Top free shopping cart and eCommerce Joomla extensions

Possessing an urge desire to develop an online store? It is a growing field in this web based world. In that fact, the desire is not the end, it is just the starting as you have to look for the right platform to orchestrate and manage your products in the most efficient way. If you have decided that Joomla will be your best option as it provides the utmost stability to a website as big as an online store, you got some good news. There are lots of free Joomla extensions and quality templates to meet your requirements.

Now comes the question of managing your products, deciding the product selling options, online order processing, product comparison and all other hundreds of stuff. But you won’t have to worry about that either as there are lots of shopping cart or eCommerce Joomla extensions that will take all the headache on behalf of you!

Joomla shopping cart and eCommerce extensions offer a huge range of functionalities like product management, sales management, checkout process, sales report, orders, invoice, product display, product feature orientation etc. Today we are going to present a comparable list of some of the best shopping cart Joomla extensions in the market. This will help you decide which Joomla extension is the best for you.

J2Store

J2Store is a super functional native shopping cart or eCommerce extension for Joomla. Because of the lightweight nature, it is perfect for any small or medium online store. J2Store uses Joomla articles for product showcasing and management which is almost the simplest way of handling an online store. Besides using Joomla articles as products it comes with lots other interactive features like product variants, advanced quantity based pricing, zonal tax rules etc.

Figure: J2Store is a lightweight eCommerce extension for Joomla

Key features

Catalog

• Uses articles as products.
• You can add unlimited products.
• Four different types of products: Simple, configurable, variable, downloadable.
• You can add chained products.
• Add the main image, a thumbnail image with zoom effect.

Layout

• Totally responsive layout.
• You can display product images with article layout.
• Display ‘Add to cart’ anywhere with shortcodes.

Cart and Checkout

• Advanced pricing options.
• The pricing is customer-group based.
• Cool multi-currency and currency switcher support.
• Quantity based special pricing.
• Availed geozone for taxes and shipping.

 Payments

• J2Store offers different types of payment gateways like Paymill, SagePay, Cash on Delivery, Bank Transfer (offline).

Order management

• Customers will get frontend product history.
• Owners will have detailed order management system.
• Buyers will see their order history, downloads and can manage their addresses in one place.
• Custom order status, order invoice number format and order statistics.

PRO Features

• Inventory
• Stock management, stock display, low stock notification.
• Single page inventory management.
• Discount codes, coupons and vouchers.
• Auto cancel incomplete order.

HikaShop

With the niche of simplicity and flexibility, HikaShop is a famous Joomla eCommerce or shopping cart extension for managing online stores, e-stores or all other online businesses. HikaShop not only manages your products but also serves you with a wide range of marketing tools. With advanced customization functionalities and hundreds of exciting features, HikaShop enables you to run a full fledged eCommerce website with ease.

Figure: HikaShop is another popular eCommerce extension for Joomla

Key features

Catalog

• You can add a unlimited number of products.
• Amazing product badge system.
• SEO optimization with metadata, canonical URL, opengraph, and micro data.
• Easily handle both downloadable and shippable goods.
• Have advanced pricing options with several currencies.

Layout

• Fully responsive with Bootstrap support.
• Product and category display module has a wide range of options.
• Display ‘Add to Cart’ anywhere on your web page with Joomla content tags.
• Totally compatible with the translation overriding system of Joomla.
• Provides a translation interface for easy translation.

Cart and Checkout

• Offers highly customizable checkout process.
• Reduced checkout steps for faster transactions.
• Multiple currencies and currency switcher module.
• Advanced tax management with TaxCloud plugin for automated tax calculation.
• Integrated ReCaptcha plugin in the registration form.

Payments

• 60+ free payment plugins like PayPal Standard, Pro and Express Checkout, Google Checkout, Authorize.net with AIM, SIM and DPM, Skrill, Bluepaid, EPay, Payment Express, Payza etc.

Order management

• Offers front-end user control panel for your customers to access their order history, addresses, carts, etc.
• You will have order invoices, history, and dashboard statistics.
• Customized order statistics.

PRO features

• Custom field for product.
• Geolocation plugin.
• Comparison system for products.
• Carousel effect on product listing.
• Currency rate auto update.
• Affiliate program.
• Multicart

VirtueMart

VirtueMart is the oldest eCommerce extension for Joomla. For any big enterprise store or online shopping site, VirtueMart could be the lone choice because of its extensive features and functionalities. With a large number of additional extensions, VirtueMart is still serving everyone's eCommerce needs and expectations.

Figure: VirtueMart is the oldest eCommerce extension for Joomla

Key features

Catalog

• Simple installation and integration with other Joomla extensions.
• SEO optimization tools like meta tags, meta data etc.
• Product display with a description, multiple media, related products, review, and ranking.
• Unlimited child products.
• 7 different product display categories.

Layout

• Offers template overriding.
• Availed with product pattern.
• Unlimited product display.
• Nested categorized product management.
• Multi variants or attributes for products.
• Various types of prices to display depending on the shopper groups.
• Pricing depending on subgroups.

Cart and Checkout

• Completely anonymous checkout.
• Gives you the option to register before the checkout.
• Offers multi page checkout option.
• The cart is completely overridable by your template.
• VirtueMart cart is stored in the session.
• Auto updating currency rates and allows you to add your own currency for fixed currency rates.
• Tax calculation based on time, category, shopper group, country, and state.

Payments

• Lots of payment methods integrated like PayPal, PayPal Pro, PayPal Express Checkout, Klarna and Klarna Checkout, Sofort Banking and Sofort iDeal, Skrill, Heidelpay, Authorize.net, Realex.

Order management

• Order payment and workflow tracking.
• Anonymous users also can track orders.
• Orders are modifiable.
• PDF invoice and delivery note comes with orders.

Cloaking up

Indeed, a Joomla eCommerce extension can remedy your hassles to a significant amount. We have tried to establish a comparison between some of the best free eCommerce extensions available in the market. You can compare and choose which one suits your requirements and best for you. Meanwhile please don’t forget to share your thoughts and suggestions with us about which one you use and what advantages of having it in the roaster.