Top 4 Ecommerce Tools for WordPress

WordPress is the real CMS but now it has introduced its latest stage of evolution which is e-commerce. In case your products are being sold over the internet, you must consider WordPress as a platform for performing the functions of ecommerce.

There are certain shopping cart plugins of various resources for WordPress which are there in the market for a long time.

These plugins have developed gradually and are taking time to evolve in WordPress community. These days, WordPress is doing fairly well with its ecommerce feature.

Before we discuss the shopping carts for WordPress, we must understand why the integration of your shopping cart and CMS is required at one platform i.e WordPress.

Integration of Shopping Cart and CMS

Earlier, we used to handle two systems on the site. One was for the online store and another was for the marketing blog and site. But now with new and advanced developments, things have changed.Your products can be cross-promoted with the content of other website by integrating WordPress CMS with the shopping cart.

For example, you use the home page of your website to promote the headlines of your blog along with the ‘hot’ products. A flash sale can be announced in the homepage slider. This callout can be carried across the website with the help of WordPress widgets.

If we look at the administrative aspect, only one login has to be used by you or your client for a single system to handle all the aspects in the operation. The analytics tool will keep a check on one website which makes it easy to measure and view the sales funnel.

User-friendly Experience for Your Developers and Your Customers

Have you ever experienced such a situation when you visit an attractive homepage of a business website? The design is very appealing, the marketing copy is precise and to the point and overall, it provides a dynamic user experience. You are satisfied with the experience so you click on the link ‘Store’.

But with this click, you land in a page which has an outdated and clunky design. You get disappointed and the overall impression of the brand as well as the website takes a worse turn. This creates doubt in the mind of the customers for purchasing the product.

The shopping cart system in the WordPress site gives you the same design across the website. It ensures that the customers view the same quality and same design right from the homepage till the end.

It is very useful for the developers as they do not have to manage two separate systems and match stylesheets to create a fake integration.

They also do not have to make updates at two places simultaneously. Integration means centralized functionality, easy maintenance and one codebase.

The Best Ecommerce Tools for WordPress

Here we discuss four best Ecommerce tools for WordPress.

The selling experience on WordPress has really improved. With the advent of the amazing frameworks and plugins, ecommerce has developed on WordPress.

WooCommerce

WooThemes launched WooCommerce last month. It is its exclusive ecommerce framework. This is a very advanced shopping cart solution for WordPress. It is conceptualized from Jigoshop plugin andcomprises of many powerful features such as inventory management, tax options, various product types (downloadable, configurable, simple), reporting features and marketing tools.It is very simple to use and gives a dynamic user experience.

It is very easy to create coupons in WooCommerce. You can select specific products instead of creating coupons. The coupon can be applied to your shopping cart. The settings included are coupon amount, usage limit, expiration date etc.

Orders page is another important feature of WooCommerce. You can find every detail regarding the orders such as shipping information, status and notes for order processing. Here, changes can be saved in your order, stock count can be reduced and restored, an invoice can be emailed or the order can be moved to trash.

Cart66

A WordPress plugin, Cart66 offers all the features of ecommerce functionality such as tax and shipping options, inventory tracking, product configurations and many more.

Cart66 stands out amongst its competitors because it offers premium membership subscriptions and sells physical and digital products. In case you sell the web content regularly or mail the magazine subscriptions, you must use Cart66.
Both the paid and free versions of Cart66 are available.

In other e-commerce solutions, information about the product is entered in the forms made by the plugin. Product views are generated on the store pages. It can clash with the theme you are using.

Cart66 has ‘Add to Cart’ button. It allows you to use the basic content creation tools of WordPress to create product pages. You have the option to arrange the descriptions of the product and images as per your choice. Use Cart66 button to place ‘Add to Cart’ button.

Shopp

Shopp is another popular ecommerce tool for WordPress. It was introduced a long time back. So it has incorporated many developed features in its lifespan. The best feature of Shopp is its design customization.
Shopp offers premium add-ons like WooCommerce. Other features include shipping service integrations and various payment gateways.

‘Priority Support Calls’ is another upgrade for Shopp. This add-on is paid and gives a quicker response time.
Shopp can be installed very easily. The settings of Shopp give you a complete control over the store without any complicated configuration options.

WP E-Commerce

WP E-Commerce is also called GetShopped.org. This plugin follows a simple approach to sell the products on WordPress site. It offers all the features of ecommerce functionality. It is an SEO optimized  plugin.

You can avail the additional features in the form of premium extensions. It offers a ‘Gold Chart’ package which provides various payment gateways, shipping integrations and live product search.

This plugin is very easy to install. It provides support to regular WordPress widgets. It utilizes template tags and shortcodes.