Choosing the perfect ecommerce solution for your WordPress site can seem like a daunting task, given the plethora of options available. However, selecting one of the Best Shopping Cart Plugins for WordPress can significantly streamline your online business operations, providing your customers with a seamless shopping experience. This article delves into a comprehensive review of two of the most effective and popular ecommerce plugins available for WordPress.

We’ll be exploring the in-depth features, benefits, and setup process of the WP Stripe Checkout plugin. In addition, we’ll take a detailed look at WooCommerce, one of the most versatile and robust WordPress Shopping Cart Plugins available, offering a vast range of ecommerce functionalities. So, buckle up as we embark on this journey to discover the best solutions that will cater to all your ecommerce needs and elevate your WordPress website’s shopping cart functionality.

1. WooCommerce

WooCommerce stands as the most popular open-source eCommerce solution in the world. Trusted by millions of businesses, it provides an unrivaled blend of power, flexibility, and community support. This free core platform is designed to help you launch a business, transition a brick-and-mortar retail online, or develop eCommerce sites for clients.

WooCommerce’s flexibility stems from its integration with WordPress, the leading website creation tool. This integration ensures that your online store inherits the SEO advantages of WordPress, further improving your store’s performance. Its built-in tools and numerous integrations streamline your business operations, offering a one-stop solution for all your eCommerce needs.

What sets WooCommerce apart is its devotion to data ownership. With WooCommerce, you retain full ownership of your store’s content and data. Unlike other hosted eCommerce solutions, WooCommerce doesn’t restrict your access or control over your data.

Key Features of WooCommerce:

• Customizability: Modify product pages using modular product blocks, enhancing the user experience and sales conversion.
• Diverse Product Types: Showcase physical and digital goods, instant downloads, affiliate items, and even sell subscriptions or memberships.
• Payment Options: Supports over 100 payment gateways, including Stripe, PayPal, and Square.
• Shipping Configuration: Print USPS labels right from your dashboard and schedule a pickup with WooCommerce Shipping.
• Mobile App: Manage your store from anywhere with the free WooCommerce mobile app.

The WooCommerce Marketplace hosts hundreds of free and paid extensions, vetted by developers to maintain quality standards. They are designed to enhance store functionality and contribute to building successful stores.

Few Use Cases of WooCommerce:

• Launch a Business: If you’re starting a new business, WooCommerce provides the tools you need to set up an online store, including a variety of themes suited to your brand and industry.
• Take Brick-and-Mortar Retail Online: For traditional retailers wanting to establish an online presence, WooCommerce offers a powerful platform that blends content and commerce.
• Client Site Development: Developers can use WooCommerce to create a store that meets a client’s exact specifications. Its open-source nature allows for extensive customization and scalability.
• High-Volume eCommerce: WooCommerce is built to scale and can accommodate high-volume stores. It provides the flexibility you need to grow your business.

Pricing

WooCommerce and WordPress are both free, open source software. While the core platform is free, there are premium extensions available for purchase which add additional functionality to your store.

2. Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart

Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart is a powerful, user-friendly plugin that can help you establish a strong online presence. It offers a seamless, easy-to-use, and Gutenberg-friendly solution for setting up an online store on your WordPress site. Currently, Ecwid is trusted by over 1 million sellers in 175 countries and supports 45 languages.

Ecwid provides robust shipping and tax features, with integration to major carriers for automatic shipping rate calculation. It also has automatic tax rate calculation for the U.S., Canada, and EU VAT. Plus, integration with TaxJar enables automatic sales tax reporting and filing in the U.S.

One of the standout features of Ecwid is its ability to sell on Facebook and Instagram. Your products, customers, orders, and inventory are automatically synchronized between your WordPress and Facebook storefronts. Plus, with its eCommerce mobile apps, you can manage your store and sell on the go.

Key Features of Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart:

• Automated Shipping and Taxes: Ecwid integrates with major carriers to calculate shipping rates automatically. It also automates tax calculations for the U.S., Canada, and EU VAT, simplifying the checkout process for you and your customers.
• Social Media Integration: You can add your online store to Facebook and Instagram, enabling you to reach millions of users on these platforms. The products, customers, orders, and inventory are automatically synchronized between your WordPress and social media storefronts.
• Mobile Apps: Ecwid provides free mobile applications for iOS and Android that allow you to manage your store and sell on the go.
• Secure Data Storage: All your online store data is hosted on Ecwid’s secure servers, and the service includes unlimited storage, regular backups, seamless upgrades, and security updates.
• Numerous Payment Options: Ecwid supports PayPal, Stripe, and 40 more payment options, offering flexibility for you and your customers.

Ecwid is PCI DSS Level 1 certified, which is the highest level of security compliance for e-commerce solutions. This certification means that Ecwid meets the security requirements of the banks you do business with, ensuring a secure online shopping environment for your customers.

Ecwid also comes with a variety of store design options, allowing you to customize your online shop to fit your brand’s identity. The plugin’s responsive design ensures that your store looks great on all devices, from desktops to tablets and mobile phones.

Use Cases of Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart:

• Establishing a Multichannel Presence: Ecwid is a great solution for businesses looking to sell on various channels. By integrating your store with Facebook, Instagram, and other online marketplaces, you can expand your reach and drive more sales.
• International Ecommerce: With support for 45 languages and automated tax calculations for multiple regions, Ecwid makes it easy to sell products internationally.
• Mobile Ecommerce: The free mobile apps provided by Ecwid allow you to manage your store on the go. You can track sales, respond to customers, and update your products from your smartphone or tablet.
• Secured Online Store: For businesses concerned about security, Ecwid’s PCI DSS Level 1 certification provides peace of mind, knowing your customer data and transactions are secure.

Pricing

Ecwid offers four pricing tiers:

1. Free: The free version of Ecwid allows you to sell up to 10 products. It includes features like mobile responsive shopping cart, social media tools, and free starter site.
2. Venture: For $15/month, you can sell up to 100 products and access features like inventory management, advanced SEO tools, and marketplace integrations.
3. Business: At $35/month, you can sell up to 2,500 products and benefit from features like wholesale pricing groups, product filters, and eBay integration.
4. Unlimited: For $99/month, you can sell an unlimited number of products and access additional features like priority support, custom mobile store app, and multilingual email support.

3. Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is a versatile e-commerce solution for WordPress websites, designed specifically for selling digital products. With no hidden fees or restrictions, this plugin offers unlimited possibilities for your online business. This includes the ability to sell a wide range of digital goods like WordPress plugins, themes, documents, ebooks, graphics, videos, and more. The plugin’s key selling point is its simple yet powerful functionality, which allows for seamless digital product sales, enabling you to focus more on creating and less on the technicalities of e-commerce.

EDD is fully customizable, offering a complete shopping cart, flexible payment methods, and a clean checkout experience. In addition, it provides complete customer management and detailed e-commerce reports for efficient business operations. Secure file protection, discount codes, and compatibility with any WordPress theme are additional features that make EDD stand out. Moreover, the plugin is localized for various languages, ensuring a native experience for users worldwide.

The EDD plugin supports multiple payment gateways, including Stripe and PayPal, which makes it an excellent e-commerce solution for businesses that cater to a global audience. What sets EDD apart from its competitors is the sheer number of extensions it offers, each designed to enhance your e-commerce operations. With extensions like Stripe Pro, PayPal Commerce Pro, Software Licensing, Recurring Payments, and more, you can supercharge your online store to meet specific business needs.

Easy Digital Downloads Key Features:

• Complete Shopping Cart: Offers a full-fledged shopping cart for browsing and purchasing products with Buy Now button support.
• Multiple Payment Methods: Supports multiple payment methods including Credit/Debit Cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, and PayPal Credit.
• Secure File Protection: Prevents unauthorized access to your digital product files, ensuring only paying customers can access them.
• Comprehensive E-commerce Reports: Provides detailed reports on earnings, refunds, sales, average order value, and more.
• Extensive Extensions: Offers a wide array of extensions for additional features and functionalities.

EDD’s popularity comes not just from its features but also its commitment to security. The plugin is a verified member of the Stripe partner program, a program that recognizes software meeting Stripe’s strict quality requirements. This gives EDD users the confidence that their e-commerce operations are secure and trustworthy.

Use Cases Of Easy Digital Downloads

• Digital Product Sales: EDD is the perfect solution for businesses selling digital goods like software, ebooks, photos, music, and more.
• Subscription-based Services: With the Recurring Payments extension, businesses can sell subscription-based products or services.
• Multi-vendor Marketplace: Using the Frontend Submissions extension, your store can be transformed into a full-featured multi-vendor marketplace.
• Software Licensing: For businesses selling licensed software, EDD’s Software Licensing extension offers a complete solution.

Pricing

EDD offers four pricing tiers:

1. Personal: Priced at $99.50/year, offers features for a basic digital store on a single site.
2. Extended: At $199.50/year, offers additional features like subscriptions and advanced marketing tools.
3. Professional: For $299.50/year, adds advanced features for improving order value and running a marketplace, plus software licensing.
4. All Access Pass: Priced at $499.50/year, offers access to all current and future features of EDD across three sites.

For the most up-to-date pricing, visit the official Easy Digital Downloads website. Please note that all plans come with a 14-day money-back guarantee.

4. WP EasyCart

If you are a WordPress user seeking to transform your website into a fully-fledged eCommerce store, then “WP EasyCart” could be the ideal solution for you. This powerful plugin installs effortlessly into new or existing websites, empowering you to sell a broad spectrum of goods and services – from physical products to subscriptions, digital downloads, gift cards, and even donations. Whether you operate on a local or international scale, WP EasyCart makes setting up your online store a breeze with its intuitive user interface and extensive list of features.

WP EasyCart stands out in the crowded eCommerce marketplace with its built-in compatibility with renowned payment solutions, including Stripe, Square, and PayPal. Not only can you sell your products through these popular payment systems, but you can also offer your customers the convenience of digital wallet payments such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Microsoft Pay. Additionally, the plugin is compliant with SCA and GDPR, ensuring secure transactions and privacy for your customers.

Selling on social media has never been easier with WP EasyCart’s Facebook and Instagram premium extension. This feature allows you to reach a larger audience by directly integrating your WordPress shopping cart with your social media accounts. Furthermore, WP EasyCart is available in three different editions (Free, Professional, and Premium) to accommodate the varying needs and budgets of online store owners.

Key Features of WP EasyCart

1. Unlimited Products and Orders: Regardless of the edition you choose, WP EasyCart allows you to sell an unlimited number of products and accept limitless orders.
2. Multi-Currency & Multi-Language: Cater to an international customer base with these inclusive features.
3. SEO Editing: Improve your products’ visibility on search engines with SEO options for each product, menu, and category.
4. Live Shipping Calculations: The Professional and Premium editions provide live shipping integrations with major carriers, ensuring accurate shipping costs for your customers.
5. Marketing Options: Advanced marketing tools such as coupons, promotions, gift cards, and abandoned cart systems are available in the Professional and Premium editions.

Beyond these remarkable features, WP EasyCart also offers users robust order management capabilities. You can manage orders directly within your WordPress dashboard, print sales receipts, add shipping notes, email customers, and more. The Professional and Premium editions even allow you to edit line items and customer order data for comprehensive order management.

Use Cases of WP EasyCart

1. Online Retail Store: WP EasyCart is ideal for anyone wanting to start an online retail store, offering an extensive range of features to sell virtually any type of product.
2. Digital Products: For creatives selling digital products like ebooks, music, or software, WP EasyCart’s digital downloading service makes distribution easy.
3. Subscription-Based Services: If you offer subscription services, the plugin’s recurring billing feature will be crucial for your business.
4. Non-Profit Organizations: WP EasyCart is also suitable for non-profit organizations seeking to collect donations online.

WP EasyCart Pricing

The cost of WP EasyCart depends on the edition you choose. The Free edition is available at no cost, though it applies a 2% transaction fee. The Professional edition, priced as low as $69 per year, unlocks additional features like more payment gateways, live shipping calculators, and marketing tools. The Premium edition, priced as low as $89 per year, includes everything in the Professional edition plus apps for Desktop, Tablet, iPhone, and Android along with 10+ Premium Extensions. With WP EasyCart, you can choose the package that best fits your business needs and budget.

5. WordPress Simple Shopping Cart

The WordPress Simple Shopping Cart is a powerful, user-friendly plugin that allows you to add an ‘Add to Cart’ button for your products or services on your WordPress website. Its primary function is to transform your WordPress blog or website into an e-commerce platform, providing you with the ability to sell directly from your site. This plugin is lightweight, featuring a minimal number of lines of code and options, ensuring that your website’s speed and performance aren’t compromised.

With WordPress Simple Shopping Cart, you can create dynamic ‘Add to Cart’ buttons using shortcodes. This plugin is also responsive, making your shopping cart accessible and visually appealing on any device. It also supports the sale of digital products, meaning that items such as e-books, music, videos, and photos can be sold with ease. Furthermore, the plugin features an option to use the smart PayPal payment buttons, allowing your customers to check out in a pop-up window, thus offering a streamlined, efficient user experience.

The integration capability of WordPress Simple Shopping Cart is quite impressive. It can be easily integrated with the NextGen Photo Gallery plugin, which is useful for photographers or artists who want to sell their work. The plugin also allows testing through the PayPal sandbox, a feature that ensures your payment process runs smoothly before your store goes live.

Key features of the WordPress Simple Shopping Cart include:

1. Easy creation of ‘Add to Cart’ buttons: You can easily create these buttons with options for price, shipping, and option variations.
2. Sale of tangible products and services: Whether you sell physical goods or services, this plugin has you covered.
3. Supports the sale of digital products: Items such as e-books, music files, videos, photos, etc., can be sold.
4. Email configuration: The plugin allows you to configure an email that gets sent to your buyers after they make a purchase. This email can contain the digital media files they’ve purchased.
5. Discount coupons: You can create and distribute discount coupons to your customers, which they can use during checkout to avail discounts.

The WordPress Simple Shopping Cart is a great solution for those who want a straightforward, efficient way to sell products or services online. The emphasis on simplicity and ease of use makes this plugin a great choice for those who are less tech-savvy or new to e-commerce.

Possible use cases for WordPress Simple Shopping Cart include:

1. Online clothing store: Use the plugin to sell a variety of clothing items directly from your WordPress website.
2. E-book sales: If you’re an author, you can sell your e-books directly from your site.
3. Photography website: Photographers can sell their photos or prints straight from their WordPress website.
4. Subscription-based services: If you offer services based on a subscription model, WordPress Simple Shopping Cart can handle recurring payments easily.

Pricing Of WordPress Simple Shopping Cart

The WordPress Simple Shopping Cart plugin is free to use, with premium add-ons available for purchase. These add-ons offer additional features, enhancing the functionality of the plugin and providing users with more customization options. This pricing model makes the plugin a viable option for businesses of all sizes.

6. WP Stripe Checkout

The WP Stripe Checkout plugin for WordPress is a powerful tool that enables websites to accept payments seamlessly using the Stripe payment gateway. With a few simple clicks, you can create a Stripe-hosted, SCA-ready form that supports 3D Secure 2 authentication. This form can be added to your website using a shortcode, making it easy to start accepting payments with minimal setup.

Using this plugin, users can accept both credit and debit card payments. It is also capable of handling recurring subscription payments, which can be ideal for businesses offering membership or subscription-based services. What sets this plugin apart is its ability to automatically email Stripe receipts to customers, streamlining the post-purchase communication process.

The WP Stripe Checkout plugin is designed to be user-friendly and requires no complex setup like some membership or e-commerce plugins. With no setup fees, monthly fees, or hidden costs, businesses can have an easy-to-use payment solution that doesn’t compromise on security or customer experience.

WP Stripe Checkout Key Features

1. Easy Stripe Payment Integration: Seamlessly integrate Stripe payments into your website with a simple shortcode.
2. Accept Recurring Subscription Payments: Convenient for businesses offering subscription-based products or services.
3. Automated Email Receipts: Send Stripe receipts to your customers automatically after a purchase.
4. Customizable Payment Forms: Build conversion-optimized payment forms that are hosted on Stripe.
5. Mobile-Ready Experience: The plugin offers a simplified, mobile-ready experience for your customers, ensuring seamless transactions on any device.

The WP Stripe Checkout plugin offers an easy way to switch between live and sandbox modes for testing, making it a reliable and flexible solution for businesses of all sizes. It also allows for the display of your brand or product logo on the Stripe payment page, helping to maintain brand consistency throughout the customer journey.

Use Cases of WP Stripe Checkout

1. E-commerce Websites: Accept credit and debit card payments for products or services sold online.
2. Membership Sites: Handle recurring subscription payments for member-exclusive content or services.
3. Non-profit Organizations: Enable easy donation collection through a secure payment gateway.
4. Digital Products and Services: Sell and automatically deliver digital goods, such as eBooks, music, or online courses.

Pricing

The WP Stripe Checkout plugin uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model, ensuring businesses only pay for what they use. The charge per successful card payment is 2.9% plus 30 cents, with no setup fees, monthly fees, or hidden costs. For businesses with larger payment volumes, high-value transactions, or unique business models, customized packages are available, which may include volume discounts, country-specific rates, and multi-product discounts. To learn more or get started, businesses can contact the WP Stripe Checkout sales team.

What’s My Choice?

When it comes to WordPress Shopping Cart Plugins, my choice undoubtedly goes to the WooCommerce plugin. As one of the most popular ecommerce solutions worldwide, WooCommerce offers remarkable flexibility and a multitude of features that can cater to various types of online businesses. It’s not just a simple shopping cart plugin; it’s a comprehensive ecommerce platform that can transform any WordPress website into a fully functional online store.

Why I Choose WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is a powerhouse when it comes to ecommerce functionality. Its robust and flexible nature, coupled with the fact that it seamlessly integrates with WordPress, makes it an excellent choice for anyone looking to start an online store. It is incredibly user-friendly, even for those with limited technical knowledge. Moreover, WooCommerce has a large and active community, which means there are numerous resources and tutorials available to assist you. In addition, the vast array of WooCommerce extensions allows you to add virtually any feature to your online store, from booking and reservation systems to membership plans.

Why Is It Better Than Others?

Features	WooCommerce	Others (General)
Flexibility	High	Medium
Customizability	High	Medium
Scalability	High	Medium-Low
Support	Excellent	Varies
Integration	Excellent	Good

WooCommerce, as a WordPress plugin, is deeply integrated with the WordPress ecosystem. This makes it more flexible and customizable than most other shopping cart plugins. It’s also built to scale, allowing you to add thousands of products and still function smoothly. The level of support provided by the WooCommerce team and community is top-notch, offering quick responses and solutions to any issues that arise.

Best 3 Features of WooCommerce

1. Open Source: WooCommerce is open source, which means its source code is freely available for anyone to study, modify, and enhance. This makes it incredibly flexible and customizable.
2. Extensive Product and Inventory Management: WooCommerce provides comprehensive options for listing products with multiple variants and configurations, and it manages inventory efficiently.
3. Large Extension Marketplace: WooCommerce has a large marketplace of extensions, both free and premium, that allow you to add almost any feature you can think of to your online store.

Conclusion

Unraveling the complex world of online commerce, we’ve journeyed through the top contenders in the realm of the best WordPress shopping cart plugins. Equipped with this knowledge, you’re now prepared to enhance your e-commerce site, streamline your operations, and elevate the shopping experience for your valued customers. Remember, the best plugin is one that aligns seamlessly with your business needs, offering the perfect balance between functionality, adaptability, and user-friendliness. Harness the power of WordPress plugins and take your online store to new heights of success.