Looking for the best eCommerce plugin to grow your business? There are over 50,000 plugins in the WordPress repository. Do you know which will be best for you? Users often end up being frustrated. Because they don’t do proper research before selecting any plugin.

There are basically two types of eCommerce websites.

• Online store (single seller)
• Multi-vendor marketplace

The online store is built with only one seller. But in a multi-vendor marketplace, innumerable sellers join together to sell varieties of products at a time. You can create these two types of websites using the suitable WordPress eCommerce Plugin.

This article will help you out choosing the right eCommerce plugin to kick off your desired eCommerce business, whether it is an online store or multi-vendor marketplace. Let’s dive into the main discussion without wasting any more time.

Best WordPress eCommerce Plugins to Build Online Store

You’ll find plenty of plugins online. But not all of them have enough features to support a website from beginning to end. Below is a list of three trusted WordPress eCommerce plugins that you can use with full confidence.

1. WooCommerce
2. Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart
3. Alidropship

Let’s have a look at their pros and cons in detail.

WooCommerce

With 5+ million active installations, WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce plugin at present. It will enable you to create a new eCommerce website out of scratch as you wish.

Pros

• WooCommerces allows you to sell both physical and downloadable products from the same platform.
• Also, you can sell affiliate and external products from the same website.
• It is integrative with all the popular payment systems: PayPal, Credit Card, Bank Transfer, and COD.
• WooCommerce is fully responsive, highly customizable, and developer-friendly.
• You will find hundreds of themes and extensions available for this plugin in the WordPress repository.
• WooCommerce is a completely free plugin. You don’t have to pay a single dollar to use it.

Cons

• You won’t get any quick or premium support if ever you face any problem.
• Though this plugin is free, you have to rely on third-party extensions to make your eCommerce site dynamic.
• WooCommerce doesn’t have unlimited scalability. It will cause issues after a certain level.

Pricing

WooCommerce is completely free for any user.

Verdict

If you are new to eCommerce, better you start your journey with this plugin as WooCommerce is completely free. Once you grow confidence, you can spend money to integrate premium extensions.

Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart 

With top-notch security, Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart gives you everything to create a dynamic eCommerce website. It offers you storage and regular backup services. They have a dedicated customer support team to help you via phone, live chat, and email.

Pros

• Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart integrates with major shipping carriers of the world: FedEx, UPS, USPS, Australia Post, Canada Post, and many more.
• It helps you to reach your products to millions of people through social media channels without any third-party addon.
• It offers you both iOS and Android mobile apps to track and manage your store.
• As it has the unlimited backup capacity, you don’t have to worry even if your site crashes.
• It has automated tax calculation formulas for the EU, USA, and Canada.
• 85+ payment gateways are integrated with this plugin.

Cons

• Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart doesn’t allow you to edit product URLs for SEO purposes. Besides, it doesn’t support product page AMP versions.
• The more products you want to manage, the more the cost increases. Free plan- 10 products, venture plan- 100 products, business plan- 2500 products, and unlimited plan- countless products.
• Mobile phone support is available only for premium plan users.

Pricing

• Free plan
• Venture plan ($12.50/month),
• Business plan ($29.17/month),
• Unlimited plan (82.50/month).

No refund policy is available.

Verdict

If you are a prominent eCommerce owner and have thousands of products to manage, you can go with the Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart plugin. It is very difficult for beginners to reach profit margins using this plugin.

Alidropship 

If you want to create a lively dropshipping site at an affordable cost, Alidropship will be a good choice. Dropshipping is still a growing eCommerce idea. 23% of all online orders today are fulfilled through this method.

Pros 

• Alidropship is fully integrated, with AliExpress.com. It allows you to import products from that site to your website in just a single click.
• Also, you can display your own on the same website alongside the dropshipping items.
• Alidropship supports more scalability and top-notch security than the WooCommerce plugin.
• They have a team that regularly produces coaching materials to educate the new eCommerce entrepreneurs.
• This plugin is fully integrated with 20+ online payment gateways and more are joining this list.
• You will get 24/7 premium services from their dedicated support team.

Shortcomings

• You can sell only physical products using the Alidropship plugin (Digital products aren’t allowed).
• They have only a few free and premium themes available. This is why most websites produced by them seem alike.
• The Alidropship WooCommerce plugin doesn’t support the scalability of over 1000 products.

Pricing

The Alidropship plugin costs $89/(lifetime) with a 30-day refund policy through mutual understanding.

Verdict

Alidropship will be a good choice if you are looking for Chinese suppliers. However, very recently they have opened a new supply wing in America called Sellvia. It offers quick shipping to USA customers within only 3-4 business days.

If you want to extend your online store to a multi-vendor marketplace or want to create a new one from scratch, the next section will introduce you to some of these plugins.

Best WordPress Multi-Vendor Plugins to Build eCommerce Marketplaces

Here, we’ll talk about the five most reliable multi-vendor plugins by which you can create eCommerce marketplaces on WordPress. Below is a list of them.

1. Dokan Multi-Vendor
2. WC Vendor Pro
3. WC Marketplace
4. YITH WooCommerce Multi-Vendor
5. WooCommerce Product Vendors

Dokan Multi-Vendor Plugin

If you want to build up a marketplace just like Walmart, eBay, and Amazon in real quick time, the Dokan multi-vendor plugin can realize your dream overnight. Its setup and configuration are comparatively so easy than the other multi-vendor plugins.

Benefits of using Dokan Multi-Vendor

• Dokan multi-vendor marketplace plugin has exclusive user frontend interfaces. It allows the vendors to personalize everything they need from the frontend dashboard. 
• Its admin overview dashboard will help you get the marketplace summary at a glance.
• The owner can restrict the backend authority only to him and make him the supreme controller of the marketplace.
• Dokan multi-vendor marketplace plugin allows you to sell all kinds of products (physical, digital, auctionable, bookable, and subscription-based).
• It gives you multiple ways to make money. Such as vendor commission, product sales commission, subscription charge, product limit, and so on.
• This plugin is integrated with 100+ payment gateways and compatible with countless third-party extensions.
• It has 20+ Dokan modules by which you can cover everything you need to run a professional multi-vendor marketplace.
• You will get 24/7 support from their dedicated support team (only for the premium users). For free users, they have easy-to-understand doc files in every aspect.

Cons

• Its too many features and options may bewilder any user at the beginning.
• Since Dokan is made of PHP and MySQL, it’s a bit less responsive.
• Its graphical user interface is a bit old-fashioned but is hoped to be developed soon by developers.
• It relies much on premium modules and plugins. So, for many users, Dokan may turn out to be a costly project.

Pricing

• Free Plan
• Starter Plan (149/year)
• Professional (249/year)
• Business (499/year)
• Enterprise (999/year)

14-day refund policy available.

Verdict

If you already have a prospective online store flooded with traffic and customers, you can convert it into a multi-vendor marketplace using the Dokan plugin. This idea can scale up your business potential.

WC Vendor Pro 

WC Vendor Pro is another one-stop solution to create your multi-vendor marketplace on WordPress. Installing it will unlock so many features ranging from the user-friendly interface to earning money. You can consider this an alternative to the Dokan multi-vendor plugin.

Pros

• You can sell all kinds of products using the WC Vendor Pro. Such as physical goods, themes, fonts, photographs, audio, video, and bookings.
• It gives you the advantage of setting separate commission rates on different products at a time.
• It has 100+ payment gateways to facilitate financial transactions. So, vendors can easily find out their preferred payment system.
• Vendors can manage their online stores effortlessly from its frontend interface. So, the admin doesn’t have to give them backend access.
• WC Vendor Pro has a highly responsive interface as this plugin is built-on Javascript. 
• This is comparatively cheap the Dokan plugin.

Cons

• WC Vendor Pro doesn’t have enough modules to support your site. You have to depend on third-party plugins even for basic functionalities. Such as SEO, Live Chat, Back-ordering System, Google Map, etc.
• Though WC Vendor Pro is comparatively cheap, your cost will keep going up with the number of extensions you integrate.
• Users will require more technical knowledge to operate this plugin and marketplaces.

Pricing

• Free plan
• Annual plan ($199/year)
• Lifetime plan ($499)

WC Vendor Pro has a 30-day refund policy after mutual discussion.

Verdict

If you want to have a responsive marketplace plugin, you can consider WC Vendor Pro in your checklist.

YITH WooCommerce Multi-Vendor 

Suppose you have an existing eCommerce website. You want to add new vendors to it without affecting its regular functionality. YITH WooCommerce Multi Vendor is always next to you to provide that solution.

Pros

• It allows you to set a minimum commission threshold to discourage setting products’ sales prices below a certain limit.
• YITH multi-vendor plugin has a multilingual feature. So, it perfectly works with English, Spanish, Greek, Italian, and many other mostly used languages.
• The shipping, coupon, refund, tracking, and order management systems of the plugin are impeccable.
• YITH WordPress plugin is highly specialized for selling downloadable and subscription-based digital product items.
• Also, it offers you multiple ways to make unlimited passive income.

Shortcomings

• YITH has no frontend dashboard for the vendors. You have to purchase a third-party plugin to enable the frontend capability.
• It does not support various payment gateways. Currently, it is working with Stripe Connect, PayPal Payouts, and PayPal Mass Pay.
• YITH is missing many important features like seller statement reports, store-specific contact forms, trusted sellers, setup wizard, etc.

Pricing

YITH has only one premium pricing package- ($99.99/year) with a 30-day refund policy.

Verdict

If you are looking for a multi-vendor marketplace plugin within a limited start-up cost, YITH should be on your checklist.

WC Marketplace 

Creating a multi-vendor marketplace is usually a costly project. But WC Marketplace will give relief from this worry. This is one of the best plugins to create multivendor marketplaces with affordability.

WC Marketplace doesn’t have the traditional pricing formula. It offers bundle-wise pricing packages. So, you can subtly avoid the less desired add-ons if you have a budget issue. 

Pros

• WC Marketplace also offers you to set up adjustable commission plans. So, here also you can enjoy multiple ways to make money.
• With its powerful product tool, vendors can manage their product-related activities very simply.
• It comes with nine specialized widgets. The most popular of them are store total sales, store categories, vendor search, store social media, store search, and Store Address.
• WC Marketplace is integrated with 100+ different payment gateways like the other plugins.
• You find detailed documentation on their website on every aspect of this plugin.

Cons

• WC Marketplace does not provide a built-in dashboard. So, admins have to integrate a third-party tool to monitor the marketplace activities.
• It doesn’t have built-in multilingual support. Also, it doesn’t have built-in refund management functionality.
• Its Support team doesn’t offer live chat, tickets, or email options.

Pricing

It doesn’t have the usual pricing packages like Others. It offers a bundle-wise pricing system with a 30-day refund policy.

Verdict

Though WC Marketplace is rich in some of its add-ons, still it’s falling behind in innovation and flexibility. If you are a newbie and looking for a cheap option to make your entry into multi-vendor marketplace system, you can consider this plugin.

WooCommerce Product Vendors 

WooCommerce Product Vendors is basically an extension of WooCommerce. Using it, you can convert your WooCommerce-powered existing website into a multi-vendor marketplace anytime. This plugin is completely managed by the team WooCommerce itself.

Pros

• Since the plugin is an original WooCommerce product, it is fully compatible with all the WordPress-based tools and extensions.
• It allows vendors to sell both physical and digital products from the same stores.
• You can make payments to your vendors manually, instantly, weekly, or monthly regarding business situations.
• You can set some administrators to assist the vendors in managing tax, sales, shipping, and verification.

Cons

• Like the last two plugins, this one is also missing the fronted dashboard feature.
• Also, it’s missing many important features like setup wizard, Google maps, social login, and seller statement reports.
• Yet just a limited number of payment gateways are integrated with it.

Pricing

WooCommerce product vendor has one pricing plan only- $79/yearly with a 30-day refund policy.

Over to you: Which Plugin will You Choose

eCommerce is an ever-growing platform. Since the Corona Pandemic, the industry become so widespread that we are seeing no sign of its downturn in the near future. So, by joining this platform, you can become a bread-earning person for your family.

Last but not the least, when it comes to investing money, you must be so careful in each of your steps. Hopefully, this article has been able to meet your quest in finding out the best WordPress plugin by which you can start your eCommerce marketplace right away.

Let us know through the comment section which plugin you are using.