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If you’re looking for extra ways to monetize your blog, setting up a WordPress ecommerce site is quick and simple.  Even if you don’t have any products to sell, you can easily add an option to sell your expertise and knowledge with bonus information and articles for paid subscribers only.

If you decide to begin ecommerce, it’s vital you get all the plug ins, themes and widgets you need.  Competition is fierce but using the right tools you can guarantee good levels of income and repeat trade.  However, there are literally hundreds of free and pay for plug ins and themes available for WordPress ecommerce, making it very difficult to know which are effective and useful on your site.  This article tells you everything you need to set up a successful Ecommerce site using WordPress.

Essential Tools For WordPress Ecommerce

The first step is to choose a domain name and a host. This should only be a small capital investment, of a single fee (as little as $10 in some cases) or up to $15 per month.  Then you can download WordPress and your free website builder. This is simple and quick using the download option on our website.

Then you’ll need to choose a payment method.  This allows customers to pay for your products and you can set up an account with any of the following: Paypal, Google Checkout and ClickBank.

Finally you’ll need to download some Ecommerce tools which make running your site so much easier.  Everything from shopping carts to price calculators, ecommerce themes to payment facilitators, you’ll find literally hundreds of different WordPress software options.  However it can be difficult to know which to choose, so here’s a summary of the best ones available, which are all on our resources page ready for you to download: 

1. WordPress themes for ecommerce: it’s important to adapt your website to suit your customers.  Even if you’re in a very niche market, there will still be competition out there.  You need to project a professional image that will convince people to buy from you and make them trust you with their hard earned cash.  Some themes will cost up to $100, but sometimes it’s worth paying a little to project the right image.  Here are some of the best free WordPress ecommerce themes, available through our resources page:
2. WP e-Commerce: this is a free plug in that provides an easy to use and elegant theme, alongside a full shopping cart application ideal for selling products and services.  This is especially recommended for clothing, crafts, books, DVDs and bands and is one of the most complete and powerful ecommerce plug ins you’ll find.
3. Crafty Cart: a free theme that’s in a retro style and really nice for selling clothes, vintage or quirky items.  You need to use it alongside the WP e-Commerce plug in, and it’s very simple to adapt to your needs. 
4. WP Store: a very clean and effective ecommerce theme, once again compatible with WP e-commerce.  It gives you easy control over the Latest Products area, Home Page and Top Selling Products widget.
5. WP Simple Paypal Shopping Cart: this simple plug in allows you to place an “add to cart” icon on any page, post or sidebar. Users can easily see what’s in their cart at anytime and remove unwanted items.  This is a great plug in if you’re selling photos, as it’s easily integrated with the NextGen Photo Gallery plug in.
6. Are PayPal: this plug in is designed for you to be able to monetize your blog and make money from your knowledge.  It allows you to hide certain parts of your text that only subscribers can get access to.  This is great if you have knowledge about a really niche market that people need to find out about, such as designing house plans, making money from your hobbies or corporate sales tips from a leading management consultant. 
7. ArtPal: this plug in was designed for artists to sell their work online, seamlessly integrating Paypal within their blog.  As soon as items are sold, the plug in disables it from being sold again so that one off pieces are not sold twice.  This dramatically reduces the admin and headache that can come from selling one off pieces such as art, sculptures, vintage or any antique products. 
8. eShop:  a really good ecommerce plug in that is for WordPress 2.5 and above.  It allows you to download sales data, to check on your progress.  It also uses your WordPress pages or posts to create products and gives you various methods to list products for sale.  A great option for any kind of ecommerce site. 
9. YAK for WordPress: this is another great shopping cart plug in that allows you to offer different purchasing items, including cheque, deposit, credit card, Google Checkout, PayPal and Authorize.net.  It is a little tricky to set up but once its running it’s really useful and provides customers with plenty of payment options.