to sell products and services. You can also sell in physical locations using its point-of-sale app Shopify POS.
Shopify offers three main pricing plans: Basic, Shopify, and Advanced. With each of these Shopify plans, you get all the core features to turn your idea into a business, for example, store templates, integrated payment methods, SEO and marketing tools, and so many more.
Note that Shopify also provides an exclusive plan for enterprise-level (Shopify Plus) and another plan (Shopify Lite) for those who want to sell in-person (via POS lite) or add a buy button to their existing website.
Shopify’s key features:
- Offer a hosted online store to create web pages, customise your store, upload blog posts, and sell products
- Offer many product-related features, like product variations, unlimited products, multiple images, inventory management, SEO product tags
- Support Shopify Payments and over 100 other payment gateways
- Provide over free and premium 3,200 apps in different categories
- Support an intuitive dashboard with a lot of valuable insights about store performance
Pros:
- Easy to create an online store for beginners
- Diverse apps and multichannel integrations
Cons:
- Need to pay a transaction fee unless you use Shopify Payments
- Very expensive if you use multiple apps
3. PACK & SEND Live
Due to Covid-19, shipping costs tripled in 12 to 15 months, adding pressure on commodity prices.
Meanwhile, customers increasingly expect on-time delivery without having to pay more for shipping. They don’t want to wait three days to get a product from a brand while they can get the same item from another brand within hours.
If you’re looking for an affordable eCommerce fulfilment and shipping platform with unbeatable service, then check out PACK & SEND Live. It’s great for online businesses that currently want to scale up and supercharge their eCommerce logistics.
PACK & SEND Live allows you to deliver products across Australia, New Zealand, and many other countries worldwide. You’ll get a premium delivery service without paying a premium price. Besides, PACK & SEND Live combines the volumes from all of their customers nationally to negotiate significant discounts with their world-class carriers, helping you save shipping costs.
Another thing that makes PACK & SEND Live stand out is that when you use this platform, you’ll be given personalised customer service. Specifically, you’ll be assigned a dedicated account manager who is an expert in shipping and fulfilment. They’ll walk you through everything you need to make PACK & SEND Live work for your business. And what's more, you can actually ring and speak to your real, local account manager on the phone. That’s almost unheard of in the industry as the majority of customer support is offered exclusively via email or online chat.
PACK & SEND Live’s key features:
- Domestic and international delivery
- Performance dashboard, branded tracking page, automatic shipment generation, status tracking, consignment document, shipping label generation, etc.
- Multiple integrations with Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Magento, eBay, and more
- A wide range of convenient parcel shipping options
Pros:
- A flexible, scalable, and fully integrated eCommerce fulfilment and shipping platform
- No monthly fees – only pay for your delivery services
- Suitable for businesses of all sizes, including startups, SMEs, and large companies
- Help save parcel shipping costs
- Reasonable pricing plans
- Personalised customer service for all plans
Cons:
- The platform currently doesn’t ship bulky or heavy items that require palletisation and/or tailgate services, or large items such as furniture. However, these services can still be booked directly through any PACK & SEND service centre.
5. OptinMonster
OptinMonster allows you to create lead-generation campaigns like popups, floating bars (also smart bars), fullscreen welcome mats, and more. This tool comes with more than 50 stunning templates and a drag-and-drop builder, so you can quickly create a campaign without needing to have coding skills or design experience.
Apart from that, OptinMonster owns the Exit-intent technology, which allows you to convert visitors as they’re about to leave your store using customised exit-intent popups.
OptinMonster’s key features:
- Full of features designed specifically for eCommerce stores
- Support onsite targeting that allows you to create special offers targeting repeat visitors based on their previous interactions with your site
- Shopify, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce integration
- Easy to use with a drag-and-drop builder
Pros:
- User-friendly interface
- A lot of well-designed opt-in forms
- Powerful Exit-intent technology
- Seamless integration with popular email marketing services
Cons:
- Lack of advanced A/B testing features
- Expensive pricing plans due to ongoing SaaS billing
- Need to connect OptinMonster with Google Analytics to see stats
6. Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart
Similar to WooCommerce, Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart helps you sell products and services on your WordPress website. This plugin allows you to quickly create a fully functional store optimised for both desktop and mobile browsers.
Ecwid’s key features:
- Set up your store with automatic tax calculation and filling, shipping carriers, over 45 payment options, and start selling
- Support complete security with free unlimited store backups, PCI DSS Level 1 certified checkout, and more
Pros:
- A free plan available
- Work for any website, not just WordPress
Cons:
- The level of customer support you’ll receive from the Ecwid team depends on the plan you’re using -- the higher your plan, the better help you’ll get
- If you want to sell more products, you have to upgrade your plan to a higher one -- the free plan allows uploading only 10 products
7. MonsterInsights
MonsterInsights makes it easier for you to connect Google Analytics with your WordPress site. Using this plugin, you can know exactly how people find your site, which content that gets the most interest and view key eCommerce metrics in one place.
For example, you can see total revenue, conversion rate, average order value, top products, top referral sources, and more. With these insights, you can develop sure-fire strategies that help reduce cart abandonment, improve conversion rates, and double overall sales.
MonsterInsights’ key features:
- Support several real-time analytics reports, for example, eCommerce report, form conversion, site speed, and search keywords
- Support many advanced tracking features, like enhanced eCommerce tracking and form conversion tracking
- Integrate with WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, and more
Pros:
- Work with WordPress multisite
- Provide MonsterInsights Lite version with an unlimited free trial
- MonsterInsights and its addons are fully translation and localisation ready
Cons:
- Only for WordPress
- The Lite version covers only basic features
- The premium versions are expensive
7. All in One SEO
When your website has a good rank on search engine result pages, you get closer to buyers who are interested in buying the product you’re selling. Considering 32% of shoppers head to Google when they’re ready to make a purchase, that’s something you can’t ignore. Done right, eCommerce SEO (search engine optimisation) can help you achieve your goals as it helped this mattress company yield 53,571.82% ROI.
To optimise SEO for your eCommerce website, you can use All in One SEO. It’s an ideal choice for online store owners who have little or no SEO knowledge.
All in One SEO supports all standard features a typical SEO tool should have, for example, keywords, sitemap, 404 error tracking, and schema markup. Besides, its WooCommerce SEO features allow you to easily optimise your product title, meta descriptions, and product images.
All in One SEO’s key features:
- Support local SEO, WooCommerce SEO, SEO optimiser, advanced SEO modules, smart sitemaps, and rich snippets
- Support a smart setup wizard that helps you get SEO right for your store in a couple of minutes
- Seamlessly integrate with WooCommerce, Google Search Console, and many popular WordPress plugins
Pros:
- Intuitive and beginner-friendly interface
- Diverse features, from basic SEO to advanced SEO
Cons:
- Only for WordPress site
Ready To Launch and Grow Your Store With These Ecommerce Plugins?
There you have it – our seven top-picked eCommerce plugins for WordPress.
It’s time to take advantage of these plugins’ free trials or demos to test out features yourself and choose the tools that bring you great results.
In case you want to try PACK & SEND Live to make your Ecommerce-life easier, speed up your delivery process, and delight your customers, contact us today, and we'll set everything up for your business.