Remember when we used to think that WordPress was a content management system that only works for blogs, online magazines and news websites? Those days have been gone for a while. WordPress ecommerce solutions have been an established reality for years and years now. The most popular one, WooCommerce, currently powers around 30% of all online stores. Yep, 30%. That's a lot of online stores.
Clearly, these platforms allow you to save all the time it would take to build everything up from scratch. On top of that, our WordPress ecommerce themes are perfect if you want to save even more time and get a great design for your store. The themes are not only beautifully designed, but also high-performing and fully customizable.
But first things first, let's get to business with the most important question: which solution is the best for you? Let's take a closer look at the most popular options.
WooCommerce. As we said, this is hands down the most popular choice. It's a WordPress plugin, so it's extremely easy to install (just a couple of clicks). And it's just an all-round great platform, particularly known for its huge amount of features. You can really do anything you like with it! Especially if you integrate it with some of the many top-quality plugins available. Plus, it's free and open source.
Cart66. If WooCommerce is all about the crazy amount of things you can do with it, Cart66 is mainly focused on putting products online and selling them. Its key difference from other systems like WooCommerce lies in the way it handles security. The shopping cart and checkout part of your site is hosted in Cart66 Cloud (as it is now called) servers. And this is not trivial! It means that you won't have to worry about buying things like SSL certificates and gateway services. So while this is not a free solution, keep in mind you'd be saving on the security front.
Jigoshop. Another WordPress e-commerce plugin, Jigoshop is easy to install and has an intuitive interface that you'll learn how to use pretty quickly. Its set of features is also broad, particularly when it comes to marketing your products. It's a free platform, but you can switch to a paid membership to get more features-most users find it quite cost-effective.
WP eCommerce. This one was the first original e-commerce plugin for WordPress, so it's pretty popular in terms of numbers of downloads. It's a good solution if you're getting started and don't have many items to put on sale. The most popular extension for WP eCommerce is Gold Cart, which integrates with 14 different payment gateways.
Finally, here are a few resources from Tuts+ to help you get started:
