Live on WP Feedback Online Summit

Speaker 1:
Hey everybody, Bob WP here, and this is Do the Woo podcast, special episode coming live from WP Feedback Online Summit. I’ve been on this networking group for the last several days, more than probably anybody anticipated that is within this group, and that is either good or bad. I’ll let them decide at the end of the day. But what I thought would be cool is to do an kind of a quick ad hoc podcast. Just grab whoever’s in here, we’ll talk e-commerce, we’ll talk WooCommerce, we’ll talk good stuff. So I’m gonna dive right into it without going into a lot of other conversation within or by myself. And I’m gonna, I’m gonna start with Raleigh. Raleigh. Hey, how you

Speaker 2:
Doing? Hey. Hey, Bob. I’m awesome. Yeah, thank you. Uh, I’m glad you chose me first.

Speaker 1:
. Yeah. I thought I would have you go ahead and lead off and just tell us a little bit what you do.

Speaker 2:
Sure. Yeah. So I’ve been in the WordPress space for probably 10 years now, and then I’ve been working for Codeable for the past five years. And Codeable has been proudly partnered with WooCommerce for the last seven or eight years, since back when they were woo themes. And so, yeah, I’m like, uh, kind of knowledgeable about, uh, you know, more of the business side of things as I used to be a developer in my previous life. But, uh, since then I’ve hung up my tool belt and probably can’t get too technical on Woo these days. But yeah, that’s kind of, kind of that. And yeah, and, uh, if you go to the WooCommerce site, you’ll find Codeable under customizations in the top menus. So you can read more about us there.

Speaker 1:
Cool. And Chip. Hey Chip. How you doing?

Speaker 3:
I’m good, Bob, how about

Speaker 1:
You? I’m doing great. What does, what does Chip do around the WordPress space?

Speaker 3:
Okay, so, uh, I’m Chip Edwards and I work for, uh, I’m a partner at Create My Voice, and we build voice apps to be able to make it so that your content from your website is available on smart speakers and other voice devices like smartphones and, and, uh, autos and, and the new thing called wearables.

Speaker 1:
Cool. Awesome. Alright. I’m not ignoring you. I’m coming to get you. How are you doing?

Speaker 4:
All good. All good.

Speaker 1:
What do, what do you do? I, I know you, you work for this little company that’s on the web and I, I, I doubt if anybody knows about ’em, but you can go ahead and mention their name anyway.

Speaker 4:
Uh, I work for WPU Dev, uh, I’ve been working with them for the past three years. Uh, I was first, uh, sales and accounts agent, and now I am in charge of managing partnerships.

Speaker 1:
Cool. Ivan, welcome. What does Ivan do for the, for the peeps of WordPress and the peeps of WP feedback?

Speaker 5:
Yeah, so pretty much I own, uh, uh, WooCommerce e-commerce development agency. We also do, uh, websites and we offer, uh, marketing services as SEO Facebook ads and Google Ads. So a bit of a full, full service.

Speaker 1:
Excellent. Bernard, down in my lower, lower half, or actually right next to me. And I’m, that sounds really weird on a podcast because people have no idea what I’m talking about, but I’m looking at this grid of our videos and, Hey Bernard, what do you do in the space?

Speaker 6:
Well, I’m using WooCommerce for a hot chocolate business and doing a little bit of freelancing right on the side. And then I’m, uh, the builder of, uh, the POTS Pivot Builder integration.

Speaker 1:
Excellent. And I saved the, the best for the last, uh, the Mastermind behind this whole event that has made this possible, and that is actually sticking around and willing to talk some more after. I don’t know how many days of this Vito Vito, my man. How you doing?

Speaker 7:
I’m good. Super tired, to be honest. .

Speaker 1:
Well, I gave kind of a similar introduction, at least, um, you know, that you’re the mastermind behind this, but, but really, what do you do? Uh,

Speaker 7:
So I’m the founder of WP Feedback, uh, which is a communication platform for WordPress professionals. And now we’re in our virtual summit that’s been running on her on its fifth day out of six. And, uh, yeah. And when it comes to WooCommerce, uh, I used to be, uh, uh, before, before we started with WP Feedback, uh, I used to run an agency, uh, here in the city, and we built literally hundreds of, uh, WooCommerce websites, uh, from the most basic ones to websites that are selling, uh, in hundreds of thousands of, uh, uh, pounds per month. Uh, yeah. So I, I I, I, and yeah, I, I I love WooCommerce. I’ve been using it for years and years and years.

Speaker 1:
Excellent. You know, I think we have a newcomer to the podcast, and I, I don’t see a name yet, and I, I don’t even know if he has his mic turned on yet. I’m looking here. No, he has it muted, but Im gonna, so I don’t know if you, I don’t even know if you know what you going on, but you’re already involved with this, so you can’t get out of it now, because I’m already talking to you. I put

Speaker 8:
Do the, on my website. So am I, does have I been in here long enough to get the

Speaker 1:
Badge? . We’re actually doing a podcast now, so, oh, no. Yeah, you to, you get to join in, so, so why don’t you introduce yourself to everyone.

Speaker 8:
Sorry, I was just chopping up a sweet potato. Um, yeah, Paul Lacer here. I’m co-founder of the Dicky Bed Studio, which is a, um, a WebPress agency in the uk and I’m also a run ambassador for Run Cloud who, one of the sponsors of this event. But I was the speaker on this event as well, so that’s why I’ve been hanging out in this lounge quite a bit. It’s been really nice coming into the hallway, hallway track, hallway track’s my thing. So, so it’s been great to meet everyone here and, uh, great to meet you as well, Bob.

Speaker 1:
Cool. This is, this is great. ’cause I have this captive group now. I’ve introduced all of you. You can’t get out of this. You’re stuck. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna dive in some stuff, . And this is kind of, uh, you know, since we have such a wide variety of people here, I didn’t want to do, you know, get married in one particular area. Of course, we were gonna talk about e-commerce and WooCommerce. But in your, this is a real general question, and it’s something that maybe if you can kind of make it a little bit concise, but what you see as the greatest challenge right now wi with your experience with WordPress e-commerce, and if you do work in e with WooCommerce or you don’t work with WooCommerce, what is that ex, you know, what is that biggest challenge you’re seeing? I’m gonna swing back and start with Raleigh. I’m, I’m putting you on the spot again, raw.

Speaker 2:
Oh, shoot. Yeah. That keeps happening here at this summit event. Uh, but yeah, I’ll try to get you a concise answer and think of it in a concise fashion as well as I talk and by myself some time. But he, uh, no, it’s, um, yeah, like the, the biggest challenge around, uh, WooCommerce or eCommerce as a whole. Um, gosh, when I think about it, I think it’s like, uh, oh, this is like typical of me, but I’m like, uh, you know, the talent around it. Like, so I’m gonna focus on WooCommerce and I, I just think that, um, there’s a lot of, like, WooCommerce catches a lot of flax sometimes because, uh, there’s not people like dealing with professionals always in the development process, and like, the lack of quality there that sometimes can hinder somebody’s experience with WooCommerce, like right off the bat. And so that’s where I’m just like, such an advocate for like, quality and quality developers and bringing a good name back to developers and agencies as a whole, and just like ensuring that people know the difference of that. And not just to go Google, like, I need a word WooCommerce developer, and then like, go down that path and like, and, and not be as successful as if they, uh, were connected with somebody who, who really set ’em on a successful path with WooCom from like the very beginning. So that’s like where I see people get lost and it’s like, ugh, like killing success, and I just want people to be successful. So, yeah. That’s it,

Speaker 1:
. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
On and on. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
And that’s one I’ve definitely heard. And, and coming from your, your point of view, um mm-hmm . That, that, I’m sure that’s especially something you see quite a bit. How about you Chip? What, what, what do you see as a challenge?

Speaker 3:
So, uh, I come at from the, the voice space, and the biggest challenge right now is people still like to, to see research, touch, feel, uh, product. And I know that when we, when we started doing stuff on the internet as opposed to, um, at the, uh, the physical box stores, uh, people had to make that adjustment to say, um, I’m, I’m no longer touching and feeling a product. I’m, I’m willing to buy it online without actually feeling it first. And when we move into the voice space, that actually transitions a little bit further to the point where you’re just gonna have to rely on the company to be able to provide the best product. And so if you ask for a chainsaw helmet or whatever you’re asking for, somebody’s making that decision as far as which is the best product for you. Uh, sometimes it comes into your history of, this is what I’ve purchased before.
Um, but all those things kind of happen behind the scenes. And so there, there’s, there’s an adjustment happening as people start adopting these voice devices to, they, they like the convenience where they’re not actually having to do the research. They’re not having to do all of the, the looking up and finding the right thing because, um, so the convenience of just being able to ask for what you want and it’s showing up is, is there, um, but people haven’t made that transition yet, or not, not generally. It’s still really early in the adoption phase for being able to do, uh, e-commerce on voice devices. But it is happening. And Amazon and Google, both are betting really big, uh, big, you know, uh, development work in this space, uh, because they know people are going to make to, to, to want convenience over the time it takes ’em to do research on products and stuff like that. So still really early, uh, but it is moving in that direction and something that we, uh, should probably prepare for as, uh, as we start moving in that, uh, in that direction.

Speaker 1:
Yeah, that’s a good point, because it is, it’s, it’s right in that spot where it’s being introduced. It’s people are gonna start adopting it more and more, and I’m sure there’ll be interesting challenges along the way. How about you, Jorge? What are you, what are you guys seeing over at WPMU? Deb?

Speaker 4:
Uh, sorry, the question was, the

Speaker 1:
Question is, oh, you missed it. Will, I’m just gonna skip over you. No, I’m just kidding. No, no. Sorry, I do this all the time. No, no. What, what is one of the bigger challenges you’re seeing with WordPress and e-commerce right now?

Speaker 4:
Uh, well, I, I think that I can answer that from a point of view of where I come from because at least for where, where I live, what I see here as a bigger pain, uh, for, for store all online stores is, uh, to find a payment, get gateway, because we don’t have access to PayPal or Stripe, which are the bigger ones, and that people trust the most on of, on them. So we have available a couple of payment gateways, uh, but they charge like way too much. I think that that will be the, the biggest challenge because sometimes people need to create a, a company in the US to have access to those, to those two.

Speaker 1:
Right. And that’s, that’s a good point, because we don’t always think geographical area with challenges, and we’re so global and we’re always thinking, oh, everybody’s, everybody’s doing, everybody’s doing great stuff. And we don’t think of each specific area having that, especially with the payment gateway, that’s huge. That’s a, that’s a big challenge. How about you, Ivan? How, what, what do you see?

Speaker 5:
So from, from my point of view, as a, as WooCommerce agency, I would say it’s, uh, from the business side, it’s the comparison with the, the, the bigger e-commerce tools like Magento, Shopify, et cetera, and putting the WooCommerce, uh, kind of in a lower position. But, uh, many times I see, I see, uh, clients use Magento for stores that have, uh, around few hundred customers per day clients or visitors, and, uh, maybe five to 10 orders, which is, uh, in my opinion, a just, uh, uh, lo loss of funds and correct tool for them. So a bit, uh, globally as I would say, a bit a better positioning, uh, for the WooCommerce and, uh, for all the stuff that, that it can do, because I, uh, we personally know it can, it can be used for, uh, a family business with 10 products, and it can be used for, uh, multi-vendor store with, uh, tens of thousands products and even 50,000 or hundred thousand visitors, uh, per day.
So it’s, uh, a kind of funny, funny thing for runs around 30% of all websites, WooCommerce is practically built into it. And, uh, uh, it many times, uh, I hear, uh, a bit of Slack to WooCommerce compared to the other, other e-commerce solution, but, uh, not through anybody, uh, of the Magento, Shopify, or something else, because all, all of them are tools to, to enable the, the client to sell their stuff. So I, I, I would pretty much like to, to to grow a bit more community around WooCommerce and to position it correctly, because Magen Magento is doing wonderful stuff around that.

Speaker 1:
Yeah. And I think that’s a big thing with WooCommerce. So right now, in fact, they had somebody just come on that is pulling more of that community together, and, and that’s one of the reasons I, I kind of expanded my site and pieces of that. So, um, good points from the agency, uh, point of view. Bernard, what, what is your, what are you seeing in your, in your space and what you’re working with?

Speaker 6:
Um, when it comes to WooCommerce in Austria, it’s, it’s especially interesting because I’m not sure most people are aware of it, but as far as I know, only for Germany and Austria, you need additional plugins to even larger basic, uh, uh, WooCommerce store, which complies to all the, the, the regulations, uh, and there exists through solutions. So it’s even educating the client why you need that additional stuff, even for the most basic shop, because, uh, if you don’t do it, I mean, you never know, not Austria, it’s always easier, but in Germany, they have fines and stuff like that. Even if you just, I don’t mention, I don’t know the price per unit because that’s low over there. So if you have product which is in the liter or hundred milliliter, it’s in between. You need to have a pro, uh, a plugin which calculates that.
And stuff like that is always educational, especially if you come to the smaller clients because they only sell in Australia. Uh, so, and that’s a, a big point, which, uh, makes sometimes harder other because, and the, the, if people are a little bit educated, the, the sense like, well, what the costs that much WooCommerce is free. And they say, I mean, the basic product Yeah. But I have seen no WooCommerce store, which doesn’t need additional stuff. Doesn’t just happen. Yeah. Um, then you need to educate them about the value they get out of a, of a store, which has this additional functionality. And especially as with covid and all that stuff going on, or we need an online shop. Uh, but that is, that’s, that’s, that’s, there’s a strategy behind it when people come to a shop, even if it’s easier now because there’s awareness out there, but still, um, the people go to Amazon because they know what they can send it back. It’s free. I can get it, get it exchanged. It’s not easy for them.

Speaker 1:
Yeah. And that’s, that’s good, because it’s interesting as many times, and I’ve had different people on the podcast and I’ve had them from around the world, but I love this group because you’re pointing out these geographic challenges, which again, going back to what I was saying with Ivan, people aren’t aware of, I mean, we, you know, you’re in the United States, you’re thinking, Hey, everybody should be on WooCommerce to query, right? But then, you know, somebody else over here has this particular challenge. Somebody else over here has another challenge. So, uh, uh, this is good perspective. Uh, Paul, Paul, what’s your, um, what’s your thoughts on this as far as from your own experience?

Speaker 6:
You are on mute, .

Speaker 8:
Okay. How about now?

Speaker 6:
Yes.

Speaker 8:
Yep. Cool. Thanks. Um, yeah, thanks. Uh, so I think the main issue that I have with WooCommerce is a lack of good competition for WooCommerce inside WordPress, rather. Obviously you’ve got Spotify, and I know Big Commerce has now got a good integration or something, so that’s pretty good. I’ve not looked at it, but, but, but sometimes you just don’t, it’d be nice if there was some kind of competition that was putting some pressure on automatic to do something a little bit, uh, different from time to time. And also, it’s so big as well, I assume it’s very big. So it’d be nice if there was like a, a really genuine small e-commerce solution out there that someone had created and didn’t feel intimidated, perhaps by automatic and their partnerships with different big hosting companies and stuff that they can leverage. So,

Speaker 1:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s another, you know, that’s another whole side thing that, um, especially in the agency space and stuff. Mm-hmm. Having that availability and, and, uh, having other options out there. Vito, what, what you’re the, you’re the final word on this question. So the pressure’s on,

Speaker 7:
Uh, so what I think are the challenges with, uh, WooCommerce at the moment, or what are the biggest challenges?

Speaker 1:
Yeah.

Speaker 7:
Um, so first of all, I think that there is a problem with scalability, but that’s a general problem in WordPress. Uh, uh, that, uh, we’re, we’re actually figuring out a lot of new stuff for this event, uh, right now, that I think would help some of our, uh, WooCommerce clients if we knew how to do that before. Uh, so maybe it’s more about awareness on how to scale rather than, uh, rather than, uh, uh, their ability to scale. ’cause now we’re figuring out ways that it is possible, uh, but it’s just not common knowledge, I guess. All of this stuff. Uh, I think that’s the biggest, uh, challenge that I found along the, uh, uh, along the years working with this also, uh, uh, positioning, uh, big time on positioning when it comes to, uh, positioning against, against, uh, some other players in the market, like, like Shopify and, uh, you know, mostly Shopify, I would say, and sometimes Magento as well, uh, uh, that place themselves in a place of quality and e and, you know, one is quality, one is ease, and WordPress is like, kind of in the middle, but, uh, I don’t know what they’re trying to say, you know?
Mm-hmm . So maybe, uh, that’s, uh, that’s a challenge for them, that is affecting all of us.

Speaker 1:
Yeah. And that’s interesting because I just had a, a podcast that I, um, released today with, um, Chris Wegman from WP Engine, and they’re kind of moving more into the space. And then the act, the other person that was my co-host was Mendel, and he’s with Liquid Web Nexus. So it was kind of, I had these co-host hosts, and so I had these two hosts, but they were talking about scalability a lot. And that was a, uh, in fact, I would recommend to some people, if you’re listening to this, go back and listen to that, because Chris is kind of newer to WooCommerce and he’s dealing with that right now, and Sure. And he, his, one of the things that I wish I could think of his exact words is there’s solutions to these problems. It’s just getting to these solutions and that some of them are a bit more challenging and, uh, you know, some are finding those solutions, some of the hosting are able to scale.
But I, it does boil down to exactly what you said, and I’ve known this in my own space of doing anything. It’s educating. It’s like, once this is discovered, once we have this down, we gotta start educating and telling people, you know, what, what you can do, what you can’t do, what limitations and stuff. And making it real clear. I wanted to go into a question here. Now, this is, I don’t know if everybody will have something. This isn’t even WooCommerce based necessarily. This is more e-commerce, WordPress and you, and what you do with your business. Has, have any of you experienced, I’m sure you have experienced people requesting it, but, and I think Bernard alluded to this a little bit, the situation. I mean, I know by the traffic of my site, we’re getting tons of people interested in WooCommerce. Everybody wants to get online.
So have you had any experiences with, you know, it can be just talking with, uh, potential clients, customers or whatever, pivoting. They want to pivot right now to online to sell, whether they’re, you know, they got a physical shop, they got courses, they got a, a barber shop, they got a yoga studio. They’re thinking, how can I pivot? Have any of you dealt with that so far? And any insights or, or specific, I don’t wanna say you have to call out a client, but, um, something that’s specific that it’s kind of unique, you know, oh, you know, you wanna pivot, this is gonna be a challenge. And, and I’m gonna let you go with, I, I think we can all raise our hands on this. Uh, if you, um, go to your little, is that right, Vito? You can, yeah, yeah. Raise your hands because that way I’ll know who has an answer to it. I wanna put somebody on the spot and they go, oh, Bob. Oh, you know, uh, uh, okay. Well, obviously like I did last

Speaker 2:
Time.

Speaker 1:
Yeah.

Speaker 2:
No, , I was ready and I was ready this time too, in case you called on me. Okay,

Speaker 1:
Cool. Okay. I’ll do a quick one. Okay. You’ll do a quick one. Cool. So everybody looks like everybody, almost everybody has one. So good. So go ahead. So

Speaker 2:
Yeah, roll. And this is, uh, yeah, I can just speak to, hopefully some people got some good, like, examples of people pivoting, like during these times to online from their brick and mortar, whatever it was. But I can more speak to, we at Codeable partnered with WooCommerce and many other kind of e-commerce solutions for WordPress. And so I can just speak to the general volume of like requests, ’cause we do a ton of projects there.

Speaker 1:
Uh, let’s see here. I’ve been, but, but what have you seen or what’s going on in your space?

Speaker 5:
So, I, I would give a a pretty precise example. So, uh, we are based in Croatia and we do almost all of our stuff, uh, locally. So during this, uh, this Covid pandemic, uh, there was a massive, massive influx of, uh, home, uh, home producers of, uh, vegetables, fruits, and et cetera that, that were pretty non-existent in, in our, uh, e-commerce market. There are a few shops who did, uh, in-house deliveries and, uh, sorts of stuff. And during this time, uh, where everything was closed, uh, they pretty much were left without, uh, big firms that would buy their products in a massive scales. So they, uh, kind of turned to, to personal and to do, uh, their shops. So we have like, uh, many clients that that contact us with, with that problem. And for few of them, we did something for a few of them.
We said that, uh, even though they wanted maybe to think more about it, so to sort all or, so it’s, I’m saying this because it’s not just to build a shop, and now we have a shop. You need to package the product. You need to send them, you need to see if there’s a even correct, uh, target for you. Will there be enough, uh, of money on that target? And, uh, would you, it’s not just to open the shop and close it in a month or two because it’s not working. So we encourage, uh, many of clients who, who are in touch, uh, with us to think more about the whole process, what is the e-commerce and what they need to do behind the scenes so that they could be a quality online shop. So for some of them, we, we even declined for some of them. Uh, we made something, and some of them, uh, we, we forward the, the to, to maybe, uh, a wholesale, uh, bigger e market where, uh, they could, uh, place their product just like on Amazon or something like that. But it’s local, so do not have your own product. This will be a good fit. And later maybe think about doing it yourself and having, uh, a good agency to back you up. Yes.

Speaker 1:
Yeah. I love that because you took the right approach. ’cause I think sometimes it’s too tempting and maybe it’s tempting for some, even smaller agencies. I’m not saying you’re smaller or bigger, but to just jump on it, it’s like, wow, there’s opportunity there. I’m gonna start building everybody something online and not really looking and add it, uh, strategically or even thinking, you know, is this the right move for them Right now I’m finding other options, and that’s good. You’re throwing in those other options like a marketplace or, or something like that. So, um, excellent. Um, Bernard, what, what, what’s your stories?

Speaker 6:
Well, not directly related to using WooCommerce, but, uh, my, hi, my hair stylist, which who hadn’t even had a webpage a year ago, uh, asked me, oh, can I put some products on my page? And I don’t know. And he posted about Facebook and stuff like that. And so we just added a custom post app through under some images. Uh, his niece filled in the texts because she, she’s around 20 and know, know, know how to do that stuff. And, uh, I will see him next week and to talk about how it worked out. But sometimes it’s as easy as just listening some products, I mean, that’s a poor images, they shoot it with an old phone. So, but for them it’s advanced. It’s stuff they didn’t have before. So it’s sometimes we need to get our clients where they are because, uh, they don’t need all the nitty gritty and wow super stuff because he has clients, he has super ratings on, on Google, did nothing for it, . So yeah, it’s, that somewhat impressed me because, uh, yeah, he was proactive, so, okay, we are close. We have to at least get some money in somehow. Um, that was his way doing it, and that impressed me.

Speaker 1:
Yeah, and that, that’s an interesting approach too, because it’s, it can either be a temporary solution or maybe if it works, you know, and since, I mean, she’s a s salon, you know, she probably has a clientele. It’s not like everybody in the world’s gonna start dropping in our site and buying products. Although that might be a nice problem to have , but at the same time, if she decides afterwards, yeah, my, my, yeah, some of my current clients are liking the fact that they can go online and now order some product, and I still have them as a customer. So it kind of puts that in place and she can make that decision.

Speaker 6:
As, you know, , it’s a he, but, uh, don’t matter. . Yeah, really . Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are men out there too, but yes, uh, he has many working for him, so it’s . See,

Speaker 1:
I made the assumption there. You know it. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it’s easy. It’s easy. I won’t let men touch my hair, you know? Oh, but seriously, that’s good. So, alright. Uh, Paul, Paul, what do you, what, what do you have as far as this, um, pivoting going on?

Speaker 8:
Yeah. What, can you hear me okay?

Speaker 1:
Yep.

Speaker 8:
Cool. Uh, yeah, I don’t have a hairstylist for starters like Bernard. So unfortunately I don’t have a story like that. But bizarrely, my story is hair, hair, um, stylist related in that, uh, one of our clients, I spoke to her last week and she was distraught, nearly in tears, uh, about her business, which is like a wedding, um, wedding hair stylist, wedding hair and makeup. And so she was really distraught with everything that’s happened with COVID-19 last week. And, uh, I got a message. So we, we spoke last week and we were talking about some kind of funnel, simple funnels to try and help her get some, um, deposits down for next year’s weddings and all that kind of stuff. And she was still, she was still quite upset about things because she was getting no bookings and there’s no traffic to her website. She called me today and she’s had like three inquiries on her website and also one from another, a website where she gets, um, gets traffic from.
And, uh, she was absolutely super happy and desperate to set up a little funnel with, with what I’d suggested to a cart flows, which is obviously Adam Pricer and Sue J’s product, um, to get a a, a funnel in place with a payment for the deposit in place. And she’s probably gonna be able to up her prices as well. And so she’s gone from distraught a week ago to, uh, thinking her business is finished to, um, realizing her sort of, um, quite high quality value and wanting to get e-commerce in there, which I’ve been talking to her about for the last two years. But taking the leap and suddenly Covid-19 has happened and she can see, uh, a real opportunity. So you can see people’s minds, uh, businesses’ minds who weren’t involved in e-commerce starting to come around to it and starting to think about how they can actually start taking money because they don’t want to happen to them again. They want deposits in their bank, they want, uh, different ways of making income. So that, that’s happened today. That was today when I got the message from her, uh, when she called me on WhatsApp. So that made my weekend actually, because that’s a

Speaker 2:
Great story.

Speaker 8:
She was really upset, she’s really talented, really passionate, and, and she was kind of, um, you know, in, in trouble. And it’s all turned around. And I think that it, it is also part of the, people are starting to think about the recovery a little bit now. So I guess that’s why people are thinking. But 100%, you know, WooCommerce is gonna be installed on her website and car flows and, uh, get some nice little funnel going in there to get income into her bank as quick as possible.

Speaker 1:
Yeah, it’s good. It’s always good to hear good stories these days.

Speaker 8:
Mm. You

Speaker 1:
Know, we, we tend to look at all the, the negatives. So it’s good to hear when, when people are able to make that, um, what, 80 or 360 and really Yeah. With the help of you, you know, get, get, get online and do this stuff.

Speaker 8:
So she’ll be better for it though. This is the cool thing. I think, um, if businesses can get through this time at the moment and then they open up new channels of ways of making money through e-commerce when they never did before, then they could have a stronger business moving forward. And so not all businesses are gonna survive. Those ones that are sitting there panicking constantly, they’re, they’re gonna be in worse trouble than the ones that are trying to think of creative ways outta it. And e-commerce and WooCommerce is, is gonna be a big part of, of the whole world’s recovery in some ways.

Speaker 1:
Okay. Very cool. Well, I’m going to, um, you know, I, the problem with this one, I have this many guests. ’cause normally I usually have, you know, a handful, or not even a handful, I have one or two guests. So this is like, okay, well can we make this a, you know, three hour podcast? I don’t think so. But, but, and, and I, I’m, I’m hoping all of you will, I’m gonna let you do the raise of hands again on the little icon there just before I don’t call you. But what I’d like to do is end it with each one of you just imagining you’re sitting with somebody that’s, you know, whimpering. No, I’m not going to make it that dramatic, but you know, somebody that is right now a bit stressed and what do you think, you know, and, and let’s say, let’s make the assumption that what they do is possible to put online.
Let’s not throw in some weird, crazy thing. And it’s something that in the end you would have interest in or whatever. What would be the biggest suggestion when they sit down and say, you know, Hey, I, I need to meet, move online. What do you think is that very first step that I should do or think about before moving online? And I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’m not gonna randomly call somebody can, I’m hoping somebody will volunteer, then the other ones will have enough time and I can of course ramble till somebody I see a hand, oh, I see a hand. Good. And then the rest of you better put their hands up because I’m gonna call on you if you have your hand up or not. Yeah, yeah. So, so I, I’ll call on all of you. So think it over. But I’m gonna start with, um, Jorge, ’cause he, he actually volunteered. He was nice enough to, um, quit me from, you know, people don’t want to hear me, so I’m gonna quit babbling. Turn it over to Jorge. So how would you go about answering that question or giving that advice? Uh,

Speaker 4:
Uh, I guess that my first suggestion will be to, uh, investigate document yourself before going online. Uh, there are many, many, many great resources, uh, but there is also misleading information. So my first suggestion will be document yourself and investigate before giving that step, because it could be a really great tool, but if you don’t have the right information, then you can get in trouble.

Speaker 1:
Excellent. Uh, let’s see. Let’s go to Ivan. Ivan, what do you have to say?

Speaker 5:
So I, I will take a position of an e-commerce client. So if you sell, sell something offline, uh, check, check the concurrence, uh, the the other businesses in, in your field, see what are they doing? See, uh, how maybe you could apply. Uh, I’m, I’m going for the quick start tips. See what others are doing, uh, see what, uh, can you apply from them to your business? Uh, scout to the old agencies. Don’t jump, don’t jump on it. Scout to a few agencies. Talk to them. Inform yourself. Uh, inform yourself about, uh, law regulations that you need to comply to be online. Uh, just push a bit yourself into that space. Investigate it. It won’t, you won’t be late, uh, in a week, but in a week you can be, uh, so much more informed and, uh, so, uh, better prepared to know what you want. I think that’s the crucial thing. You need to know what you want and what your clients want and kind of shift, look, if you could shift a bit of your more business in that way online. So I, I think that’s, that’s a good thing to look it like that.

Speaker 1:
Excellent. Bernard?

Speaker 6:
Um, I would start with trying to find out to ask him why. I mean, it’s just about covid. Uh, are they even prepared for that kind of business? Because we had no idea what client we’re talking about. But it’s always, the first thing is to try and find out why, um, what’s, what’s the idea behind is do we even know what you’re talking about? Because often you get the feeling, oh, we need to sell online. And then what does it entitle you? What you need to do it for it so many, especially if you are in more regulated countries like Austria or Germany, you have to think about so many things, not only about the technical side, because that there are agencies that can do that, but it’s more like the path to it because doing it isn’t most of the time isn’t the hard part.

Speaker 1:
Cool. Paul, what, what do you gotta say about

Speaker 8:
That? Uh, talking to someone yesterday in here about, um, something, I think it was Stephanie, something similar to this. And, and, um, she was saying that she went to this talk and this, this guy was talking about the idea of like, whatever your business does, what’s the, if, if kind of your product is in some way depending on something before or after the service that you do. So if you’re a web designer, then probably there’s a strategist be behind you and then a and then a marketer ahead of you. Um, and you’re sitting in between those. So if you’re a kind of brick and mortar type business that is moving, so web designer is a bad idea, but, um, bad, bad, bad example. But if you’re a kind of a, a wholesaler for instance, so something behind you is the, uh, the, your suppliers and then something ahead of you are your distributors.
So as a wholesaler, you can look at those two sides and think, can I use e-commerce for something behind me or something in front of me? So as a wholesaler at the moment, I know a lot of people know that, um, wholesale butchers are selling meat to customers at the moment. So, and they’ve set up some really rudimentary e-commerce facilities to be able to do that. So I imagine a lot of those will be looking that one step ahead and saying, actually we can actually be a, um, a distribute a a sell to the public as well as, uh, wholesalers now. And then if they look behind them in terms of, uh, ingredients or whatever the, you know, the, the whatever their, um, suppliers are to them, they, you can also look behind you and think, is there a way that I can as a, as a wholesaler now help the people behind me and all the other wholesalers and do something cool to, um, to, to to, to make the whole system work smoother? Does that make any sense? Actually, I dunno.

Speaker 7:
Yeah. One step back, you gotta look one step back away, one step, one step,

Speaker 8:
Whatever your core service is, and see rather than, rather than just think, right, I I do this, can I sell it online? That’s, that’s one way of looking at it. But then you’ve also got another way of saying, how can I, how can I suddenly realize this stuff is cool? Are there other aspects to it that I can easily take a short step into and, and start doing this as a business as well, and make myself more resilient when things go wrong?

Speaker 1:
Alright, cool. Vito, what, what, what, you know, I, I know you have something to say there. If Vito didn’t have words of wisdom, we’d be lost .

Speaker 7:
Well, uh, like what would I suggest to someone that is, uh, pivoting into the, into the e-commerce at the moment? First of all, have a purple, uh, launch strategy. Um, so just doing it, just having the, the, the website, uh, that’s just like one part of it, uh, but actually getting it out there, it’s the whole game and making sure that people know and come and visit and use the platform that you created. I think that, uh, like I’m, and I’m talking about this from a, even from a web designer point of view, uh, it’s a conversation that we used to have with our clients. Even like, as part of the discovery, we already started touching into the marketing strategy and how, uh, uh, how we’re gonna get it out there so that we can build according to that. Uh, so if you have that already in place, you can create really, uh, awesome stuff that will resonate much better than just slapping on a woo template and, uh, and having just like a, you know, a shop page.

Speaker 1:
Right. How about you Chip? You have a unique audience, a unique customer base. What, what would you say?

Speaker 3:
Uh, so, so what I would say is, is we’ve got, we, we’ve got two things. Um, one of them is, uh, was already mentioned is the idea of pivoting. And so we know how the world used to be and there’s some discussion as far as, okay, is is it gonna go right back to the way it used to be? Or is there gonna be some new model that we’re gonna be used to? And so as a business owner, I need to be looking at, okay, where, where’s the target gonna be and how do I make sure that I set myself up in that, in that, for that, where the market is gonna be in the future. Um, and so there’s a near term and then there’s a far term perspective for that. And I think it’s important that we look at what’s the near term, how do I help us, how do I help myself and my, um, clients get out of the kind of the mess that we’re in right now and what’s the best path for that?
And, and then the next side of that is, okay, and then where are we gonna be in the future? Where are we gonna be, you know, a year, two years, three years from that? And how can I start positioning myself so that I can move my new business? Because that’s kind of what we’re all looking at right now, is figuring out what is our new business and maybe what we’ve been doing is actually more valuable now, or maybe what we, we we’ve been doing is, has, has gotta change. Um, but what is that and how can I position myself to be moving in that direction and where are we going there? And sometimes we can do that ourselves, but lots of times we actually need to partner with people that can help us with that. And I think that was mentioned a couple of times already from the perspective of, um, how do I get myself out there?
It’s not just slap a WooCommerce, uh, page on my website and boom, I’m now an online person. There’s a strategy to that and there are people that have, have done this in the past, help companies get their self out there with a whole plan. How do I engage them to help me if that’s the right direction that I need to be moving my business on? Same thing in the other areas. Once you figure out, okay, here’s where I need to be this year, next year and three years out, who do I need to partner with to be able to help me get where I need to be and get, move from the, the, you know, the stuck that we’re in right now to the new economy that we’re gonna be moving towards.

Speaker 1:
Perfect. Love that. The short term, long term. So, and we, we, um, oh man, we started with Raleigh. We’re gonna end with Raleigh. That’s the way this thing rolls. ,

Speaker 2:
Yeah, that would kind of just, uh, that was like a great way to end it with chips. So I was like, oh, Willie, come over to me. I’m not sure, but yeah, so here we are. And, and uh, I just, uh, kind of what Vito said, and Paul said, like, it kind of decides like a lot of people are in this like freak out phase where they’re panicking and like, what’s the first thing that like a, a first aid responder tells you to stop doing? Like when they come to you as like, stop panicking, it’s not helping anything, you know? And so you really, really gotta slow down as you’re looking to make that transition to online from your brick and mortar or from being a teacher or whatever it is. And so I’d say like, think about if you’re gonna go all in from the start, and if you have the time to really do that and plan it, or you think about an MVP, so like a minimum viable product.
And so what’s a simple way that I can get working again? So it really depends on that person’s needs, if they really are like gonna double down on it right from the start, or can they get an MVP, have some learnings and then do it right? And that whole process, I would just say go find, like, yeah, talk to agencies, talk to, uh, experts in this stuff and just give them a hour’s worth of time to kind of review your MVP. Is there an easier way to do this? You know, and that kind of stuff is worth it upfront. So, yeah.

Speaker 1:
Excellent. Well this has been interesting and it’s been fun because I don’t normally get to just lay on six different people at the moment and say, you’re gonna be on a podcast and I’m not preparing you for any of it, and you’re just gonna have to swing the whole thing. And that was, that was fun. And um, you know, before I sign off, I’m going to, um, call him Mike because Mike kind of joined in and I think he joined in probably ’cause he was just bored over at his booth as a sponsor, or he was either, um, you know, thinking, oh, now what’s Bob doing? But in either case, um, Mike, before we go, I want you to just introduce yourself and I’m not gonna go through the all the questions with you obviously, but I’m gonna have, I’m, I’m gonna have one special question from Mike. So Mike, um, since you did drop in and crash our podcast, I do wanna know who the heck you are.

Speaker 9:
Um, my name is Mike Demo. I’m the lead handshaker, uh, for Web Ventures, which is a WordPress investment company.

Speaker 1:
Cool. And now everybody in the world has asked me this about Mike and they wanted to know this, and I thought, what better way to end a show , what would Mike never buy online?

Speaker 9:
Well, considering this week alone, I bought fine art, a telescope and a car online. , um, that is an, I bought wife online even on eHarmony. So, um, I haven’t returned to her yet, so, um, after 11 years. So that’s an interesting question. What would I not buy online? Uh, man, I don’t know. Um, would

Speaker 8:
You buy a WordPress business? How about WordPress business?

Speaker 9:
Oh, I buy those online. All the, I buy those online all the time. . Yeah. I I usually buy those on Shopify stores though. , ? Um, I don’t think there would be anything that I wouldn’t, um, buy online. I was gonna say a casket, but I’ve been pricing those recently. So ,

Speaker 1:
It depends when you decide to buy it, you know, ,

Speaker 9:
Apparently.

Speaker 1:
It’s kind an

Speaker 9:
Exactly, yeah. So I don’t think there’s, I don’t think there’s really anything that I wouldn’t buy online. There are things I prefer to buy in person. I prefer to buy art at a gallery when I buy, you know? But does it mean I wouldn’t buy stuff online? Um, yeah. Yeah. I don’t think I have an answer to that. I know that. Not

Speaker 1:
. Okay, cool. Well you heard it here, so if you have something you wanna sell online, Mike will buy it. This is, this is announcement to the world. I’ll, I’ll get his email in the show notes when I publish this and you can, you can sell the mic. So, um, excellent show. We did it kind of spur of the moment. Appreciate everybody that joined us. I’ll be putting in links to everyone that was here. You can go check them out, you can follow ’em on Twitter. I’ll make sure they get connected with you. And so I just wanna thank everybody for joining us for this special edition of Do The Woo.