More businesses transition to the e-commerce industry as more consumers shop online. For the past couple of years, retail e-commerce sales worldwide have grown dramatically and are expected to reach USD 7.4 trillion by 2025.
This growth is not surprising since many businesses have moved online to stay afloat. In Singapore, in particular, companies are going digital to cope with COVID-19 disruptions.
Out of all website builders for e-commerce, WordPress is the most popular since it is free and easy to use. Many businesses from across the world use WordPress to create an e-commerce website.
The problem, however, is that with 43.2% of all websites on the internet using WordPress, how can you make your WordPress e-commerce website stand out from the rest? Choosing the right WordPress plugin is crucial to creating a better platform and improving your customers’ user experience.
Read on to find out what your WordPress plugins options are.
15 WordPress Plugins That Are Useful For E-commerce Website
1. WooCommerce
It is the most popular WordPress plugin for e-commerce since it allows you to sell on your WordPress e-commerce website, whether they are digital or physical goods. But that is not all because the WooCommerce plugin comes bundled with Paypal.
As long as you install the WooCommerce plugin on your WordPress e-commerce website, you can set up payment gateway options such as credit card and Paypal payments.
Best for: Incorporating content and commerce
Price: Free with premium extensions
2. WPForms
Another WordPress plugin that is useful for e-commerce websites is WPFormsThis WordPress plugin helps you create a responsive contact form that can change its dimension depending on the user’s device as long as you have embedded it anywhere on your WordPress e-commerce website.
If you do not have time to create a customer contact form for your e-commerce business, you may choose from pre-built templates and change the necessary details before embedding.
Best for: Adding a contact form on an e-commerce website
Price: Free / $39.50 per year for a basic plan
3. OptinMonster
OptinMonster is a popular WordPress plugin for conversion rate optimisation (CRO) since it can help grow the number of subscribers on an e-commerce website. And in the long run, using OptinMonster can help you reach out to your loyal customers.
Once you have downloaded OptinMonster and installed it, you can create high-converting conversion campaigns like a popup banner or floating bar to nudge your customers to take action.
Best for: Growing subscribers on an e-commerce website
Price: $9 for a basic plan per month / $49 per month for a growth plan
4. MonsterInsights
If you want to manage your traffic and sales intuitively, consider installing MonsterInsights. This WordPress plugin gives you the power of Google Analytics. Expect you can get invaluable insights about your customers, like how they use and interact with your WordPress e-commerce website.
All you need to do is click the button in your WordPress dashboard where the MonsterInsights plugin is and you will get real-time data on your e-commerce website’s traffic and sales performance.
Best for: Gaining insights to increase traffic, sales, and revenue
Price: Normally starts from $199.50 per year
5. Cart Recovery For WordPress
In the e-commerce industry, not all visitors turn into paying customers. Sometimes, even if a potential customer browsed from one web page to another, their mind can change at the last minute.
According to Sleeknote, 7 out of 10 consumers will abandon their shopping cart, which causes problems for e-commerce business owners. To avoid this from happening on your WordPress e-commerce website, you need to install a plugin called Cart Recovery For WordPress.
The purpose of this is to track customers’ names and email addresses so they can quickly perform retargeting campaigns. Retargeting is a digital marketing strategy that online businesses use to send a follow-up reminder to visitors about their abandoned shopping carts.
Best for: Tracking and recovering abandoned carts
Price: Free / $39 per year for a single e-commerce website
6. Social Media Share Buttons & Social Sharing Icons
Even though 68% of online experience begins by clicking on the web pages on search engine results pages (SERPs), the growing number of social media users is not something you should ignore.
Besides sharing your products or services by posting on your social media, let your customers share the products or services they want on their newsfeed. As long as you install Social Media Share Buttons & Social Sharing Icons on your e-commerce website, your customers easily share your product or service on their social media.
Best use for: Allowing visitors to share on social media platforms
Price: Free / Premium version start at $29.98
7. Wholesale Suite
Another useful WordPress Plugin for an ecommerce website is Wholesale Suite since it comes with three plugins, which add additional features to your platform, such as:
- Allow wholesale pricing options
- Enable to set a minimum to maximise price
- Create responsive wholesale order forms
The purpose of these three additional plugins that Wholesale Suite has is to accommodate bulk buyers. These are shoppers that buy more than one product, whether for personal or business use.
Best use for: E-commerce business that offers wholesale prices
Price: Free / Premium version normally start at $297.00
8. SearchWP
Instead of searching from one web page to another, customers can now find what they are looking for by category. As long as you install SearchWP on your ecommerce website, you can expect your customers’ user experience will improve since as soon as they type on something on the search bar, the live search form will appear.
By then, your customers will only need to choose one from the suggested term on the live search form for anything related or similar to their search intent.
Best use for: Showing better search results on an e-commerce website
Price: Standard plan normally starts at $199 per year
9. Redirection
Online shopping is becoming more popular due to its convenience that allows customers to shop at any time, but what would happen if one of your products were discontinued and you removed the page from your website? Your potential customers will be brought to “404 ERROR PAGE NOT FOUND” page.
Instead of disappointing your customers, consider redirecting the traffic from the page that has been removed to a page that will inform them about the product discontinuity or when you will replenish your stock or what is the alternative similar product they can purchase.
Otherwise, your customers will get disappointed, and they might leave your WordPress e-commerce website and look for a similar shop that offers the same product. Prevent such cases from happening by installing the Redirection. It is a WordPress plugin that helps keep track of 404 errors and manage 301 redirects.
If installed correctly, your customers will less likely to stumble upon 404 errors on your e-commerce website. The redirection plugin will do the redirection based on the data of the user’s browsers.
Best use for: Redirecting broken links to another page
Price: Free with no premium version
10. Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart
Did you know that an average social media user spends 3 hours and 53 minutes a day? If you consider that almost all of your potential customers do the same thing every day, would you not use this opportunity and consider selling on social media?
Improve the traffic and sales of your e-commerce business by installing Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart. This WordPress plugin allows you to sell on social media like Facebook and Instagram by automatically syncing your products and your customers’ orders.
Best for: Selling on Facebook and Instagram
Price: Free / Venture plan starts $12.50 per month
11. iThemes Security
Even though the internet seems like a safe place, a cyber attack can happen every 39 seconds. If you do not increase the security of your e-commerce website, you are putting your business and customers at risk.
Help protect your e-commerce website by installing iThemes Security. This WordPress plugin can help you identify any cyber attack and prevent it from bypassing your e-commerce website. Below are the layers of security iThemes Security can offer:
- Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)
- Password Requirements
- reCAPTCHA (Pro plan)
- Passwordless Logins (Pro plan)
- Trusted Devices (Pro plan)
Best for: Securing data on an e-commerce website
Price: Free / basic plan starts at $80 per year
12. Quick and Easy FAQs
If your potential customers are unfamiliar with the latest products you release on your WordPress e-commerce website, expect them to ask never-ending questions. Instead of answering all of the time one by one, you should include a frequently asked questions (FAQs) section whenever you launch a new product or service.
With this, your potential customers will only need to check the FAQs section. If they cannot find the answer they are looking for, that is the time when they can reach out to you and personally ask about their concern.
Make this from happening by installing Quick and Easy FAQs, This WordPress plugin lives up to its name by allowing you to create FAQ pages quickly and easily. Including a FAQ section can also assist to cut customer support costs and increase conversion, so it’s a valuable addition.
Best for: Providing answer to customers’ questions
Price: Free
13. LiteSpeed Cache
Since more consumers are shopping online, you need to improve the speed of your e-commerce website. If it takes longer than 3 seconds to load, expect your potential customers to leave right away.
Prevent that by installing LiteSpeed Cache on your e-commerce website to improve its loading speed of the contents on your website such as texts and images.
Best for: Improving loading speed of an e-commerce website
Price: Free / premium version starts at $65 per month
14. Easy Digital Downloads (EDD)
If your e-commerce business only sells digital products (PDF, eBooks, audio clips, digital artwork), Easy Digital Downloads is the right WordPress plugin for you. Installing this on your WordPress e-commerce website allows your customers to download the digital items once they have made their payments.
Best for: Selling digital products
Price: Free / $99.50 per year for a personal pass
15. Store Locator (Google Maps) For WordPress
If your e-commerce business has several physical stores, this WordPress plugin can integrate Google Maps on your website to provide your potential customers with the information on your store location.
As long as you integrate the right addresses for each branch, your potential customers can quickly know where to go by tapping on the store locator. They also type in their location and discover which brand is nearest to them that they can visit.
Best for: Displaying store locations on an WordPress e-commerce website
Price: Free / professional plan starts at $39.99
Wrap Up!
Any of the above WordPress plugins will benefit your e-commerce website, but it is crucial to choose the one you need the most. If you are unsure about your choice, reach out to an e-commerce SEO agency to help you with e-commerce website development to further improve your customers’ user experience.
For more e-commerce and website development tips, read through our blog page or contact OOm at +65 6391 0930 or leave a message on our website to learn more.
