In Episode 67, we look at the transition that many online store owners face when moving their site from an eCommerce platform to a self-hosted site with a WordPress plugin or vice versa. There can be many reasons behind a decision like this, and, of course, challenges as well. To help better prepare you for that move, we invited Patrick Garman from Mindsize to share with us his own experiences and what he has learned from helping many clients through this transition.

We chatted about:

* Clarifying what it means to use a platform or plugin for your online store

* Some of the reasons online store owners make this transition

* The challenges of moving from an eCommerce platform to a WordPress plugin, using WooCommerce and Shopify as examples

* The challenges of moving from an WordPress eCommerce plugin to a platform, using the same examples

* Why developers on both sides are adamant about their own choice, but are they becoming more open-minded for their clients’ sake?

* Patrick’s largest challenge when working with a client on this kind of a transition

* What Patrick has experienced with the recent update of WooCommerce 3.0 and his tips on hitting that update button

Thanks to Our Podcast Sponsor: Bluehost

Transcript

You can also download a pdf of the full transcript here: WordPress eCommerce Show Episode 67 April 12 2017

Bob Dunn: Hey everyone. Welcome back to the WP eCommerce show. Bob Dunn here, also known as Bob WP on the web. On the show today, we are tackling a topic that I know many shop owners have experienced or maybe even fear. Depending on what kind of transition you’re going through, it can be a wonderful or horrifying experience. It is the time you decide to move your online store from running on a WordPress plugin to a self hosted e-commerce platform or maybe it’s the other way around. To help us understand more about how this plays out and what’s involved, I have Patrick Garman, managing partner at Mindsize, who has worked with several clients to make this transition.

Hey, Patrick. Welcome to the show.

Patrick Garman: Thanks, Bob.

Bob: Well, Patrick. I know we have a bit to cover here. But before we dive into that, can you tell our listeners a little more about yourself and what you do?

Meet Patrick Garman, Managing Partner at Mindsize

Patrick: Sure. Just a brief history.  I’ve been working with WooCommerce since one of the early 1.x versions. My wife wanted to sell cookies online. I went through a couple of different plugins. Built a couple of extensions, ended up working at Woo Themes for a while. I went over to work at WebDevStudios for a while. Since then, I’ve been working with both WooCommerce and Shopify. I’ve worked on some of the largest stores on both platforms. It’s been a fun experience.

Bob: Cool. What is Mindsize? Tell us a little bit about that.

Patrick: Mindsize is an agency. Myself, Zach Stepek and Scott Drichel, we’re all e-commerce-focused. Zach works more on the front end. I’m more on the back end and Scott actually has a Master’s degree in, in think, in information science or data science. I asked him once, if I could just call him a data scientist and I can’t, because he is an information scientist.

Together we work on all the aspects of a store: the back end, the front end and helping run the analytics. It’s about making the data work for us, rather than the data holding the store back.

Bob: Cool. We’re going to get into these questions here,