WordPress & E-Commerce, Episode 116 with Beka Rice

Beka Rice started using WordPress as a high school teacher and softball coach then helping her husband part time at SkyVerge.

SellwithWP was created to address specific eCommerce questions that were coming from many users to SkyVerge.

Early Plugins were developed from running an eCommerce business through SkyVerge.

Career Transition to a nomadic worker

You need to be good at being a remote worker.
There are many challenges from working alone.
Sometimes it helps to move to other locations to get work done.
The other location practice can lead to a set routine that will help you become more productive.
Working in different time zones can be a real challenge. You will be more successful when you manage these time zones effectively.

Many customization requests were built as plugins and rolled out to the community.
Plugins made it easy to expand the functionality of WooCommerce.
When Automattic purchased WooCommerce they realized that it was beneficial if a user’s eCommerce store fit a basic setup.
It is easy to customize WooCommerce and can be a large project to maintain.
Registration based membership has been added to the newest release of WooCommerce.
Make sure that the pricing for the plugin will be in line with the benefit that will be realized by the customer.

Pricing plugins has been a challenge and art.
The plugin pricing is often tiered with the WooCommerce team.
The development is being done as customization requests are coming in from WooCommerce users.
Smaller plugins try to follow a formula from requests coming from WooIdeas and what competitors are doing.
You need to analyze what the support maintenance burden will be on the plugin release.

Sites need to be optimized for Mobile. Many purchases are being done from mobile phones.
Selling needs to be via multiple channels. (ex: buyable pins. Selling through Pinterest using a pin for products and then to WooCommerce).
REST API continues to open up WordPress to all developers. This will allow the opensource to reach a large audience of WordPress users outside of WooCommerce