Episode 52 is the first of four shows in a series on Starting Your WordPress Online Store. In this show, we talk with Mike Hansen, WordPress expert at Bluehost, who is the sponsor for this series. Mike has a lot of experience around WordPress, and we brought him in to give us some tips on starting the search for a WordPress eCommerce plugin for your online store.

We chatted about:

* The differences between using a plugin on your site vs. connecting with a plugin to an eCommerce platform

* How to prepare for the expense of premium extensions, add-ons and plugins

* Planning ahead for growth into other aspects of eCommerce, such as memberships, subscriptions and affiliates

* The pros and cons of using a page builder for your online store

* The importance of planning for and paying attention to your analytics

Thanks to Our Podcast Sponsor: Bluehost

Transcript

You can also download the transcript of this show: WordPress eCommerce Show February 20 2017

Bob Dunn: Hey everyone. Welcome to our show. Bob Dunn here, also known as BobWP on the web. Today is not only episode 52, but it is the first series of Season Two. For those of you new to the show, our series consist of four consecutive Mondays where we talk with a special expert each Monday about an important aspect of running an eCommerce site.

Today, we are kicking off the series starting your WordPress online store. This series is going to cover the critical pieces you should get in place for your first online store,  creating your online presence from your brick-and-mortar shop, and ending with us looking at your product shots and making sure that they are doing the right job for you and your online store.

Meet Mike Hansen, the ‘WordPress Guy’ at Bluehost

To kick this series off, we are joined today by Mike Hansen, the WordPress guy of Bluehost and a long-time friend of mine, about choosing the right eCommerce plugin. Hey Mike, welcome to the show.

Mike Hansen: Hey Bob.

Bob Dunn: Now before we get into the questions, I gave you a title there, the WordPress guy, which is vague in a way. Can you tell us a bit more about what you do as far as keeping WordPress and Bluehost connected?

Mike Hansen: Yeah. I’ve been at Bluehost for a number of years and I’ve ad a few different roles. I started out on the open source team, contributing to open source projects and trying to make sure that we’re doing our commitment to the community in that sense. Then I became the lead WordPress developer and helped build out some of our features that we needed to have.

More recently, I’m doing WordPress product work as a WordPress product owner. What that means is that I’m just trying to make WordPress better at Bluehost all around. This is everything from our tools inside of our control panel to just the experience that the customer has as they onboard and get going with their WordPress website.

Bob Dunn: Very cool. I know that Casey, in our first show when we introduced this new partnership with Bluehost as a sponsor,  mentioned that there’s going to be come exciting stuff coming down the pike here over the next year. I’m anxious to see what happens there, and I’m sure you’re going to have your hands or arms up to your elbows, elbow deep into WordPress here it sounds like.

Mike Hansen: Absolutely, absolutely. I’m already in it.

The functions of different plugins: it’s all about your goal

Bob Dunn: Oh I bet. Now we’re anxious to talk about the specifics around choosing that plugin for you...