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In episode 6 of the Do the Woo Podcast, BobWP and Brad talk about the:

• New WooCommerce Managed Hosting Beginner package at Liquid Web
• Upcoming online conference WooSesh
• WooCommerce Custom Product Tables Beta— and what it does
• WooComerce, Gutenberg, and custom blocks
• Effect the diminishing popularity of Facebook is likely to have on online stores

In episode 6, we return from a summer hiatus to look at what’s happening in the WooCommerce space.

We start with the release of the new entry-level WooCommerce managed hosting from Liquid Web. We look at how this is a great starting point for new WooCommerce stores and explore what you get with the hosting package as well as a few limitations. And the fact that an entry-level WooCommerce hosting like this gives Shopify more competition.

We also share some details about the upcoming online conference, WooSesh. Brian Rzen has expanded his popular WordSesh conference, in partnership with Patrick Rauland, has created an impressive online event for site builders and developers. It takes place Oct. 18 and 19 and if you  pre-register, and show up at least for one session, you will get free access to all the session recordings. WooCommerce has stepped up as the sponsor of this event and it looks like it may be a temporary replacement for WooConf. And because it’s online, it’s more accessible to people around the world.

Next Brad takes the reins to talk about the WooCommerce Custom Product Tables Beta that was released in July. He explains exactly what it does, why developers should be paying attention to it and why shop owners should make sure that their tech people are on top of it. One of the biggest takeaways is that WooCo

In this week’s podcast, BobWP and Brad Williams talk about WooCommerce 3.4 and GDPR, Gutenberg blocks for WooCommerce product pages, digital currency and online stores, Stripe Radar and Square Buys Weebly.

In episode 5 we kick off the next iteration of Do the Woo with my new co-host Brad Williams. Every two weeks, the two of us with be talking about some WooCommerce-specific news and the broader areas of eCommerce that affect WooCommerce store owners.

This week, we started out by catching up on the looming GDPR and what WooCommerce 3.4 has coming to help store owners comply with the General Data Protection Regulation. As we talked, we agreed that this is not only good for the EU, but for online data protection worldwide. Brad shared that WordPress is also releasing some GDPR integrations in the upcoming 4.9.6.

We chatted a bit about the Gutenberg blocks and what we might anticipate with WooCommerce products. Although it is going to bring some added options for the average store owner regarding design, as with builders that already exist, there is a fine line between taking advantage of the blocks and abusing them. Store owners will be wise to remember how important that product page still is and how a cluttered or bad design could be a killer when it comes to site conversions.

Brad shared an article about Coinbase Commerce, a new service that enables merchants to accept cryptocurrencies. This led to the question of when we might see more online stores accepting Bitcoin type currencies and where that might lead into the future.

Brad also shared some insights on a new service from the payment gateway Stripe. Stripe Radar was built to prevent and re

In this podcast, I’ll be talking to Brent about WooCommerce, subscriptions and recurring income. He is the developer behind the subscriptions extension for WooCommerce and I wanted to pick his brain on the industry of eCommerce subscription sites, which have really grown over the years.

I first had Brent on the BobWP eCommerce Show when it was the Do the Woo podcast, way back in  April of 2016. I started our chat today by asking Brent if much has changed in the subscription space since then.

Then we touched on recurring income, something a lot of people dream about. I wanted to see if he had insights into anything that that doesn’t work with recurring income or subscriptions. Also, I wanted his thoughts on how to choose between going the monthly or yearly route.

That led us into community and his thoughts on if you should build your community first or not (and if that depends on your product or service).

Brent shared some of the use cases he has seen where people used subscriptions uniquely and what he has seen as some very different and, possibly, even odd, ways to use subscriptions.

Lastly, I gave him the opportunity to share his most recent service called Robot Ninja. If you want peace of mind with your WooCommerce site, so you don’t have to stress about whether the cart or checkout is working, you will need to listen to this and check out his new service.

You can find Brent:

Prospress.com

RobotNinja.com

Subscriptions Extension on WooCommerce

Twitter @thenbrent

I remember when WooCommerce was released in 2011. And since I had already been using several products from WooThemes, it was only natural for me to dive into it. And yes, Woo baby, you’ve come a long way. In fact, it has been with me through thick and thin.

For me, Jetpack follows the same pattern—in a way. A little research showed me that the first version was released in 2011, same year as WooCommerce. I did not know that. Although I have not used Jetpack on my own site from the very beginning, it’s been more on than off. And, of course, I remember all those client sites where I either added it or recommended it.

It, too, has come a long way. Fast forward to now. If you are using Jetpack, or have one of their premium licenses, you know what I mean. And if you also use WooCommerce, you have seen the integration between the two. To explore that more, and see what is coming down the road, I invited Nicole Kohler, who works on the Jetpack team at Automattic, to join me. Listen in as we not only talk about what is going on, but what you might be seeing in the future.

Note: The new features Nicole describes in this recording may not be available to you just yet, but if you’re a Jetpack user, you’ll see a notice in your dashboard prompting you to give them a try sometime in the next few weeks.

To kick off our chat, I asked Nicole to bring us to speed on three features recently added to help with the WooCommerce onboarding process.

That led into one of my favorite types of questions. What would she say if someone asked her, Why should I use Jetpack?

We talked about the store owner and their decision to use or not use Jetpack for their WooCommerce-powered store.  How should they approach the decision knowing that a lot of what Jetpack offers may already be provided 1) through other plugins they are using or 2) their hosting company’s plan that includes a higher level of security and backups? Or does the user even understands this?

Next, I shared my own experiences with Jetpack and how I have used it. This led me to ask Nicole if most users are deploying Jetpack as a full

In this Do the Woo episode, Cody Landefeld joins me as my co-host for some talk around Woo.

We kicked off the show by talking about content and eCommerce sites in a general sense. We all know that larger eCommerce sites may have the resources, but does the smaller store struggle with adding content to the mix?

Then we transitioned to Gutenberg and Cody shared how, as an agency that works primarily in eCommerce, he is preparing for new move to the new WordPress editor. I was glad to hear that his priority was educating clients when it comes to Gutenberg.

We touched on the latest release of WooCommerce, a minor one, and what, if anything, caught our attention.

And next, a hop over to an article I read about Google’s Ad Mute option. We all know how often we buy a product online, only to find an ad for it that continues to pop up after our purchase. thereafter. We wondered if people would make the effort to remove these ads with Google’s new feature, as it does take just that, extra effort.

Lastly, I asked We Cody if he has any predictions for 2018 and if there was anything happening in his world that he wanted to share. Interestingly enough, he talks about user experience in the overall space of online stores and also some exciting stuff he has going on at ModeEffect.

Won’t you join us?

Mode Effect

On Twitter @codyL

Well, here it is. Or should I say it’s back?

Do the Woo jumps on the BobWP media circuit as of today. And in episode 0, I chat briefly about what you can expect from the return of this podcast.

As you may or may not know, our BobWP eCommerce podcast started out as Do the Woo. And it morphed into a broader spectrum of eCommerce at a certain point.

But I missed this bugger.

In this show I share a bit more about the direction of how this podcast will play out. My plans are to have a co-host join me, so we will see if I can wrangle that each week. And yes, I did say each week. We will also see how that goes in the beginning as well.

So I hope you listen in as the field is wide open in the return of this podcast. And it should be fun.

In episode 21, Brad Williams and BobWP are joined by Christie Chirinos from Liquid Web.

In this show, we chat with Christie about her work at Liquid Web, the Strong Customer Authentication and CBD products with WooCommerce.

Christie has been at Liquid Web for a just few months and has already proven to be a valuable asset in her role as Product Manager for WooCommerce Managed Hosting.

She tells us more of what she is involved with as well as how Liquid Web moved into the space as the only WooCommerce Managed hosting service available. It was an interesting story how they segued into the niche.

Christie also gives some insights on how the plugins and services that come with the hosting packages are chosen and the criteria around that decision.

You will get a deeper understanding of what you can expect from a niche service that comes from a veteran in the managed WordPress hosting space.

Next we chat about the post on WooCommerce about a new regulation via the EU that requires merchants to use multiple methods of verifying customers’ identities. Brad shares his thoughts from an agency perspective.

A bit ago, WooCommerce issued some guidelines for when you can and cannot sell CDB (or cannabidiols products). The initial release caused some confusion for store owners. The explanation left some hanging and it was later clarified.

In their final terms:

You can use the open source WooCommerce plugin to sell highly-regulated products, but you cannot:

• Use WooCommerce services that depend on a Jetpack connection, such as WooCommerce Shipping or WooCommerce Tax. 
• Host your site on WordPress.com.

With that said, we dove a bit into that and Brad expressed that it adds to the confusion of what WordPress users already have started setting in other instances.

Christie shared some great thoughts on both the new SCA and CBD products as she talked about compliance, regulations and how business use this as a competitive edge.

You can reach out to Christie at Liquid Web

In episode 20, Brad Williams and BobWP are joined by Jamie Marsland from Pootlepress.

In this show, we chat with Jamie about his years experience with WooCommerce, his latest products on the market and WooCommerce blocks, the new editor and page builders.

Jamie started with plugins for WooThemes popular theme Canvas. He’s been involved with WooCommerce from the beginning and has grown his company, Pootlepress, around WooCommerce. In addition, his company has provided training courses in the UK for the past eight years.

Jamie introduces us to WooBuilder Blocks, a much-needed approach to creating unique single-product pages in WooCommerce. From there, we talk about the challenges facing blocks and WordPress. This includes the issues many plugin developers experience with the the new phase of blocks, both within WordPress and WooCommerce core, as well as the numerous plugins out there.

We also touch on the perceptions and use of the new editor in WordPress and how its adaptation is moving along.

We share our individual thoughts around the idea of the Gutenberg, aka blocks, moving users away from page builders. As someone who has been successful with his own page builder, Pagebuilder Pro, Jamie has his own take on the topic.

It was interesting because we each had a different take on it and, as Brad said on the show, talk to us again in a year.

You can find Jamie on Twitter or check out his site his site, Pootlepress.com, where you will find Storefront Pro and Storefront Blocks. I also suggest you take a look at WooBuilder Pro as it gives you some great options to build out your WooCommerce product page.

In episode 19, Brad Williams and BobWP are joined by James Kemp from IconicWP.

In this show, we talk about about his journey with creating plugins and how James landed on IconicWP. We look at the recent acquisition of Prospress from Automattic and chat a bit about the 7-star review feature in a free plugin put out by Liquid Web. Plus more from the eCommerce world.

James tells us more about his start selling his plugins on Code Canyon and, after several years, making the decision to move to Freemius. We talk a bit more about his plugins and, specifically, the ones that extend variations, which is a much-used feature of WooCommerce and one that presents specific challenges.

We also chat about the recent acquisition of Prospress by Automattic and agree on what a smart move that was. With their popular Subscriptions extension, as well as their other products, it was a no-brainer. We also send our heartfelt congratulation to Brent and his team there.

Next we dive into the free plugin that Liquid Web released called Better Reviews for WooCommerce. We shared our own thoughts about the 7-start review aspect of the plugin as well. If you want to learn more about it and the option of using attributes in the reviews, you can check out our post here.

We ended our show with a couple of articles sharing the eCommerce growth of two of the big shops entering the online arena more strongly than ever, WalMart and

In this week’s podcast, BobWP and Brad Williams talk about WooCommerce 3.4 and GDPR, Gutenberg blocks for WooCommerce product pages, digital currency and online stores, Stripe Radar and Square Buys Weebly.

In episode 5 we kick off the next iteration of Do the Woo with my new co-host Brad Williams. Every two weeks, the two of us with be talking about some WooCommerce-specific news and the broader areas of eCommerce that affect WooCommerce store owners.

This week, we started out by catching up on the looming GDPR and what WooCommerce 3.4 has coming to help store owners comply with the General Data Protection Regulation. As we talked, we agreed that this is not only good for the EU, but for online data protection worldwide. Brad shared that WordPress is also releasing some GDPR integrations in the upcoming 4.9.6.

We chatted a bit about the Gutenberg blocks and what we might anticipate with WooCommerce products. Although it is going to bring some added options for the average store owner regarding design, as with builders that already exist, there is a fine line between taking advantage of the blocks and abusing them. Store owners will be wise to remember how important that product page still is and how a cluttered or bad design could be a killer when it comes to site conversions.

Brad shared an article about Coinbase Commerce, a new service that enables merchants to accept cryptocurrencies. This led to the question of when we might see more online stores accepting Bitcoin type currencies and where that might lead into the future.

Brad also shared some insights on a new service from the payment gateway Stripe. Stripe Radar was built to prevent and re