5 Best WordPress Ecommerce Plugin For Your Online Store in 2021

• By Abhishek Jain
• 24-09-2021
• Web Design

A WordPress ecommerce store with simple features can never stand out in the sea of impressive online stores making millions. This is a scary thought for new ecommerce entrepreneurs, but it's the one they should face. Fortunately, there is a simple cure - ecommerce plugins. 

Picking the right ecommerce plugin is a prerequisite for success. If you select the right plugin for your store, it will lead to better sales, more customer satisfaction and expansion opportunities; it's a simple progression. But without proper research and a requirements list, users end up draining money as many plugins have a monthly subscription fee. 

This article will discuss the five best ecommerce plugins for stores on wordpress to help you pick the best ones for your online shoppers. 

What should a good WordPress ecommerce plugin have?
There are more than 54,000 WordPress plugins! But all of them have different uses and purposes. For instance, some plugins are suitable for selling digital products like music, softwares, etc. others are more appropriate for selling physical goods. 

For a drop shipping business, ecommerce plugins will be different from a marketplace renting out parking spaces. 

To pick the right WordPress plugin, you must start with what you are selling and the features which will make your store run efficiently. Other than these, there are more factors which you should also consider before choosing a WordPress ecommerce plugin. 

Payment solutions: mostly all ecommerce stores need online payment gateways, so the plugin you will want to choose should support different gateways by default. 

Store design: the UI and layout are what the customers see first in an online store. So you must make sure that there are plenty of design options along with customization allowance. 

Third-party apps integration: ecommerce platforms nowadays have many third party features like email marketing services, social media sharing buttons, CRM software, etc. you will also need them to make customers more connected and grow your business seamlessly. 

Support: the plugin should have online support. Without that, you will end up losing a lot of business and money. The sooner a bug is fixed, the lesser the downtime, thus more sales. 

5 best WordPress ecommerce plugins
1. WooCommerce
2. BigCommerce
3. MemberPress
4. Easy Digital Downloads
5. Shopify

Let's take a look at their pros and cons one by one. 

1. WooCommerce 
WooCommerce is the most used ecommerce plugin on WordPress. It is also a very popular ecommerce platform among new entrepreneurs. It has a vast number of addons and themes available for different businesses. Due to its consistent user base, many companies have dedicated hosting solutions for WooCommerce sites.

Pros of WooCommerce
Themes and extensions - WooCommerce has a large stock of themes and extensions for any product or service. While choosing your site layout and design, it is easy to add features in WooCommerce.

Suitable for digital and physical products - when someone says ecommerce, people assume a T-shirt or jewelry store. Still, there are digital products as well like eBooks, music, software solutions and others. WooCommerce supports both of them. 

The addition of affiliate links to sell external products, inventory management, payment and shipping support are some of the other benefits of WooCommerce.

Cons of WooCommerce
Too many add ons - WooCommerce literally has too many addons available. It becomes paralyzing for a user to choose the convenient feature as an addon. There are also too many settings options which can be frightening. 

Theme support - all the WordPress themes are compatible with WooCommerce, but they won't necessarily look good. Themes need to be WordPress ready to make their features fit perfectly. 

Scalability - the one problem with scaling WooCommerce stores is that one has to get a managed hosting provider. 

2. Bigcommerce
Bigcommerce is an ecommerce platform that has seamless integration with WordPress. With big commerce, it is effortless to scale an ecommerce store while managing content withWordPress. 

Pros of BigCommerce 
Easy scalability - it offers enterprise-level security, performance and technology to scale an ecommerce store. 

Low maintenance - bigcommerce has fewer maintenance expenses; thus, it is easy to run the WordPress site with content. 

Multiple channel sales support – bigcommerce allows businesses to sell not only on the website but also on big platforms like Facebook marketplace, amazon, Flipkart, etc.

No transaction fee - many ecommerce platforms charge a percentage cut on every order. With bigcommerce no need to worry about that. 

Cons of BigCommerce 
Lesser integrations - bigcommerce is a growing platform, so its integration with all the third-party apps are not that good. All the popular apps are integrated, but not all of them. 

Sales threshold - there is a fixed amount of sales for every package. If your sales exceed that amount, your subscription gets upgraded automatically, which increases the business cost. 

3. Member press 
It is the top WordPress ecommerce plugin for subscription-based products and services. It is also compatible with WooCommerce and has tons of tools and features integrations.

Pros of a Member Press 
Subscription-based sales - it allows users to sell subscription-based plans, services, products and more. 

High security - it provides access control to defined users at different levels and adds content restrictions too. Only specific users with access can use the restricted services and features. 

Built-in course builder - MemberPress also lets users create and sell courses to provide the necessary info. This is good for products that need some initial learning before usage. 

Content release – MemberPress lets users release new content like email subscriptions or services like Netflix. 
Cons of Member Press 

Limited payment options - nowadays, people have so many payment options like PayPal, Stripe, debit/credit cards, e-wallets and others. MemberPress does not support all of them. 

Yearly pricing structure - there is only one pricing model - yearly, which might be costly for many businesses. 

4. Easy digital downloads
It is the best plugin for WordPress ecommerce stores looking to sell digital downloads on WordPress. 

Pros of easy digital downloads 
Designed for digital goods - it is built for selling digital products which are downloaded. It is a much better experience for digital goods than other ecommerce products. 

Ease of use - it is straightforward to use for beginners to get started with. In easy digital downloads, one can quickly figure out how to add products and sell them. 

Many extensions - easy digital downloads have many addons for any feature you want for marketing purposes, payment gateways and other services. 

Themes - all the WordPress themes work fine with easy digital downloads. And if you want something else, then they have their themes as well. 

Support - the plugin has support videos, forums, tutorials online to speed up the learning process. They also provide support for premium users. 

Cons of easy digital downloads 
Specific niche - it is good only for digitally downloadable products. Also suitable for a store selling both physical and digital downloads products. 

No selling of external products - selling external products is not supported on easy digital downloads. One has to install an addon for it. 

5. Shopify 
It is more than a plugin; Shopify is a complete ecommerce platform. 

Pros of Shopify
Easy for beginners - Shopify is super easy for new ecommerce store owners. It is elementary to get started without any hassle. 

Integrates all products - Shopify can handle all kinds of physical or digital products with specific selling features. 

Payment and shipping - Shopify focus on a better shopping experience for users by providing multiple payment options online and offline. 

Easy third party integrations - any third party app can be integrated into Shopify, whether it's Facebook marketplace or pins on Pinterest. 

Cons of Shopify
Monthly fee - Shopify is costly. Even the base plan compared to other separate hosting services has a higher cost. 

Payment charges - Shopify has a payment cut for every order placed in your store if you use an external payment method. So it becomes mandatory to choose their payment platform. 

Which is the best WordPress ecommerce plugin?
The best WordPress ecommerce plugin is the one that serves your needs the best. For flexibility and control, WooCommerce is the best. For digital goods, easy digital downloads are the ones to go with. For ease of use, Shopify is the most suitable option. 

If you are looking for a good looking ecommerce store with the best plugins, contact our WordPress development company. It is always a pleasure to make a business grow through tech solutions.