The amount of plugin options these days makes the selection process for your e-commerce store overwhelming and unclear. It’s easy to get lost in the buzz or choose a plugin simply because its concept is cool, but doing so won’t necessarily help your store’s performance.

To cut through the noise, keep these seven things in mind when evaluating ecommerce plug-ins.

  1. How Often Is It Updated?

Despite the pervasive idea of plugins being a “one-and-done” effort, they do have issues and hiccups, particularly if they’re not updated. Regardless of designated platform or developer, every plugin will list when it was last updated. While there’s no agreed-upon rule of thumb regarding how often plugins should be modernized, anything over a year old could possess security or compatibility issues.

  1. # of Downloads

While mass consensus shouldn’t always translate to a seal of approval, it does when it comes to plugins. If it hasn’t been downloaded much (assuming it isn’t new), there’s probably a reason for it. “Diamond-in-the-rough” plugins don’t exist. If it’s amazing, people will have downloaded it.

  1. Review Stats

In an age of too many choices, reviews help sift through the chaos. However, unlike downloads, terrific plugins won’t always have a ton of reviews. A good example of this disparity is one of the most popular plugins of all time—SEO by Yoast. Even though it has been downloaded over five million times, it has a relatively miniscule 20,000 or so reviews. This represents roughly .04 percent of the people who’ve tried it. Most plugins will maintain similar or worse download-to-review ratios, which makes paying attention to star rating—but especially review quality— really important. Do existing reviews list specific issues or benefits, or are they hollow praises or complaints?

  1. Is the Plugin Developer Responsive to Support and Feature Requests?

The plugin’s download page will have a support section with common user questions, while also showing how attentive a plugin developer is to user issues or feature requests. Tread carefully if a plugin seems to have been abandoned, even if the reviews are great and download numbers impress.

  1. Is It Compatible With Your Store?

Plugins consist of code snippets that execute specific functions. Not all of them will work seamlessly with your store. Whether it’s an existing plugin, one of the free website themes you implemented or hard-coded elements of your store, it’s worthwhile to check a potential plugin’s compatibility potential, which ironically, might involve more plugins, like this compatibility guide for WordPress plugins recommends.

  1. Does It Help Move the Needle?

Downloading plugins can be a little addicting. If you’re finding you have too many and several of them overlap, you need to overhaul your arsenal. Even if a plugin passes the above criteria, it should still solve a specific business problem.

  1. How Big Is the Plugin?

Size can widely vary, depending upon what they’re designed to do. For example, a plugin designed to redirect 404 pages, like Redirection, is being asked to do a lot and will slow any site using it. This is why it’s crucial to only use plugins you actually need.

For website owners without technical chops or the budget to afford development help, no better option exists than plugins. Even with other development routes, unless a completely customized solution is needed, a plugin will do just fine, and in most cases, better than fine. But don’t get overwhelmed by all that’s out there. Evaluate these seven things when shopping plugins for your e-commerce store and you should be just fine.

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