Top 10 WordPress E-commerce Plugins You Must Try in 2022

Kazi Nazia

Content Editor

Top 10 WordPress E-commerce Plugins You Must Try in 2022

How do you pick the best WordPress plugins for your eCommerce from an ocean of options? A tricky question to answer. It takes tons of researching, digging, and hair-pulling (which you've probably done already) because everyone has something different to suggest.

According to a report by Risk Based Security, 2,240 vulnerabilities in WordPress plugins were disclosed last year, such as Public Exploit. That means the plugin you chose to download for your WordPress site may just make it more vulnerable.

We don't want you to go through that. This is why we've packed in a list of 10 safe and secure WordPress plugins below.

But before diving into the list, we've got more ground to cover on the…

Things To Consider Before You Choose An E-commerce Plugin


We don't want you to run into a technical issue due to installing too many unnecessary plugins for your store.

According to Steve Chou, owner of a 7 figure eCommerce store and a renowned influencer and speaker in the eCommerce space — Before you install any eCommerce plugins, you must ask yourself the following questions:

Do You Have a Good Web Host?

WordPress is made to fit a wide category of websites. And unlike running a blog, running your WordPress eCommerce store can be very resource-intensive.

This means if you don't have a good web host, you can only download plugins to a certain extent. And if you end up downloading more than that limit, then it can end up slowing down your store's website dramatically.

Which is a big problem for sure. Because not only can you install plugins that you need, but you're also at risk of increasing your site's load time. And so, you need to have a good web host.

Is Your WordPress Site Secured?

Since you will accept credit cards and personal process information on your site, you need to ensure that your site is well protected.

And for that, you need to have a good security plugin in addition to your SSO certificate. Remember, ensure your customer's information protection is on your shoulder.

If your site becomes a victim of online malicious activity, you have to say goodbye to all your sales and future customers forever.

Is The E-commerce Plugin Compatible with Your Version of WordPress?

WordPress updates its software every couple of months. This sounds great for ease of use but, this may also create compatibility issues for smaller developers who may not have the resources to keep up with the changes.

So if you download a plugin from a similar developer, the plugin may not just work after a WordPress update, which is a bit of a bummer.

And so, you need to choose a plugin that is updated frequently. And it's from a company with dedicated resources for support to help you out with technical roadblocks.

Does the E-commerce Plugin Have Strong 3rd Party Developer Support?

If you've been in the eCommerce space for a while, you already know how fast it is evolving. Almost every other day, new tools and features are being added.

If you want to survive and excel in this competitive space, you need to keep up with all the rapid changes. So without the help of third-party software developers, your store will soon become obsolete.

Take this as an example – most successful eCommerce stores will rely on the third-party multichannel helpdesk, SMS, and email marketing app like Klaviyo, Inventory management apps like SKULabs, etc. These tools massively fuel your business's growth. So if your eCommerce plugin does not support 3rd party developers, you need to consider installing other options...

Does the E-commerce Plugin Have a Strong Community?

The best eCommerce plugin for WordPress will have a large number of users who can assist you in troubleshooting typical issues. For example, The Myalice Community of MyAlice on Facebook.

No matter how great a plugin is, incompatibilities may emerge because you will most likely employ a lot of plugins on your site. And at that time, nothing is more helpful than advice from the Product Team and users who may have faced similar problems.

If you want to assess the community base, the simplest approach is to check the number of downloads and readings on the WordPress plugin repository.

Make sure to read the two and three-star reviews to ensure that the plugin is solid, functions as promised, and will not cause your site to crash. Now that you know what to keep in mind before you start downloading plugins for your WordPress eCommerce store, it's time to dive into the list.

10 Best WordPress Plugin For E-Commerce Sites

With over 59,000 plugins in WordPress, maneuvering through them and finding the perfect fit for you can be a challenge, especially if you are new to the e-commerce scene.

This is why to make things a bit convenient for you, we noted down the 10 best WordPress plugins for e-commerce sites that you can find.

All these plugins are chosen based on their average success rate. But it's important to keep in mind that your store may need unique and specific solutions. In that case, not all plugins may satisfy your needs.

MyAlice

This might seem a bit biased but hear us out. With amazing success rates from top brands like Ichiban Kuji, Unilever, and many other brands –  we can't help but include it to the top. And the stats speak for themselves.

MyAlice is a multichannel helpdesk service that will allow you to integrate all your social channels under one platform. Be it WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, or any other social channel. You can manage all your orders and customer service from one place.

With MyAlice, you can also keep track of your agents and see their progress. This will allow you to regain better control over your management.

Not just that, but it also comes equipped with an AI-powered chatbot that can respond based on your target customer's native language, along with a live chat button. This means you can always respond to your customers and never miss a potential customer due to late or no response.

But wait, it doesn't end here. MyAlice has an eCommerce integration and ticketing system to help you manage orders faster and more efficiently.

Its monthly plan starts at $15 and offers a variety of pricing options based on the size and needs of your store. All in all, if you're someone who's looking for a way to effectively and efficiently manage all your social channels, then MyAlice is the one for you. MyAlice is completely free to sign up and we recommend you take full advantage of the above mentioned features as we believe it can add immense value to your eCommerce store.

OptinMonster

OptinMonster is a popup builder and marketing plugin that helps you design attractive popup campaigns, email subscription forms, sticky announcement bars like the hello bar, gamified spin-a-wheel opt-in forms, and other types of interactive popups for your website. And that too in a hassle-free manner.


So if you're someone who's not tech-savvy or don't want to wire a developer for all of this hassle, then get OptinMonster. Optinmonster will help you gain email subscribers, revenues, and overall business growth.

You can convert abandoned website visitors into subscribers and customers with OptinMonster popups and a conversion toolkit.

And unlike many plugins, OptinMonster is a hosted service. Your OptinMonster account will still be linked to your WordPress site. But will be more lightweight than regular plugins.

Because it's a hosted service, you can create and manage forms and other content from your account dashboard on the OptinMonster website. This offers several advantages, including the addition of a clutter-free, purpose-built user interface the ability to manage all of your forms and other content from a single spot.

Yoast SEO

If you want to optimize your eCommerce business to have better searchability, you need the help of SEO. And the best SEO plugin for WordPress is undoubtedly Yoast SEO. Yoast SEO ensures the possibility for you to skip the complexity of doing SEO and makes it more convenient for your store to show up in search rankings.

It not only aids in SEO but also assesses the readability of your text. While allowing you to optimize your content, photos, meta descriptions, titles, and keywords in real-time.

Yoast also looks at how long your sentences and paragraphs are, whether you're using enough transition words or subheadings. Along with how often you use passive voice, among other things. It also notifies Google whether or not a page or a set of pages should be indexed.

Another great thing about Yoast is it's free to use. But you can also purchase the premium version for $89 per year. This includes additional features such as optimizing your content for up to five keywords.

WP Rocket

If you've been running your WordPress store for a while, you may have faced some issues with the site speed. And that's definitely a red flag for your store. If your site's loading speed is too much, you might be losing out on potential customers.

This is when WP Rocket comes into the picture. WP Rocket is a WordPress plugin that enables caching on websites in order to improve loading speeds. Its extra features like Lazyload, image optimization, and database optimization make it much easier to maintain your site.

And it's quite easy to use, so you don't need to deal with the complexities. And even if you do find yourself with a bit of a problem, their amazing support team will be there to help you out.

WP Rocket is the best value for money if you're seeking a reliable and quick way to keep your website speedy and optimized. Although there is no free trial or version available, you can rest confident that it is one of the easiest and most effective WordPress caching plugins available.


WooFunnel

If you want to get similar functionality of click funnels directly into your WordPress website, be able to test it out, and make money with it before spending a dollar, then WooFunnels is the one for you.

Businesses have gone from trashcan to completely niche dominator just by adding a funnel to their marketing plan. And WooFunnels will do exactly that for you.

It will assist you in building a fully effective sales funnel system for your WooCommerce store without the need to reinvent the wheel or rely on a third-party SaaS platform.

Woofunnels claims that its plugin can raise your revenues and increase the amount of money you receive from each transaction with optimized checkout pages- order bumps and one-click upsells and down-sells.

Establishing automation depending on your customers' engagement sets it apart from its competitors. You can combine email marketing and SMS with tools like Twilio, all of which can be handled from your WordPress website.

Best part? You can try it out for free. Although you won't be getting all the features that you would get in the premium version, you can still make do with it. Once you find the free version convenient for you, you upgrade it to the paid version.

CartFlows

If you want to look into more options for funnels, check out CartFlows. It's a sales funnel for WordPress websites that let you construct and improve the WordPress funnel flow with streamlined checkout, order bumps, and upsells, among other features.

CartFlows streamlines the process and assists all new and existing eCommerce store owners and agencies in improving the complete checkout experience. When it comes to operating CartFlows, there's no need to be tech-savvy.

You won't have to learn new software because it's built to run just inside WordPress. It's easy to pick up and allows you to design amazing-looking flows in a matter of a few minutes!

And even if you find yourself in a pinch, their customer support is there to help you out, which is always responsive and will help you out when in need.

CartFlows also has a free version. So you can construct a sales funnel with Cartflows for free. However, the free version is fairly limited, and the pro version is strongly suggested.


SleekNote

Lead generation and conversion can be a bit of a challenge if you don't know which direction to go. Luckily Sleeknote can help you out with that. A WordPress plugin will help you improve your store's lead generation and conversion capabilities by generating beautifully constructed lead capture forms that they can embed on your website in minutes.

To ensure the best lead conversion rate, this tool also comes with a simple and intuitive drag and drop mobile editor and other features and functionality such as smart goal tracking and intelligent targeting.

It also aids in the proper growth of your email list. You may turn specific visitors into email subscribers. Turn every button, link, or picture into a two-step opt-in form to build high-converting content upgrades.

When visitors opt-in, you can ask them to segment themselves so that they only receive campaigns that are relevant to their needs. Sleeknote isn't email marketing software in and of itself, but it integrates with all of the major email marketing platforms. All of your new email subscribers will automatically be added to your mailing list.

And it's super simple to use! It will give you complete control over the appearance and functionality of their lead forms. Every aspect can be customized, allowing you to incorporate parts of your brand and give your lead capture forms a unique design that matches your company and product.

Drip

If you've looked into email marketing tools for your store, you've probably stumbled upon Drip. Drip's all-in-one email marketing tool will help your businesses market smarter so you can grow faster. As the backbone for your customer relationships, they provide AI-powered, user-friendly tools to help you boost your business.

Create, send, and evaluate email and ad campaigns using this marketing automation tool. It lets you generate new leads by displaying appealing forms at the proper time and location. It also allows you to send out attractive promotional emails, SMS messages, support emails, and follow-ups to users who abandoned their shopping carts.

You can create a custom points system based on your user's actions to determine their lead strength. Drip can send material and notifications to your subscribers based on their behavior. And much more.

It only has one payment plan. With starting of $19, that lets you have 500 contacts.

You can also upgrade to more contacts at a higher rate. But Drip also has a 14-day trial for you to assess the product before you make the purchase.


PushEngage

Connecting with your visitors after they leave your website can help get more recurring visitors. And PushEngage is the perfect notification software for the job.

PushEngage sends customized web push notifications to your subscribers by automatically segmenting them and using auto-responders to give them notifications. It is easy to set up and will start appearing in users' desktop and mobile browsers right away.

PushEngage includes strong features like triggered alerts, dynamic segmentation, A/B testing, custom domains and branding, and more to help you increase visitors to your website.

It's not always simple to get visitors to return to your website, but PushEngage provides the tools you need to get them back and keep them there. And the best thing is that you'll probably be able to expand your push notification subscriber list quickly.

Because you don't need to request any personal information from them, such as their name or email address.

Instead, when customers land on your site, they simply need to click "Allow" to begin receiving push alerts right away.

Site Kit by Google

Google Site Kit is a free plugin that helps you to integrate several Google services into your website. It allows you to seamlessly integrate Google's online marketing services such as – Search Console, Google Analytics, Google Optimize, Google Tag Manager, PageSpeed Insights, and Google AdSense to your WordPress dashboard.

These providers will then provide you with data that you can access in your WordPress dashboard.

You can use the plugin to receive basic information about your users, such as how they use your site and how they found it on the internet. The additional integrated services will provide you with additional benefits.

But a downside to this free and amazing plugin is that it needs a bit of tech knowledge. Beginners who are not tech-savvy can find it a bit tricky. The interface is simple, but it is intended for more experienced users.

Users who prefer a single dashboard with little information may find Site Kit to be a good fit. Site Kit also captures data from each Google service and cleanly organizes it in one location.

But, it may not be a good pick if you want to leverage all of Google's services. For example, it only allows you to set up a basic Google Analytics account.


Wrap Up: Armour Your WordPress Site with Right Plugins

And that's it! These are our top picks for your WordPress eCommerce store. Although there are hundreds of more plugins out there, these are the ones we can vouch for. We definitely urge you to look into every plugin before you dive headfirst into it.

Do you find yourself chasing down new customers because current customers aren't sticking around, and you need to keep your eCommerce business afloat? Is it a sustainable strategy to run your eCommerce business?

We hear you saying no because it actually isn't. It's time you need to focus on Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).

In this competitive narrative, you can't really go far by keeping on investing in getting NEW customers rather than keeping your OLD customers. What you really need to concentrate on is maximizing your revenue from your present customers. And this is where customer lifetime value comes into play.

According to Tim Cameron Kitchen - CEO of Exposure Ninja, "In order to increase your customer lifetime value, you need to pull two levers. One, increase the number of purchases. And two, increase the purchase value of each customer. And of course, a good business will have a combination of both of these levers."

We want your business to have high customer LTV. So we noted down a series of pointers that you could follow to increase your customer lifetime value and higher profits. Before we dive into the strategies, let's start with the basics.

What is Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)?


According to Omniconvert, "customer lifetime value (CLV) shows how much revenue a business can expect from one customer compared to how long the company predicts that customer will stay."

Customer lifetime value is an important metric for eCommerce brands to measure the average accumulating total of their purchase for some time.

Lifetime value helps you determine if your business will scale the ROI from marketing. It also helps you evaluate the retention strategy depending on how low or high your LTV is.

How To Increase Customer Lifetime Value

You can increase your customer lifetime value by either increasing your Average Order Value or Average Purchase Frequency. An increase in either of these metrics will rise Customer Lifetime Value. Apart from that, let's take a look at the other ways to increase CLV.

Improve Your Customer Support

Treating your customer right is the core to increasing customer lifetime value. According to Tim Han, an international speaker and author from success insider - "treating your customers like family is the key to recurring customers."

Now we're not telling you to turn a blind eye to their red flags and keep on supporting them. But we definitely recommend you to go a bit above to give them special treatments. In fact, according to research from PWC,  86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience. So enhancing your customer support is an absolute must.

A solid customer support strategy includes attention to the customer pre, mid and post-sale. Your customer support should cater to your customer at every stage of their buying journey. A great way to make sure your customer's queries are always answered in no time is by using an AI-powered chatbot. Having a live chat available can turn a customer question into a sale or complaint into a resolution. We recommend you check out MyAlice as their chatbot can actually automate your entire selling process from start to finish. And the best part is, MyAlice is completely free to sign up!

You need to make sure your customers are returning again and again for the delightful experience you provide.

Send out occasional gifts

Who doesn't like free stuff? Especially when it comes as a surprise from a place you shopped from. We find ourselves leaning towards shops that offer great discounts or free goodies in most cases. And that's because this is a psychological trick that all of us fall for.

Lippincott's creative consultancy provided a scientific and psychological-based study called the "Happiness Halo" - proving exactly that. In the "Happiness Halo," the author stresses, "Appeal to customers' reason and they're yours for a day. Appeal to customer's emotions, and they're yours for a lifetime."

And nothing is more solid than sending gifts to appeal to your customer's emotions. It shows them that you care about them more than just a means of getting some sales.

We're not telling you to send out gifts 365 days a year to every customer for every purchase. But rather, identify your loyal set of customers and potentially loyal customers, and then send out occasional gifts to show them you care.

Nudge Your Customers into Subscriptions

One of the most popular ways (that works) of increasing the number of purchases of your customers is by bumping them into subscriptions. They're one of the new trends of e-commerce. And they can be lucrative enough that we even see big names like GoPro getting into the subscription realm they previously didn't opt for.

You can nudge them into a subscription by displaying a subscription-biased pricing option of your product.

This basically means you will show the pricing option of a one-time purchase on one side. And on another, the pricing option is based on subscription. However, you need to show your customers how the subscription pricing will be more effective and profitable.

This will incentivize them to opt for the subscription rather than going for a one-time purchase.

Another way of getting your customers into subscriptions is by showing the subscription as the default purchase method. And if customers want to go for a one-time purchase, they need to click on that purchase method.

You can do to level up the subscription game by giving them an option to allow your customers to customize the time frame and the amount of product for the subscription. This way, they will not have too much stock of the product based on their lifestyle. And they are less likely to cancel the subscription altogether.

Integrate Add-ons and Upsells

Another great way to increase the average order value of your customers is by adding add-ons and upsells. Big names like GoDaddy GoPro have been using this pricing strategy for years now, which has helped them generate more sales.

Everything that you throw at your customers before and after purchasing the products is for one thing - increasing the order value.

And therefore, there's an increase in customer LTV. Some of your add-ons and upsells features may seem annoying to your customers. But it's a genius idea for your business.

Since you are competing in a very competitive and price-sensitive space, If you want to maximize your customer acquisition, you need to maximize the value of every customer you get through the door.

By doing so, you can save the money that you would have otherwise spent on getting new customers. So you can now invest it in other business activities. Like - marketing. Which will help you build market share without increasing the price of their core product.


— Introduce Premium Versions

Introducing a line of premium versions of the same product can incentivize your customers to opt for better options. But, you need to make sure you can present it in a manner that demonstrates why the premium versions are better than the regular ones.

That way, customers who always want the best of everything are more likely to opt for the premium purchase. The pricing of the premium product will also be higher than the regular, which may be a problem for some of your customers. In such a case, you can introduce split pay for that.

Now split pay is absolutely everywhere and another massive trend of e-commerce over the last few years. One of the biggest players in the split pay market -Klarna, claims to increase the average order value by up to 58%.

Split pay will help you get more sales for your premium products and end up increasing the average order value for your customers.

Drawing Conclusion: Loyalty Brings Revenue

The right customer lifetime value model can boost your company's growth and progress in many ways. It puts more money in your business's wallet by lowering customer acquisition costs and saving money on marketing and sales activities.

Delivering a great deal of value, understanding the customers being in their shoes, prioritizing customer service are what they need to come back to you again and again.

Learn More:

  1. How Customer Service Can Help Sustain Your E-Commerce Business
  2. How To Get Repeat E-commerce Customers: Encourage Them To Return For More

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