WordPress Ecommerce Plugins, Themes and Tutorials
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Let’s face it: everybody is turning to selling online, especially these days.

I once saw a quote from Phil Lawler (Hewlett-Packard), and he said something like this:

“Every business that will not become an e-business, will become an ex-business”

But up until recent times, e-commerce solutions were either prohibitively expensive, or they were just too hard to understand and customize for the average user.

Paypal has certainly played a role in enabling more people to sell online, but it’s far from being a full featured e-commerce solution. Also we have Magento which is, in my opinion, the best free platform to start selling online.

But what about WordPress users, that are not willing to switch from their WordPress powered site to a different platform?

This article presents 8 plugins (both free and paid) that will help you sell through your WordPress site, as well as some free e-commerce themes and tutorials for you to get started.

What we’ll be covering:

WordPress Ecommerce Plugins

WordPress e-Commerce

WordPress e-Commerce PluginBy far the most popular ecommerce solution for WordPress – it has over 300,000 downloads so far.

WordPress e-Commerce is a free plugin from Instinct that focuses on aesthetics, web standards and usability. Features include Social Networking, lots of payment options (Paypal, Authorize.net, Google Chekcout etc), one-page checkout and even pre-made modules that fit specific businesses.

Full features list | Download now

WordPress eStore Plugin

WP eStoreSPSCP above also has a big brother, called WordPress eStore Plugin. This one is a commercial plugin ($25), but it’s also more advanced than the simple paypal shopping cart plugin.

eStore comes with premium features like instant digital product delivery, integration with WP eMember, Aweber and WordPress Affiliate Software. Best of all, since it’s a paid solution, you also get support with your purchase.

See the full features list and purchase page

Shopp Plugin

ShoppShopp is a commercial ecommerce plugin. It comes with a truckload of features, including out-of-the-box functionality, theme widgets, many payment processors, shipping calculations and even SEO-ed product pages. Shopp doesn’t focus on just selling digital goods – it goes further and adds a lot of options for creating a true online store within your WordPress intallation.

Full features list | Buy now (from $55)

eShop

eShop is a free WordPress shopping cart plugin created by Rich Pedley that comes with lots of features:

  • Uses WordPress pages (or posts) to create products
  • Products can have multiple options
  • Upload downloadable products
  • Basic Statistics
  • Various shipping options
  • Automatic emails on successful purchase
  • User configurable email templates.
  • Various discount options
  • WPMU compatible.
  • Several payment options – Authorize.net, Paypal, Payson, eProcessingNetwork, Webtopay and Cash/Cheque!
  • and much much more

Full features list | Download now

YAK

YAKYAK is an open source eCommerce plugin created by Jason R. Briggs. Products are displayed either through blog pages or through posts.

Basic documentation is provided, but for the advanced one you’ll need to purchase the YAK Handbook (€ 20).

Some features of YAK:

  • Create products from either posts or pages
  • Downloadable products
  • Multiple product types — price per type (i.e. small, medium, large) and quantity per type
  • Order administration — filtering by date, status and order number
  • Configurable shipping (either flat rate or by weight unit)
  • Promotions — percentage or fixed discounts, on shipping or order value
  • Sales Reports
  • Support for https (SSL)
  • Support for multiple shops
  • Customer interface languages: Japanese, Chinese, Taiwan Chinese, Thai, Slovakian, Czech, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Swedish
  • Support for WordPress MU (new, but beta)

Full features list | Download now

Simple Paypal Shopping Cart Plugin

Simple Shopping CartThis is a simple shopping cart plugin that allows the user to insert an “Add to cart” button anywhere in the blog (pages, posts or even sidebar).

Customers can then view their cart and make modifications (add or remove products). Payments are made through Paypal.

SPSCP Full features | Download

WP Auctions – Auction plugin for WordPress

WP AuctionsWP Auctions is a paid WordPress plugin that allows you to host auctions directly on your WordPress powered blog.

Some features of WP Auction:

  • Place auctions in a posts / pages
  • Auctions for registered users only
  • Accept PayPal, wire transfers or checks
  • Create and manage as many auctions as you like
  • Upload multiple images for each auction
  • Compatible with Google Adsense and any other CPC program.

Full features and purchase page

ArtPal – a plugin for artists

ArtPal is a plugin created by Robby Grossman.

It is an open-source WordPress plugin, originally written for Artists, to seamlessly integrate PayPal with their WordPress blogs so that they can sell their work online.

Some features of ArtPal:

  • Easy PayPal integration
  • Real-time sales updates
  • Professionally supported

Full features list | Download now

Free eCommerce WordPress themes

Crafty Cart

Crafty CartThis is a free WordPress Ecommerce theme, available for download in the WordPress Themes Directory.
Note: it needs the WP eCommerce Plugin to work.

Author Homepage | Download

E-commerce Themes from ShopperPress

ShopperPressShopperPress offers users 6 themes for free download. They required you to sign up to the mailing list.

ShopperPress WordPress Shopping Theme


WP Store Theme

WP Store Free Ecommerce ThemeWP Store is a free theme by WP Feed, especially created for the WP e-Commerce Plugin. You can download it on WPFeed.

If you need a more professional theme, see the list of premium ecommerce WordPress themes.

WordPress Ecommerce Tutorials

  1. Getting set up with the WP e-Commerce plugin: settings and configuration – WordPress.TV

  2. Create an eCommerce Website with WordPress in under 5 minutes – WordPress.TV

  3. WP e-Commerce Review For WordPress – the WP e-Commerce plugin reviewed

  4. How To Open An Online Store With WordPress In Less Than 30 Minutes

  5. How to Build an Online Store With WordPress

This list will be updated as I come across more resources. Feel free to tweet one @themedigital if it’s not listed here :)