If you are going to be selling anything, whether it is products, services or downloads from your WordPress site, you are going to have to use some type of e-commerce plugin.
But before you go thinking you are going to have to shell out money to do so, think again.
There are some pretty good e-commerce based WordPress plugins that are totally free of charge. We will present you with four of the best.
Let’s start with WP e-Commerce. This Shopping Cart plugin allows your customers to purchase whatever it is you are selling. It is drop dead easy to set up and totally customizable.
It also has loads of videos which will show you how to make the most out of it.
It works with PayPal, Google Wallet and all the top payment gateways. And the purchase and checkout process it utilizes is totally secure.
Our next suggested free e-commerce plugin is called WooCommerce. This plugin allows you to turn your site into a full-fledged online store.
From a sales standpoint, WooCommerce allows you to keep a keen view of all vital statistics such as sales, reviews, store performance and so forth.
Regardless of what level you are at in terms of your internet endeavors, whether big or small, WooCommerce has you covered. Considered a must have by many.
The third plugin is Jigoshop. With this plugin you can have your online store literally set up in minutes.
And it can handle anything that comes its way, be it physical products, digital or electronic downloads or any services you might offer.
And its admin/control is full of features that allow you to access detailed reports about everything pertaining to your business.
YAK Shopping Cart Plugin is an open source, shopping cart plugin. It associates products with weblog entries, so the post ID also becomes the product code.
It supports both pages and posts as products, handles different types of product through categories, and provides customisable purchase options (cheque or deposit, basic credit card form, standard PayPal integration, PayPal Payments Pro, and Authorize.net).
As long as you have an account with the above payment merchants, it’s not too hard to link your shopping cart to them.
Though, I’ve noticed they are still lacking payment options such as cash, cheque / money order and cash on delivery.
And now we arrive at the eShop plugin. This plugin features loads of features, including but not limited to: Numerous methods of listing your products or services.
You can download sales data to help show you what direction your business is heading in. You can set up discount options for your customers.
And eShop makes it easy for folks to sign up to your site, thereby enabling you to build a sizeable email list to harvest from.
So before you go spending money for ecommerce related plugins for your WordPress site, check out what’s available for free. You may find yourself pleasantly surprised.
Many of these free plugins are every bit as good – and in some cases better – than the paid ones.
lya Demidovich is the co-founder of w101.net, helping individuals and organizations around the world to learn how to create own websites. You can follow Ilya’s business discussions on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook.