Open Channels FM

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 14 of the Do the Woo Podcast, Brad and BobWP invite special guest Daniel Espinoza to talk about his work and experience with WooCommerce and subscriptions.

Daniel Espinoza as been in the WooCommerce space since its release. Having working at WooCommerce and then going out on his own, he has discovered his niche is providing clients support for their WooCommerce subscription sites through his agency Grow Development.

Daniel also has a solid background in products as he runs the site Shop Plugins, which has some awesome WooCommerce plugins. I should know. I’ve written posts on every one of them here.

Brad and I were able to dive in with Daniel on his choice to focus on subscriptions with WooCommerce, as well as his experience in the product space.

He also shared some words of wisdom as Brad asked him if the WordPress plugin space has reached the saturation point. From his own experience, Daniel talks about what he would do if he was considering this as a plugin developer.

As we continued talking about subscriptions, Daniel gave us some great examples of what is working and why subscription sites have exponentially grown over the last few years.

The release of 2.5.0 of the Subscriptions extension went out in early February, and we had the chance to ask Daniel his favorite new feature. We also talked about a couple of the other added options that came with this update. You can read more about it over on the Prospress blog.

Not a major update, but a mention of the product blocks will now be in WooCommerce core vs. the blog plugin.

Post Mentioned: The Future of eCommerce at Shoptalk

In episode 13 of the Do the Woo Podcast, Brad and BobWP invite special guest Patrick Rauland to talk about his new product, the board game, Fry Thief.

We also chat a bit about my other podcast with Matt Mullenweg and Todd Wilkens on WordPress and WooCommerce, plus some other news of stuff going on in the eCommerce world.

Patrick Rauland has been in the WooCommerce space for several years, and was WooCommerce Product manager in the past. He currently is a WooCommerce consultant, but also is creating his first product, a board game called Fry Thief.

He recently just completed a Kickstarter funding round for the game that was very successful, and he touches on some of what he has learned through the product development stage so far.

If you are thinking of creating and selling your first product, you will want to tune in.

We also touch a bit on my other podcast and the show I had with Matt Mullenweg and Todd Wilkens. Brad was particularly interested in the comment Matt made:

Something very fundamental happened when Automattic acquired WooCommerce. Previously we had mirrored our mission as Automattic to the same one as Core WordPress, which is to democratize publishing. When WooCommerce joined the family, we added two important words: to democratize publishing and commerce. So, it was a fundamental shift in the mission of the company.

Brad also shared the community on reddit for WooCommerce if anyone is interested in that, as well as the upcoming Pressnomics conference, number 6. As far as the latter goes, if you are running a WordPress business, this is one conference you won’t want to miss. Also, a good chunk of the Woo community is represented there as well.

Patrick is in the works with the next

In episode 12 of the Do the Woo Podcast, Brad, BobWP and special guest Chris Badgett have a conversation about:

• LifterLMS and WooCommerce.
• WooCommerce opens the door to bitcoin SV.
• WooCommerce dev chats starts up again.
• Winners and losers in 2018 eCommerce

Chris talks about Learn Management Systems, his journey in creating LifterLMS and the newest integration with WooCommerce. We also go deeper into the space of LMS and look at its significant growth over the years.

Brad touches more on Bitcoin and an article that announces a plugin that allows WooCommerce store owners to sell only using Bitcoin SV. We also reflect on how much we have seen ourselves with online stores offering this as a payment option and discuss the question: is it a good idea to only accept Bitcoin?

Just a bit of news: the dev chat for WooCommerce returned Jan. 31st and you can catch future chats over on the WooCommerce Community Slack.

This article talks about the winners in the space, and you can probably guess who they are. Also those who are fading away. We talk about a few of the numbers the article shares and what we found surprising, or not.

Bob – Upcoming Podcast

Tune into our BobWP eCommerce Show on February 19th when I chat with Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress and Todd Wilkens, lead of eCom

In episode 11 of the Do the Woo Podcast, Brad, BobWP and special guest Jonathan Martin have a conversation about:

• WooCommerce blocks is now a featured plugin with 6 new blocks
• ACF vs. Gutenberg blocks for WooCommerce
• Wc-admin 0.5.9 release
• The new Woo mobile app

Our guest Jonathan Martin, founder of Coolblueweb talks about his agency and how it started.

We talk about the newest WooCommerce block, how that it is now a featured plugin on WordPress, it having first come out as a grid with categories being the only filter. Now you can filter using these blocks: best- selling products, top-rated products, newest products and on-sale products. Two additional blocks, feature products and products by attribute will be added by the end of January.

Jonthan and Brad, as agency owners, talk more in depth about creating blocks for WooCommerce, either as Gutenberg blocks or ACF (advanced customer field) blocks.

Since none of us have dabbled in this yet, we shared how those who are interested can learn about the latest updates.

We dive into the new mobile app and share some of what we are seeing. The new app, both for iOS and Android, has some key features around tracking, managing orders and real-time order alerts.

Jonathan – VerifyWP

I asked our guest, Jonathan, what is new with him and his recently launched new site, which is currently in beta.

In episode 10 of the Do the Woo Podcast, Brad, BobWP and special guest Cory Miller have a conversation about:

• iThemes and the celebration of their 11-year anniversary
• What is happening with headless eCommmerce
• Brand awareness and the growth of the direct-to-consumer trend
• BigCommerce’s entering the WordPress eCommerce space
• How store pickup is giving online opportunities to retailers beyond Amazon

We start out the show with Cory Miller, founder of iThemes which is celebrating its 11th year in the WordPress space. Cory talks about what running a successful business has meant to him. It’s a huge accomplishment and something that Cory and his team should be very proud of.

Since I was not able to get either of their eCommerce predictions, nor share my own on the upcoming show where I snag several of them from eCommerce experts attending WordCampUS in December, we give our own predictions today. We agreed that we are starting to see headless eCommerce in action in the WordPress space and expect to see more. We share several thoughts and end with the prediction that this will not replace solutions like WooCommerce, but instead just give people more options when using WordPress.

Then we discuss an article that talked about how other retailers have found an antidote to Amazon: buy online, pick up in-store. We talked about other big retailers finding success with this and also how this model will bring options to smaller and local retailers that want to benefit cash from an online presence.

Lastly, we talk a bit about the latest plugin release from BigCommerce and what this means to the WordPress eCommerce industry. Their tight integration with WordPress is a first for an eCommerce platform, and we agree that this is going to play fairly big when it comes to options for running an online store with WordPress.

Brad – Robot Ninja

Robot Ninja is a wonderful service brought to you by t

In episode 9 of the Do the Woo Podcast, Brad and BobWP give their thoughts on:

• The release of WooCommerce 3.5
• Post-WooSesh, a virtual online conference for WooCommerce store builders
• The New Woo and the additional analytics coming to the dashboard
• An article that observed 27% of online store customers do not use tabs

The latest version of WooCommerce came out only an hour after we recorded this show. We had talked about it in an earlier episode, but are making a quick revisit. The new wording on emails sent out to customers is moving in the right direction. And in 2019, they are looking at even doing more. In addition, the new, various endpoints are something that devs have been looking forward to. You can read more about the release on the WooCommerce blog.

Brad was able to get some data from Brian Richards, the co-organizer of WooSesh. The conference was a virtual one for the first time and from the data he shared, coupled with the feedback we heard, it was a great success. For those who attended, videos will be coming out soon on Brian’s site and we will wait and see if there are opportunities for others to access them as well.

I was only able to listen to a couple of the sessions, because of my busy schedule. But I was impressed not only with the delivery of the session, but the active conversations going on in chat. I am guessing that we can expect to see this one again.

In the keynote of WooSesh, we were introduced to the New Woo. This includes a developing project and a new plugin called WC-Admin. It’s based on Gutenberg and a much improved way for store owners to get data and records. WPTavern has a helpful article on it, or you can go to GitHub and download it to test. Of course, it’s not ready for a live site, so it’s best to play around with on a demo site.

As f

In episode 8 of the Do the Woo Podcast, BobWP and Brad talk about:

1. Liquid Web’s new pricing structure and marketplace hosting
2. Gutenberg’s proposed release days before Black Friday and the holidays
3. Voice search and whether it will take over organic search for eCommerce sites

We begin with the continuing release of some new WooCommerce-related products over on Liquid Web. They now offer a Marketplace Starter Plan for those who want to build an Etsy-like site around running a marketplace. Neither Brad nor I have seen a lot of this on WooCommerce, but this new offering could bring it into place as it utilizes the Dokan extension for WordPress, a complete multivendor eCommerce solution. This could open the gates for some sites via Woo. We dive into this deeper and touch on the new pricing structure at Liquid Web for their WooCommerce managed hosting.

The WordPress community is abuzz as the talk of Gutenberg intensifies for all of us in the trenches. The release, slated for Nov. 19th, will have a two-prong effect. For site owners in the US, it’s the update is e thinking about as you hear up for your busiest time of year. The other is the close proximity to Black Friday and how critical that day is to online sales numbers. Brad and I give some thoughts on this and why this is rubbing many people the wrong way.

Recently I had Rand Fishkin, a co-founder of SEOMoz, on my other podcast. In that show I asked him how voice search will affect organic search. His perspective was very interesting and he pointed out the voice search is not going to cannibalize organic search. Brad and I talk about this and how Rand’s thought make total sense.

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

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