Many new eCommerce businesses face tough competition in an already established market. With a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27.38% between 2022 and 2028, the size of the global e-commerce business is projected to grow from its current level of $16.6 trillion.
One preferable way (by developers) to make a WordPress website stand out is by using plugins effectively. WordPress offers robust scalability and hosts 55,000+ plugins and 30,000+ themes.
About WordPress Plugins
There are plugins for all purposes to match your enterprise business needs.
For instance, content publishing sites can leverage the WordPress collaboration plugin that allows multiple authors to contribute. Likewise, there are dedicated plugins for eCommerce businesses, membership websites, marketplace, etc.
Here are different categories of WordPress plugins—
- There are plugins for managing and customizing that add features such as contact forms, galleries, slideshows, shopping carts, and more.
- Translation plugins allow multilingual versions of their sites by detecting visitors’ language and automatically translating content into their native language.
- SEO plugins come in handy to optimize websites sites for better search engine rankings with features like keyword research tools, page optimization tools, link-building tools, etc. It also has Content-specific plugins that offer grammar and plagiarism checks, content reference links, collaborative editing capabilities, and more.
- Live chat service plugins to introduce customer communication within the website where they can chat with a business representative in real time.
Choosing WordPress for eCommerce
There are plugins for eCommerce websites. Once you choose WordPress over Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento (now Adobe Commerce), you will unlock the world of plugins for your eCommerce website.
Amidst all such clutter, choosing a perfect eCommerce plugin is essential to ensure success. It helps integrate a WordPress site with features such as product catalogs, shopping carts, payment processing, shipping and tax calculations, customer management, and order tracking.
No matter your business, a few plugins can help you do the job. Here, we’ll check out some of the lesser-known plugins you can use for your eCommerce site.
Let’s get started!
#1. Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart
Ecwid is a comprehensive ecommerce platform that helps products online. It offers a great alternative to WooCommerce due to its high user ratings and ease of setup. The core Ecwid plugin is free and suitable for small stores with up to 10 products.
Use Ecwid to create your online shop with the help of Ecwid, provided on a subscription basis rather than purchased outright. Ecwid has no hidden costs or transaction fees, making it a great option for business owners looking to save expenses.
As your business grows, consider upgrading to a paid subscription plan that starts at $15/month and offers features like creating Instagram and Facebook shops and a dedicated mobile app.
Ecwid is ideal for online businesses not wanting to start from scratch when adding eCommerce capabilities to their website. Instead, this plugin facilitates your preexisting website’s fast and simple integration of Ecwid’s eCommerce platform, including several selling and product administration capabilities.
Moreover, Ecwid allows you to sell using your current blogs, social media accounts (including Facebook and Tumblr), and marketplaces (like Amazon and eBay). It also updates your sales data in real-time, helping you monitor all your channels from a single control panel.
#2. WP EasyCart
WP EasyCart plugin is designed to make it easy for small business owners to quickly create a beautiful online store. It requires no coding experience since the configuration process is easy and fast, with many intuitive tools at your disposal.
It also enables integration with popular software and services such as Quickbooks, MailChimp, TaxCloud, and ShipStation. Additionally, you can use WP EasyCart to sell retail items, downloads, subscriptions, gift cards, videos, and eBooks, and even ask for donations.
Leverage the tonne of functionality this free plugin offers with scalable subscription plans depending on the capabilities you need. Compared to other shopping cart solutions, such as WooCommerce, WP EasyCart stands out by providing a wider range of functions without requiring additional plugin installations.
#3. Easy Digital Downloads
Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is an easy-to-use eCommerce plugin that helps sell digital downloads on your WordPress website. It has powerful features that create an attractive and functional digital goods store.
To make it even easier, EDD-specific hosting services now come with the plugin pre-installed. Hundreds of extensions are available for EDD, including payment gateway, email marketing integrations, and other marketing tools. This one is a must-have since it is compatible with most WordPress themes and has a few themes built specifically for the plugin.
The free edition will provide all the necessary features to help run a basic online shop selling digital goods. Also, you can use various payment gateways for WordPress — Stripe, PayPal, and Amazon Payments.
Four pricing categories for access are mostly differentiated by the number of features included and site licenses required.
#4. MemberPress
One of the best plugins for creating a membership site with WordPress is called MemberPress. Use it to put chargeable digital assets such as videos, courses, and other downloadables. Charge members to access them using their membership system at different prices. Also, you can implement unrestricted access controls.
You can make a price using a custom post type, and the plugin comes with pre-made pricing templates that can be altered using CSS. It also has an automatic billing system that sends renewal notices and cancels subscriptions if the renewal cost isn’t paid on time.
This one hits the mark regarding essential membership plugin features like content restriction and subscription-level management. To top it all off, it offers your members a beautiful front-end experience by offering them tools for simple membership management.
Regarding features like price tables, the course builder, Amazon S3 connectivity, and so on, MemberPress does more than just the basics effectively.
#5. ECommerce Product Catalog
This highly responsive and simple-to-use plugin offers eCommerce store owners an easy-to-use quote request feature. You can put any product to display anywhere on a WordPress website, add price tags, and define custom parameters to match users’ needs. It is a fully customizable plugin that works with WordPress customizer, CSS, and template files for optimal product display.
Leverage its multi-level categories that help organize products, catalogs and tags. The Pro version offers a quote feature, allowing customers to request custom quotes for single or multiple products from the catalog.
Ecommerce businesses use its simple drag-and-drop setting that helps add products, alter the order preference, and change shipping options. Using this plugin is free up to a certain point because instead of having different pricing plans, they charge for extensions to add additional functions, such as a cart option, quote features, coupon codes, etc.
That’s a wrap!
That’s it! This marks the end of our lesser-known and useful WordPress plugins for enterprise eCommerce teams. Include some eCommerce WordPress plugins that help drive sales. You can now create and manage a powerful eCommerce website that achieves your business goals.
This list should give you a better idea of what kinds of plugins are available, their functionalities and their features. Pick and prioritize using those that match your needs. For this, identify your eCommerce business objectives and challenges and determine which plugins will benefit the most.
Flavius is a digital tech savy with passion for web design, digital marketing and all online stuff. In his free time, he likes to go to the gym, practice kickboxing and watching sports.
