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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 WooCommerce stores will see faster load times.

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 reduce credit card fraud. It flags potential chargebacks based on a series of criteria.

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 solution or do they use it and turn modules off and on as needed? I know that sometimes I may

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, connect via Twitter , and visit her site at christiechirinos.com.

Introducing Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) (WooCommerce blog)

WooCommerce and Highly-Regulated Products (WooCommerce docs)

WooCommerce.com Clarifies Its Policy on Selling CBD Products (WPTavern)

Finding the Right Corporate Legal Strategy – Some companies move beyond viewing the law solely in terms of compliance — and instead use their legal environment to secure a competitive advantage. (MIT Sloan Management Review)

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 episode 18, BobWP and Brad Williams are joined by Cody Landefeld of Mode Effect.

In this show, we are talking about agency approaches to growing WooCommerce stores, the Storefront theme latest update and WooCommerce meetups.

Our guest Cody Landefeld from Mode Effect shares how he took the approach of finding the right vertical for his agency and what he discovered to be the sweet spot for client work.

He also gives us some insights on how he built up his credibility and client list by producing consistent and useful content on their website. It’s something some agencies and store owners don’t understand: what strong content can do for the growth of their businesses.

He then talks about how themes and plugins that are used to start your WooCommerce site are often outgrown yet stay in place to only cause performance issues down the road.

I share the most recent Storefront theme update and how the cover block brings more design to the homepage. And Cody share his thoughts on Storefront and how he would like to see more WooCommerce store owners making the choice of the standard for WooCommerce themes.

We swap stories on the successes and struggles of our own WooCommerce meetups. This segment clearly points out that all meetups are not equal.

Make sure to check out Cody on Twitter and his successful efforts in creating content at Mode Effect.

And don’t miss WordSesh coming soon to the interwebs!

In show 17, we go for a different take on things. Brad interviews BobWP on the latest changes on his site.

Co-host BobWP turns guest as Brad chats with him about his newest project. BobWP.com has officially become All Things WooCommerce, which pretty much sums it up.

This huge project is dissected through the questions from Brad. In a nutshell, BobWP.com is now entirely devoted to WooCommerce. All of the other content has been moved to a new site, WPContentMarketing.com, which focuses on just that, content marketing. Specifically, blogging, monetization, podcasting and writing. This site is currently changing again… you can see what’s going on here.

We talk about what this kind of endeavor entails. For a teaser, this took analyzing 1,322 pieces of content. Listen in to hear the nitty gritty.

We wrap up the show chatting a bit about an article Brad shared: Hertz hits Accenture with $32 million lawsuit over failed website redesign . If you design sites, whether they are WooCommerce or not, Brad recommends checking out this post to put your life’s work into perspective.