I'm thinking about using WordPress for an e-commerce site. Is this a good idea?

I'm thinking about using WordPress for an e-commerce site. Is this a good idea?


Wordpress is good for blogging, though it's also a better choice for ecommerce if you are not looking for some advanced features. There are thousands of successful ecommerce sites, which use only wordpress.

It all depends on your requirements, if you have basic ecommerce shop than it's good to go with wordpress.


Today, most people rely on the internet to purchase things and so there is a considerable boom in the ecommerce business. Setting up your online store is no more a difficult task as we have numerous platforms that are used to develop eCommerce stores. We all know that WordPress had started its journey as a wonderful blogging platform, but today it has evolved into a robust solution that allows business owners to create a feature rich eCommerce website at effective rates. With WordPress and various plugins available, you are now able to create eCommerce sites for your business quite easily.

If you have plans to create an eCommerce site using WordPress, then here are some of the plugins that may fit your best needs. The plugins discussed here are free to use and are simply perfect for building any profitable WordPress e-stores.

WP eCommerce: This is a simple yet powerful WordPress eCommerce plug-in that has been there for the past many years. The plugin allows you to customize HTML and CSS, so that you enjoy full control on the look and feel of the e-store. Whether you are interested in selling physical inventory, memberships or subscriptions or even digital downloads, this amazing plugin helps to sell anything easily. With more than 2.9 million downloads, it is the second most popular plugin used by business owners. Its streamlined checkout process helps to dramatically increase the store's conversion rate. And moreover the plugin integrates perfectly with many shippers and payment processors and helps to add extra functionalities to your store.

WooCommerce: This plugin is built by developers at WooThemes and is the most popular and widely used free plugin for WordPress website development. It is packed with top of the line features and this highly extendable plugin empowers you to create your site into a million dollar e-store. The best thing about this is that its golden collection for paid and free themes and extensions are best to meet your specific business needs. A WordPress development company can use PayPal Standard integration, multiple shipping options, easy inventory management, flexible couponing and etc.

Easy digital downloads: This is a feature rich and lightweight and simple to use eCommerce solution for selling digital downloads via WordPress at no cost. The plugin offers useful features that can keep selling digital goods and offers a powerful reporting system that allows you to see your earnings and sales through easy to analyze data tables and interactive graphs. It comes with more than 200 extensions and themes that can be easily customized according to your needs.

Jigoshop: This is another reliable and secured WordPress eCommerce plugin from Jigowatt. This plugin is best suited for SMEs and offers an intuitive dashboard through which you can easily set up and manage your e-store in minutes. You will be able to choose from more than 30 customizable themes based on your needs and enjoy over more than one hundred of powerful extensions to take your e-store to the next level. The various reporting features include sortable sales graphs and stock reports that allow you to check how your store is performing.

MarketPress: This plugin is an easily customizable, well designed and feature rich and the prime motive behind its creation is to deliver the users a beautiful and enjoyable online shopping experience without the need for any extensions. It is an effort to put the powers of various plugins together into a single eCommerce solution.


Wordpress, using the plugin woocommerce, is a great option for ecommerce. However, it does depend on what you need ecommerce for. If it’s a simple product, you might want to consider using square space. If you’re building a brand or business, WordPress might be a better way to go.

With ecommerce and wordpress, you’ll need to make sure your site stays secure by keeping plugins and WordPress updated. You also need to make sure your site is secure in other ways. An expert developer can help with that.