Most people, like yourself, want to build a website quickly and easily in order to make money on your e-commerce. You have some products you would like to sell and you have set up a WP site. Now you just need a shop, but you fear going through the necessary steps to install an independent shopping cart program. A shopping cart plugin is ideal for you. Read on to find our review of popular plugins to get your shop online fast within your WP installation.
eShop (Download)
When you are looking for a simple and complete shop to put up and manage from your WP site, eShop is your plugin. Upon installation, 6 pages are generated (in the Pages section of the Dashboard):
- Shopping Cart
- Checkout
- Thank You for Your Order
- Canceled Order
- Downloads
- Shipping Rates
All of these are easily customizable, as are product pages or posts. The eShop plugin is one of the easiest solutions for getting a complete shop up and running in no time. Administrating it is also a breeze.
Features:
- generate product pages through WP pages or posts
- customizable options by price and groupings
- fundamental statistics and download sales data
- customizable shipping
- email templates (customizable)
- stock controls and tracking
- many discount possibilities
- multisite compatible
- supports many payment systems
- connect to WP Affiliate to run your affiliate program
- additional code snippets and plugins available for free
wooCommerce (Download)
Woo Themes have created a strong shop for WP. While it is quite complete and rock solid, there are a couple of suspiciously missing items. Importing and exporting products with all their variations should be a given, but are not. Additionally, there is no way to integrate with a POS. This defeats any possibility to supplement a physical store with this shop. Nevertheless, it is still worth taking for a spin. You might need these two missing features, but if not, then you have found your e-commerce plugin.
Features:
- everything is so simple for both the customer and administrator
- a widget to collate most viewed products
- assign a different SKU for each product variation
- clean reporting interface for administrator
- both tax and shipping more than adequately handled
- inventory and stock are cleanly managed
WordPress Simple Paypal Shopping Cart (Download)
Perhaps you do not need a fancy shop, but just a simple shopping cart to plop in anywhere you want on your WP site. Place your shopping cart’s Add to Cart button wherever you like, whether in a post, a page, on in the sidebar. The cart reveals to the shopper what is already in the cart and allows them to add/remove products.
Features:
- Paypal default payment system
- insert Add to Cart button anywhere on your site
- thorough video tutorial to setup a basic site
Jigoshop (Download)
The graphics are beautiful in their Jigoshop theme, but what you are installing does not have these. In fact, to get this theme you must pay $40, though they make it look like they are marking it down just for you from $70. It smells of cheap tricks all over it. Even if the shop is rock solid, there are many others to chose from who do not resort to cheap gimmicks to grab your money. I would say pass on this one.
Features:
- coded on WP core functions
- graph reports of orders and stock
- extensive extensions
- create a shop using shortcodes and widgets
- products can be filtered
- one-step checkout, right upon installation
- affiliate program to resell club membership for Jigoshop
MarketPress (Download)
Here we have yet another who is less than honest. They have tacked on their competitor’s name to the front of their name to deceive people who are looking for the competition into coming to their site. This is a tacky trick that sickens me. It seems to scream out that they do not have a good enough product to stand on its own.
Add onto this that they have no free version and I am staunchly against this company. They have benefited as much as anyone from community software, so should give something back to the community without charge. Having a second product that costs is fine, but to not give back to repay what they received freely is low.
Features:
- digital products are handled well, including limits and tracking
- coupons
- product variations fully customizable
- supports many payment systems
- multisite ready
DukaPress (Download)
Although a business must make money, this one feels like they built a great product and then chopped it up into pieces so you have to buy many different parts to get a whole shop. Also, the demo worked with the Add to Cart buttons, but one Buy Now button failed. This company does not have a clear idea of what it is doing. Use at your own risk.
Features:
- invoices can be printed
- digital products
- shop vs. catalog modes
- scalable system
Ecwid Shopping Cart (Download)
On their WP page they claim it is a free shopping solution. Dig a little deeper and you will find they have a free and a $17/mo solution. There is no problem with charging, but to advertise that the plugin is a free shop is less than honest. Buyer beware!
Features:
- social network integration
- multisite mirrored shop
- many shippers
- many payment systems
- terms & conditions to be accepted
- shopper’s IP basis for real-time shipping estimates
Zingiri Web Shop (Download)
At least they are honest enough to not pass it off as free. Although this is a functional shop, I would not pay money for it. The interface is ugly and lacks certain intuitive aspects.
Features:
- xml file importing
- both orders and stock are managed
- special module for CRM
- AJAX technology
- professional extensions
wpStoreCart (Download)
At their website you are greeted by a popup that says Save over $1,200 off wpStoreCart PRO Unlimited. Only $89.99 until May 1st. Buy once, own all future versions for life! When you get inside you see many wpStoreCart Pro purchases of varying prices, but none even close to $1,200 or even close to $89.99. This smells of another deceitful business trying to milk money from an unsuspecting visitor. The one nice add-on is the desktop notifier for Windows, telling you when you have a sell (free of charge).
Features:
- registration is customizable
- Paypal (free version), more payment options in Pro.
- product variations and properties
- discounts and coupons
- low overhead, real-time statistics
- customer management and history
WP Online Store (Download)
WP Online Store is your basic osCommerce website tucked into WP. You benefit from SEO, but you lose payment and shipping options that they break out and charge for. Ultimately, you would be better off keeping the original osCommerce. The admin area is identical.
Features:
- osCommerce features (minus payment and shipping options)
- benefits from WP SEO, as all other shops do
The Final Word
While every e-commerce business has to earn money, how they do it can alienate potential customers. Every one of these plugins are guilty of deceit and trickery in order to finagle your money from you. The only two that are honest are WordPress Simple Paypal Shopping Cart and eShop. If it does not bother you, go ahead, but I must say that eShop is our #1 choice for an e-commerce shop solution.
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