The best free e-commerce plugin for WordPress that helps you develop, grow, and secure your eCommerce stores is highlighted here. So, it will undoubtedly suit the bill.
1. WooCommerce: All-in-one solution to sell online
When it comes to WordPress eCommerce plugins, WooCommerce is undoubtedly an unbeatable winner. Since the day it came to life, WooCommerce has steadily taken the world of WordPress online stores by storm.
This free and open source WordPress plugin leads as the most favored option among the top millions of eCommerce sites. It has been installed on over 5 million websites with over 128 million downloads and counting so far.
Why WooCommerce is The best Free Ecommerce Plugin For WordPress
WooCommerce is an affordable way to start an online store, considering the plugin is free. Even their themes and extensions are not that expensive.
Its flexibility to support physical/digital goods, subscriptions, and appointments deserve a thumbs up.
WooCommerce itself is for both beginners and developers. While the user interface is intuitive enough for beginners, developers find it easy to make any desired customization with comprehensive documentation and the REST API.
2. Easy digital download: The ideal option for selling digital files
Coming in as the first runner-up on this list is Easy Digital Download (aka EDD). This giant blue whale has made its name as a formidable competitor to the Purple Ninja.
When it comes to solutions for selling digital products, EDD is an assistant. This WordPress eCommerce plugin has a simple user interface that helps you manage and sell digital products on WordPress sites with ease. Yes, WooCommerce also supports digital products. However, EDD outshines with more specialized digital sales features.
Why EDD Proves to be The Best Free Ecommerce Plugin For WordPress
- By removing more advanced features for e-books, music, and software, EDD turns out to be the best option for selling digital downloads.
- The main plugin is 100% free. Once installed, ready to use, you will have a digital sales platform, with features for file access control, discount codes and activity tracking.
3. Shopify: independent cloud-based e-commerce platform
Believe it or not Shopify is one of the largest e-commerce platforms in the world. When looking at the top 100,000 eCommerce sites, Shopify took the crown from WooCommerce and gained global dominance.
Why Shopify is the best WordPress eCommerce plugin
Shopify is completely cloud-based. This means you can run your eCommerce store anywhere with an internet connection. Shopify is a fully hosted platform, meaning there is no software to install, manage, or update. You are also free from worrying about performance, security, backup and compatibility issues. Shopify can handle physical and digital products. It integrates perfectly with almost everything. You can even create a Facebook shop or a shoppable pin on Pinterest.
How PDA Gold Protects Your WooCommerce Digital Downloads
Restrict access to registered users or paid members. You can selectively grant access and create membership tiers to premium customers. Integrate beautifully with eCommerce plugins and LMS systems to protect videos, PDFs, and learning courses.
Generate private product download links and share them with specific users. You can also protect, track, and expire download links after multiple clicks or days.
Effectively block Google indexing and direct linking, protecting your digital assets from the public eye and speeding up your stores.
4. Yoast SEO – SEO Optimization Specialist
It achieved more than 5 million active installations and 202 million downloads. Yoast SEO stands out as the most reliable SEO optimization plugin for WordPress sites. Making use of Yoast SEO allows you to optimize and improve the visibility of your store for the target audience without the need for an SEO specialist.
Why YoastSEO is the best WordPress eCommerce plugin?
Yoast SEO optimizes all aspects of your online stores, from structuring your product page data, store category page to product content. The plugin offers title and meta description templates for better branding and consistent snippets in search results.
You have the right to manage and control the navigation paths of the site. This tells customers and search engines exactly where they are.
Yoast is powered by world-renowned SEO experts and developers. This means that you will always get premium support whenever problems arise.
5. Password Protected WordPress Pro – The Perfect Solution for WooCommerce Store Visibility
Trusted by over 10 thousand active users and receiving hundreds of 5-star reviews, Password Protect WordPress (PPWP) Pro becomes the leading plugin to lock down your WordPress pages, posts, custom post types, and entire site with passwords.
The plugin allows you to cover any WooCommerce product page under a password form.
Why PPWP Pro is the best WordPress eCommerce plugin
PPWP Pro helps protect WooCommerce product pages with one or multiple passwords. You have the right to decide when your protected product passwords will expire by setting their usage limit or expiration time.
Prevent users from accessing blocked products or the store page through quick access links. Buyers do not have to enter the correct password to open these pages.
6. Smush – Image Optimizer and Compressor
Smush appears as the most favored image optimization plugin on the market. Your e-commerce sites contain numerous product images, which can slow down your sites. It is essential to optimize them to increase site speed and improve the shopping experience.
Why Smush is the best WordPress eCommerce plugin
Smush allows you to set the maximum image resolution. Your images will be reduced to more reasonable sizes as they are compressed. You can track images that slow down your site speed.
7. Sucuri Security: Malware and Brute Force Attack Solution
Managing and expanding your business is not enough. You must pay attention to protect your hard-to-maintain stores and products from attackers and unauthorized users.
Why Sucuri is the best WordPress eCommerce plugin
Sucuri is able to protect itself from attacks before they even reach its servers. This is useful for keeping your site’s and customers’ largely private data, such as credit cards or bank accounts, in a safe hand.
Your eCommerce site will be scanned every 3 hours to look for malware, malicious JavaScript, malicious iframes, suspicious redirects, spam link injections and other bad stuff.
Sucuri has raised the bar in malware removal. Even if your stores are affected by malware, Sucuri will clean your site on the spot at no additional cost.
8. WP Rocket – Caching Plugin to Speed Up Ecommerce Stores
Speed plays a key role in e-commerce stores. An online store that takes longer to load can drive away customers and lead to a higher cart abandonment rate. On the other hand, a fast site is more likely to rank higher in search engines. As a result, we included WP Rocket – a feature-rich caching plugin in this list.
Why WP Rocket is the best WordPress eCommerce plugin
Created with eCommerce dedication in mind, WP Rocket fulfills the duty of caching and optimizing the speed of your site to achieve “blazingly fast” speed. As such, you can kill 2 birds with one stone: increase your SEO and increase conversions.
9. WPForms – WordPress Contact Form Builder
A company must have a reliable means of contacting and staying in touch with customers. How can customers contact you if they have comments or questions about your products and services?
Why WPForms is the best WordPress eCommerce plugin
This free, beginner-friendly contact form plugin offers an intuitive drag-and-drop user interface. Compared to its competitor – Contact Form 7, although it has more active installations, the user interface of Contact Form 7 is not as clear.
WPForms has great user support from pole to pole, with over 4 million active installations. In addition, it is designed by the developers of the popular OptinMonster, MonsterInsight or SeedProd. This proves the reliability of this plugin.
10. LearnDash: the perfect solution for online courses
LearnDash is a hotshot in the LMS field that helps you create and sell online courses on your WordPress sites. Are you looking to create tutoring websites or create multi-layered courses with unlimited lessons, courses, and topics? Opting for LearnDash.
Why LearnDash is the best WordPress eCommerce plugin
LearnDash is trusted and used at many well-known universities, including Johns Hopkins University or the University of Michigan. This is understandable as LearnDash is built based on real experience and knowledge in a learning industry.
FAQs
Q1: Which free WordPress e-commerce plugin is the best?
WooCommerce is the greatest free e-commerce plugin for WordPress. With more than 128 million downloads and over 5 million installations, this all-in-one solution has greatly increased in popularity. WooCommerce is flexible; it can handle appointments, subscriptions, and both digital and physical items. Beginners will find it easy to use, while developers will find it flexible enough to modify as needed.
Q2: Are there any specific e-commerce WordPress plugins available for the sale of digital products?
Yes, Easy Digital Download (EDD) is a great option if your main goal is to sell digital items. A free WordPress e-commerce plugin called EDD was created especially for digital downloads, such as software, music, and e-books. In addition to supporting several payment methods, it provides tools for file access control, discount coupons, and recurring payments.
Conclusion
There are several solutions available for WordPress ecommerce plugins, each meeting a distinct set of requirements. WooCommerce is the finest all-around option since it provides a flexible and free platform that can be used by both developers and novices. It is a top option for many e-commerce websites since it supports a large variety of products and services. Easy Digital Download (EDD) is a specialized plugin that is very effective in the digital products selling space. It is the preferred choice for distributing software, e-books, and music as it provides cutting-edge functionality for digital sales.
