WordPress is a great solution and starting point for small businesses who lack the resources to pay for a professionally developed e-commerce website. Even better, if you are having a website professionally built for you, building it on the WordPress platform gives you a site that you will be able to easily manage yourself going forward. As it is one of the most popular Web publishing platforms available on the market, it comes as no surprise that over 23% of all websites are powered by WordPress (w3techs.com).
Businesses use WordPress for a number of reasons, but one key benefit is the ability to have complete control over its design elements. Small businesses are no longer faced with the headache of incorporating endless lines of coding in order to modify or enhance their e-Commerce site. By its very nature, WordPress is extendable, offering merchants the ability to customize their site using e-commerce plug-ins for WordPress.
Check out 5 excellent e-Commerce plug-ins for WordPress that online companies are quick to choose:
JIGOSHOP
This particular plug-in is well-suited for small to medium sized businesses. As a freebie plug-in, it certainly strikes rich in the features department by offering an array of customizable options for payments, order tracking, shipping and search mechanisms. Jigoshop also offers over 40 free extensionsfor expanding its functionality. The dashboard is extremely user-friendly, so putting together an online shop is a snap.
SHOPP
Shopp is a free handy plug-ingreat for any business e-Commerce toolkit. Introduced in 2008 this e-Commerce software boasts tight security and consistentlypasses PCI vulnerability scans every day. Keeping important data from getting into the wrong hands is a big asset with this plug-in. Another great feature of Shopp is its speedy load time for queries and product catalogues.
CART 66
Cart66 provides online merchants a clean and organized e-commerce platform. This particular plug-in integrates robust security, so the need for SSL certificates are minimized. Although this e-commerce plug-in doesn’t fall under the category of free (cost $169), this software offers free upgrades for life, use on unlimited sites, and one year of professional support.
YAK
A 100% free e-commerce platform that offers a smooth process for shipping and tax management, offering discount coupon codes, and accepting payments via PayPal Standard, PayPal Pro, Authorize.Net, and Google Checkout.
WP e-COMMERCE
As the original WordPress plug-in,WP e-Commerce has been around long enough to understand the needs of online businesses. The key features of this open source plug-in includes ease of use, ability to monitor sales/reports and solid coupon management.
These 5 excellent e-Commerce plug-ins for WordPress are just a small snapshot of the many available plug-ins available. Online businesses would benefit by searching the web to find suitable e-Commerce plug-ins that fit well with their own specific needs.
