WordPress is a powerful eCommerce platform for smaller retailers. We look at four WordPress eCommerce solutions that’ll turn your site into a sales machine using WordPress Payment Plugins.
There are several powerful open source eCommerce applications available, Shopify being just one example, so you might wonder why a retailer would choose to use WordPress instead of a more specialized application. After all, WordPress is essentially a blogging platform with content management features.
While it’s true that WordPress development has focused on content management, it’s also a flexible platform that allows for the integration of third-party plugins that can add much of the functionality that one would find in a dedicated eCommerce application. That’s not to say WordPress is the best choice if you plan to launch a large eCommerce site with hundreds of products — it isn’t, but for smaller stores, it is more than capable.
If you’re already familiar with the WordPress way, then coming to a dedicated eCommerce application like Shopify has a high learning curve, and unless you really need some seriously advanced eCommerce features, the time it takes to learn how to use something like Shopify may not be worth the effort.
With that in mind, in this article, I’d like to give a brief overview of my favorite WordPress payment plugins for your eCommerce site. If you’ve had success with an eCommerce plugin I don’t mention here, feel free to let me know in the comments.
1. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is one of the most popular eCommerce integrations for WordPress, and with good reason. It offers a comprehensive selection of features including elegant store management, marketing and promotion features like coupon campaigns, a solid shipping implementation, and great eCommerce SEO.
WooCommerce is so popular that it has its own plugin ecosystem, with premium plugins for subscription selling and dynamic pricing, among others.
Features of WooCommerce:
- Customization: Works with various themes and plugins
- Flexibility: Supports multiple product types
- Pay-As-You-Go Model: Start with a free store plugin that only takes a small percentage whenever you make a sale
- Add-On Plugins: offers numerous free and paid extensions, such as the ability to take and manage subscriptions and recurring payments
- Built-In Payment Options: Supports various payment gateways (e.g., PayPal, Stripe) with flexible payment methods (credit/debit cards, bank transfers, cash on delivery)
- Comprehensive Store Management: Inventory and stock level tracking, order management and refund handling, detailed sales and customer reports
2. Easy Digital Downloads
Easy Digital Downloads is a different sort of eCommerce plugin, designed for the selling of digital goods like software, music, and ebooks. It’s more limited than the others, but the one thing it does, it does well. If you’re only going to be selling downloadable products, then Easy Digital Downloads is a better option than more complex alternatives.
Easy Digital Downloads started off as a free payments plugin for developers but grew over the years to offer many premium plugins for selling subscriptions, onboarding, analytics, and much more.
Features of Easy Digital Downloads:
- Customization: Works with various themes and plugins
- Flexibility: Supports multiple product types
- Pay-As-You-Go Model: Start with a free store plugin that only takes a small percentage whenever you make a sale
- Add-On Plugins: offers numerous free and paid extensions, such as the ability to take and manage subscriptions and recurring payments
- Built-In Payment Options: Supports various payment gateways (e.g., PayPal, Stripe) with flexible payment methods (credit/debit cards, bank transfers, cash on delivery)
3. Mindspun Payments
Likewise designed for selling digital goods, Mindspun Payments allows you to create and showcase your eCommerce store directly in your blog posts. It works with the Stripe payment gateway to easily manage subscriptions and memberships without leaving your website. This is a great all-in-one eCommerce solution for all SaaS developers and digital creators.
Features of Mindspun:
- Flexibility: Supports multiple product types and purchase types such as recurring payments, one-time payments, memberships, subscriptions, and more
- Onboarding: Includes easily customizable Checkout page, Thank You page, User Management page, Email communications, etc.
- Customization and Branding: Includes Mindspun Responsive Blocks – more powerful Gutenberg blocks – to customize your branding in your onboarding pages and blog posts
- Built-In Payment Gateway: Automatically connects to your Stripe payment gateway
- Product Management: Manage all your products in your Stripe account
- All-In-One Payment Model: Includes all of the above features for one low monthly fee. No add-ons necessary.
4. Ninja Forms
Another option for selling downloadable products is the integration of Forms Plugins into your blog posts. Ninja Forms is just one of many Forms Plugins that allow you to accept payments directly on your site. This is a good eCommerce option for selling a single digital product, such as a PDF manual, that does not require user management.
Features of Ninja Forms:
- Drag-and-Drop Interface: User-friendly drag-and-drop form builder.
- Pre-built Templates: Variety of form templates for quick setup.
- Conditional Logic: Show or hide fields based on user input.
- Multi-Part Forms: Create multi-step forms for improved user experience.
- Spam Protection: Honeypot and Google reCAPTCHA for spam prevention.
- Email Notifications: Customizable email notifications and confirmations.
Conclusion
If I was forced to choose a payments plugin from the options I’ve highlighted here, I’d have to go for Mindspun Payments thanks to its all-in-one capabilities. WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads, while dynamic, require many additional plugins to answer my needs. The Forms Plugins are great if you just need to capture simple credit card payments and not much else. Since these WordPress payments plugins are all available with free trials, I suggest you check them all out and see which best fits your needs.