Which website e-commerce plugin is right for me?

Lately I’ve heard this question a lot – which WordPress ecommerce plugin is the best? A few women want to move away from Etsy. There are of course, pros and cons to that – but lets not get into that today.

A few different site owners are just starting out – selling a few of their hand-made items – sewing goods, paintings, etc.

And the infopreneurs are a plenty who need to upgrade the free products into something that is personal, valuable and for a fee.

As you can guess, there is not a one-solution-fits-all plugin. Well, let me rephrase- there are some plugins that will do all three, but I’m going to recommend different plugins for each scenario and here’s why.

The following WP Ecommerce Plugin Suggestions are:

• secure
• supported & Updated regularly
• from reputable sources
• rated by my personal experience

What is blatantly missing are the payment gateways.

I can get you as far as the plugin. Add-ons will sometimes make use of additional gateways or you can have a developer integrate a new one.

Also note that you should always select the plugin with all the features you think you may need over the next two years, but also the leanest/ smallest one possible. Usually that means its faster and easier to use.

In no particular order:

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E-shop by Tips & Tricks HQ

Ease of use: 5/5 stars

My favorite feature of E-store is its shortcodes/blocks.

With shortcodes, the products and shopping cart can be put on any page, post or widget area you like.

You can add related products or upsell and even add the shopping cart anywhere there’s a widget area or a block. 

They basically give you all the pieces for a shop, and you plug them into your existing theme.

Recommended for These Producers and Infopreneurs

I recommend this every time someone needs approximately 50 products or less. This is also the go-to every time you need a shop for purely digital goods.

This is also highly recommended for any store that is featuring mostly digital products.

And I recommend E-store when someone wants flexibility on their shop – they don’t want a typical shop of items in categories added to shopping carts.

Note on Shipping

Tangible products: this will work only if you don’t have complicated shipping needs. E-store uses flat rate, paypal profile address-based, product based and more shipping rates.  

You can check out the full list of shipping options here if you’re considering it.

PS – this plugin has all the requirements of a recommended plugin on WP Barista – it also has the lightest possible code for the function; has great support; is secure; and is kept up to date.

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Woo Commerce

Ease of Use: 3/5 stars

However, that said, there are a lot of tutorials available for this. Just Google “WooCommerce” and the problem you are facing and you should receive several results.

Recommended to These Producers and Makers

WooCommerce ecommerce solution is the bomb. Seriously suitable for ANY USE.  It’s suitable for any shop that wants to sell a lot of products; a variety of products – digital or tangible; or a few products with lots of variations – think sizes, colors, etc.

This solution was also bought by Auttomatic (the creators of WordPress) and isn’t going anywhere any time soon. They have lots of support and a ton of add-ons. They also have a plethora of ready-made themes available so you don’t have to worry about setting up a nice professional style.

Note  on Selection

WooCommerce covers a broad number of needs and is very robust. If you only have a few items, I recommend Paypal (see below). If you need a bit more flexibility but have under 50 items(totally arbitrary number – but you get the idea) – I recommend WP E-Store.

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Paypal Ecommerce non-plugin

Ease of Use: 5/5 stars

If you have a business or verified paypal account, you can use this option. It obviously limits your payment gateways to… Paypal!

Recommended for these Sellers

This solution is perfect if you have:

• under 10 products
• accept donations
• address-based shipping

It does include taxes and shipping options.

You can use coupons and pay-what-you-like buttons.

You simply create the button and add it to your page or post. There is no special things to install in WordPress.

Therefore that makes this solution the most flexible and the easiest on the servers and page-load times.

Limitations

Paypal now includes some record keeping and reporting. But it isn’t going to be as in depth as the options above. And there is no product and shipping management from within the dashboard.

If you use off-line or spreadsheet record-keeping this is perfect for you.

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Top 3 WP Ecommerce Solutions

Those are them, friends! This is based on my experience with them and fooling around with some other less popular ones too.

These three are definitely my go-to recommendations.