11 Best Free eCommerce WordPress Plugins for 2021

Whether you’re trying to build an eCommerce website that sells for $1 billion, like Dollar Shave Club, or you’d like to establish a little store that compliments your current WordPress blog, you have an incredible number of plugins to choose from.

In fact, some of the best options out there are completely free eCommerce WordPress plugins, cutting down the amount of money you’d have to pay with your startup, yet also delivering a beautiful interface for your customers.

We’ve compared the best eCommerce WordPress plugins for building your platform, but some of those are paid, and we’d also like to delve into the world of extensions for those website-building plugins. For example, WooCommerce is opensource, allowing all developers the chance to make improvements with their own plugins. Why wouldn’t you want to take advantage of the multitude of plugins on the market?

From full platform plugins like WooCommerce to more simple solutions like a plugin that allows for you to collect paid memberships, the list below displays the best of the best when it comes to functionality and price. Although some of them do have paid plans, the free options are pretty much all you need.

01. WooCommerce

Not only is WooCommerce completely free, but it’s also considered one of the most customizable eCommerce plugins on the market. The developers have made a commitment to developing their own themes and extensions, but you can also find various other extensions from people who like working with the system.

What’s more, is that you’ll find an onslaught of wonderful WooCommere themes created by third-party developers. These gems make the integration process much faster and easier, delivering beautiful displays for your products and shopping cart designs for moving people through your site a little faster.

What makes this eCommerce plugin so special?

• WooCommerce powers over 37% of all online stores, showing that it’s popular and you can scale up with it.
• The support and documentation are pretty solid for an open-source plugin.
• A worldwide community is constantly talking about WooCommerce, so you have a person or thread to reach out to if you stumble upon any problems.
• The interface is mobile-friendly, developer-friendly, and simple enough for a beginner to step in and make their own site.
• Installing the plugin only takes one step, and inserting all of your products and making them look nice only takes a solid theme and some elbow grease.

02. Easy Digital Downloads

If you haven’t heard of Easy Digital Downloads before, it’s the marquee plugin for selling digital products. For example, if you have an eBook, WordPress theme, audio clip, or webinar you’d like to sell, this is the platform you should go with.

The best part is that it allows you to make a small store from your existing blog, so you don’t necessarily have to commit to a large eCommerce site.

What makes this eCommerce plugin so special?

• Add-ons are sold for items like email newsletters, payment gateways, recurring payments, and frontend submissions.
• You can also make themes that are made just for Easy Digital Downloads.
• The shopping cart is clean and simple.
• Customer management is all done on the backend.
• Discount codes and payment history is handled on the backend.
• Data reporting is similar to paid eCommerce platforms you would generally find.

03. Ecwid

The idea behind Ecwid is that it lets you add an online store to any website, not just WordPress. However, a WordPress plugin is provided to expedite the process. Embedding the store onto your site only takes a quick copy and paste, similar to inserting a YouTube video.

What makes this free eCommerce plugin so special?

• Sell on places like your website, social sites, and different marketplaces online.
• Create a full-fledged store on Facebook.
• It has a mobile responsive design, so it should pair nicely with your responsive WordPress theme.
• Ecwid provides the unique feature of giving each customer a mobile app.
• The simple checkout allows for seamless shopping, anywhere and from any device.
• A smart shipping calculator is given.
• Customers can save their favorite products.

04. Jigoshop

Update: Jigoshop was shut down in July 2019 and was removed from WordPress in October 2019. The closure of Jigoshop eCommerce plugins is listed as permanent on the WordPress database and all the linking sites and social media pages have also been taken down. The company has declined to comment as to why the plug-in was shut down. 

Jigoshop is a highly rated eCommerce plugin just for WordPress, but it doesn’t exactly have the popularity of WooCommerce. That said, it has similar aspects to WooCommerce. For example, a large extension database is there for you if you’d like to pay a little and upgrade your store.

What makes this eCommerce plugin so special?

• Manage all of your stock from the WordPress dashboard, and receive notifications when some of your stock is low.
• Receive detailed, real-time reports to learn how to improve your profits.
• Several different product types are available including digital, physical, and grouped products.
• Most of the settings are configured out of the box, so it really only takes a few minutes to launch your store.

05. BigCommerce

BigCommerce for WordPress is an eCommerce plug-in built with big businesses and scalability in mind. The product catalog is highly scalable making it perfect for businesses with a large inventory.

In addition to this, BigCommerce makes it easy to manage multi-channel selling and management. 

What makes this eCommerce plugin so special?

• Multi-channel selling and management 
• Scalable product catalog
• Easy to manage more than one site from one control panel 
• Easy to integrate with any WordPress theme

06. Cart 66 

Cart 66 is a lightweight eCommerce tool that helps you to keep your site and reduces the number of plugins you need to use. All the features required to get started selling are built into the plug-in, so there’s no need to mess around configuring a range of different plugins. 

Cart66 is a versatile plugin that can be utilized by businesses selling both physical products and digital products. It also has over 100 different payment gateways to choose from.

What makes this eCommerce plugin so special?

• Integrates easily with your chosen theme  
• Can be used to sell and deliver digital products
• Easy to set up and get started
• Over 100 payment gateways and countries

07. Paid Memberships Pro

Here’s the first plugin we’ll cover that isn’t a full eCommerce platform. However, it’s useful as an extension to something like WooCommerce. You could also use it as a standalone product if you have a blog, magazine, or learning website that you’d like to sell memberships for. Companies that sell direct-to-customer boxes or products will find this interesting as well.

What makes this free eCommerce plugin so special?

• Choose from unlimited levels with recurring payment, protected content, and member management.
• Paid Memberships Pro restricts access to anything from forums to simple blog posts.
• Several add-ons are provided for extending the plugin.
• It integrates with tools like MailChimp, Social Login, KISSMetrics, Infusionsoft, and WP Courseware.
• The plugin combines well with all of the popular payment gateways.

08. WooCommerce Menu Cart

The WooCommerce Menu Cart seems strange, but it’s often needed if your current WooCommerce theme doesn’t have the ability to show a shopping cart in the right-hand corner of the header. We also like this plugin for those who converted a previously non eCommerce website with WooCommerce.

The WooCommerce plugin doesn’t have this built into the design, so WooCommerce Menu Cart is essential for keeping customers at ease about how much they’re spending, while also reminding them about the cart.

What makes this free eCommerce plugin so special?

• Works with WooCommerce,  EDD, and Jigoshop.
• Choose from different variations of what you want to display. For example, you could have a cart icon, products in the cart, and the full price.
• Customize your own CSS from the backend.
• Choose to float the shopping cart icon towards different sides of the menu bar.
• A Pro Version is also sold if you’d like to expand on the base features.

09. Smart Manager for WooCommerce

The Smart Manager for WooCommerce offers an incredible store admin interface with over 200 features. This plugin does nothing to your frontend, but it turns the backend into a well-oiled machine.

What makes this free eCommerce plugin so special?

• The spreadsheet-like browsing cuts out wait times and allows you to see all of your data in one spot.
• Delete and manage multiple products and orders all in one click.
• Edit up to three products, orders, and customers at once.
• Use the instant search to locate anything from products to customers.

10. WC Vendors

If you’ve been to sites like Etsy and ThemeForest, you’ve used a multi-vendor website. These welcome multiple vendors who open their own little shops in your store. If a buyer selects items from different vendors, they only have to go through one checkout process, then the revenues are divided properly between the vendors. The WC Vendors plugin gives you that functionality.

What makes this eCommerce plugin so special?

• A Pro version is provided, but the free one is pretty darn good.
• Instantly pay vendors the right amount once an order is made.
• Let vendors set up their own stores and profiles.
• Live sales information and product details are all managed on the backend.
• Vendors can comment on orders and talk with customers.
• Promotional tools are provided, and tons of shortcodes are given.

11. Easy PayPal Buy Now Button

Although this plugin may seem like something out of the early 2000s, it’s still an essential part of the eCommerce world. Sometimes all you want is a quick PayPal Buy Now button, and that’s what this one delivers.

What makes this eCommerce plugin so special?

• No coding is required.
• Supports 18 languages and 25 currencies.
• Four different button designs are offered.
• Change around the successful and canceled payment URLs.

Conclusion

There you have it! If you’re thinking of making an eCommerce website in 2021, but would like to save some cash, the best free eCommerce WordPress plugins are right up your alley.

Drop a line in the comments below if you have any questions.