Episode 32 is the first of four shows in a series on Online eCommerce Security. In this show, we talk with Dre Armeda, co-founder of Sucuri.net, who is the sponsor for this series. Dre gives us a holistic view of what is going on in the world of security and the solutions, as well as the the prominent issues he is seeing these days.

We chatted about:

* The bigger issues we are seeing with online security and why

* The reasons behind both the small and large hacks

* The perception out there that WordPress, as an open-source software, is a security risk in itself

* Why, as a small website owner, you are not safe from the big hacks

* An example of a recent hack that really put things in perspective

* Dre’s top three tips to keeping your site and information secure online

Thanks to Our Podcast Sponsor: Sucuri.net

Transcript

You can also download the transcript of this show: the-wp-ecommerce-show-transcript-october-10-2016

Bob Dunn: Hey everyone, welcome to our show. Bob Dunn here, also known as BobWP on the Web. Today is not only episode 32, but it is a first part of a four part series we have started on the WP eCommerce Show. This is where, for four consecutive Mondays, we will be talking with a special expert and sponsor about an important aspect of running a e-commerce site. What better subject to start off with than security? Today we welcome our sponsor, sucuri.net. My good friend Dre Armeda as our special guest. Hey Dre, welcome to the show.

Dre Armeda: Hey, thanks Bob. Great to be chatting with you. How’s it going?

Bob Dunn: Good, good. Finally we got the tables turned. I’ve been on your podcast before three times. Now I get to sit back and ask the questions, which is so cool.

Dre Armeda: I can dig it. Should I throw my voice and pretend I’m you? That might work out better.

Bob Dunn: Yeah, yeah. Just lower it down a couple octaves, and they won’t even know. Before we dive into the guts of online security, for those that don’t know who you are, and don’t know Sucuri, tell us a bit about yourself, what you do there, and who Sucuri is.

Dre Armeda: Sure. Thank you. For one, thanks for having me on the show. Really excited to chat security, and hopefully provide some value to the audience. My name is Dre Armeda. I’ve been around WordPress specifically since right around 2004, where I found it online looking for a means to create a portfolio website. Excitingly enough, I settled on WordPress, created my first theme around 2004, 2005. Things progressively changed significantly throughout the years, starting at that point. We still in the military at the time. I spent 12 years in the U.S. Navy and got out, fortunately, in to the information security space. At the same time I was really passionate about web stuff, and that really converged at some point in 2000s with buddy of mine named Daniel Cid, and then Tony Perez, as you guys know, is the CEO of Sucuri.

We founded Sucuri in the early 2010s. We started figuring a way to monitor website remotely, figure out a way to understand and determine when security things, anomalies, were happening, and how we can alert against that. That quickly translated into, “wow! We’re- We’re able to do this really, uh, successfully. How can we now remediate those issues?” That was the birth of Sucuri. We really looked at finding a way to alert to security issues and then remediating that. I spent the first four and a half years of the company as the founding CEO. We built the company, at that time, about 35 employees world wide. We were cleaning hundreds of websites every day.

Then I stepped down as CEO. Tony,

In episode 31, I talk with long-time friend, rural small business expert, liquor store owner and cattle rancher, Becky McCray. If anyone one knows small businesses and the challenges of eCommerce, it’s Becky. In this show, we are looking at Omni Local and how rural businesses are using this powerful tool to take advantage of multi-channels to reach their customers. Becky brings some valuable insights into how to take advantage of this tool, as well as perspectives on small rural businesses and important survival on tips.

This show will help not only small rural businesses but anyone in the eCommerce space. Whether consultant, developer, or designer, I can guarantee you will be picking up valuable nuggets to help you better understand your clients.

We chatted about:

* What defines omni local

* The top challenges for small town businesses looking to start using eCommerce

* Strategies that small rural businesses can use with omni local

* How one small town business has grown through implementing the concept of omni local

* How, focusing on their existing customers, small town businesses are ahead of the game in this market

Thanks To Our Podcast Sponsor: Pronto Marketing

Transcript

You can also download the transcript of this show: the-wp-ecommerce-show-transcript-for-october-5-2016

Bob Dunn: Hey everyone, welcome to episode 31. Bob Dunn here also known as Bob WP on the web. Today I have the pleasure of having my long time friend, small town business expert, cattle rancher, liquor store owner, Becky McCray on our show today. Hey Becky, so glad to have you here.

Becky McCray: Hey Bob, I’m really excited to be with you again.

Bob Dunn: Yeah, it’s been a long time since we’ve actually talked to each other, other than on social hasn’t it?

Becky McCray: It has and it’s good to get back with you. I know that you’re always so active in this space and I always gather good stuff out of your Twitter feed so it’s good to be connected.

Bob Dunn: I’m glad at least one of my followers is getting something good out of my Twitter feed, that’s good to know.

Becky McCray: That’s me.

Bob Dunn: All right, well as much as I’m sure our listeners would want to know about Becky’s ranching and liquor store owner skills today we are going to focus more on her role with helping small town rural businesses succeed using Omni Local, a very interesting and intriguing concept and approach to eCommerce but before we dive into those questions and learn a little bit more about what Becky does I’d like to thank our sponsor today, Pronto Marketing, who offers internet presence management.

Pronto understands running an online business and presence is more than putting up a site and saying it’s good to go. There’s a heck of a lot more effort, time and cash needed for the business owner and it can be overwhelming hiring people for design, development, SEO and all those other needed services to make your site a success and most importantly this is even more critical for the store owner. This is where Pronto Marketing comes in, they become your partner to develop and manage your online presence while you spend your energies working on your business. You can see them at ProntoMarketing.com. I’ll be telling you more about what they can do for you later in the show.

Now, back to our guest Becky, as much as I would love to spend half of our show,

In episode 30, I had the chance to chat with Dustin W. Stout, Digital Media Consultant and Speaker, creator of Social Warfare Plugin. Earlier this year I was fortunate to meet him in-person for the first time at WooConf 2016. At that point, I knew I needed to have him on the show.

Running your online store is a challenge and a lot of hard work, but the way you bring social into the mix can make a big difference between using it the right way—to generate sales and grow your site— and not just turn into a big time suck. In this podcast, we look at the bigger picture of using social with your online store and in future episodes, we’ll narrow it down to shows around more specific platforms and strategies.

We chatted about how to:

* Take advantage of social without having a blog

* Choosing a couple of platforms to focus on instead of spreading yourself too thin

* Share your products without it looking like nothing more than a big ad

* Avoid one of the biggest pitfalls online stores can fall into using social

Bonus

Dustin also shared some really great tips on Pinterest and the success he has found in that platform, as well as highlighting a few of the cool features that makes his social share plugin, Social Warfare such a powerful tool.

Resources mentioned:

* Our Overview of the Social Warfare plugin

In another podcast I had asked Dustin specifically: What Does Twitter Have to Offer to Online Retailers?

Thanks To Our Podcast Sponsor: Pronto Marketing

 

Transcript

You can also download the transcript of this show: the-wp-ecommerce-show-transcript-september-28-2016

Bob Dunn: Hey, everyone. Welcome to episode 30. Bob Dunn here, also known as Bob WP on the web. Today, I am looking forward to chatting with digital media consultant Dustin Stout. I had the pleasure of meeting him earlier this year at WooConf, and just recently started using his incredible social share plugin, Social Warfare. I’m giving a little plugging for that plugin, which I did a post on about a week or so. Check that out on my blog.

Hey, Dustin. Welcome to the show.

Dustin Stout: Hi, Bob. Thanks for having me.

Bob Dunn: Yeah. You’ve been on my list to contact, actually, ever since I started this list. Now that we expanded it more into the whole e-commerce and WordPress realm, I think you are just the perfect fit. For our listeners, they may have guessed or know by the title that we’re going to be talking about getting social with your e-commerce site. This show is taking a look at the broader picture of social media and how your online store can benefit from it. In future shows, I plan on diving more into some specifics around specific platforms, but thought, what better way to ease on into this subject area by looking at the big picture?

Before we move into our questions with Dustin, I’d like to thank our sponsor today, Pronto Marketing, who offers Internet presence management. Pronto understands running an online business and presence is more than putting up a site and saying, “It’s good to go.” There’s a heck of a lot more effort, time, and cash needed for the business owner. It can be overwhelming hiring people for design, development, SEO, and all those other needed services to make your site a success.

Most importantly,

We all know the growth around people accessing the web via mobile. As far as your online store, you are not exempt from this trend. In fact, more people are shopping online with their smartphones and tablets than ever before.

In episode 29, I chat about the big picture and the importance of making sure your shop is ready for customers 24/7, so you can capture and convert your mobile customers.

In this show:

* Understanding the mobile user

* The importance of a mobile-friendly design

* Making the right information front and center

* Optimizing your product images

* Making the process quick by removing the barriers

To learn more about mobile apps using WordPress, check out this podcast episode: Is Your Online Store Ready for a Mobile App? A Chat with Brian Messenlehner.

Transcript

You can also download the transcript of this show: the-wp-ecommerce-show-transcript-september-21-2016

Hey, everyone, and welcome to episode 29. Bob Dunn here, also known as BobWP on the web. As we  take on new a chapter with the podcast today by talking all things WordPress and eCommerce, we have some great this will interviews lined up for you beginning next week, and a very cool series that I will talk more about at the end of the show. But for today I wanted to just chat a bit about mobile. And share with you a few thoughts. As we all know people are buying more and more online using their smartphones. It’s a given fact.

Having done a bit of research, I found that the numbers vary, but most say at this point between 45 and 50 percent of all eCommerce traffic is accounted for by mobile. And with these numbers,  it’s showing more people are using those devices, smartphones, pad, etc vs laptops and desktops.

Also it’s noted in several articles that yes, weekdays are where you typically see the largest peaks in computer-based traffic, but eCommerce sites are also visited more on the weekends.

Now with all these facts, it’s definitely good news for store owners. But the key here is are you prepared to take advantage of this growing market? From my experience, I still see a lot of online stores that just don’t work well on mobile. And in reality, that could be a killer for you. And with the extent of ease that online makes with the global market, you need to make sure those products and services are accessible and ready to buy 24/7.

With that said, refining your strategies and optimizing for mobile will allow to you to make sure that your customers’ needs are being met. Also, with these, you will improve your brand recognition and increase the loyalty of your customers. Even more importantly, we know Google tends to like mobile-friendly sites, which of course will help you get better search engine rankings compared to those who are not ready for all those shoppers searching via their smartphones.

Where do you start? First, by looking at the mobile shopper. Mobile customers are mindful. They are in the moment and want to buy quickly and be done with it. You need to keep their attention all the way till the end of order placement.

In the same note, they are pretty darn impatient. It’s all about finding exactly what they need now, with as few clicks as possible, or else buh bye to your site.

We also need to understand that they are distracted. When they are on mobile, often it involves multitasking. What you need to do is to remove any distractions on your site so they can focus on what they need and can buy. This includes completing the transaction easily. You see, 2 out of 3 users who add items to their shopping cart abandon it,

Today is a big day for us. We are now expanding our show to cover everything WordPress and eCommerce. In today’s podcast listen why we have decided to make this change and how moving it here to BobWP also played a huge role in the re-focus and rebranding of our 7-month old podcast.

Want to sponsor The WP eCommerce Show or Series?

Transcript

Hey everyone, Bob Dunn here known as BobWP around the web and welcome to episode 28 of our podcast. You probably noticed a couple of things. First, we have been on a bit of a break. Second, this podcast episode was missing our typical intro. In both cases, that’s because today is a big day of change. Do the Woo podcast has officially become The WP eCommerce Show. Yep, you heard that right.

And you may be asking me from wherever you are listening, Hey Bob, does that mean you don’t like WooCommerce anymore? My answer is simple. Of course not.

Now before I get into that, a little over a week ago you may have noticed that we moved our podcast from its own site to BobWP. And that move was done for several reasons. When we first started this podcast, I spent at least a couple of months, and deciding on the focus of the podcast, comparing the pros and cons to having it on a separate site. I considered the users, the SEO and our sponsors. But as time flew by, we began to understand that it would be better suited here on BobWP for three specific reasons.

* We already have a lot of Woo stuff here on our blog. Dozens of posts and tutorials about Woo extensions, plugins and even some themes. Also we knew that the listeners to this podcast could benefit from these posts. And having them all in one place would be just that much better.

* Our Woo Stuff is pretty darn popular here. Those same posts get a lot of traffic which can only benefit the podcast. We figured the audience is here, so lets’ give them even more resources.

* In addition we understood the challenges of a podcast on two sites. If you are a regular reader here you know that we also posts our podcast here as well as the Do the Woo site, but it takes a lot of work to avoid duplicate content. And even with all that work, there’s that fine line that the powers behind Google might zap you somewhere into low ranking eternity. In addition, we are now adding full transcripts to our podcasts. That’s important in making it accessible. And the fact we could only have those on one site made it not so user-friendly.

Which brings us back to what is happening today. As you can imagine, a lot of the reasons we are expanding our podcast to cover everything WordPress and eCommerce is also reflected in the same reasons we shared with you for moving out site.

Over the last couple of years we have written more and more about eCommerce directly or indirectly. Posts geared towards selling and content, monetization, plugins and themes that would help you with your online store and of course, WooCommerce. But lately we have been mixing it up talking a bit more about other WordPress eCommerce solutions.

And now our plan is not only give you a wider perspective on eCommerce and WordPress on our new show, but on the blog as well.

What we discovered with our podcast on WooCommerce is two-fold. One is that each interview, whether is was a shop owner, social or marketing expert, developer or designer, even though we talked about Woo, there was so much else shared. Great tips and insights that any shop owner, or in fact, anyone that sells anything on their site could benefit from. Even for those who build and maintain eCommerce Sites.

But at the same time maybe some people were reluctant to listen because they either had were not using WooCommerce nor had any plans to do so. As a result, they missed out on excellent advice from experts and online st...

From the original series, Do the Woo.

When you are creating your first, smaller online store, choosing a payment gateway can sometimes be a challenge. You often decide on a single one to get started and go from there as your store grows. But is that first choice the right choice? Listen to me as I share with your a short story about my experience with PayPal and Stripe with a membership site I started.

Whether you are creating sites for clients, doing it for your own store, or just considering the payment gateways for an existing small shop, this will give you some food for thought.

Thanks to your sponsor Conversio (formerly Receiptful)

Transcript

You can also download the transcript of this show: Do the Woo Transcript August 17 2016

Hey everyone and welcome to episode 27 of Do the Woo, a podcast for WooCommerce Shop owners. Bob Dunn here, also known as BobWP on the web. Today’s show is typically a bit shorter than our usual podcasts, but I wanted to share an experience I personally had sometime ago that may help you if you are just starting our with you WooCommerce online store, especially a small store. I call it the Tale of Two Payment Gateways.

But before I jump into this, a couple of things I would like to have you consider. First, we are still looking for some of you to ease on over to iTunes and leave a rating and review. As we head into our 6th month of Do the Woo, it would be so much appreciated.

And if you are a developer that uses WooCommerce for clients, not only do we want you to continue to tune-in, but also consider sponsoring a show. Same goes for any of you that offer a WooCommerce related theme, plugin, extension or service. It’s your support that will keep Do the Woo on the air.

Lastly, Do the Woo will be heading to WordCamp US in Philadelphia in December. So keep an eye out for those updates.

With that all said, let’s return to my story. To set the scene, first let me tell you that I have been using PayPal for a long time. No matter what horror stories you have heard, for me it’s worked great. Because of my sale level I have not needed to go to a merchant account, nor would want to get involved with it. PayPal has just made it easier for me.

The story takes place around a couple of years ago when I was making yet another attempt at a membership site. Of course I was using WooCommerce, but at that time the site protection was the Groups extension, so it was quite a bit more limiting than the current Membership plugin that’s available. In any case, I had launched the site and was pondering the payment gateway Stripe. Mainly because a lot of my friends and colleagues were raving about it and many felt they were going to move away from PayPal entirely, for several reasons.

Now I had been listening to all of this long before I launched this site, so it had been on my mind. But initially I just wasn’t ready to take PayPal off. In fact, I knew that it wasn’t a matter of dropping PayPal wherever I used it, but simply deciding whether I should try Stripe at all.

Then came the time awhile after the site launched. More and more people I know were raving about Stripe and the temptation was overwhelming. So one day I just said screw it. I’m going to get signed up for Stripe, buy the WooCommerce extension and go for it. A note for some of you who aren’t aware but, yes,

Originally from our series, Do the Woo.

Smoothing the on-boarding experience with a dynamic plugin like WooCommerce has its challenges, but the team is making considerable efforts with each update to do just that. Of course that isn’t the only focus, but the understanding behind the UI (user-interface) and making sure it works in the best possible way is truly a priority.

Join me as I chat with Matty Cohen, WooCommerce team lead at Automattic and he shares some great insights and strategies of how his team looks at the user experience. Not only will the shop owner learn of what makes WooCommerce tick, but there are some great tidbits in here for any developer who is working with WooCommerce.

We chatted about:

* If the focus on WooCommerce updates is about the UI (user interface), new features or what is under the hood.

* What are some of the biggest challenges he finds with on-boarding new users to WooCommerce.

* WooCommerce Connect, how people are responding to it and where we are at in this stage of the platform.

* How users reacted to the new “zones” options for shipping offered in the latest release.

* How some feel that WordPress hasn’t come out with any releases lately that have astounded them with new features and is WooCommerce leaning the same way with so much of the extra features provided in extensions.

And if you have questions for Matty, you can find him on Twitter @mattyza or contact WooCommerce here. Also, their Help Desk is a great place to ask questions, and if you have an idea for WooCommerce, they have you covered here.

Our Sponsor: WP in 1 Month

Transcript

You can also download the transcript of this show here: Do the Woo Transcript August 10 2016

Bob Dunn: Hey everyone. Welcome to Episode 26 of Do the Woo, a podcast for WooCommerce shop owners. Bob Dunn here, also known as BobWP on the Web. Today is a special day because I have my friend Matty Cohen, who is a WooCommerce Product Team Lead at Automattic. In fact, I believe Matty was one of the first people I connected with at Woo. Over the years, we’ve had some great conversations when we can, and he’s always been a big support for me and my Woo adventures. Hey Matty. A big Woo welcome to the show.

Matty Cohen: Hey Bob. Thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

Bob Dunn: It’s long overdue. Well, it’s not long overdue. The podcast hasn’t been going that long, but definitely wanted to get you on here. Today we’re going to be talking with Matty about the UI of WooCommerce. Maybe more direct, the user experience when someone first starts using WooCommerce. It’s a powerful plugin and the challenge is to make the onboarding experience the best it can be.

But before we dive into this, I’d like to give a quick shout out to today’s sponsor, WP in One Month. If you learned WordPress and want to learn more, this is where you can level up your WordPress skills. WP in One Month partners with plugins and theme developers to offer free, live webinars and coming this fall, there will be online courses on how to create your own WordPress prod...

Originally from our series, Do the Woo.

Everyone loves a cupcake. And our guest today, Matt Teske from Cupcake Royale, brings some tasty tips on how they use WooCommerce on their site and how selling online for delivery and pickup also is growing interest in more people to come to one of their physical locations around Seattle, Washington for a treat and some coffee.

We chatted about:

* Why they moved online and if WooCommerce was their first choice.

* Some of the challenges they faced and if WooCommerce met them.

* The most effective way they have found to advertise their website and stores.

* The differences in their sales when it comes to delivery or pickup.

* Their largest order to date.

Our Sponsor: Conversio (formerly Receiptful)

Transcript

You can also download the transcript here: Do the Woo Transcript August 3 2016.

Bob Dunn: Hey everyone, and welcome to episode 25 of Do the Woo, a podcast for WooCommerce shop owners. Bob Dunn here, also known as BobWP on the web. Today we are talking about something we all love, and that is cupcakes. Yummy, yummy cupcakes. In fact, I can safely say that I have personally enjoyed the delight from our guest today, Matt Teske from Cupcake Royale, based in Seattle, Washington. Welcome to today’s show, Matt.

Matt Teske: Oh, thank you for having me on.

Bob Dunn: You bet, and I also wanted to throw in that I had the chance to hear Matt talk about his WooCommerce adventures a couple of times at the Seattle WooCommerce meetup, so I have heard a bit of his challenges and his love of WooCommerce, and obviously that is where I tasted his treats. In fact, nothing like some leftovers I was able to snag and take home. The good stuff. My wife was like, “Oh, what are those, what are those?” They didn’t last very long around here.

Matt Teske: I imagine.

Bob Dunn: Well, before we dive into our show with Matt, I want to thank the sponsor of today’s show, receiptful.com. They evolved from a very simple question: What if store owners could use their e-mail receipts as a marketing opportunity? Two years ago, the team at Receiptful led bthe co-founder of WooThemes, Adii Pienaar, built a product that has since allowed store owners to send almost 20 million receipts and generate close to 30 million dollars in revenue. Since then, the product has evolved to help you supercharge all your other customer interactions as well. I will be telling you more about what they can do for you later in the show and also how you can get 20% off your first 3 months of Receiptful premium.

Now back to the goodies. Goodies and cupcakes. I want you to tell us a little bit about Cupcake Royale, what you do there, what you sell? All that good stuff.

Matt Teske: Sure, well we are a local dessert bakery and café in the Seattle area. We have been around for about 13 years. We started in 2003. We currently have 7 locations. We do a strong retail sales as well as wholesale, and we do some customer delivery, so we will deliver to your home, and that is powered through the online store with WooCommerce. Our owner, Jodi Hall, she is pretty active in the Seattle social scene and activism scene, but she was originally employed as a marketing person at Starbucks, and she just felt like she wanted to get back to what they started as, which was just the experience of being at a café in the community.

Our company’s mission statement is to create joyful experiences, and that is with cupcakes (obviously), with coffee,

Originally from our series, Do the Woo.

Email marketing is still one of the most effective means of advertising and promotion for eCommerce sites. And with your online store you have so many opportunities use it as a strategy to reduce your cart abandonment rates—through upsells, sales and coupons, receipts, and more. With more than 8 years of experience as an email marketer, our guest Becs Rivett-Kemm has brought her amazing talents to Receiptful.com, an email receipt company that helps online shops personalize and tailor customer interactions for maximum impact.

In episode 24, I talk with Becs about tips, insights and her own experiences with email marketing and I discovered that, no,  email is not dead. In fact, far from it.

We chatted about:

* The top 2-3 ways to use email marketing with your online store.

* Precautions to take when using popups to build your email list— and ideas for best utilizing them.

* The important role your subject line plays in the emails you send out from your shop.

* The direction of support and how it is approached with both social and emails.

* How Receiptful clients are using their service.

Plus, Bec shares some great tips on mail marketing.

Our Sponsor: Conversio (formerly Receiptful)

Transcript

You can also download the transcript of this show: Do the Woo Transcript July 27 2016.

Bob Dunn: Hey, everyone, and welcome to Do the Woo, a podcast for WooCommerce shop owners. Bob Dunn here, also known as BobWP on the web. Today we are in for a treat. Becs Rivett-Kemm is not only part of the team of today’s sponsor, Receiptful , but she also has a long history of expertise in email marketing that she brings to the table. Welcome to today’s show, Becs.

Becs Rivett-Kemm: Thank you. It’s great to be here.

Bob Dunn: Really looking forward to this. I’m going to dive right in to some questions with you or have you give an introduction instead of me telling everybody about you and what Receiptful does. First, why don’t you share a little bit of your background in email marketing?

Becs Rivett-Kemm: I’ve been an email marketer for about eight years now along with doing a bit of the front end of social. I’ve worked for a few multi-million pounds, multi-channel businesses. Skin care business and clothing, and then I had a little foray into financial services for a while. All the time, I’ve kind of been moonlighting as an email marketer in the evenings, helping small businesses. I worked for another WordPress start up before this and now I’m working for Receiptful. I’ve been working here for maybe three or four months now. That’s kind of how I’ve ended up here.

Bob Dunn: Yeah, email marketing. It just seems like it’s something that I don’t think is ever going to go away, you know? No matter what else comes out, it always seems like there’s … We always fall back on that.

Becs Rivett-Kemm: Yeah, people kind of … There’s been a big rumor going around that email has been dead or it’s going to die for years, but it doesn’t. It just keeps on growing.

Bob Dunn: That’s kind of like blogging. Everybody, you know? “Oh, blogging’s dead. Everything is social now.” Now tell us a bit more about Receiptful. What Receiptful does, all that good stuff. Can you share a little bit with our listeners on that?

Originally from our series, Do the Woo.

Finding a plugin, extension or add-on for your WooCommerce shop can be an exhausting challenge. With more than 400 on WooCommerce.com alone, another 1,000+ on WordPress.org, and thousands scattered over cyberspace, where do you start and what exactly should you look for?

In episode 23, I talk with Joe Casabona, owner of WP in 1 Month, and tap into his experience as both a developer and a trainer who has some excellent strategies for planning and finding that perfect WooCommerce plugin.

We chatted about:

* The differences between a plugin, add-on and extension.

* Deciding between a free or premium plugin.

* Preparing yoursefl, both for the needs of your online store and your budget for purchasing premium WooCommerce extensions.

* Where to start looking for your plugins.

* Joe’s top three WooCommerce plugins or extensions.

Our Sponsor: WP in 1 Month

Transcript

You can also download the transcript of this show: Do the Woo Transcript July 25 2016.

Bob Dunn: Hey, everyone,  and welcome to Do the Woo, a Podcast for WooCommerce shop owners. Bob Dunn here, also known as Bob WP on the web. Today, we are going to dive into WooCommerce extensions and plugins. Did you know that there are more than 400 extensions now on WooCommerce.com? If you search for WooCommerce plugins on WordPress.org, you easily get well over 1,000 results. Hey, that’s the beauty of WooCommerce. Out of the box, it comes with a lot of essential features to get you started, but then you choose your extended functionality based on your own site’s needs. Where the heck do you start? How do you find the right plugin or extension? Today, my guest, and also my sponsor, Joe Casabona from WP in One Month, is going to give us some guidelines and tips on how to navigate this massive influx of WooCommerce goodness. Hey Joe, welcome to the show.

Joe Casabona: Hey Bob, thanks. Happy to be here.

Bob Dunn: I am so looking forward to this because one thing is, Joe is a trainer. He has training background. We both share a lot of interests and also a love for teaching. Before we get into that, let’s find out a little bit about how you got involved with WordPress and WooCommerce.

Joe Casabona: My WordPress story goes back to 2004. I was in college. I was learning how to make websites and I said to my friend, who I had a work-study job with, “I think I’m going to build my own content management system.” I was a college freshman, maybe a sophomore. I had no idea what I was doing and he’s like, “I thought about that but have you heard of WordPress?” I said, “No.” I checked it out and I was like, “Yeah, this is great.” I got WordPress. I did some things that I’m not proud of, as I’m sure a lot of us did in the early WordPress days, like put PHP, hard-coded PHP pages right into core. There were no pages in WordPress at the time.

I stuck with it and I’ve grown with WordPress and watched it evolve into what it is today. I’ve been on WordPress for a long time and I use it for just about everything. WooCommerce I’m actually relatively new to. We do some work … I’m a front-end developer at Crowd Favorite, we do commerce work there. With starting WP in One Month, there’s a few things that I wanted to sell and I’m changing directions of WP in One Month. WooCommerce is going to be a tremendous help there, especially one of the plugins that I’m sure we will talk about later. WooCommerce, I’ve started coding on it recently.