WooCommerce is a powerful eCommerce solution built on top of WordPress. In the same way that plugins add functionality to WordPress, WooCommerce extensions add functionality to WooCommerce. You can think of WooCommerce extensions as a special type of WordPress plugin.
If WooCommerce isn’t installed, they serve no purpose. It can be downright overwhelming to wade through the many free WooCommerce extensions for new eCommerce sites — especially if it’s your first time setting up an online store with WooCommerce for WordPress.
The popularity of WooCommerce means there are plenty of excellent extensions and plugins available to power-up your new eCommerce site, so how do you choose the plugins and extensions that will best serve your store?
Editor's note: If you use GoDaddy's managed ecommerce WordPress hosting, you get access to over £2,000-worth of WooCommerce extensions for free.
Please note, prices and features listed in this article are correct at time of publication.
It’s all about your goals
Once you’ve nailed down exactly what you need your eCommerce site to do, you can begin looking into WooCommerce plugins and extensions that provide that functionality. Customized invoices and packing slips? There’s a plugin for that. Sales pages in multiple languages? Ditto. Abandoned cart recovery emails? Yep, WooCommerce plugins and extensions have you covered.
Some plugins and extensions are completely free, while others are considered “freemium” — meaning they are free but you can upgrade to a feature-rich version for a price that includes extended support.
Freemium plugins are a great way to test a plugin to see if you like it before making a purchase.
15 free WooCommerce extensions for new eCommerce sites (and plugins, too)
While goals for eCommerce sites will vary, here are 15 free WooCommerce extensions and plugins you might want to investigate:
1. WooCommerce Customizer
I love WooCommerce Customizer. I use it to customize the text for the “add to cart” button for different product types, and to customize the number of products displayed per page. I also tweaked the coupon and login text on the checkout page. This plugin allows you to customize even more! 40,000+ active installs.
2. WooCommerce PDF Invoices & Packing Slips
Use the WooCommerce PDF Invoices & Packing Slips plugin to automatically add a PDF invoice to the order confirmation emails you send out to your customers. It includes a basic template as well as the possibility to modify/create your own templates. I was able to easily customize the included template to my liking. In addition, you can choose to download or print invoices and packing slips from the WooCommerce order admin. 80,000+ active installs.
3. Custom Product Tabs for WooCommerce
Custom Product Tabs for WooCommerce extends the eCommerce solution to allow shop owners to add custom tabs to products.
I use the additional tabs to include product specifics that I can add on a product-by-product basis. The custom tabs also are a great place to add FAQs. The tabs are displayed on the individual product pages to the right of the default “Description” tab. 20,000+ active installs.
4. WooCommerce Multilingual
If you anticipate having to cater to multiple languages, WooCommerce Multilingual makes it possible to run fully multilingual eCommerce sites using WooCommerce and WPML. You’ll be able to keep the same language through the checkout process, send emails to clients and admins in their native language and more with this one robust plugin. Bonus: WooCommerce Multilingual is compatible with popular WooCommerce extensions including WooCommerce Bookings, WooCommerce Subscriptions and WooCommerce Product Add-ons. 60,000+ active installs.
5. YITH WooCommerce Wishlist
With YITH WooCommerce Wishlist, you can make it easy for customers to save their favourites and share their wishlists on their social networks. That’s a big win for potential sales! This plugin enables customers to add products from your WooCommerce store to their own wishlist page. They then can easily add those products from the wishlist to the cart. Boom! 400,000 +active installs.
6. WooCommerce Checkout Field Editor (Manager) Pro
I’ve yet to work with a client who didn’t want to customize the checkout process in some way — either by adding, deleting or changing the order of fields. The WooCommerce Checkout Field Editor Pro plugin provides an easy way to customize (add, edit, delete and change display order) the fields displayed on the WooCommerce checkout page to what works best for you. 30,000+ active installs.
7. WooCommerce Currency Switcher
WooCommerce Currency Switcher is a must-have if you’re selling globally. This plugin allows your customers to switch currencies within your WooCommerce store and get their rates converted in real-time. 20,000+ active installs.
8. Abandoned Cart Lite for WooCommerce
Abandoned Cart Lite is an easy-to-use plugin that allows WooCommerce store owners to recover sales that are lost to shopping carts that customers abandon. How? By making it easy for you to create emails that you can send at predetermined times to try and recover or encourage those sales. The plugin automatically stops email notifications when a customer makes a purchase or uses the cart recovery link. 10,000+ active installs.
9. Product Import Export for WooCommerce
Have hundreds or thousands of products? Want to save a lot of data entry time? Product Import Export for WooCommerce enables you to easily import simple products from a CSV file to WooCommerce, and export simple products in CSV format. 10,000+ active installs.
10. WooCommerce Menu Cart
With WooCommerce Menu Cart you can automatically display a mini shopping cart in your menu bar. This is a nifty feature especially for eCommerce sites that do not utilize a sidebar, because having the customer’s cart visible on every page is critical for conversion. 40,000+ active installs.
11. WooCommerce Stock Manager
WooCommerce Stock Manager allows you manage stock for products and their variables from one screen. This is great for sites that offer colour and size variables. You can easily track each variable separately to make sure your customers don’t order items you do not have readily available. 10,000+ active installs.
12. WooCommerce Product Slider
Looking for a simple WooCommerce product slider/carousel plugin? Then WooCommerce Product Slider is a tool worth checking out. I use this plugin to feature products on sale or special promotions on category pages. 10,000+ active installs.
13. WooCommerce Products Filter
WooCommerce Products Filter allows you and your customers to filter products by categories, attributes, tags, custom taxonomies and price. This extra functionality lets customers drill down to exactly what they are looking for. 30,000+ active installs.
14. WooCommerce Simply Order Export
With WooCommerce Simply Order Export, you can easily export WooCommerce order data like customer name, amount paid, customer email, order status and more. You can choose which fields to export — an excellent tool for importing data into postage, accounting and business tracking applications. The data is exported in the form of CSV file. 10,000+ active installs.
15. Paid Memberships Pro
Who doesn’t want to build loyalty and repeat visits? You can do that by using Paid Memberships Pro to offer a Members Only area to complement your eCommerce offering. Set up unlimited membership levels and provide restricted access to members-only content including pages, posts, categories, videos, forums (for support), downloads, single “a la carte” page access and more. 50,000+ active installs.
There you have it — 15 well-supported, feature-rich and free WooCommerce extensions for new eCommerce sites. These are tools that every new WooCommerce WordPress store should consider. They have great support ratings, at least 10,000 or more active installs, and have been tested with the latest version of WordPress: 4.7.4. Always remember to look at support and version compatibility before installing any plugin on your website.
