WordPress Shopping Carts have become a very popular extension of WordPress for individuals and businesses who would like to start selling their products or services online. With a few mouse clicks and some products, a shopping cart can turn your WordPress website into an online store ready for business.
There are many shopping cart plugins available and they all offer many strengths and weaknesses. Picking one really comes down to a few simple questions.
- Do you want to pay for it?
- How configurable do you need it to be?
- Do you need it to integrate with other services out there? i.e. Google Base, Payment Systems, etc.
- Do you want it to be easy to use?
I have installed and configured a ton of shopping carts for WordPress and I’ve put together this list of shopping cart plugins that I’ve used at one time or another. Â Some are free and some cost a few bucks but they are all used for building an online store with WordPress.
I have to admit however that the PHPPurchase is probably my favorite for a number of reasons, primarily for their support, however I’m glad to work with any of the plugins below. I’ve included a video from PHPPurchase’s website that goes over the features, it also does a pretty good job of explaining how shopping cart’s for WordPress work all around.
They all have their advantages and disadvantages, the best thing to do is a little research and make sure what ever product or service you are offering matches up with the feature set of the shopping cart plugin you end up using.
- PHPPurchase
- WP e-Commerce
- Shopp
- eStore
- Quick Shop
- WP OSCommerce
- ShopperPress
- eShop
- WordPress Shopping Cart Plugin
- MiniCart
- YAK for WordPress
- DPD WordPress Cart
- Simple PayPal Shopping Cart
Here’s the PHPPurchase video I was talking about.
As you look over shopping cart solutions for WordPress, make sure to consider some of the following things.
- Does it sell digital AND physical products?
- Can it handle recurring payments for memberships, payment plans, etc?
- Can you use “promo” or “coupon” codes for promotions you might want to do?
- Is it highly configurable?
- Is it highly customizable?
- Is it SAFE?
- Does it have good support just in case it’s not working properly?
- Is the checkout process easy and fast?
- Can it integrate with other plugins you might use such as email newsletters and image galleries?
What payment processors can it use? Here’s a small list of some of the more popular ones:
- 2CheckOut
- Authorize.net
- eMatters
- eWay
- First Data
- Google Checkout
- MoneyBookers
- Ogone PSP
- PayPal
- Realex Payments
I hope this helps you make a good decision on which shopping cart solution to go with. Good luck.
No comments yet.