WORDPRESS
11 Best eCommerce Solutions Growing in Popularity in 2024
Over the last few years, we have tried out several different eCommerce solutions for our online projects. While we like using Easy Digital Downloads to sell our plugins and other software, we also know that there are plenty of other options for online stores.
That’s why we have done the research and investigated all the popular eCommerce solutions for everything from selling a single product online to full-blown online stores and membership websites.
During our testing process, we paid special attention to how easy each platform is to use, along with the features it offers for different kinds of online stores.
And in this article, we will share some of the best and most popular eCommerce solutions we have explored.
Top 3 eCommerce Platforms in 2024
🥇First place
Price: Free plugin with free/paid extensions
Best for: Selling physical and digital products
Highly scalable & customizable, free to set up
🥈Second place
Price: Free and paid plans (start at $99.50/yr)
Best for: Selling digital downloads
Easy setup, sell unlimited products
🥉Third place
Price: Paid plans (start at $179.50/yr)
Best for: Paid memberships & online courses
Powerful membership features, course creation
How We Tested and Reviewed the Best eCommerce Solutions
While this article will talk about the best eCommerce solutions, we know there’s more to consider than just how many stores use a particular platform.
We want to introduce you to some popular eCommerce platforms that perfectly balance ease of use and affordability for your business needs.
Here’s how we approached testing and reviewing these platforms:
- Value for money: Budget is a big concern for businesses, especially small startups. We looked at each platform’s pricing structure, including which features are in the starting plan, what upgrades unlock, and any additional fees that might add up.
- Ease of use: Many online store owners are self-made entrepreneurs who might be new to the technical side of things. So, we prioritized platforms that make it easy to sign up, build your online store, publish it, and manage day-to-day operations.
- Real-world experience: Some of the platforms we will discuss are the ones we use here at WPBeginner. This means we can confidently recommend them based on our own experience. For others, we invested our time and resources to test them.
- Customer reviews: We don’t just take a platform’s word for it. We delve into user reviews to see what actual customers are experiencing. We then compare these reviews to our own testing results to ensure the platform delivers on its promises.
- Market popularity: While we don’t solely rely on popularity, it does hold some weight. We used BuiltWith, a website technology tracker. It helped us get a sense of each platform’s current market share by analyzing the number of active websites built on it.
Why Trust WPBeginner?
At WPBeginner, we’re a team of passionate WordPress experts with over 16 years of experience under our belts. This experience extends far beyond WordPress itself. We’re well-versed in the world of eCommerce, digital marketing, and all things online business.
Want to learn more about our testing process and editorial practices? Read our editorial process to learn more.
1. WooCommerce (Best Overall eCommerce Solution)
We’ve experimented with many self-hosted eCommerce solutions over the years, but WooCommerce remains our favorite for selling physical products through a WordPress website.
There are several reasons why WooCommerce is a great fit for small businesses. First and foremost, it’s completely free to set up and use. A handy setup wizard guides you through the process, making it easy to launch your WooCommerce store quickly.
But what truly sets WooCommerce apart is its incredible extensibility. Unlike hosted eCommerce platforms that bundle everything in, WooCommerce allows you to choose the features you need.
However, the extensive plugin selection can also be a double-edged sword. Finding the right plugins to achieve your desired functionality can be time-consuming.
Get to know more about this eCommerce plugin in our WooCommerce review.
Live website usage stats: 6 million+
Pros of WooCommerce:
- Free to set up and use
- Highly scalable with tons of WooCommerce extensions available
- Sample products and pre-installed themes for easy exploration
- Built-in analytics to track your store’s performance
Cons of WooCommerce:
- The sheer number of extensions can feel overwhelming for complete beginners.
Pricing: WooCommerce itself is a free plugin. Depending on the features, paid themes and extensions range from $1 to hundreds of dollars. WooCommerce hosting services typically start around $4 per month.
We recommend SiteGround, starting at $3.99 per month, and Bluehost, starting at $9.95 per month.
Why we chose WooCommerce: WooCommerce is the best overall eCommerce solution due to its affordability, ease of use, and unmatched scalability.
2. Easy Digital Downloads (Best for Digital Downloads)
Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is the best eCommerce solution for selling digital products like ebooks, PDFs, software, audio files, and more. In fact, it’s the same platform we use across our companies to sell our WordPress plugins and manage customer orders.
Feel free to learn more about EDD in our Easy Digital Downloads review.
Like WooCommerce, EDD boasts an easy-to-use setup wizard that streamlines the launch process for your online store. You can quickly configure your business details, payment gateways, receipts, and product listings – all within a user-friendly interface.
EDD comes in both free and paid versions. The free plan is great if you’re just starting out with a few products. It includes all the essentials, like a shopping cart, built-in integration with popular payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe, order history, and customer invoicing.
However, the free version lacks features like recurring payments, discount code generators, and software licensing. These features can be crucial for businesses offering subscription models or downloadable software.
Live website usage stats: 50,000+
Pros of Easy Digital Downloads:
- Easy setup with a user-friendly interface
- Sell unlimited products with no transaction fees
- Free trial feature available for customers to try the products
- Mobile app to manage your store on the go
Cons of Easy Digital Downloads:
- It is limited to selling digital products only. If you plan to expand to physical products in the future, you’ll need to consider a different eCommerce platform or upgrade to EDD’s paid plans.
Pricing: Free version available. Paid plans start at $99.50 per year and go up to $499.50 per year. The starting paid plan allows use on 1 website, integrates with email marketing tools, and offers reporting features, custom discount codes, and support for additional payment gateways.
We recommend using SiteGround’s managed EDD Hosting, which starts at $3.99 per month.
Why we chose Easy Digital Downloads: EDD’s free version offers a fantastic starting point for beginners, while the paid plans provide powerful features for growing businesses.
3. MemberPress (Best for Paid Memberships)
MemberPress is the perfect eCommerce solution if you are running a membership-based business model. This includes online courses, coaching services, or educational websites where you offer premium content in exchange for a membership fee.
We use MemberPress ourselves to power the free WPBeginner video membership site, which helps us grow our email list.
While our membership site is free, MemberPress is highly capable of building monetized membership sites. It provides a range of features to support your business, including pay-per-view content, membership level upgrades, discount coupons, and more.
One thing to consider is that MemberPress offers limited payment gateways, integrating only with Stripe, PayPal, and Authorize.net. This might be a drawback if your business requires a wider range of payment processing options.
Read more about the membership plugin in our MemberPress review.
Live website usage stats: 24,575+
Pros of MemberPress:
- Unlimited memberships, members, access rules, and restricted content
- Easy-to-use member dashboard for your customers
- Extensive library of add-ons to tailor the membership site to your needs
- No transaction fees on top of your chosen payment gateway’s fees
Cons of MemberPress:
- Limited payment gateway options
Pricing: Starts at $179.50 per year and goes up to $499.50 per year. The basic plan allows use on 1 website with unlimited members and courses.
Also, feel free to use our MemberPress coupon code to save up to 50% off your first purchase.
Why we chose MemberPress: MemberPress’ ease of use, powerful course creation, and focus on membership site features make it a great option for businesses that want to offer exclusive content and subscriptions.
4. WP Simple Pay (Best for Selling Single Products/Services)
If you’re looking to sell a single product or service through your website, then a full-blown eCommerce software with all its features might be overkill. In fact, a complex platform could slow down your website and ruin the customer experience.
For situations like these, a payment processing plugin like WP Simple Pay is a great alternative. WP Simple Pay integrates seamlessly with Stripe, allowing you to create secure payment forms directly on your WordPress website without needing a separate shopping cart.
Despite its focus on simplicity, WP Simple Pay offers some powerful features. We’ve written extensively about the plugin’s capabilities, like one-click checkout (perfect for impulse purchases) and even buy-now-pay-later payment plans to attract a wider audience.
Learn more about the plugin in our WP Simple Pay review.
However, it’s important to remember that WP Simple Pay isn’t ideal for businesses with plans to grow a large product catalog. Order management can soon be tiring if you only rely on this plugin.
Live website usage stats: 14,000+
Pros of WP Simple Pay:
- Accepts various payment methods through Stripe, including credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, QR codes, and Alipay
- Option to pass on payment processing fees to customers, increasing your profitability
- Drag-and-drop form builder with customization options for your payment forms
- Secure payments with built-in PCI compliance (no additional setup needed)
Cons of WP Simple Pay:
- Not suitable for managing large online stores with a vast product inventory
Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $49.50 per year and go up to $299.50 per year. All plans include unlimited payment forms, unlimited transactions, and no monthly fees on top of Stripe’s processing fees.
You can also use our WP Simple Pay coupon code to get 50% off.
Why we chose WP Simple Pay: It provides a user-friendly and secure way to accept payments without the complexity of a full eCommerce platform, making it great for small online stores.
5. Shopify (All-in-One Hosted eCommerce Platform)
Shopify is the most popular cloud-based eCommerce website builder, and for good reason. From our testing, we believe it is a user-friendly, all-in-one solution that streamlines the process of launching and managing your eCommerce store.
Firstly, Shopify eliminates the hassle of finding separate web hosting and domain name providers. It provides everything you need to get your store up and running, including built-in hosting.
We were also impressed by the fact that it offers abandoned cart recovery in all plans, a valuable tool often missing in starter plans from other platforms.
One thing we’re not a fan of is that transaction fees apply across all plans for third-party payment providers besides Shopify Payments (which isn’t available in all countries). They range from 0.2% to 2% per transaction, with lower fees associated with higher-tier plans.
Live website usage stats: 5,300,000+
Pros of Shopify:
- Simple setup with a drag-and-drop eCommerce website builder, a vast theme collection, and an easy-to-use backend
- Large app store with over 8,000 third-party apps
- 24/7 live chat customer support ensures you have help whenever you need it
- Localized selling features allow you to customize product pricing by market and translate your storefront into different languages
Cons of Shopify:
- Transaction fees can add up quickly, especially if you don’t use Shopify Payments or exceed the free listing limit for displaying products on third-party marketplaces
Pricing: Plans range from $19 per month for basic stores to $2,300 per month for enterprise-level solutions. A $5 starter plan is also available for simple online stores or for selling on social media platforms.
Shopify offers a free 3-day trial and $1 for the rest of your first month.
Why we chose Shopify: Shopify is a fantastic option for beginners and growing eCommerce businesses due to its ease of use, comprehensive features, and all-in-one approach.
6. WPForms (Best for Services/Quote-Based Businesses)
WPForms is a powerful form builder plugin for WordPress and the best option for creating eCommerce forms for your website. It allows you to manage many parts of your online store, including collecting service inquiries and accepting payments for those services.
Here at WPBeginner, we use WPForms to build all sorts of forms for our projects, including our contact forms and survey forms. To learn more, see our full WPForms review.
What makes WPForms so user-friendly is its extensive library of over 2000 pre-made form templates. These templates cater to a wide range of businesses, including real estate agents, t-shirt designers, and hotel bookings.
One of the highlights of WPForms’ is its built-in reporting tool. This tool provides valuable insights into your sales performance, allowing you to track total payments, sales, refunds, and even new subscriptions (if applicable).
Plus, WPForms integrates with popular payment gateways like PayPal Commerce, Stripe, Square, and Authorize.net for secure transactions. While these are some of the most common options, WPForms offers fewer payment integrations compared to other solutions.
Live website usage stats: 6,000,000+
Pros of WPForms:
- Extensive library of pre-made form templates for various business types
- User-friendly drag-and-drop form builder for easy customization
- Built-in payment reporting tool to track sales performance
Cons of WPForms:
- Limited payment options compared to some other solutions
- Not ideal for managing large product inventories due to its limited eCommerce features
Pricing: Free plan available. Plans start at $49.50 per year and go up to $299.50 per year. The most affordable plan allows use on 1 website with unlimited forms, submissions, and users.
You can also use our WPForms coupon code to get up to 50% off.
Why we chose WPForms: Overall, this form plugin is great for service-based businesses and those that require quote requests or upfront payments.
7. Squarespace (For Creative Businesses)
Squarespace isn’t just a website builder – it also offers built-in eCommerce functionality. It’s renowned for its stunning, minimalist website design templates, which cater to a wide range of industries.
Based on our experience, we believe Squarespace is a perfect fit for creative and design businesses looking to establish a beautiful online presence and sell their products.
As an eCommerce platform, Squarespace lets you sell digital and physical products. It also integrates with various tools to run an eCommerce website. For instance, you can connect with FedEx for reliable shipping and TaxJar to automate sales tax calculations.
However, its pricing structure is a bit confusing. Features like subscription products and product reviews are only available on higher-tier plans, while other platforms might offer these features as standard or through extensions.
Live website usage stats: 5,200,000+
Pros of Squarespace:
- Eye-catching, pre-designed website templates and a user-friendly drag-and-drop website builder
- Integrates with various tools for online selling, including payment processors, shipping solutions, and dropshipping options
- Sell unlimited products through your online store
Cons of Squarespace:
- Essential eCommerce features are limited on lower-tier plans, requiring upgrades to access them (unlike some competitors)
- A 3% transaction fee applies to the most affordable plan for selling online
Pricing: Plans start at $16 per month and go up to $52 per month. The Business plan, which allows online selling, costs $23 per month and includes features like selling content memberships, products, services, and accepting payments.
Why we chose Squarespace: Creatives can go with Squarespace to easily build a beautiful eCommerce site with stunning templates, a smooth website builder, and integrations with popular sales tools.
8. Wix (For Niche Businesses With Specific Needs)
Wix is a website builder that offers built-in eCommerce functionalities similar to other hosted eCommerce platforms. However, Wix goes a step further by providing industry-specific features that can cater to unique business needs.
For instance, if you manage a hotel, then Wix offers features specifically designed to showcase your property and manage online bookings. These features include tools to display rental listings with customizable rules and availability settings.
While Wix boasts a comprehensive set of features, there’s a potential drawback to be aware of. In our experience, the platform itself can be a bit slow, which could impact the user experience. Some Wix users have also reported poor website loading times.
Live website usage stats: 8,600,000+
Pros of Wix:
- Industry-specific features catering to niche businesses (e.g., vacation rentals, event ticketing, digital art)
- Ability to sell up to 50,000 products
- Supports pre-orders and sales channels like social media and marketplaces
- Flexible drag-and-drop website builder with a wide variety of industry-specific templates
Cons of Wix:
Pricing: Plans range from $17 per month to $159 per month. There’s also a free plan available, but it has limited functionality.
Why we chose Wix: Overall, we recommend Wix for niche businesses that require specific functionalities beyond what basic eCommerce platforms offer.
9. BigCommerce (Premium Solution for Enterprises)
BigCommerce caters to businesses of all sizes, but it truly shines for enterprises with high-volume sales and complex needs.
First, BigCommerce offers unlimited product listings, file storage, bandwidth, and staff accounts across all plans. This lets you create a massive online store with extensive product catalogs, add high-quality product images, and manage teams without worrying about limitations.
Additionally, BigCommerce supports multi-storefronts. This enables you to manage separate brands or regional stores under one platform.
That being said, BigCommerce has sales limits associated with each plan. If your online sales exceed the limit for your current plan, you’ll need to upgrade to a higher tier.
Live website usage stats: 42,600+
Pros of BigCommerce:
- Unlimited products, file storage, bandwidth, and staff accounts in all plans
- Multi-currency support for international selling
- Real-time shipping quotes for customer convenience
- Multi-channel selling capabilities (Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Facebook, Instagram, POS systems)
Cons of BigCommerce:
- Online sales limits on each plan (upgrade required if exceeded)
- The drag-and-drop eCommerce website builder is not the easiest to use
Pricing: Plans range from $29 per month to $299 per month, with no additional transaction fees. The lowest plan is capped at $50,000 in annual sales. A free 15-day trial is available.
Why we chose BigCommerce: Scalability, unlimited resources, and multi-channel selling features make BigCommerce an excellent choice for businesses looking to scale fast.
10. Weebly (Freemium eCommerce Platform)
Weebly stands out as the best free eCommerce platform if you are just starting out and budget is a major concern. The free plan offers a surprising amount of functionality, including selling unlimited products, managing inventory, and even calculating sales tax automatically.
One interesting feature we found is the Quick Shop function. This allows you to create a streamlined checkout process in your online shopping experience. This is perfect for situations where you only have a single product or service to sell.
However, it’s important to understand the limitations of Weebly’s free plan. For instance, you cannot connect your online store to a custom domain name, meaning your website address won’t be as professional-looking.
Additionally, selling digital products is not allowed on the free plan.
Live website usage stats: 770,000+
Pros of Weebly:
- Generous free plan with unlimited products, shopping cart, inventory management, and basic eCommerce marketing tools.
- Free SSL certificate for secure online transactions.
- Affordable paid plans compared to other hosted eCommerce platforms.
Cons of Weebly:
- Free plan limitations (no custom domain name and restricted to selling digital products)
- May feel less scalable for complex online stores
Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $10 per month and go up to $26 per month. All plans include a free SSL certificate, the ability to add custom code, Quick Shop functionality, and unlimited products.
Why we chose Weebly: If you want to start a simple online store on a budget, then Weebly is a great place to do it.
11. Magento (Open-Source Solution for Enterprises)
Magento is a powerful open-source eCommerce platform owned by Adobe Commerce. Unlike hosted solutions, Magento offers extensive customization capabilities for tailoring your online store to your exact needs.
Similar to WordPress plugins, Magento extensions offer a wide range of features, from customer support and security enhancements to advanced shipping options and marketing tools. These extensions can add significant value to your store but often come with additional costs.
With all this in mind, Magento requires significant technical expertise to set up and maintain. Additionally, it demands robust hosting resources, typically on a VPS (Virtual Private Server). For business owners looking for a managed solution, it’s better to look elsewhere.
Live website usage stats: 120,000+
Pros of Magento:
- Open-source software, free to download and use
- A large and active community forum for support
- Extensive library of extensions to enhance store functionality
Cons of Magento:
- Requires significant technical expertise for setup, maintenance, and security
Why we chose Magento: With all things considered, we recommend Magento for established businesses with the technical resources and development expertise to manage a complex platform.
Must-Use Tools to Optimize Your Online Store
Now that you are familiar with the most popular eCommerce platforms, here are some must-use tools to help you optimize your store and increase conversions.
1. FunnelKit
FunnelKit is a sales funnel builder specifically designed to improve your eCommerce website’s conversion rate. By creating targeted sales funnels, you can guide your website visitors through a specific journey, leading them toward making a purchase.
We have tested out FunnelKit extensively to evaluate its features for eCommerce stores. Feel free to read our FunnelKit review to learn more about it.
Besides the sales funnel builder, you can also use FunnelKit Automations. This tool lets you set up automated marketing campaigns triggered by your visitors’ behavior. For instance, you can automatically send emails to follow up with customers after they make a purchase or promote new products.
While FunneKit offers a free version, it’s very limited. For example, it’s not possible to set up order bumps to offer users additional products to increase average order value. That’s why we recommend investing in a paid version.
Pros of FunnelKit:
- Pre-made design templates for essential funnel elements
- Dynamic offers can personalize upsell recommendations based on customer shopping carts
- Split testing functionality to optimize your funnels for better conversions
Cons of FunnelKit:
- Free plan has limitations
Pricing: Plans range from $99.5 per year to $399 per year. The most affordable plan allows use on 1 website and includes over 20 checkout templates, 9 checkout optimization features, and an abandoned cart recovery tool.
Why we chose FunnelKit: With its pre-made templates, automation features, and split testing capabilities, FunnelKit makes it easy to optimize your conversion rate and increase your sales.
2. OptinMonster
OptinMonster is a powerful lead-generation plugin designed to help you capture visitor email addresses and grow your email list. We use it on all our websites to capture leads, and it helped us increase email subscribers by 600% on WPBeginner alone.
With this tool, you can create targeted popups, opt-in forms, and notification banners to encourage users to subscribe and stay engaged with your brand. This allows you to nurture leads, promote new products and special offers, and ultimately drive more sales.
One of OptinMonster’s standout features is its advanced targeting capabilities. For instance, you can target visitors based on their exit intent (showing a popup as they try to leave your website) or tailor product recommendations based on their past purchases.
The one downside to OptinMonster is there is no free plan, though you can use our coupon code to get 10% off.
Pros of OptinMonster:
- Extensive library of pre-made templates for various campaigns and seasons
- User-friendly drag-and-drop builder for easy customization
- A/B testing functionality to identify your most effective marketing strategies
Cons of OptinMonster:
Pricing: Plans range from $5.97 per month to $39.97 per month. Even the most affordable plan offers unlimited campaigns and unlimited subscribers, making it a cost-effective solution for growing your email list.
Why we chose OptinMonster: The vast template library, drag-and-drop builder, and advanced targeting features make OptinMonster a valuable tool for boosting conversions.
3. Advanced Coupons
If you use WooCommerce as your eCommerce platform, then it already offers a built-in discount feature. However, for businesses seeking more advanced coupon features, Advanced Coupons is a powerful plugin worth considering.
This plugin lets you create various coupon types, including ‘Buy One Get One’ (BOGO) offers, coupon codes that can be shared through unique URLs, scheduled coupons that activate or deactivate at specific times, and even automatically applied coupons at checkout.
That being said, Advanced Coupons is best if you plan on offering various types of discounts. Otherwise, the plugin can feel like overkill.
You can read our Advanced Coupons review for more details.
Pros of Advanced Coupons:
- Wide variety of coupon options: one-time discounts, BOGO deals, percentage or fixed-amount discounts, free shipping coupons, and more
- Set usage restrictions and cart conditions to control how coupons are applied
- Schedule coupons in advance for strategic promotions and sales events
Cons of Advanced Coupons:
- May be excessive if you only require basic discount functionalities
Pricing: Advanced Coupons offers tiered plans starting from $59.50 per year to $149.50 per year.
However, we recommend considering the all-access bundle priced at $249.50 per year. This bundle includes Advanced Coupons, the Loyalty Program plugin, and the Advanced Gift Cards plugin. This is a complete kit to incentivize repeat business and increase customer loyalty.
You can also use our coupon code to get up to 50% off of your first purchase.
Why we chose Advanced Coupons: The plugin offers various coupon types, the ability to set rules for coupons, and coupon scheduling features. All these features let you run your promotional campaigns much more effectively.
What Is the Best eCommerce Platform?
Overall, the best eCommerce solution growing in popularity is WooCommerce. It has a user-friendly interface for managing products, inventory, and orders, making it perfect for first-time business owners.
Plus, it integrates with the extensive WordPress plugin ecosystem. This gives you countless options for marketing, payments, shipping, and more for your online store.
Alternatively, if you specialize in selling digital products like ebooks, software, or courses, then Easy Digital Downloads is the perfect solution. This eCommerce tool streamlines the process of managing digital downloads, protecting your files, and delivering them securely to customers.
If you offer exclusive content, courses, or communities, then MemberPress allows you to create paid memberships with tiered access levels. This gives you the flexibility to create premium content subscriptions and generate recurring revenue.
eCommerce Solutions: FAQs
Now that we’ve explored some popular eCommerce platforms and tools, let’s answer some frequently asked questions.
An eCommerce solution is a platform or set of tools for creating and managing an online store. It includes features for adding and managing products, processing payments securely, fulfilling orders, and tracking inventory. Several tools can enhance your online store’s revenue generation. Here are a few examples:
Absolutely not. eCommerce is a thriving industry that continues to experience significant growth. The convenience and variety offered by online shopping have established eCommerce as a major force in retail.
In fact, with the ongoing rise of mobile shopping and social commerce, eCommerce is expected to keep growing in the years to come.
What is an eCommerce solution?
What tools can help you generate revenue in an online store?
Is eCommerce dead?
Ultimate Guides to Boost Your Online Store Sales
We hope this article has helped you find the best eCommerce solution that’s growing in popularity. You may also want to check out our article on proven affiliate marketing tips and our expert picks of the best referral program software for small businesses.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Disclaimer: We evaluated other popular platforms, like PrestaShop and Big Cartel, during our research. However, we decided to focus on the eCommerce solutions covered in this guide because we believe they offer the best value and user experience for a wider range of online businesses.
WORDPRESS
WP Engine sues WordPress co-creator Mullenweg and Automattic, alleging abuse of power
Web hosting provider WP Engine has filed a lawsuit against Automattic, and WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg, accusing them of extortion and abuse of power. The lawsuit comes after nearly two weeks of tussling between Mullenweg, who is also CEO of Automattic, and WP Engine over trademark infringement and contributions to the open-source WordPress project.
WP Engine accused Automattic and Mullenweg of not keeping their promises to run WordPress open-source projects without any constraints and giving developers the freedom to build, run, modify and redistribute the software.
“Matt Mullenweg’s conduct over the last ten days has exposed significant conflicts of interest and governance issues that, if left unchecked, threaten to destroy that trust. WP Engine has no choice but to pursue these claims to protect its people, agency partners, customers, and the broader WordPress community,” the company said.
The case document, filed in a court in California, also accused Mullenweg of having a “long history of
obfuscating the true facts” about his control of WordPress Foundation and WordPress.org
The story so far
Mullenweg had criticized WP Engine for infringing WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks. He called them the “Cancer of WordPress” and also called out WP Engine’s private equity partner, Silver Lake, for not caring about the open-source community.
Later, WP Engine sent a cease-and-desist letter, asking Mullenweg and Automattic to withdraw these comments. Automattic then sent its own cease-and-desist, accusing WP Engine of infringing WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks.
Notably, Mullenweg banned WP Engine on September 25 from accessing WordPress.org resources, including plug-ins and themes, and preventing WP Engine customers from updating them. Two days later, Mullenweg provided a temporary reprieve and unblocked WP Engine until October 1.
On Wednesday, Automattic published a proposed seven-year term sheet that it had sent to WP Engine on September 20, asking the hosting company to pay 8% of its gross revenues per month as a royalty fee for using the WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks.
Alternatively, WP Engine was given the option to commit 8% by deploying employees to contribute to WordPress’s core features and functionalities, or a combination of both people hours and money.
WP Engine didn’t accept these terms, which included a probation on forking plugins and extensions from Automattic and WooCommerce.
You can contact this reporter at [email protected] or on Signal: @ivan.42
WORDPRESS
Automattic demanded web host pay $32M annually for using WordPress trademark
“WPE’s nominative uses of those marks to refer to the open-source software platform and plugin used for its clients’ websites are fair uses under settled trademark law, and they are consistent with WordPress’ own guidelines and the practices of nearly all businesses in this space,” the lawsuit said.
Mullenweg told Ars that “we had numerous meetings with WPE over the past 20 months, including a previous term sheet that was delivered in July. The term sheet was meant to be simple, and if they had agreed to negotiate it we could have, but they refused to even take a call with me, so we called their bluff.” Automattic also published a timeline of meetings and calls between the two companies going back to 2023.
Mullenweg also said, “Automattic had the commercial rights to the WordPress trademark and could sub-license, hence why the payment should go to Automattic for commercial use of the trademark. Also the term sheet covered the WooCommerce trademark, which they also abuse, and is 100 percent owned by Automattic.”
Automattic alleged “widespread unlicensed use”
Exhibit A in the lawsuit includes a letter to WP Engine CEO Heather Brunner from a trademark lawyer representing Automattic and a subsidiary, WooCommerce, which makes a plugin for WordPress.
“As you know, our Client owns all intellectual property rights globally in and to the world-famous WOOCOMMERCE and WOO trademarks; and the exclusive commercial rights from the WordPress Foundation to use, enforce, and sublicense the world-famous WORDPRESS trademark, among others, and all other associated intellectual property rights,” the letter said.
The letter alleged that “your blatant and widespread unlicensed use of our Client’s trademarks has infringed our Client’s rights and confused consumers into believing, falsely, that WP Engine is authorized, endorsed, or sponsored by, or otherwise affiliated or associated with, our Client.” It also alleged that “WP Engine’s entire business model is predicated on using our Client’s trademarks… to mislead consumers into believing there is an association between WP Engine and Automattic.”
WORDPRESS
5 Most Profitable Online Businesses You Can Start Today for Free!
In today’s digitalized world, starting a business doesn’t always mean you have to have a good chunk of money and years of experience in the field. Yeah, it’s good if you have them, but even without them, you can start a business and make money. Not just a few hundred dollars; some businesses can even make you a millionaire if you invest your time and available resources into them.
You need to have the right approach and the proper set of skills to make that happen. And you can learn such skills for free on the internet. So, all you need is the willingness to put in the work and effort it needs.
In this post, you’ll see 5 most profitable online business ideas that you can start today for free. You don’t need anyone to help you with these businesses when you’re starting out; you can do it all alone, and you can manage these businesses from the comfort of your home.
Even if you don’t know a single thing about these businesses, you can learn them for free on YouTube, Udemy, and the Interent. There’s more than enough free resources out there about these topics to take you from 0-10 real quick.
So, sit down and grab your popcorns, because this article might be the only thing you need to launch your first online business, today itself!
Please note: This post contains affiliate links to products I use, trust, and recommend. If you choose to purchase a helpful product using these links, I may receive a small commission for referring you – at no extra cost to you. These funds help me keep this blog up and running.
1. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the most profitable and easy-to-start businesses out there. In affiliate marketing, you need to promote someone else’s product in order to make money. The person who promotes the product in exchange for some commission is called an affiliate.
When you sign up to be an affiliate of any program, you’ll get a unique link to promote the products called an affiliate link. You need to use your affiliate link to send customers to the seller’s page. That link tracks the amount of sales you generate to determine the money you make.
You don’t need to create, package, or ship the products yourself. The seller who is selling the product will do these all. All you need to do is, refer customers to the seller. And when the customer referred by you through your affiliate link makes a purchase, you get a small percentage of the sale amount as a reward. That’s it. That’s what affiliate marketing is!
Through affiliate marketing, you can promote both physical and digital products.
You don’t always have to sell products to earn affiliate commission. Sometimes, you get commission to make people download something. That can be an app, software, or browser extension. Sometimes, you get commissions to make people sign up for particular websites or services. Sometimes, you get commission to generate leads for businesses and agencies, etc. All these things need to be done through your affiliate link in order for you to make a commission.
How to Get Started?
1. Choose your Niche
You need to choose a niche to start affiliate marketing. You can’t promote everything from workout gear to making money online courses yourself! So, choosing a niche is very important to succeed in affiliate marketing. Some popular niches for affiliate marketing are: health & fitness, finance, home & kitchen, technology, relationships, etc.
2. Find the Product
After choosing a niche, you need to find a product to promote. If you decide to get into the health and fitness niche, then you can promote workout plans, weight loss supplements, keto meal plans, hair loss products, and so much more. So, decide what you want to promote and find a good product for it.
3. Build a Platform
Now, you’ve decided your niche, and your product is ready to promote, so all you need is a platform to promote it. You can promote affiliate products either through a blog or through social media. You can write articles on your blog or grow your social media accounts to share your affiliate links.
Here are some popular affiliate marketing platforms you can join.
The affiliate marketing industry is worth nearly $17 billion. So, you can start your affiliate marketing journey today to get a small chunk of that seventeen billion dollars for yourself!
2. Selling Digital Products
Selling digital products is another great way to make a hefty amount of money online. Digital products are a great way to share your knowledge and creativity with the world while making some money.
Digital products are products that are created and sold online. They don’t exist in the real world, except for printables. Printables are graphics that are created digitally but needs to be printed out in the real world to be used.
From ebooks to online courses and printables to music, there’s a wide variety of products that you can create and sell.
Here are some digital products that you can create and sell easily.
If you’re wondering which digital product sells the best and which one you should sell, consider this analysis done among 96,000 creators by influencers.club. According to the analysis, online courses were the most sold digital products, with 35.7% of the entire digital products sold, followed by ebooks (7.3%) and cookbooks (3.8%).
Here are a few more:
Check out 16 Best Digital Products to Sell in 2024
How to Get Started?
1. Choose Your Niche
The first step to building a profitable digital product business is to choose a niche that you’re interested in and have a demand in the market. You can select a niche based on your expertise, passion or to profit from an untapped market opportunity. Make sure that there are enough people willing to pay for your products so that you can make a good amount of money selling them.
2. Create Your Product
After choosing a niche to get into, you need to create a solid product to sell. In order to get constant sales, your product needs to be highly valuable. Either it needs to solve your customer’s problem or it needs to add significant value to their life. Make sure that your product is up-to-date, functional, and user-friendly.
3. Set up a Platform to Sell
Now that you have decided your niche and your product is ready to sell, all you need is a platform to host and sell your products. You can either sell digital products through your own website or through platforms like Etsy, Gumroad, Teachable, etc.
You can sell ebooks, printables, planners, digital arts, wallpapers, templates, etc. through Etsy and Gumroad. And to sell online courses, you can use platforms like Teachable or Udemy.
You can use graphic design tools like Canva and Adobe Illustrator to create printables, stickers, templates, wallpapers, etc. And you can write your ebook on Google Docs or Notepad and save it as a pdf to sell it.
4. Price Your Products
After your product is ready and you’ve decided a platform to sell, you need to set a price to sell your products.
Pricing is a really crucial part. You can’t price it too high or too low. If you price it too high, very few people are likely to buy it, and if you price it too low, you won’t make enough profit.
So, while pricing your product, evaluate the product yourself and do your market research to analyze your competitors pricing to determine your own product’s pricing.
You can promote your digital products by creating video/image content, writing blog posts, email marketing, paid ads, SEO, and through social media marketing.
Digital products can be a great way to make money online passively without needing much work and attention. So, this might be something you would love to get into! The best part is, there is no limit on how much money you can make. Ana from TheSheApproach has made over $55,000 selling ebooks alone through her small blog.
3. Print on Demand
Print on Demand, or POD, is gaining immense popularity in recent times due to its business model. Print on demand business has less to no startup cost, which makes it easier for anyone to get into it.
In Print on Demand business, you create designs to print on mugs, t-shirts, hoodies, caps, pants, etc. After your design is ready, you find a print-on-demand supplier to print and sell your products.
Unlike other type of businesses, in POD, the products are not produced first and listed for sale later. Instead, the products are promoted first and only produced or printed when a customer places an order.
In POD, your job is to create designs and market your products. Your POD supplier will do everything else, from printing, packaging, and delivering the product. They will even handle the returns if they have to.
How to Get Started?
1. Choose a Niche
First of all, choose a niche you want to start your business in. Choose a niche that has huge demand in the market and something you’re interested in. For example, if you’re interested in sports, you can create designs related to sports, print them, and sell them.
2. Create Your Designs
After you’ve chosen your niche, you need to create designs to print on products. Good designs attract more eyeballs and generate more sales compared to plain, low-quality designs. So, put your maximum effort into creating good designs. Your designs might be the only differentiator between success and failure of your POD business.
3. Choose a Print on Demand Supplier
After your design is ready, you need to find a good and trustworthy POD supplier to print and supply your products. Choose a supplier that uses high-quality materials to create products, has less fees, low shipping time, good customer support, and large area coverage. These things are crucial for your business’s success.
Here are some popular print-on-demand suppliers:
4. Set up Your Store
Now that your product is ready to sell, you need to find a platform to sell it. You can sell your POD products on Etsy, WooCommerce, or eBay, or setup a Shopify store to sell them. Your store must be clean and colorful to convert more visitors into customers.
5. Price Your Products
After your store is setup, you need to price your product. Make sure to check your competitors prices before pricing your own products. You can’t sell your products for significantly more than what your competitor is selling for. If you do so, you won’t get as many sales as you would have with a lower price point.
You can market your Print on Demand products mainly through social media and paid ads. You can start and grow a social media account to promote your POD products for free.
The print-on-demand market is worth more than $7.24B in 2024 and is projected to reach $43.4B by 2030 with a growth rate of staggering 26.8%. So, this might be the chance to dip your toes into the world of ecommerce with print on demand.
4. Dropshipping
Dropshipping is one of the hottest and most popular online business right now. It has made thousands of teenagers and 20-year-olds millionaires, and its craze is not going down anytime soon.
Dropshipping is a business model where you find a product, advertise it, and generate sales, but someone else produces, packages, and ships them for you.
You buy products for less price from retailers or even manufacturers and sell them for a higher price through your own store. For example, if I find a cool watch on Alibaba.com that I can buy for $7 a piece, then I will create my own store to advertise that product and sell it for $20, $30, or even more. That is how you make money with dropshipping.
In dropshipping, you don’t have to worry about producing product, packaging, shipping, or keeping a product inventory because whenever an order comes in, you forward that order and customer’s details to your supplier, and then your supplier will produce, package, and deliver the product to your customer. There are several tools and softwares to automate this entire process. Here you’re basically a middleman reselling the products.
How to Get Started?
1. Find a Product
To start a dropshipping business, first you need to find a product that solves a specific problem of your customers. Sometimes the product can be a fashionable or decorative item like a watch. The product has to have a high potential to sell. In the world of dropshipping, a product that solves a problem and has a high potential to sell is called a winning product.
2. Find a Supplier
After finding a good product to sell, you need to find a supplier who can supply you the same product for a cheaper price. A supplier can be the making or breaking point of your business because your job is to promote the product and bring customers. Everything except that is done by your supplier, so if you find a good supplier, you won’t have or have very few problems in your business, and vice versa.
So, before choosing your supplier, check their product quality, delivery time, packaging style, and customer service. A good supplier must have high-quality products, low delivery time, good packaging quality, and good customer support.
AliExpress is the go-to platform to find suppliers and products at a cheaper price, for dropshipping.
3. Build Your Store
After you’ve found a good product and a reliable supplier, you need to build a store to market your products. You can create your store on platforms like WooCommerce, Shopify, GetResponse, and Wix or sell them directly on Amazon or eBay. The design of your store must be clean, simple, and colorful to get more sales.
4. Market Your Store
After your store is setup and ready to sell, you need to advertise it, to bring customers to it. To advertise your store, you can use social media, paid ads, content marketing, SEO, and more.
Most dropshippers advertise their store through either Facebook or TikTok ads and through content marketing by creating viral pieces of content for TikTok, Instagram reels, and YouTube shorts.
That’s it! That’s how you can start your own dropshipping business and profit from the $250B dropshipping industry.
5. Dropservicing
Now you know what dropshipping is, but have you ever heard about dropservicing? Huh? Dropshipping deals with selling physical products, but dropservicing is all about selling services.
Dropservicing, also known as service arbitrage, is a business model where you sell services to clients. But instead of doing the work yourself, you outsource the work to a third-party service provider, either a freelancer or an agency. In dropservicing, you’re basically a middleman, just like in dropshipping, who acts as a service seller in front of clients to make money without doing any work yourself.
Whatever remains after paying your service provider from the amount your client paid is your profit. For example, if you find a client who is ready to pay you $1000 to edit a video for him. Then you find a freelancer or a video editing agency who can edit the same video for $400, then you can keep the remaining $600 with yourself. The more you charge your client and the less you pay your service provider, the more money you make. Didn’t understand? Read it again, you’ll get it!
How to Get Started?
1. Choose a Niche
To start a dropservicing business, you must be good at some kind of skill or a particular niche. That can be web designing, video editing, graphic designing, content writing, etc. Even though you’re not the one doing the work, you need to have proper knowledge and skill in the field to convince your client that you’re capable enough and a perfect fit for the work.
2. Find Your Service Provider
After you’ve decided your niche, you need a service provider to do the required tasks for you. While choosing a service provider, you need to make sure that they are good at what they do; otherwise, you’ll end up with a low-quality output that may not satisfy your clients and may not fulfill their requirements. You can find service providers on platforms like Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer, etc., or on social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn.
3. Setup a Platform
After you’ve decided your niche and found the service providers, you need to market your services in order to get clients. To do so, either you can create your own website, create a profile on freelancing platforms, or promote your services through social media.
While setting up a platform, you need to add your portfolio, past works, pricing, client testimonials, and contact information. Don’t worry if you don’t have any of these! You can add your service provider’s portfolio and client testimonials as yours while setting up your platform.
4. Set Your Prices
Before you launch your dropservicing business, you need to set a price for your services. While setting up pricing your services, find out how much your service provider is charging for the service you’re going to sell, and set your prices accordingly. For example, if your service provider charges $400 to edit a video, you can set your video editing price at $600, $700, or more.
You can promote your dropservicing business through content marketing, SEO, social media marketing, cold outreach, paid advertising, and freelance platforms.
Cold outreach is a process where you reach out to or contact someone via email who doesn’t have any connection with your business. The email is meant to aware them about your product or service and provide them with an offer.
Best Platforms to Start Your Business
If you’re thinking of starting a blog to get into affiliate marketing, then I would highly suggest you create your blog on either Wix or WordPress. These two are the best blog builders out there.
And if you’d like to create your own website to promote your digital products, dropshipping/dropservicing business, and print-on-demand products, then I would suggest you use GetResponse’s simple drag-and-drop website builder. It’s very easy to use and completely free to create and manage a website for lifetime. Getresponse also has its own email marketing tool, so, if you want, you can even start email marketing with it for completely free!
Tips to succeed:
1. Stay Consistent: You won’t see results overnight, so you need to be consistent to get results and make money.
2. Learn, Learn, Learn: Whatever business you get into, learn about it as much as you can. Learning will help you gather more knowledge about the topic, which ultimately helps you to get better results and earn more.
3. Be Patient: Many people give up too early because they are really, really impatient. Remember, great things take time, and if it were so easy and fast, then everyone would have done it.
4. Provide Value: If you want to make money, then you need to provide something that is equally valuable to your customers. So, make sure your main motive is to provide value along with making money.
So, these were the 5 most profitable online business ideas that you can start today for free. Let me quickly recap them for you. 1. Affiliate marketing 2. Selling digital products 3. Print on Demand (POD) 4. Dropshipping 5. Dropservicing. Make sure to give them a try if you’re thinking of starting an online business. And tell me in the comments, which one of these businesses would you start if you have to?