I have listed for you here all of WordPress shopping cart solutions: plugins, hybrids, lightweight plugins, and even hosted carts.
Let me first briefly explain what makes each one of these four types different:
Shopping cart plugins — these plugins provide the full functionality of a shopping cart. They turn WordPress into a complete and professional online store. But they do not change the appearance of your store. To customize the appearance of a store, you will need to either modify your theme or use one of the pre-built themes for the plugins.
Shopping cart hybrids — these are plugin/theme hybrids. Essentially, they are themes with the shopping cart functionality embedded. These solutions take care of the presentation as well as the functionality of your store. While they’re generally easier to use and setup, they’re not as flexible and customizable as plain shopping cart plugins.
Lightweight shopping cart plugins — these are simpler shopping cart plugins that are used to sell only a few items on your blog or non-ecommerce site. They usually only integrate with one popular payment processor, e.g. PayPal or Google Checkout, and don’t have many shipping options or inventory control capabilities.
Plugins to integrate WordPress with 3rd-party shopping carts — these don’t bring shopping cart functionality to your WordPress site. Rather, they help you integrate WordPress with a 3rd party shopping cart solutions.
The top three shopping cart plugins.
Shopp ($55) is full of features and each feature is developed to a great depth and with care. So, it certainly goes beyond the basics. It has a wide array of supported payment gateways and shipping carriers. Download »»
Cart66 ($89) also covers the basics and beyond. While its features are not as extensive as Shopp, it is very reliable and solidly built. It has excellent integration with WordPress API. Perhaps that’s why it powers the official WordPress Swag Store. Download »»
GetShopped (free) is one of the earliest shopping cart plugins for WordPress. It used to be a little shaky, but its more recent versions have seen tremendous improvements. While official support for the plugin is lacking, its community is huge. Download »»
The following is a side-by-side comparison of the top three shopping cart plugins. I’ve rated them based on how well they perform in each comparison criteria.
You can click on the criteria link to read more about it and how different plugins perform in it.
Payment methodsPayPal Express, PayPal Standard, Google Checkout, 2Checkout, Authorize.Net, CyberSource, eWay, Beanstream, First Data, HSBC, iDEAL, Merchant Warrior, PayPal Payflow, PayPal Pro, Payson, Sage PayPayPal Pro, PayPal Standard, PayPal Express, Authorize.Net, Quantum Gateway, Eprocessing NetworkPayPal Standard, PayPal Pro, PayPal Express, Google Checkout, ChronoPayThe money1-site: $55Unlimited: $299
Extra payment gateways: $25/each
Extra shipping carriers: $25/each1-site: $89
5-sites: $179
Unlimited: $399Essential add-ons: $50/each*
Basic plugin is free
While the three above plugins are definitely great and well rounded, they’re not the only ones available. The plugins below are also unique in their strengths.
eShop (free) has most of the features that put it in direct competition with the top three plugins above. Yet, it is completely free. Download »»
MarketPress ($39) is most impressive because of how well it is integrated with WordPress. While it lacks some features, it’s built on a solid foundation that makes it infinitely extensible. Download »»
Tribulant Shopping Cart ($55) provides plenty of bang for the buck. It is full of advanced features, such as integration with shipping carriers, but only costs $55. Download »»
YAK (free) is minimalist in its appearance, but not any less sophisticated than the other plugins in features. It’s best suited for a small shop that needs advanced payment processing. Download »»
DukaPress (free) handles shopping cart integration with WordPress in a smart and efficient manner. It also has more pre-built themes than the average plugin. Download »»
wpStoreCart (free) has most of the features that you’d need in a shopping cart, but I found its features to fall a little short of meeting customer requirements. Download »»
This is a list of WordPress shopping cart theme/plugin hybrids.
ShopperPress ($79) has plenty of shopping cart options and features and plenty of appearance customization features. Yet, it is very easy to use thanks to the setup wizard and the extensive online documentation. It also includes more than 20 child themes. For its features, it is fairly priced at $79 only. Download »»
Market Theme ($55) is a very user-friendly shopping cart solution for WordPress. While its features are limited, it is very reliable and easy to use. It’s very affordable at $55 only and it is backed by a solid satisfaction guarantee. Download »»
Templatic Ecommerce ($65) is a shopping cart solution by Templatic. It’s a collection of different themes that are all powered by the same shopping cart code. Each ecommerce theme from Templatic costs $65. Buy one of these if you’ve fallen in love with the designs — as there’s nothing special in the functionality. Download »»
Here’s a more detailed comparison of these three hybrid solutions:
Payment methodsPayPal (Pro & Standard), Google Checkout, Authorize.Net, WorldPay Protx, CC Avenue, AlertPay, eWay, 2Checkout, PayFast, PayWeb, NoChex ePay, Realex, MoneyBookers, MonsterPay, Setcom, PayTracePayPal Standard, Google Checkout, Authorize.NetPayPal Standard, Google Checkout, Authorize.Net, WorldPay, 2CheckoutThe moneyStandard license: $55Developer license: $150Standard license: $65/theme
Developer license: $99/theme
All themes unlimited: $299
These lightweight shopping cart plugins are all free. They can be downloaded from WordPress.org plugin directory.
WordPress lightweight shopping cart plugins include:
Simple PayPal Shopping Cart by Tips and Tricks HQ is the most downloaded and highest rated lightweight shopping cart plugin on WordPress.org. I like the way it works. It outsources location-based shipping and tax calculations to PayPal. It is simple to use, yet highly customizable. Download »»
FatFreeCart works with PayPal and Google Checkout. I think it’s very underrated. It supports product variations, taxes, and shipping & handling fees. It also has a nice ajax-powered shopping cart view. While the plugin is made by e-junkie, it works completely independently of the e-junkie service. Download »»
Quick Shop is a popular lightweight cart plugin. It only works with PayPal, but it provides more flexibility than usually expected from a plugin in its category. It allows the merchant to set the currency and even provide free shipping for orders exceeding a certain amount. Download »»
LBak Google Checkout, as the name implies, only works with Google Checkout. It is very simple, yet very usable. It is for merchants who deal in U.S. dollars and charge a fixed shipping rate per product. The plugin also supports product variations. Download »»
By the strictest definition, the following aren’t really shopping cart plugins for WordPress. They are plugins that merely integrate WordPress with a 3rd party shopping cart. I haven’t reviewed these because the quality and usefulness of each plugin is highly reliant on the 3rd party solution, whose details are beyond the scope of this page.
However, I have listed for you here some 3rd party shopping carts with the plugin(s) that facilitate their WordPress integration.
Ecwid is a hosted shopping cart that aims to be compatible with any website, hassle-free, and lightening-fast. Its integration plugin is, by far, the most popular among its competitors. It has an official WordPress integration plugin.
FoxyCart is a hosted cart with highly customizable CSS and HTML. It should easily integrate with WordPress using XML and JSON. And its checkout flow is highly optimized to increase conversions. There are two plugins that help you integrate FoxyCart with WordPress. The more popular one is FoxyShop. The other is FoxyPress.
BigCommerce is a popular hosted shopping cart solution because of its ease of use, good support, and affordability. Its integration plugin can be downloaded here.
Wazala is kind of similar to Ecwid in that it can be installed and integrated into any website easily. While it’s capable of selling physical goods, Wazala also puts a lot of emphasis on its ability to sell digital products. The Wazala team has developed an integration plugin for WordPress.
Volusion is another very popular hosted shopping cart solution. It has a rich feature set, including the ability to manage affiliates, ready-to-use templates, mobile shopping sites, and more. Its WordPress integration plugin doesn’t seem to be widely utilized. Anyway, it can be downloaded here.
Magento, I understand, is to ecommerce what WordPress is to blogging…or something like that. Anyway, it’s a very popular open-source ecommerce platform and now it can be tightly integrated with WordPress using Wordgento.
I update this page periodically. During the most recent update, some plugins were either not ready yet or didn’t show on my radar on time. I’ll review these when I do the next update. In the meantime, here’s a little bit about each plugin:
Jigoshop is the new kid on the shopping cart scene, but it quickly gained popularity. I’m not sure why, but it must be because it’s doing something well. It’s a full shopping cart plugin and it is free. But support, premium themes, and premium extensions are paid.
Zingiri Web Shop is a free ecommerce plugin that’s available from WordPress.org. It has a pretty good rating on the plugin directory. There’s also the Zingiri ecommerce web service, I’m not sure what the relationship between the service and the plugin is. They seem independent of each other.
StorePress is a premium WordPress theme with embedded ecommerce functionality. It is capable of creating online stores that promote affiliate products.
TheCartPress is another free ecommerce plugin that’s available from WordPress.org. It also has a decent rating on the official plugin directory. There’s a dedicated website and community for the plugin.
If you know a shopping cart plugin that is missing from this list, please let us know in the comments!