[Help] Choosing the best plugins for ecommerce Project

[LostKorean]

Hey guys!

I'm setting up a new personal e-commerce project. I would like to hear from more experienced people in Wordpress and Woocommerce, about which plugins you consider most useful and essential to use in a project like this...

Remembering that I'm focusing on user experience plugins, and not specifically on payment plugins, shipping, etc...

Just for context, in this project I will need / use:

• VPS (LiteSpeed or Apache);
• Elementor;
• Woocommerce;
• E-mail marketing;
• Customer Service Tool (I thought of using Support Board or another that has a knowledge base resource, ticket, Woocommerce integration, chat sales and things like that);
• Zender (for sending SMS to customers about orders, updates, offers, etc.);
• Chatbot for Social Networks (WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, etc.);
• WP Rocket;
• Security plugin.

I've seen some plugins that help with site speed issues and improve LCP, CLS, FCP and TTFB, but I don't remember now which one it would be. Feel free to point me to one.

Possibly I intend to create a community for customers with gamification, earning points, exchanging products and exchanging experiences. I was checking out GamiPress and Vikinger. Would it be the ideal and best for this?

So far these are the features I've mapped. If you have any other interesting suggestions, please let me know!

 

[Tuton]

Based on my experience and Flippa sales of high-end eCommerce websites, there are a lot of factors that play here, especially depending on what you are selling. In my case, I was selling adult toys. Some plugins for me were not useful due to the adult products, but you can get a hit on what I use for this type of project.

For a theme, I will definitely choose Flatsome. It is one of the best themes out there for e-commerce and is very responsive on all devices and easy to customize.


Plugins:

For store use Woocomerce

for support the best way to set up this is using Fluent support.

For marketing purposes, Fluent CRM can be connected to a lot of stuff.

Use Fluent SMTP for email SMTP.

for community use WPForo works great and has plugins to expand its features.

RankMath Pro is an SEO tool.

For security, in my case, I use SiteGround security combined with CloudFlare, or you can use Shield Security

I use a chatbot. I use Betterdoc combined with fluent support

All these plugins sync with the site user, so there is no need to create a separate account

I believe there were others, but I can't recall them.

 

[xsz]

I recommend that you stop using Elementor and use Bricks instead. Way faster in all categories and you can make exactly what you want with ease.

For the server i recommend Listespeed + Litespeed cache plugin

For extra performance i recommend Perfmatters + Local fonts + Local Gtag + Robin image optimizer

For a points system i used WooCommerce Reward Points and works for me but maybe you need extra features

Also there are a lot of small things that can improve user experience and help convert better like waiting lists, recover abandoned carts, upsells, social login, etc.

 

[LostKorean]

Thanks for the answers folks! @tuton012 @xsz

Based on my experience and Flippa sales of high-end eCommerce websites, there are a lot of factors that play here, especially depending on what you are selling. In my case, I was selling adult toys. Some plugins for me were not useful due to the adult products, but you can get a hit on what I use for this type of project.

For a theme, I will definitely choose Flatsome. It is one of the best themes out there for e-commerce and is very responsive on all devices and easy to customize.


Plugins:

For store use Woocomerce

for support the best way to set up this is using Fluent support.

For marketing purposes, Fluent CRM can be connected to a lot of stuff.

Use Fluent SMTP for email SMTP.

for community use WPForo works great and has plugins to expand its features.

RankMath Pro is an SEO tool.

For security, in my case, I use SiteGround security combined with CloudFlare, or you can use Shield Security

I use a chatbot. I use Betterdoc combined with fluent support

All these plugins sync with the site user, so there is no need to create a separate account

I believe there were others, but I can't recall them.

Your integrated plugin solution made a lot of sense to me, I wasn't remembering CRM at the time I made the topic, but obviously it's something essential in my opinion. FluentCRM already seems to have a very broad integration with other plugins, it's definitely something I'll consider when actually planning.

I will look into the possibility of integrating it to the Support Board, in place of Betterdocs if necessary. Because I already have a license from him, it would be easier financially.

For hiring VPS, I was considering Hetzner. I never got to hire her services, but the prices caught my attention. Taking into account features offered and price comparison with BRL and USD. Do you have any other recommendations besides SiteGround? In addition to Woocommerce, I also intend to put a node.js server on this VPS running a WhatsApp API for sending messages (for marketing purposes) and possibly chatbot.

For Cloudflare, do you think the free plan (at least in the beginning) can be working for me without any problems or would I need a paid plan?

I recommend that you stop using Elementor and use Bricks instead. Way faster in all categories and you can make exactly what you want with ease.

For the server i recommend Listespeed + Litespeed cache plugin

For extra performance i recommend Perfmatters + Local fonts + Local Gtag + Robin image optimizer

For a points system i used WooCommerce Reward Points and works for me but maybe you need extra features

Also there are a lot of small things that can improve user experience and help convert better like waiting lists, recover abandoned carts, upsells, social login, etc.

Damn, I didn't remember Bricks. I remember having a look at this project when it was still being born, it seems to be much more structured now. To use Bricks instead of Elementor I need to check all the processes, if I can make integrations with other plugins and if everything works well without Elementor. I believe that in speed yes, Elementor is quite slow, especially for Web Vitals.

For image optimization I considered using Tiny. I will see your recommendation of Robin, thanks!!

For the points system I intend to use something very, very robust, with many resources.

I didn't get to list other items here, such as waiting list, abandoned cart recovery, upsell, social login and several other options, as this for us here in Brazil is already something standard to be used. Unfortunately, I see a lack of Woocommerce plugins that do all this in a single package, without having to install several different plugins...

Here we usually use SaaS platforms instead of custom projects with Woocommerce. But as I want to bring an extra and unique experience, I'm going to need Wordpress for that.

Out of curiosity, I found the ShopEngine plugin. Have you ever used it or heard of it? Particularly, I find it difficult to define ecommerce tools for Woocommerce, as there are many plugins and I always wonder which one will best meet the needs of each case. I've already taken on some projects where I used a plugin, and when it came to development, the plugin didn't fully meet my needs. So I always needed to be supplementing it with additional plugins, or switching entirely to another one.

 

[jacsify]

Thanks for the answers folks! @tuton012 @xsz



Your integrated plugin solution made a lot of sense to me, I wasn't remembering CRM at the time I made the topic, but obviously it's something essential in my opinion. FluentCRM already seems to have a very broad integration with other plugins, it's definitely something I'll consider when actually planning.

I will look into the possibility of integrating it to the Support Board, in place of Betterdocs if necessary. Because I already have a license from him, it would be easier financially.

For hiring VPS, I was considering Hetzner. I never got to hire her services, but the prices caught my attention. Taking into account features offered and price comparison with BRL and USD. Do you have any other recommendations besides SiteGround? In addition to Woocommerce, I also intend to put a node.js server on this VPS running a WhatsApp API for sending messages (for marketing purposes) and possibly chatbot.

For Cloudflare, do you think the free plan (at least in the beginning) can be working for me without any problems or would I need a paid plan?


Damn, I didn't remember Bricks. I remember having a look at this project when it was still being born, it seems to be much more structured now. To use Bricks instead of Elementor I need to check all the processes, if I can make integrations with other plugins and if everything works well without Elementor. I believe that in speed yes, Elementor is quite slow, especially for Web Vitals.

For image optimization I considered using Tiny. I will see your recommendation of Robin, thanks!!

For the points system I intend to use something very, very robust, with many resources.

I didn't get to list other items here, such as waiting list, abandoned cart recovery, upsell, social login and several other options, as this for us here in Brazil is already something standard to be used. Unfortunately, I see a lack of Woocommerce plugins that do all this in a single package, without having to install several different plugins...

Here we usually use SaaS platforms instead of custom projects with Woocommerce. But as I want to bring an extra and unique experience, I'm going to need Wordpress for that.

Out of curiosity, I found the ShopEngine plugin. Have you ever used it or heard of it? Particularly, I find it difficult to define ecommerce tools for Woocommerce, as there are many plugins and I always wonder which one will best meet the needs of each case. I've already taken on some projects where I used a plugin, and when it came to development, the plugin didn't fully meet my needs. So I always needed to be supplementing it with additional plugins, or switching entirely to another one.

Hi,
I seem to be looking for similar answers to you. Did you check out ShopEngine?
I installed it, but I need to be able to make variable product bundles.
If anyone else has any ideas that could help, I would so appreciate it!
Thanks!

 

[LostKorean]

Hi,
I seem to be looking for similar answers to you. Did you check out ShopEngine?
I installed it, but I need to be able to make variable product bundles.
If anyone else has any ideas that could help, I would so appreciate it!
Thanks!

I took a look at the features of this plugin, they look great! But unfortunately I haven't had time to test them yet.

I believe that in approximately 2 weeks I will be able to see these project issues I mentioned above. As you said that you are looking for similar answers, we can share here what we find of useful plugins and tools!