Why WooCommerce?

Happy Monday morning! Ready to start a new and productive week?

Lots of noise out there, especially with the US election coming up soon. But, all I can say is…

Stay focused on what you control. And stay focused on growth.

The rest of it is noise. It might be important, but in the end, your only real action on that front is to vote. So, do that… then get back to business. OK?

No politician controls your future success. Only you can do that. So, remember who is actually in charge here. It’s you. Embrace it and make waves.

Let’s dive in…

Why I Only Use WooCommerce

It wasn’t all that long ago that I would have sworn never to use WooCommerce.

I thought it was overly complicated. Kinda bloated. A little “too much” for what I needed to do with it. A big ol’ pile of overkill.

I used various membership plugins to make sales for awhile. I switched to Thrivecart for awhile, too. Glad I no longer use Thrivecart, though, because that product sadly seems to have gone downhill somewhat with new ownership. Anyway….

I looked anew at WooCommerce. And I realized I had been wrong about it. I wanted power. I wanted flexibility. I wanted integrations. And, coming from Thrivecart, I really wanted something which was tightly integrated right into my website so I didn’t have to send people away.

WooCommerce was all of that. And today, it is my “go to” solution for any site taking orders. I use it for physical products, courses, membership sites… and even just this last week set it up for a non-profit who will be taking donations.

So, why WooCommerce? What makes it better than the myriad of other plugins out there that do similar things?

Well, here’s my viewpoint on the matter….

• Almost everything integrates with it. Even other plugins that can take orders on their own often end up integrating with WooCommerce.
• It is completely open source, which means there’s a large community of people all developing add-ons, plugins and tutorials on how to make it do certain things.
• It integrates completely with your website, which means it takes on the same styling. Members can look at their account right there, without going anywhere else.
• You can customize it. Make it do specific things. Change the look of the dashboard. Change the outgoing emails. All of it can be done to your liking.
• Since WooCommerce does everything and is dedicated just to ecommerce, you don’t have to change platforms. You can change your mind and change other tools around it, but just continue to use WooCommerce and save a lot of headache. In this way, it is “future proof”.

Does it have quirks? Of course it does. Such as…

• It puts a lot of stuff (and frankly, promotions) in there right when you install it. So, you have to take some time to disable it and turn off features to get it stripped down just to what you need.
• If you feel compelled to buy support licenses for addons, the cost can really add up quickly. But, all of them are GPL open source so in many cases they just aren’t worth paying for.

Personally, I wouldn’t use a membership site plugin to take payments. Nothing wrong with it, of course, but for the reasons above, I think WooCommerce provides more flexibility and a future pathway without having to switch.

Let me also comment about SureCart….

SureCart is a good platform. In some ways, it is even better than WooCommerce. In other ways, though, it isn’t as good. And it is also proprietary and dependent on their hosting, so it isn’t really digitally sovereign like WooCommerce is. But, SureCart is growing quickly and with good reason. It is indeed a nice solution.

So, that’s why I use WooCommerce. And unless something much better comes along, I don’t see myself moving out of it anytime soon.

This Week In Concierge

Still running a little behind on projects for all of my awesome Concierge clients, but I am making headway on catching up. All I can say is… let’s hope we don’t get another hurricane.

Here’s a taste (not all) of the things accomplished for Concierge clients last week:

• Submitted a support request on behalf of a client to BuddyBoss regarding a weird issue with their licensing
• Routed a couple of clients domain-based email over to FastMail for them
• Set up a donation funnel for a non-profit using CartFlows
• Helped a couple clients get Presto Player working with Bunny.net for improved management of their videos
• Pushed a client’s newly built membership site live out of staging. Yay for launch!
• Built a waiver release form for a client to be able to track waivers for her clients in FluentCRM
• Tidied up and completed the custom design for online courses for a client
• Built a new contact form for a client’s membership site

WordPress Quick Bits

CommandUI Goes Viral. A new tool called CommandUI is forthcoming and it has been on a tear through the social media world. They’ve got a viral referral campaign and it is indeed working. But, it would never work if the tool wasn’t hitting a sweet spot…. and it is. CommandUI looks like a game changer in how one navigates WordPress and I am closely watching it and may indeed be buying this one.

SureForms Pro Available. The “Sure” ecosystem got a little bigger… with SureForms Pro now available for purchase. As you mighta guessed, this is from the same folks behind SureCart, SureTriggers, ZipWP and Presto Player. Not sure the world needed another forms plugin, but… it looks nice. I’ll be sticking with Fluent Forms, tho.

WP Summarize For Quick Post Summaries. WP Summarize uses AI to produce quick summaries your content, such as a “key takeaways” box. Interesting little time-saver. It taps into the OpenAI system, so you can pretty much do this with ChatGPT directly. But, WP Summarize is a one-time purchase so may be worth considering for the convenience alone.

WP Fusion Gets Interesting Update. WP Fusion gets an update every week, but this week’s update has an integration with the Cancellation Survey for WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin. I’m embarrassed to say… I didn’t know about this plugin. Looks really interesting! And it is free, too. But, combining this plugin with WP Fusion is awesome for membership sites. Check out the other WP Fusion changes this week.

People Suddenly Realize Matt Owns dot-org. Yes, the fiasco between Matt Mullwenweg and WP Engine has brought to light for many the fact that WordPress.org is not owned by Automattic or the WordPress Foundation, but instead Matt himself. This hasn’t exactly been a secret, but I guess it is more obvious now. And indeed a major weak point of the ecosystem right now. Matt has too much centralized control and I do think that needs to change.

Do I Hate Awesome Motive?

Over the last year or two, I’ve definitely taken some shots at Awesome Motive.

• For their marketing tactics.
• For ruining (in my view) Thrive Themes
• For auto-installing plugins

You know, things like that. And I think these are valid gripes. And I view it as one of my jobs to be open with my audience and my clients, to steer them in the right direction, and be honest. Companies should be called out for the things they do that aren’t good. And, in the end, we can disagree and still respect each other.

That’s what I wanted to say today. Because I also want to be clear about something else. And that is…

I do not hate Awesome Motive.

I had Syed Balkhi (CEO of Awesome Motive) reach out to me last week via DM.

One thing I believe I’ve always said is that I have no beef with Syed. In fact, I respect the hell out of what he’s built. And I told him so…

I definitely have some issues with some of the tactics of Awesome Motive. But, I do not hate them. And I definitely have no beef with Syed. I never have.

Let me say a few good things here about Awesome Motive:

• They are good developers. Their plugins are overall good quality. I may recommend other options, but that isn’t because I think their software is bad. In fact, if it wasn’t for the sketchy tactics that come with their software, I’d probably recommend some of their stuff. It is actually pretty good, in many cases.
• I respect that they do indeed contribute quite a bit to the WordPress community, not only through contributions to core, to sponsorships, and even to their content on sites like WP Beginner. Even I find myself on WP Beginner sometimes for some quick “how to”. Their SEO is amazing. But, the company definitely gives back to the ecosystem, there’s no doubt about it.
• I admire how open and accessible Syed is. And frankly, he is one of the most adept entrepreneurs I know.

So, my opinions about what is one of the top companies in this space is nuanced. And despite the respect I have for Syed and certain things about the company, I will still call them out for the things they do that I don’t believe serve the community in the best way.

I believe it is my job to do that. That’s how the checks and balances of this ecosystem works.

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The WP Edge is the official weekly newsletter of the Blog Marketing Academy.