With advances in technology, the world truly has become a global village. One of the major advancements in recent years that has brought us even closer is eCommerce; eCommerce enables individuals to purchase anything from any part of the world at any time. One just has find what they want online and from there you’re almost assured to be able to buy that item from the comfort of your own home. eCommerce can be made effective by good marketing strategies, kick-ass advertisements, great product endorsements, and awesome plug-ins.

One of the leading CMS’s today for online businesses is WordPress. There are many WordPress eCommerce shopping plug-ins and themes available that you can use to build an online business in no time. This article will help you to find some great shopping plug-ins and themes for your WordPress site.

Pros And Cons

WordPress is popular amongst developers of eCommerce websites for a number of different reasons. One of the major reasons is that it offers applications that are easy to learn and use. These applications are generally quite affordable, and some of them are even free. The majority of the plug-ins and themes supplied by WordPress are open source and light weight in terms of size in comparison to Magento and other famous e-commerce solutions. The only major disadvantage is that it can’t be used for sites with a lot of sales due to heaviness of database queries.

Famous E-commerce Shopping Plug-ins

1. YAK for WordPress

YAK is a solid choice if you are interested in adding an open source shopping cart plug-in. This WordPress plug-in is beneficial for those sites which offers their users software products online. These products may also include e-books as well as other software in zip-files. Customers can purchase your product through any purchasing option provided by the YAK plug-in like cheque, credit card form, Google Checkout, PayPal, PayPal Payments Pro, and Authorize.net. The only thing required is php5 to make your YAK plug-in work properly.

2. Cart66 Pro

This plug-in enables you to sell digital as well as physical products from your website. If you are willing to make your web page a one stop shop then you should go for this plug-in. It is really a very powerful plug-in for WordPress because you can manage orders, sell your products, place products anywhere on your site or sell internationally. Payments can be received by PayPal Website Payments Standard, PayPal Express Checkout or Manual Checkout. It also has options for UPS real time shipping rates, membership, payment plans and coupons.

3. WordPress eStore plug-in

This WordPress e-commerce plug-in also enables you to sell your digital goods online. The best thing about the WordPress e-store is that it supports multi-site license.  It also assures the security of your resources so you know you’ll always be able to provide reliable services. The payment methods are also free from third party interaction. Checkouts are also very sleek. Just as in any other plug-in, you can get your payments via PayPal, 2Checkout, Authorize.net or Manual Payment. Customers can purchase if they have credit card or PayPal account.

4. EShop

Eshop is another shopping plug-in for your online store. This WordPress plug-in is helpful in creating product spots because of its compatibility with custom post types. Customers can enjoy shopping by registration. You can upload as well as download product by using E-shop. It also generates automated emails. The best feature of E-shop is that it has basic control of stock and multi-site compatibility. There is an uninstall option available in the file if you don't want it on your site you can simply use this option. It also gives discount options. Checkout is done by Authorize.net, PayPal, Payson, eProcessingNetwork, Webtopay, iDEAL and Cash/Cheque.

5. WP e-commerce

The WP e-commerce shopping cart is good to use for selling products and services online. It can also be used to collect fees online if you choose to run a service that requires monthly or yearly fees to be paid. If you are searching for a plug- in which has a high usability factor and great looks, then WP e-commerce is perfect for you. It’s a great solution for selling your albums,crafts, art, books, almost anything really.

6. WordPress Simple PayPal Shopping Cart

This plug-in enables your customers to add items to their shopping cart. It gives your customers an option of one click shopping by providing an "Add to Cart" button in its application. You can also display a shopping cart on the bar or in any post using this plug-in. This plug-in allows the user to add or remove anything from his cart.

7. Quick Shop

This plug-in is enabled by installing a sidebar widget.  It allows the user to and and remove items from their cart before purchasing it by showing their selected items in the sidebar. By adding tinyMCE button you can show your inventory list. Editing can be done easily because it integrates itself with CFormsII. You can format your widget layout from Admin–>option–>Quick Shop. It is compatible with WordPress MU.

8. Market press

This was the first plug-in which has a flawless integration with WP multi-site and BuddyPress. If you want to fully use custom post types and catalogs then MarketPress will make it easy for you. It has a number of shortcodes so that your online store can be maintained efficiently. It also provides global listing of products from all over the network of MarketPress stores. It provides well documented custom shipping and gateway modules.

9. WpStoreCart Plugin

This plug-in is also used to sell digital and physical products. This is a free version and has many of the same features that any other e-commerce shopping plug-in has. The merchant gateways include authorize.net, PayPal etc.

10. WP Invoice

A free WordPress invoicing system. It is supported by different browsers. It includes two widgets so that the customers can view their history and awaiting invoices by signing in. Invoices are powered by paypal and superior Instant Payment Notification system. It has a powerful customizable user interface. Payments can be done by paypal or credit card which is accepted by authorize.net and MerchantPlus NaviGate. Invoice pages are viewed in SSL mode. Invoice look up can be added anywhere on your site if you are using PHP or WordPress shortcodes.

11. FoxyPress Plug-in

This shopping plug-in is similar to the EShop plug-in. It is used with foxy cart to add items on wordpress page or posts. It utilizes a WYSIWYG editor or shortcodes for adding items.

12. TikiPress Plug-in

TikiPress plug-in is developed to allow you to sell tickets online for an event or products on your WordPress site. This plug-in is new and still in the beta phase.

13. Image Store Plug-in

This plug-in is developed to provide an online image gallery for your wordpress website without anxiety of installation of multiple plug-ins. It is integrated with wordpress database and paypal cart. It is helpful in the growth of your e-commerce website. It enables you to download CSV of sales and customers. You can upload an image through zip file. It provides dynamic editing of images and watermark functionality. It makes your online store a purchasable image gallery. It also ensures the secure access of images by prohibiting its unsafe usage. All entries can be removed by uninstalling them.

14. NoShop Product Page Plug-in

This is a special wordpress plug-in which allows you to create your product list along with their pictures. The shopping cart of this plug-in does not need to have any picture installed in it, it is already present in the list. Pictures used in the list are referenced by URL.

15. GoodRelations For WP E-Commerce Plug-in

If you have an e-commerce store then this plug-in will enrich it with RDFa data for semantic web. It will make your product search engine friendly by enabling search engines to read the details of your product.  This plug-in is used by many famous online shops. It is used with WordPress 3.0 and WP e-commerce 3.7.6.7.

16. WP E-Commerce Weight & Destination Shipping Modules Plug-in

This plug-in manages the database for the shipment of products. It allows you to send your shipment on the basis of weight and continent or weight and country. Quotes can be calculated by summing up the entire cart price against its configured weight bands.  It can also be done by adding the individual item's cost.

Famous WordPress E-commerce Themes

1. The Clothes Shop

The clothes shop is a theme which is developed to enable you to create a web site for you to sell your products using images or videos. This theme has a front-end customer registration and login protected account area. It has 30 independent and 22 custom widgets. The best part of this theme is that it includes the option for a customer to create a “wish list”. It works with WordPress 3.0 and 3.1 and is cross browser compatible. The regular license is available for only $40. One can test the theme by paying in advance via bank transfer, cash at store or cash payment on delivery. It is a reasonable amount to buy a plug-in free, localized theme.

2. The Furniture Store

The furniture store is a WordPress e-commerce theme with two localized child themes. It has 27 independent and 23 custom widgets. It also has an optional blog. It is an image based, cross browser compatible theme that you can purchase for only $45 and also includes a customer login area.

3. ViroShop

This e-commerce theme has a built-in shopping cart plug-in and a jquery fancy slider.  This theme has a product viewer, a registration area and an optional blog. The regular license of the theme is offered for $35.

4. enViraShop

This e-commerce shopping plug-in has a built-in shopping cart and an admin theme options. There are five color themes which are available for ribbon and cart and an enhanced jquery.

5. Sofa Shoppr

This theme has 8 built-in widgets with multi level drop down navigation. It utilizes either a jQuery slider or a flash gallery.You can display multiple prices for listed products. it is entirely customizable through theme option page. It is a available in wordpress 3.0 and 3.1 version. It’s cross browser compatible and available for $40.

6. RGBStore

It is a web 2.0 WordPress theme for shopping cart applications. The theme is available in three colors: red, green and blue. It works with wordpress 3.0. This theme is available with 6 page templates. It has a cross browser compatibility.

7. Crafty Cart

It is a retro style WordPress e-commerce theme for making your site an e-shop for shirts and handmade items. This theme requires the WP e-commerce plug-in for shopping cart functionality as its design has an add to cart button and a shopping cart widget. It is a free wordpress e-commerce theme.

8. Simple Cart

It is a simple and powerful wordpress theme. It has a grid layout of for products and AJAX cart functionality. Images are easy to swap out and the whole theme is completely customizable.

9. wpStore

This theme is also available for free. It supports up to WP e-commerce 3.7.8. You can give an exclusive look to your e-commerce site by using this theme. The sidebar of the theme contains shopping cart, brands list and top products which is adjustable from product edit page.

Inspiration Gallery of Shops Made With WP

1. Worm Sign T-shirts

2. MythCast

3. Ecademy Press

4. John Stein's Art Journal & Gallery Shop

5. Cyber Suicide

6. Recycled Mags

7. RubyPDF Technologies

8. Brandon Dayton

9. Macon & Lesquoy

10. SmillasSmycken

Tutorials to Learn The Development of E-commerce Website With WP

• A Crash Course in Creating E-Commerce Websites with WordPress
• The Ultimate WP E-Commerce Tutorial
• WordPress theming for beginners
• How to Create a WordPress Theme from Scratch
• How to write a WordPress plug-in
• See how easy it is to widgetize your WordPress theme
• WP Tutorial: Your First WP Plugin
• Create a Custom WordPress Plugin From Scratch
• Anatomy of a WordPress Plugin
• WorPress Plugin Development with PHP

The above list includes WordPress E-commerce shopping tools and resources that you can include in your website to increase business. Their installation links have been included in the images so that you can easily download them directly from here and save your precious time from searching them on web.