In today’s digital world, many people run online businesses. They sell physical or digital products, and building a perfect and user-friendly website is very important. A good website is essential for an excellent and smooth user experience. Woocommerce and Easy Digital Downloads help build websites to sell products. Both WooCommerce and EDD are good options.
Woocommerce is a powerful and famous WordPress plugin for building online e-commerce websites. It helps owners to set up and customize their online stores easily. At first, it was only for physical products, but now, it can also be used to create websites for digital products.
Easy Digital Download is also another solution for the owners of e-commerce stores. It is an excellent alternative to wooCommerce. But it is only for digital products. It helps build e-commerce stores with little or no technical experience and grow the business.
Choosing the right platform for your business is very crucial. It can affect everything, such as the cost of the store, product management, user experience, etc. Both wooCommerce and easy digital downloads offer different strengths. So, it would help if you chose any of these wisely. Here, we’ll describe woocommerce and easy digital downloads and help you select the best one.
1. Understanding WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads (EDD)
WooCommerce Overview
WooCommerce is a popular open-source e-commerce plugin that is freely available in the WordPress repository. It helps to build fully functional online stores. It adds all the basic e-commerce features so you can sell your physical and digital products. Almost 8% of all ecommerce stores are built by woocommerce. Its unique features include a full shopping cart, multiple payment gateways, reporting, and analytics. It also has many customizable options to customize your store according to your idea.
Initially, it was only for physical products, but in recent years, it has also been used for digital products because of the requirement. But sometimes, its features overwhelm people who want to sell digital products only. However, many people have had an excellent experience with woocommerce.
Easy Digital Design(EDD) Overview
Easy Digital Downloads is famous for selling digital products such as ebooks, software, and online courses. It is a self-hosted ecommerce plugin. If you want to sell physical products, you can also do this using an addon. But it is ideal for digital products.
It offers features like an online shopping cart, customer and order management, multiple payment gateways, user registration and guest check-outs, and multiple extensions and add-ons. I do not require any previous technical experience to set up the store. It is very easy to use and set up. It helps people grow their businesses even if they do not have any technical experience.
2. Key Features Comparison
Themes
Woocommerce and EDD both provide multiple themes and templates to help users choose the best for themselves. These themes can also help users get unique ideas for their websites. All these themes have beautiful color schemes that can help to attract users. There are 1500+ woocommerce themes available. Likewise, EDD also provides themes with many exclusive features and all the EDD themes are fully responsive. So, both woocommerce and EDD have good options for themes that you can use.
Product Type Flexibility
WooCommerce can be used to sell both physical and digital products. But it is ideal for selling physical products. It has many features like inventory and order fulfillment, which are unnecessary if you want to sell digital products. So, many people get confused by these features if they are beginners.
Easy Digital Downloads(EDD) are mainly used for selling only digital products. It can also be used to sell physical products, but you have to use add-ons.
So, Woocommerce is ideal for physical products, while EDD is ideal for digital products.
Payment Gateways and Transaction Fees
Woocommerce and EDD both support major gateways in the payment process. Many gateways can also be available through the add-ons. They support gateways like
- Stripe
- Paypal
- Google pay
- Amazon pay
- Square
- Braintree
Along with these, the EDD also supports
- Stripe Pro
- Paypal Advanced
EDD has more payment gateways. EDD also has specialized extensions that help in the transaction process for digital products like subscription billing, software licensing, etc.
Plugins & Integrations
Woocommerce has many plugins that extend its functionality. It includes tools for inventory management, shipping, Seo, etc. There are many options in add-ons and extensions. It all helps to make the online store more perfect. It can also be integrated seamlessly with third-party services and applications such as social media channels, email marketing apps, etc. All these plugins and integration help manage the store better and more efficiently. Easy Digital Downloads also offers a wide range of plugins and integrations, mainly for digital products. Plugins help with software licensing, handling recurring payments, and offering discount codes. The integrations help to make customer relationships good and track the sales, marketing, etc.
3. User Experience & Ease of Use
WooCommerce has a traditional layout. If you are a beginner, you may have to learn a little about the things before starting. However, the good thing is that WooCommerce is changing its layout to fit today’s needs, making it easy for people to understand. So, it is becoming more user-friendly with time. So, the experience of beginners with WooCommerce changes with time.
Easy Digital Download offers a clean layout. It makes things easy and clean. It is easy to manage things and do manual settings. It is also easy to find options and add new products through EDD. It is primarily for digital products, so there are not thousands of confusing choices. Mostly, users find EDd easier to work with.
4. Pricing Structure
Many people ask Which one is cheaper: WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads? Honestly, there is no simple answer to this question. The final price depends on how many features you want to add. Both offer free versions and also competitively priced add-ons. EDD also offers premium versions and many packages, saving a lot of money. You can also read about the cost of Woocommerce to run a store.
The free versions of EDD are an excellent option for beginners. It has many powerful tools and features. The paid package includes 80+ extensions and WordPress themes. The pricing of EDD is very straightforward and transparent. There are four plans available:
- All Access Plan
It can be used on 3 sites. Its price is $499/year.
- Professional Plan
It can be used on 2 sites. Its price is $299/year.
- Extended Plan
It can be used on 1 site. Its price is $199/year.
- Personal Plan
It can be used on 1 site. Its price is $99/year.
5. Scalability and Performance
Woocommerce can be used to handle both small and large stores. If more products are in the store and thus more users buy the products, and there are more transactions, then it may become a concern. You have to use additional server resources, caching tools, and performance optimization to smooth the user experience even when there are a lot of products in your store. Thus, woo-commerce may require technical expertise to ensure better performance. But overall the performance of woocommerce is good.
Easy Digital Downloads is made for digital products, and this site requires fewer resources and features than Woocommerce. It also focuses more on digital product store optimization, so it can run smoothly even when large downloadable files, software, or subscriptions exist. This makes EDD an excellent choice for digital product businesses seeking to grow without worrying too much about resource-intensive tasks.
6. Customer Support and Community
Woocommerce and EDD are both very famous and popularly used, so it is necessary to provide customer support. Both of these are regularly updated and highly supported. There are many online tutorials available. The developers give guidance, tips, and insights. It can help beginners understand their features. Sometimes, even an experienced person gets stuck at some point, so providing users with full community support is very important. However, woocommerce does not offer dedicated customer support like EDD.
7. Which is More Profitable?
It depends on the type of product you want to sell. If you want to sell digital products only, you should go for EDD. But, if you want to sell physical products, you should go for Woocommerce. But if you want to sell both, then Woocommerce is preferable. So, it depends on the product choice and your business’s requirements. Along with that, it also depends on your technical experience. If you do not have any previous technical knowledge, then EDD seems a better option. But if you have good technical knowledge, you can also go for woocommerce. It is always necessary to use either of these wisely and get the full benefit of their features; otherwise, they can be profitable for you.
Conclusion
If you are confused between woo-commerce and EDD, first analyze your business. You first have to check the type of products you want to sell and your plans. Are you planning to sell physical and digital products in the future? So, it all depends on you and your plans, experience, and business. Both woocommerce and EDD have unique features that can help you a lot, but it’s your choice in the end.
