For a business owner, a little extra effort can turn an ordinary online store truly unique. Fortunately, with some of the must-have plugins for your WooCommerce store, optimizing your online business becomes even easier.
Before going into that, however, there is a chance that you’re new to this whole process. So, it’s probably best that we address the main question that you probably have.
What Exactly Are These Plugins For?
WooCommerce itself enables WordPress users to add many amazing features to their online businesses, like website themes and payment portals. However, you’ll also gain access to a wide range of other plugins that act as extensions or add-ons. These may include coding plugins, multilingual site tools, and checkout field editor for woocommerce.
But why are these plugins so essential? One of your biggest responsibilities as an online store owner is to simplify navigation for visitors. The better your checkout experience is, the easier it becomes to secure a buyer. That’s why you need these checkout plugins.
10 Essential WooCommerce Plugins For Online Stores
WordPress websites are truly spoiled for choice when it comes to plugins. However, most online stores have to provide some basic functions for their users. So, to keep things simple and brief, we’ll be focusing on a handful of must-have plugin options.
This handy little extension uses Stripe, which is one of the world’s leading digital payment platforms. With this plugin, you can offer multiple payment options through Apple or Microsoft Pay, or card services like American Express. Overall, it’s simple and efficient.
Key Features
- Supports recurring payments
- No hidden fees
- Mobile-friendly
- API support
- Supports other payment options
This plugin helps you set up a straightforward, user-friendly rating and review section for each product page. If you want, you can also add FAQ sections and media functions that let buyers upload product images and videos. For providing an authentic sales experience, customer reviews for WooCommerce reassures potential customers that what you’re selling is legit.
Key Features
- Supports localized reviews in more than 60 languages
- Aggregated review forms for easier viewing
- Filtering options (star ratings, posting time, etc.)
- Compatible with Google Shopping
- Review reminders
- Import and export reviews from other sources
Many online buyers fail to complete some of their purchases after adding something to a cart. This can lead to lost revenue for stores as the product remains unclaimed but also becomes unavailable to other buyers.
With this tool, you can prepare and customize automated email reminders targeting buyers that leave abandoned carts. This increases your chances of completing a sale.
You can prepare templates for your emails and decide how often you want to send your reminders. It even helps you calculate how much revenue you can recover with each abandoned cart.
Key Features
- Email capturing
- Unique checkout link for each buyer
- CRM integration (e.g. Campaign Monitor and Active Campaign)
- Set up coupon incentives for buyers
- GDPR compliance function
- Track cart recovery
In e-commerce, “checkout” is the function that enables buyers to complete a purchase on an online store. It is a basic function of online shopping, which makes this plugin especially important for virtual businesses. The checkout field editor for WooCommerce helps you design simple and helpful checkout forms and fields for each product page.
It helps with basic functions, like adding checkboxes to checkout or adding or removing checkout fields. Customers can also personalize their account details with this extension. All in all, this tool creates a smooth checkout experience guaranteed to boost your sales and conversions.
Key Features
- Bespoke checkout fields and forms
- Multiple field types
- Multiple field functions (like display, reposition, hide, or delete)
- Email display
- Plugin and WPML compatibility
- Multilingual support
Once your customer has placed an order, they’ll need updates on how their delivery is going. That’s where this shipment tracking WooCommerce extension comes in handy.
You can set up delivery processing and tracking options, and design the page with which your buyers can follow their purchase. It also helps prepare email updates, display tracking info, and offers different delivery service providers.
Key Features
- Integrates with WooCommerce Shipping, PayPal, Ali2Woo, and more
- API support
- Multilingual features
- Custom tracking numbers
- CSV import capability
- User-friendly interface for buyers
- Email and SMS updates
Keeping track of your receipts is a financially sensible habit, even if you’re only shopping virtually. Once your customers have confirmed an order, they should receive an email confirming their purchase. This PDF invoice tool attaches a digital receipt to that email, which contains the relevant information (date, time, balance, tax info, etc) about the purchase.
Ostensibly, it’s a fairly simple function. But for online stores, this function helps facilitates bookkeeping for buyers and sellers alike. Plus, similar to customer reviews, this documentation demonstrates that you’re a reliable and responsible online store.
Key Features
- Customizable invoice, packing slip, form, and refund note templates
- Prints in 30+ languages
- Sequential invoice numbers
- Bulk invoice function
Window shopping is a time-honoured tradition, and even online stores can benefit from making it easier. The YITH WooCommerce wishlist makes it easier for shoppers to save products that they cannot purchase just yet.
Perhaps it’s the end of the month or the product isn’t in stock at the moment. Or maybe they’re waiting to place the order for a special occasion, like Christmas or a seasonal sale. Either way, with this nifty little plugin, they can create and share wishlists boasting their favourite products. What better way to add a touch of customer service to your business?
Key Features
- Customizable column design
- Product variation support
- Wishlist search options
- Public or private wishlist visibility option
WooCommerce Multilingual is a WPML-powered plugin that can help your online cater to a wider non-English speaking base. Ideally, you need the 4.4.11 and 3.9.0 versions of WPML and WooCommerce, respectively to use it.
It allows you to integrate smart translation to every aspect of your store. This includes everything from product descriptions to checkout fields, product variations, and even reviews.
Key Features
- Support for other WooCommerce plugins
- Localised currency support
- String translation
- Comprehensive WordPress translation
- Multilanguage SEO capabilities
- REST API support
Making a Google Analytics account is quite easy, and so is registering a WooCommerce profile. The tricky part is linking the two together, which is where this tool comes in handy. With Google Analytics integration, you can monitor visits, global site engagement, bounce rates, and other metrics handy to your WooCommerce store.
Key Features
- Compatible with GA4
- Integrates Global Site Tag, Universal Analytics, eCommerce, and more
- Goals and funnels setup
- Cross-domain measurement
- User-friendly filters and hooks
Looking for a simple way to mobilize your inventory data? The Product Import and Export plugin lives up to its name by listing all your goods in a single CSV spreadsheet. You can make updates, sync product lists between platforms, and scroll through or filter your data with ease. It’s easy to implement and allows you to back up and effortlessly monitor your datasets.
Key Features
- Upload all product information (reviews, descriptions, images, etc.)
- ChatGPT-powered automated product descriptions
- Bulk import and export
- Simple debugging features
- Works for Shopify, Magento, and other e-commerce platforms
In Summary
If it weren’t for WooCommerce, it seems that most emerging online stores wouldn’t have much of a chance. You certainly have many options to pick from WordPress if you can just look around. However, if you’re looking to keep things simple, these are the absolute must-have plugins for any WooCommerce store.