This article came about after a comment from Andrew Pitchford on the article 10 Amazing Wordpress Plugins for Flickr, he had enquired about eshopping plugins. So here we are, 10 of the most powerful shopping/ecommerce plugins for Wordpress.

WP e-Commerce plugin for Wordpress

Wordpress Shopping PluginsDescription: The WP e-Commerce shopping cart plugin for WordPress is an elegant easy to use fully featured shopping cart application suitable for selling your products, services, and or fees online.
WP e-Commerce is a Web 2.0 application designed with usability, aesthetics, and presentation in mind.
Note: This is by far and away the most complete and powerful Shopping Plugin you will find for Wordpress. The feature list goes on and on, have a look for yourself here: WP-Ecommerce Features.

Quick Shop plugin for Wordpress

Wordpress Shopping PluginsDescription: QuickShop supports any Wordpress that has the Sidebar Widgets installed, really. It adds a SideBar widget that shows the user what they currently have in the cart and allows them to remove the items, not to mention a TinyMCE button to easily allow you to add products to your posts/pages.
Features: A TinyMCE button. This is practically a copy and changeover from the NextGen Gallery ; Full range of formatting for widget layout in Admin -> Options -> Quickshop ; Two widgets - one is Paypal, the other is set for your custom solution ; Now has both Paypal Subscription and Donation tags ; Ability to create different product options in a drop-down.

eShop plugin for Wordpress

Description: There is a fair few features for this powerful plugin, here are some: use Wordpress pages, or posts, to create products ; list multiple products, with add to cart form, on a single page ; products can have multiple options ; upload downloadable products ; basic Statistics ; download sales data ; 3 methods for calculating shipping charges, plus various zone settings via Country or US State… and a few more.

WP Live-Shopping plugin for Wordpress

Description: This widget enables you to display all relevant live shopping offers within your Wordpress blog in one single widget. You can add the widget to your sidebar and customize its appearance as you like inside the boundaries of LiveShoppingWidgets presentation options.

YAK Shopping Cart plugin for Wordpress

Wordpress Shopping PluginsDescription: YAK is a simple shopping cart plugin for WordPress, associating products with weblog entries — thus the post ID also becomes the product code.
An options screen is used to configure settings for the shopping cart. There are 3 pages in the WordPress Management screens; one for showing and fulfilling orders, another for product management, and basic sales reports.

Are PayPal plugin for Wordpress

Wordpress Shopping PluginsDescription: This plugin is used to monetize wordpress blog content using PayPal. It is designed to sell your knowledge.
Features: Post/Page can be set to contain hidden content ; Instead of the hidden text user is shown a message about the action he has to take to be able to see the content ; Content can be set as hidden for unregistered users and visible for registered ; Content can be set as hidden for unregistered-unpayed users and visible for registered-paid users ; Gogglebot can index hidden content so users can search for a hidden content but can not see it. Other search engines will see only visible content ; Administrator can grant users to access payed content ; All the features are configurable using administration screens ; Plugin uses PayPal IPN - Instant Payment Notification protocol so payment/content delivery process is fully automated.

Paypal Shortcodes plugin for Wordpress

Wordpress Shopping PluginsDescription: This plugin allow to insert Paypal buttons in your posts or pages, just using a shortcode. This plugin doesn't have a management panel at this time, you will need to edit paypal-shortcodes.php and follow the comments.

EasyDonation plugin for Wordpress

Wordpress Shopping PluginsDescription: EasyDonation allows Wordpress users to easily embed a PayPal donation button with one tag.

WP Auctions plugin for Wordpress

Wordpress Shopping PluginsDescription: WP Auctions is a revolutionary plugin for WordPress which allows you to host auctions on your blog and to sell ANYTHING, completely fee-free!
You no longer need to worry about listing fees, seller fees, final value fees, gallery fees or any other type of fee for anything you want to sell online from this day on! Once you list your auctions, you can register your plugin with the WP Auctions Live page and generate some traffic for your website.
Features: Create and host as many auctions as you like ; Upload multiple images for each auction ; Sell items only on ‘Buy It Now’ basis ; Show 3rd party ads when there are no auctions *new ; Get payment via PayPal (PayPal account required) ; RSS feed for your auctions, and many more…

ArtPal plugin for Wordpress

Description: ArtPal is a free (GPL) Wordpress plugin, originally written for Artists, to seemlessly integrate PayPal with their Wordpress blogs so that they can sell their work online.
Features: Easy PayPal integration–all you need to supply is your PayPal email address ; Real-time sales updates–as soon as your item sells, ArtPal will disable it from being sold. You’ll never worry about your item selling twice ; Professionally supported–businesses mean business. Digital Sublimity provides commercial support, so you can be rest assured that your critical application will stay up and running when you need it.

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53 Comments so far

  1. shriya on October 23, 2008 12:51 pm

    Great list. Bookmarked and will be a great reference in my WP projects. Thanks. :-)

  2. Dan Milward on October 23, 2008 8:01 pm

    Thanks for writing about WP e-Commerce and posting a screenshot. We are working on our next release which we think is better and brighter then ever.

    The most notable things to look forward to are new shipping modules, faster loading times, variations overhaul and a better user interface.

    Thanks again…

  3. Andrew Pitchford on October 27, 2008 9:13 pm

    Impressed and grateful! Just returned from New Zealand where I spent a week with the flu and a migraine in meetings. This was a ‘nice surprise’ to come back to and start reviewing.

  4. Daniel Massicotte on October 29, 2008 10:29 am

    These are all free right?

    If they are, this is a big WOW! I can’t believe the tools. Everyone should have the auction feature especially with paypal’s secure payment systems.

  5. Jon Davis on October 30, 2008 8:25 am

    There is also Shopp which is a new e-commerce plugin for WordPress. It’s still in beta, but progress is fast and furious. You can still apply for the beta to get a copy to try out.

  6. Henry on October 30, 2008 1:02 pm

    I’m installing WP e-Commerce on a clients site and learning how this great tool works. If we like it, more of our members will be pointed towards this application for their shopping carts. I hope to have my first site going by the weekend and use it as a demo for my presentation at our next Outsource Workshop the first weekend in November. I just blogged about WP e-Commerce today before I found your site.

    Henry Griner
    WP Lover ;-)
    I.M. Technology Consultant
    http://whoishenry.com

  7. Jennifer Farley on October 31, 2008 9:48 pm

    Very helpful list. I’ve used wp-ecommerce on a couple of sites for clients now and it works really well, but I hadn’t seen many of the other plugins you’ve listed. Thanks.

  8. China on November 1, 2008 9:59 pm

    Great tips! Big thank you from china. Im using wp-liveshopping now…

  9. Robby on November 16, 2008 8:39 am

    Thanks for the ArtPal plug! :)

  10. Dan Milward on November 24, 2008 12:35 pm

    @ Andrew; Cheers mate. It is always good to see and talk to other Kiwi based WP fans :)

    @ Henry; stick with WP e-Commerce and you’ll be right!!!

    The WordPress e-Commrece plugin is gearing up for another release. The next version is hot… ouch ;)

  11. Jonah on December 1, 2008 9:35 pm

    Don’t overlook this one either - it looks to be a major contender with WP e-Commerce: http://tribulant.com/products/view/10/wordpress-shopping-cart-plugin

  12. opicron on December 12, 2008 7:25 am

    I am missing the Shopp plugin on this list. This is an brand new eCommerce plugin which is in my opinion one of the best. Currently I am using it in various sites. The UI and functionality is way ahead of any plugin in the field.

  13. Dan Milward on December 14, 2008 12:23 pm

    Heads up. The WordPress e-Commerce plugin is about to release another version.

    Speaking of APIs a lot of the core code behind the WordPress e-Commerce plugin has been written from scratch making it still the best e-Commerce solution for blogs on the market ;P

    We have spent a lot of time on WordPress 2.7 integration. I am positively shaking at the knees - I can’t wait to get your feedback on this one :)

    Functionality wise we have been following all e-commerce plugins and we still do one or two things that other plugins do not. The WP e-Commerce plugin is mature and has been in active development for over 4 years :P

  14. Herrin on January 2, 2009 8:23 pm

    Their os a new kid in town and he can run pretty fast. Nice user interface and reliable support. Check out the Shopp plugin at http://shopplugin.net/

  15. Jennifer Farley on January 16, 2009 2:59 pm

    Very useful thanks. I’ve used WP-ecommerce on a site for a client and found it to be pretty good. Only problem was the lack of documentation. Will be looking at all of your other suggestions now.

  16. Sharry on January 17, 2009 8:52 am

    Avoid WP-ecommerce like the plague. Purchased a commercial license & the gold cart to allow protx payments last week. There are so many bugs with this plugin, Protx only in test mode, constant changing permalinks, cart showed to only logged in users…I know its good for a free plugin, but if you fork out $200 for something you expect some support. They have support forums which are not answered by staff, just their friends who charge $75 [http://www.stasticdesigns.com/wpecommerce/] for 1hr WP-Ecommerce support. Avoid!

  17. Dan Milward on January 25, 2009 12:30 pm

    WP e-Commerce Plugin Update: The WordPress e-Commerce Plugin is rock solid… especially with the release of the WordPress e-Commerce Plugin 3.6.10 which is pure poetry.

    The Protx payment gateway has been updated to work with WordPress 2.7 and the latest Gold Cart files.

    Support is always given to nice people with big smiles (but not on the Weekends NZT) ;)

  18. David Bourkeoviz on January 26, 2009 9:29 pm

    I agree with Sharry, WP e-Commerce is bug ridden, and very very hard ot make work right, the forums have one awesome guy called shayne, but aside from that there is no help at all!

  19. Dan Milward on January 28, 2009 1:59 pm

    More ninkenpoopery from David (if that is your real name)…

    The WordPress e-Commerce Plugin team have been contributing code to the WordPress community for well over 4 years - that is more then most Davey boy so show some respect ;)

    The WordPress e-Commerce Plugin is a great tool with many great features designed for retailers and people wanting to sell goods online.

    The WordPress e-Commerce Plugin team (us) are in our own forums every day, I am in our Blog every day, and we respond to as many emails as humanly possible… every day.

    This reminds of a Bob Dylan song… “So how many bombs must be dropped before someone stops them forever?”

    The WordPress e-Commerce Plugin just got featured on Smashing Magazine, which is a big site that do their research.

    If the WP e-Commerce Plugin is good enough for them. Good enough for the thousands of people running paid upgrades then it is going to be good enough for the well to do readers on this blog who just want to get on with business and sell.

    Use the WordPress e-Commerce Plugin.

  20. Will on February 12, 2009 11:09 pm

    Sheesh Dan, Sharry and David were not attacking you or the wp e-commerce software. But it seems that something they said really ruffled your feathers. wp e-commerce has some great features, but to say it is “rock solid” may be one of the over statement of the year. I’ve used it with high hopes, and still hoping and watching for the bugs to be exterminated. But the truth is, I’ve lost clients because of the MANY bugs, and I’ve learned to only use it with clients and wordpress sites that won’t be using things like table rate product pricing, variation pricing and stock, and some other features that just are not usable. wp e-commerce really is one of the more mature wordpress ecommerce solutions out there, and maybe that’s why it’s so hard to take the fact that there are enough bugs to make it scary. A project this mature should have most of these things taken care of.

    Now with that said, I’d really like to be a support to a project as worthy as yours. Where do I sign up? Is the best way to visit your website and leave a donation? ;-)

    Keep up the good work, and get rid of those bugs as soon as it is possible.

    Will

  21. MJ on February 17, 2009 1:29 pm

    WP e-Commerce is horrible, horrible, horrible!

    I’ve recently come across Shopp, and its a life saver: http://shopplugin.net/

  22. Bimal on March 6, 2009 5:45 pm

    Is there an e-commerece plugin which can show different pricing based on user group. For instance, if you are a regular customer, Retailer or Distributor?

  23. Michelle Green on March 23, 2009 8:53 am

    Helpful post, I think I will try out the WP e-Commerce for my Personal Development Blog.

  24. ivan on April 7, 2009 7:19 pm

    i think eshop, a plugin for wordpress is quite powerful for ecommerce and they are (currently) total open source.

    we created a theme using eshop, and its quite satisfying

  25. Dewi on April 21, 2009 4:33 am

    Nice ecomerce plugin

  26. Roger Sanjay on April 27, 2009 9:46 am

    try this too http://www.sitemile.com/storepress.php
    it is very easy to install and has lots of features

  27. Dawn Sinclair on May 5, 2009 1:32 pm

    I wanted to like WP e-commerce.. I really did.. I should have taken the hint when after installing the plugin I go to Ecommerce>Settings>Shipping and select the USPS module and saw the message “Known issue: USPS doesnt support shipping inside the US, cutomer zipcode needed, which we dont have before checkout”

    Not to be discouraged I decided to use table rates instead. Only there’s one small hitch.. No way to support a separate rate table for international customers or even a way to add an additional handling fee for international customers.

    In the end I mainly ended up ditching WP e-commerce because the shipping functions did not allow me any options to work with both domestic and international customers. Had there been a working fully functional USPS option, it would have solved my international shipping issues.

    I’ve also used eShop. This plugin allows you to easily create products using WordPress Pages. While the setup of shop categories and products requires a little more “manual” work than WP e-commerce, I was able to ease the “manual” work by making use of the “Duplicate Post” plugin Enrico Battocchi.

    The shipping options in eShop are limited to variations of different table shipping options. There are no tax options in eShop, but I worked around that by configuring the PayPal account to collect taxes during the PayPal payment process, and this worked just fine. (I made sure to inform customers that if they resided in X state, the tax would be added) Overall I had less issues with plugin incompatibilities using eShop than I did with WP e-commerce.. (I found that WP e-commerce had to be activated BEFORE all of my other plugins or some of the tables it needed would not be created or populated during the install)

    IMO however, neither of these solutions is ideal for stores with more than 10-20 products. I think I will opt to NOT build anymore e-commerce sites using WordPress plugins (unless the client has 10 or less products to offer), but I will continue to keep an eye on these plugins. I hope to see some better shipping and tax options offered in future releases for both of these plugins as I think they are the closest to fully functioning e-commerce solutions available for WordPress.

  28. Shanna on May 15, 2009 12:14 pm

    Where can I go for an honest review of WP eCommerce plugins? Every site I find has (apparently) the same two people flaming each other over how great/terrible WP eCommerce is. I think I will try something else to avoid the conflict and hopefully get honest and helpful responses.

  29. Joe Dreyfus on May 18, 2009 6:55 pm

    Is there a e-commerce wordpress plugin which allows me to choose which payment merchant I integrate with?

    I don’t like using paypal, and this is severely limiting my options

  30. Rich Geasey on May 28, 2009 12:25 pm

    I thought wp ecommerce sounded promising. Their website does not load. Very bad sign! I’ll look elsewhere.

  31. Fazli S on June 5, 2009 2:24 am

    want to try this plug in ..hope i can get sale

  32. Scott Hendison on June 5, 2009 1:47 pm

    We’ve done over a dozen WP_ecommerce projects, and I have a complete love / hate relationship, due to the bugs.

    We’ve added well over $2o00 to their development through one project and a few donations, and in many / (mostly ALL cases) been extremely happy.

    On the other hand, it IS hard t ocustomize, upgrades keep breaking things, and getting support and answers from them CAN be like pulling teeth - like this one - http://www.instinct.co.nz/affiliates-beta

    I’m in need of a data import to shopping cart this week, I want an integrated affiliate program too, and I think I’m going to have look into one of these other carts here, and bail on Wp-ecommerce for this project ;(

    (It’s buggy, but I like it a lot)

  33. njandjj on June 23, 2009 4:13 pm

    wow good plugin . thanks for share