WooCommerce used to be a simple WordPress plug-in. WordPress lets you make a website, but it doesn’t have an e-commerce feature. This means that you can’t have a “checkout” button on your website. WooCommerce made a plug-in that lets WordPress website owners charge their customers money and then make it easy for their customers to check out and finish an order.
WooCommerce is more than just that now. With WooCommerce’s platform, you can now make a website.
What you get in return is:
- Web hosting
- solution for e-commerce
- Web builder
- Marketing tools
- Mobile app
Even though WooCommerce itself is free, you still have to pay for many other things, such as hosting, themes, and services for building websites. The only thing you get for free with WooCommerce is the plug-in that you will use with your WordPress account.
The other things you need are not free, so here is a list of the seven best alternatives to WooCommerce as an e-commerce plug-in.
Memberpress
This is one of the best plug-ins because you can sell both products and paid memberships with it. Its main focus is on subscription purchases, so if you are selling an online course, it is a great alternative.
You can charge for drip-content in addition to subscriptions. It can work with a variety of payment gateways and tools that can help you get more paying subscribers.
Memberpress is a plug-in for WordPress, just like WooCommerce, and it claims to be the all-in-one plug-in.
Here are some reasons why you should use MemberPress:
- Easy to set up, and no coding is needed
- Access rules that are strong
- You can offer coupons on your website and set up community forums.
- Has an affiliate program and works with any theme
- Has a detailed dashboard for reporting
- Simple ways to connect to PayPal and Stripe as payment gateways
The Basic package costs $149 per year, which comes out to about $12 per month. At this price, you can only use the plug-in on one website. However, you can have as many members as you want and upload as much content as you want.
As your package gets better, you’ll get more benefits. The price of the Plus package is $249, and the price of the Pro package is $349. With these packages, you can use the plugin on more than one website, set up an affiliate system, and get special add-ons.
Downloads that are easy
This one is also made for WordPress, but it pretty much covers selling digital goods like artwork, music, paintings, eBooks, software, videos or movies, and more. With this plug-in, you can manage software licenses, take payments, and use the other tools to improve your business’s bottom line.
Easy Digital Downloads has the following pros:
- Management of Shopping Cart Customers
- Coupon codes
- Data reporting
You can use either a “Buy Now” button or a “Add to Cart” button with the shopping cart, but you don’t have to. You can change how the shopping cart looks, and your customers can even save what’s in their carts.
With the Customer Management feature, you can see each customer’s record and keep track of it, change it, or delete it. If you can see what a customer is buying, you can make a better marketing plan for that customer and probably sell more goods.
With the discount codes, you can give them discounts based on a percentage or a flat rate. You can set start and end dates for the coupons and limit the number of times a customer can use the code.
Like other software tools, this one has a report that you can use to look at how well your business is doing. You can save the report as a CSV file and then open it in a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel to see what it says.
There are four different plans, and the cheapest one costs $99 per year. The plug-in can only be used on one website, but it comes with tools for email marketing and other features.
You have to pay $199 per year to charge for subscriptions. The two plans cost between $299 and $499 per year, but you can use the same license on an unlimited number of websites and use other add-ons.
WPForms
This plug-in was made to help you make forms for members on your website. Even though it looks like a simple form builder, Stripe or PayPal can be used to charge customers’ credit cards.
WPForms is a drag-and-drop builder for forms. A form lets a potential customer sign up, give you information, or fill out a survey.
Here’s what the plug-in does for you:
- It’s easy to use and has a drag-and-drop feature.
- Form templates that can be used and changed
- Instant alerts for mobile devices
- Has a way to pay for purchases or donations
- Can be used for email marketing as a sign-up form
- Easy to put on blogs or sidebars as a widget.
Aside from this, WPForms has an add-on for PayPal. This means you can link your PayPal account so that you can charge your customers or finish online orders. It also has an add-on called Stripe, which works like PayPal and lets you charge customers online for donations or payments.
WPForms starts at $39.50 per year for the price. At this Basic plan, you can only use the unlimited forms and other features, but you can’t charge money. If you want to charge money, you need the third plan, which is called “Pro.” This costs $199.50 per year, but you can get extra features like PayPal and Stripe.
The Elite is the last plan. It costs $299.50 a year, and you can use it on as many sites as you want. You will also get all the features of the lower plans, plus extra help with client management.
Shopify
Shopify is probably the best e-commerce platform, even though it is not a plug-in. You can build a fully functional e-commerce site for as little as $29 per month.
The problem with WooCommerce is that you have to pay for a lot of things to get your website up and running. To make your website work, you also need to connect several pieces of software. On the other hand, Shopify is an all-in-one website builder.
Here are some things about Shopify:
- Set up an online shop.
- Put your products or digital content on your site. Have a blog.
- You should charge your customers for what they buy.
- Use one that is free.
- Affordable
- Domain name and SSL certificate are both free.
- Can be used with a number of payment gateways.
- Has thousands of apps that can improve the way your store looks and works.
All you have to do to use Shopify is sign up, and then you can start building your online store. Shopify has a built-in payment processor, so you don’t need to choose another plug-in to be able to charge money. But you can use one of the many other options.
Shopify works in a lot of different countries, but it only has four plans. The Lite plan is the least expensive, but you can’t build a website with it. The Advanced plan, which costs $299 per month, is the most expensive.
Wix eCommerce
Wix is a site builder, just like Shopify. This means you don’t have to know how to use WordPress to use it. You can build a store with it, and you don’t need to install a plug-in like WooCommerce to charge money.
With Wix, you can build an online store for as little as $13 per month and keep all of the money you make from sales. You can also get your own domain name.
When you use Wix, you get:
- There are many topics to choose from.
- Beautiful product galleries
- Order tracking
- Payment processors
- The sales and marketing
- Tools for shipping and tax management
Wix offers three ways to pay. The lowest one costs $13 a month, and the most expensive one costs $49 a month. All plans are billed on an annual basis.
Spending up to $750 per month will get you better systems and tools, but this is only for enterprise accounts or large businesses that need a website.
Ecwid
Ecwid is a platform that lets you set up a free online store. It works like Shopify, and you can add it as a plug-in to your existing WordPress site. Even though the business sounds new, it has been around since 1999.
You don’t have to know how to code to build an online store with Ecwid, but if you do know how, you can change the code. As a simple plug-in, it also works with other social media sites.
If you already have WordPress and don’t want to build another store, all you have to do is use the WordPress plug-in to start charging your customers.
Here are some things that Ecwid can do:
- Sales Channels: You can sell it on Mobile Google Shopping, Amazon, eBay, Vend, and Facebook Messenger.
- Marketing: You can use the app or plug-in to create marketing actions on Facebook, Google Ads, and other places like email. Coupons can also be used.
- Reporting: It has a powerful tool for reporting that lets you see data analytics. You can even connect it to Google Analytics and Squiz, which are also analysis tools.
At least $15 per month is needed to use Ecwid. Building a website is free, but the e-commerce service costs money. With the Unlimited plan, which is the most expensive, you pay $99 a month and can upload as many products as you want.
WPeCommerce
WPeCommerce is the way that WordPress lets people pay for things. You can use this if you sign up for a Business account or higher. It is the plug-in that turns your WordPress blog or website into an online store. Since WordPress made it, you can be sure that it will work better than WooCommerce.
The WPeCommerce plug-in has the following benefits:
- You can add items to the catalog on your website.
- You will have a dashboard for reporting so you can keep track of your sales.
- You can change how much tax you charge and how much shipping costs.
- Use more than one way for your customers to pay you.
The plug-in is safe and uses high-level encryption because it was made by WordPress for WordPress. Customers can check out safely, and you can improve your marketing with other plug-ins.
Summary
If you want to sell online, you can use many plug-ins, e-commerce apps, or platforms. Even though WooCommerce is free, it can be hard to use. It is better to use an e-commerce platform that has everything you need or a plug-in that does the job right away.
