Start Your Own WooCommerce Builder Story

Abha: Hello, I’m Abha Thakor. And with me today is my wonderful co-host Anna Radu.

Anna: Hello.

Abha: And we are delighted to welcome Meher Bala, a front end WordPress developer, website consultant, and expert on Codeable.

Meher: Hi Anna. Hi Abha.

Abha: Nice to see you. Meher’s been working with WordPress now for more than 15 years. And she’s worked with multiple brands, startups, and agencies to build websites and eCommerce sites. Meher, you’re joining us from India today. Whereabouts in India?

Meher: I am in Mumbai, India.

Abha: Thank you for joining us and it’s lovely to get guests from all over the globe. And if you’re listening to this and you just joined us, Anna and I love to hear from you if you have a WooCommerce builder story and you are based anywhere in the world, we want to hear from you. So do check out the links on the page to contact us. Meher, now, I read a little bit about all the interviews that have been done with you over the years, because you’ve been contributing to WordPress and to WooCommerce for quite a long time.

Meher: Yes I have.

The importance of eCommerce for small and big sites

Abha: In those interviews, you’ve been talking about your belief that websites should be available to everyone. And that eCommerce is not just for big business. I thought we’d start with that because it really is part of your story and your journey. So could you tell us a little bit about why eCommerce is so important to you?

Meher: 15 years back when I started my WordPress journey, I had a friend whose business was not going that well offline. And she wanted to take the business online. She wanted to develop all these big features like Amazon Flipkart and she didn’t have that budget. And she did not know whether her users will be there on the internet and whether the business would be successful. Because all the business needs marketing as well as good promotions. So I suggested her let’s build a small shop. Let’s build a small eCommerce platform, try to get your users and see how they react to it. And then start adding more and more products. While I was told to help with the eCommerce website, I came across WooCommerce and started investigating, started learning. I developed the website on that. We started with 15 products in the fashion line. And then slowly, steady the website grew and lot of other products were added eventually.

Abha: So really, it has a sense for you of trying to build a business and keep it surviving.

Meher: Yes, because I think we’ve all learned in this pandemic, we need a second source of income besides offline, besides retail stores and besides personal. We also need online stores. We also need to sell our products to people who can’t reach us. We reach out to them. We reach out to the international market. We reach out to people who’ve never heard about us. They like the quality. They like the product. They’re ready to pay the price. So yeah, businesses do need to flourish online as well.

Why WooCommerce

Abha: And why WooCommerce? Why did you choose that as an option?

Meher: Well, WooCommerce, one, it has a great community. Second, it is easy to teach people how to add products, add description, add images, see the inventory and get reports. WooCommerce is also scalable. It has a lot of different plugins, which help you to add any and every feature required, in WooCommerce, whatever your site requires.

Getting involved with the WooCommerce community

Abha: So Meher, you’ve been involved with the WooCommerce community, just like Anna. And how would you recommend others get involved with that? And what kind of things have you done while you’ve been in the community?

Meher: I would definitely tell people who are learning WooCommerce, who are building their websites on store to join the WooCommerce Mumbai community. We conduct regular workshops. We conduct different plugins installation, configuration set up. We try and help you fix any issues which you’re facing. We also try to help you fix certain issues, which are complicated to normal users. Before any word camp officially in Mumbai, we used to run six weeks back to back Friday workshops in different coworking space where people can come, set up their website, set up the entire WooCommerce, get the payment gateway installed, or test pay, and check out the entire system, how it starts from a normal site to the end. And it helps people. It helps users gain confidence. I have seen students coming into meetups. I have seen business woman who’ve just started their household business come and set up their eCommerce stores because they don’t have that much of money to ask a developer to build the website. So they do all the learning by themselves. So I would definitely recommend one to come and attend meetups.

Abha: That’s a really good recommendation. Anna, are these meetups in other places as well that people can join?

Anna: I think that these are some really powerful examples that Meher just brought into the conversation. And I really love the fact that she was able to make this connection between what experts can do and also what beginners can learn and how the community can help us make the connection between the two. There are meetups all around the world. And I’ve seen, especially in India, that there are some pretty powerful, really helpful people who are contributing to the support, to supporting other people learning about WooCommerce. I specifically remember back when I was working in a WooCommerce related support initiative, we had a team of volunteers and it was pretty beautiful to see how, regardless of people’s location and their culture, they were able to help one another. And it was also really powerful to see that there were some pretty specific problems.

Even though we sell globally, we sell online. There are some things that require a little bit of background and a little bit of expertise when it comes to, let’s say, selling in a certain currency. Or being compliant with some local laws. Or doing some other are things that would be specific to merchants on a certain market. And I remember specifically that people were asking for support that sometimes would go beyond what a WooCommerce builder would be able to recommend. They were also asking about business advice and entrepreneurship related tips.

And I remember meeting some of the folks that were part of the community that stood out to me as very, very helpful. And now that you also mentioned these examples, Meher, I think that this is even more beautiful to see that it still continues. I would ask you here, is there something that you noticed changing since we had to move, let’s say, shift to meeting online? All of these communities eventually stopped meeting in their regular venues, they just had to move over to Zoom. Is there something that you noticed changing? Were there more people attending the meetups than usual or less? Was there a different dynamic to it?

Meher: There was a different dynamic. Initially, people started joining, but then continuously being on Zoom calls, we did notice a slight drop in the attendees. We did notice very few people coming again, but there were regulars who did join. We still kept the conversation. If there were no questions or if there were no help required, we just had an informal 30 minutes chat as to, why did you start WooCommerce? What is your business? What got you to WooCommerce? Just stories which will help us understand communities. How is WooCommerce helping people that India and how we can help them get better in their eCommerce sites?

WooCommerce in India

Abha: Is WooCommerce really big in India, Meher?

Meher: Yes, it is big. A lot of people use WooCommerce and a lot of people like it because it’s easy to use. And they like the reporting system. They like the functionalities. And you don’t have to do so much designing to the site. You get a simple straight site with good pictures and you’re ready to go. You’re ready to target your users. So yes, WooCommerce is a pretty big market in India. There are a lot of companies also developing plugins for WooCommerce.

Abha: You also work outside India, because you’re an expert on the Codeable platform and develop eCommerce websites on there as well. Is there a sense, as we coming out, two years into the pandemic, is there a sense that people are wanting more eCommerce websites? Or has the request that people want in terms of the story they want their site to sell and to tell, has that started to change?

Meher: Definitely. The eCommerce market has grown more than 40% over the last two years because of the pandemic. And a lot of people have started targeting different users, international, whereas even local users. And even being an expert on Codeable, I have seen a lot of young generational native startups coming in and saying that we want to take our offline business online. And try to integrate with their invoicing system, try to integrate it with their order system so that the order matches to what the website shows. And they can also sell it offline as well as online. So in the past two years, which I never expected, eCommerce has grown. Because in India, eCommerce had not thrown that much because a lot of people felt having an eCommerce tool is difficult as having an offline store. But two, two and a half years, the entire market has changed.

Advice for the builder to getting started with Woo

Abha: Which must be a really exciting place to be. And I think, Anna, in Doing the Woo, often talked about the excitement of being in the WooCommerce space. Meher, is there anything that you would say to people who are a little hesitant about starting working with WooCommerce?

Meher: My biggest advice to anyone, including my own clients, if you’re hesitant, if you don’t know your market, start small. Start building your website, start getting your products, get the right price, get the right payment gateway, get the right shipment. Once you have that in place, start targeting your users. See what your users want, see what products they want. And increase your shop slowly. If you just wait for your shop to grow, to put all the features inside and then launch it, maybe the time will go. So I always tell all my startup agencies who come to me for WooCommerce development, I always say, start slow, roll out. And then eventually you’ll start adding features, which will help your users as well.

Abha: So it’s that incremental journey, I suppose. So you don’t have to do it all at once, maybe?

Meher: Yes. It also gets tiring for normal users to do anything together. Because they have to still do photo shoot of the product. They still have to decide the price, they still have to figure out their inventory. So yes, incremental is a good approach and people have started doing that.

Abha: That’s really cool.

What drove her to be a developer and making a job of it

Abha: Meher, what got you into this? I know we’ve talked about your first website and things. But what started you actually as a developer?

Meher: I think very early on, I used to like computers and I used to get hooked in to websites and searches. So my dad enrolled me in a three months computer course, which seeing my results of it, my teacher forced my dad to get me a three years internship program that led me to my first job into WordPress. We stayed on for a year. Then I went away from WordPress, came back and never looked back. And then WooCommerce. So yeah, journey has been incredible, really nice.

Anna: I do believe that there’s something powerful about the idea of building and also learning incrementally. And I was thinking, I saw your portfolio there and it looks really beautiful. And I was thinking when would be the right time to start working with a WooCommerce developer? Because we know that starting in WooCommerce isn’t hard, it’s pretty easy. You have all sorts of sources online, and also all sorts of people that can guide you on the process of doing it. But when would be the ideal time to start connecting with someone who does this as a job, as a vocation?

Meher: I would actually suggest that from day one, you have someone as a consultancy who does this as a regular job. So that you don’t make mistakes in the initial stages because once you start getting users to fix those changes is time consuming and difficult. So if you have a consultant who does WooCommerce on a regular basis, you can consult him and get the structure, the website structured, initial website structured properly. And then as your users grow and as you want new features added, custom requirements, you want certain coupons only to specific users, you cannot find a plugin, certain functionalities you want to add. Then I would say, take on the consultancy as a developer and tell him or her to manage your site for you.

Anna: So make friends with the WooCommerce developer and then you see what happens. And keep them as close as possible in the process of learning and building your own website. Would that work?

Meher: Yes, definitely. Because at any day, a WooCommerce developer, if you’re friends with him, they’ll always tell you something which is not officially written on the website. You have to find 10 websites to get through materials sometimes. So if you have a consultancy, if you have a friend, process is a little easier for the user. They don’t lose hope of building that dream eCommerce website.

Anna: So the internet provides you with the information, but the consultant is the one who provides you with the advice that you need for your specific problem. And yeah, I think we all need that.

Meher: Yes.

The Ikegai Education Labs project

Anna: I was really curious to hear more about some of your projects. I’ve read some of the descriptions you have on the website. And I was thinking of the Ikegai Education Labs. I think that one sounds pretty interesting.

Would you share the story of it with us? Is there something that we could learn from your experience with an educational program?

Meher: Sure. That startup, which is just started to help students educate in social behaviors and social life. So they’ve just started. Right now, it’s a simple website, but they have started developing the eCommerce sites where they can sell certain products created by their own students. And I think they have T-shirts and they have caps, which… It’s still in development phase. So they’re looking at that. So, yeah, I have heard mostly fashion comments as my projects and also eBooks, a good way of taking WooCommerce and selling your eBooks.

Woo Builders without a store

Anna: I have a personal curiosity. I really need to ask you Meher. Why is it that most WooCommerce builders don’t have their own WooCommerce websites or businesses

Meher: Because I don’t think they have anything to sell. They sell sources. But also, there our 5% or 10% who eventually go into selling garments, because I have seen a few of my friends, they start selling swags like key chains, because people get curiosity when we get swags and word camps. So instead of outsourcing it, we start creating it locally. And then, some people go into creating, putting a website, putting up WooCommerce stone. So the 5% is still there. And the 95% loves to develop things for others to use in WooCommerce.

What would Meher want to ultimately sell on a store of her own

Abha: Meher, what would be your dream newcomer site, if you were building it for somebody else or even a secret side passion that you had that you wanted to market, what would be your one?

Meher: I would say gadgets because I am a gadget freak. I love new phones new tablets. My dream website would be to build a Google store of gadgets, any and every kind of gadgets.

Abha: That sounds cool. And you also build learning ones as well. So would you have about an element of that? Just learning about the gadgets?

Meher: In India, I’ve never found a lot of people learning about it. They just read the specs and compare the specs. So maybe comparison of gadgets will definitely be there, but maybe showing them a 3D model of how the gadget works, or how you see how it, how it actually works like a 3D printing on a WooCommerce website.

Abha: That would be definitely very cool. So Anna, do you have a secret WooCommerce store that you would love to build?

Anna: Mm, that’s a hard question. I like so many things, but it most probably would be a bookstore. I think that would be the most interesting thing to me right now. Even though there are so many great sources, and maybe this is something that Meher can advise us on.

Building a Woo site that stands out

Anna: How do you make a unique website that stands out from the competition? Because there are so many websites and it’s so hard to compete, for example, with Amazon and the other ones who are really having a big influence on our shopping behaviors. What do we do as business owners, as WooCommerce builders to make something that stands out and generate more business for ourselves,

Meher: Simple UI, simple purchase flow. You have a product description should be to the point, the cover image should be attractive. The user should not have 10 steps to go to purchase, reduce the number of steps, get the user, if they like it, go ahead, purchase. And your sale has gone through. Simplest, easiest workflow. I believe is the key to earning good in your eCommerce store.

Abha: How important are those pictures then, that you’ve talked about?

Meher: It is important because that’s the first thing the eye catches before it even goes to the text. Because visually, it is attracting to users. If your pictures are not attractive, they’ll just scroll through. Even if the material or the outfit or the book is very good. If your image is not good, people tend to just scroll through. Even if you go on the top websites like Amazon and all, if you don’t have an attractive picture that stands out to your audience, your product can be easily missed. Is that definitely, or photo images. And photo shoot it is one thing I definitely recommend all my clients.

Abha: You’ve done a lot of training to help other people in the WordPress community and in WooCommerce and WordCamps about pictures and making sure your pictures tell a story. Is that something that is part of your roots as a developer as well. To be able to tell stories with everything that you build.

Meher: Yes, because as a child, I was always given pictures and told to develop stories. So as an adult also, I always looked for pictures. I always looked for dydrants. I always look for images, which will make my mind process and think, okay, how this will be? Will this be interesting? Okay, this looks nice. Will it fit me? Because a lot of people may not read the material that much. They look at the picture and they visualize themselves using it. Or if it’s a garment. Visualizing themselves in the garment, or if it’s a book, they start developing then go characters, in their mind. So pictures are definitely important

Abha: And it’s obviously a great way to sell product as well. And we know that on the WooCommerce website, there’s lots of information about how you can do that too. And lots of the meetups, I think, also feature there.

Meher: Yes, they do. And also, I think WooCommerce, the core itself, gives you flexibility of adding images and gallery to your product pages. It’s already built in the WooCommerce core itself.

Advice on building your own Woo story

Abha: Meher, obviously, you’ve talked about your love for WooCommerce and building things and making things available to people, regardless of them not having to be a big conglomerate or an international firm as yet. And growing that store, growing that Easter presence in terms of people listening to this today, who are wanting to start their own Woo builder story, what would you recommend? Where would you say they should start?

Meher: Start by going to your meetup. Start by talking the people. Start by exploring the product and listen to a lot of podcasts they are inspiring enough. You know, sometimes you may not come across in your local community, what you can come across through different forecasts and through the global community, interact with people, talk to them. That’s how a Woo story is built.

Abha: Definitely. Anna and I obviously love Do the Woo and we’ll recommend it to everyone listening that it’s a great place to find out and learn and just be part of that amazing community. And we’re so lucky to have Bob that helps make all that possible. So do tell your fellow developers, Meher and anyone listening to this. If you have a Woo builder story to share, get in touch. We’d love to hear more about it. Meher, is there anything else that you’d like to share and let us know about where people can get hold of you?

Meher: I would definitely, first thank Bob to create such a platform for Woo developers to come and share their stories, Woo developers to comment in, how they’ve interacted with clients, what unique they have built. And let the world know that there are lot of unique developers who build amazing products. You can always contact me on Twitter at Meher Bala, LinkedIn at Meher Bala. I have my own website, meherbala.com.

Anna: That’s awesome. I think that we got some pretty nice insights from you, Meher. And we really appreciate you taking the time to share those with us. We’re looking forward to discovering more about your work and your learnings and your involvement in the community. Thank you so much, Meher.

Meher: Thank you, Anna. Thank you Abha. And thank you, Bob.

What drove her to be a developer and making a job of it

Abha: Meher, what got you into this? I know we’ve talked about your first website and things. But what started you actually as a developer?

Meher: I think very early on, I used to like computers and I used to get hooked in to websites and searches. So my dad enrolled me in a three months computer course, which seeing my results of it, my teacher forced my dad to get me a three years internship program that led me to my first job into WordPress. We stayed on for a year. Then I went away from WordPress, came back and never looked back. And then WooCommerce. So yeah, journey has been incredible, really nice.

Anna: I do believe that there’s something powerful about the idea of building and also learning incrementally. And I was thinking, I saw your portfolio there and it looks really beautiful. And I was thinking when would be the right time to start working with a WooCommerce developer? Because we know that starting in WooCommerce isn’t hard, it’s pretty easy. You have all sorts of sources online, and also all sorts of people that can guide you on the process of doing it. But when would be the ideal time to start connecting with someone who does this as a job, as a vocation?

Meher: I would actually suggest that from day one, you have someone as a consultancy who does this as a regular job. So that you don’t make mistakes in the initial stages because once you start getting users to fix those changes is time consuming and difficult. So if you have a consultant who does WooCommerce on a regular basis, you can consult him and get the structure, the website structured, initial website structured properly. And then as your users grow and as you want new features added, custom requirements, you want certain coupons only to specific users, you cannot find a plugin, certain functionalities you want to add. Then I would say, take on the consultancy as a developer and tell him or her to manage your site for you.

Anna: So make friends with the WooCommerce developer and then you see what happens. And keep them as close as possible in the process of learning and building your own website. Would that work?

Meher: Yes, definitely. Because at any day, a WooCommerce developer, if you’re friends with him, they’ll always tell you something which is not officially written on the website. You have to find 10 websites to get through materials sometimes. So if you have a consultancy, if you have a friend, process is a little easier for the user. They don’t lose hope of building that dream eCommerce website.

Anna: So the internet provides you with the information, but the consultant is the one who provides you with the advice that you need for your specific problem. And yeah, I think we all need that.

Meher: Yes.

The Ikegai Education Labs project

Anna: I was really curious to hear more about some of your projects. I’ve read some of the descriptions you have on the website. And I was thinking of the Ikegai Education Labs. I think that one sounds pretty interesting.

Would you share the story of it with us? Is there something that we could learn from your experience with an educational program?

Meher: Sure. That startup, which is just started to help students educate in social behaviors and social life. So they’ve just started. Right now, it’s a simple website, but they have started developing the eCommerce sites where they can sell certain products created by their own students. And I think they have T-shirts and they have caps, which… It’s still in development phase. So they’re looking at that. So, yeah, I have heard mostly fashion comments as my projects and also eBooks, a good way of taking WooCommerce and selling your eBooks.

Woo Builders without a store

Anna: I have a personal curiosity. I really need to ask you Meher. Why is it that most WooCommerce builders don’t have their own WooCommerce websites or businesses

Meher: Because I don’t think they have anything to sell. They sell sources. But also, there our 5% or 10% who eventually go into selling garments, because I have seen a few of my friends, they start selling swags like key chains, because people get curiosity when we get swags and word camps. So instead of outsourcing it, we start creating it locally. And then, some people go into creating, putting a website, putting up WooCommerce stone. So the 5% is still there. And the 95% loves to develop things for others to use in WooCommerce.

What would Meher want to ultimately sell on a store of her own

Abha: Meher, what would be your dream newcomer site, if you were building it for somebody else or even a secret side passion that you had that you wanted to market, what would be your one?

Meher: I would say gadgets because I am a gadget freak. I love new phones new tablets. My dream website would be to build a Google store of gadgets, any and every kind of gadgets.

Abha: That sounds cool. And you also build learning ones as well. So would you have about an element of that? Just learning about the gadgets?

Meher: In India, I’ve never found a lot of people learning about it. They just read the specs and compare the specs. So maybe comparison of gadgets will definitely be there, but maybe showing them a 3D model of how the gadget works, or how you see how it, how it actually works like a 3D printing on a WooCommerce website.

Abha: That would be definitely very cool. So Anna, do you have a secret WooCommerce store that you would love to build?

Anna: Mm, that’s a hard question. I like so many things, but it most probably would be a bookstore. I think that would be the most interesting thing to me right now. Even though there are so many great sources, and maybe this is something that Meher can advise us on.

Building a Woo site that stands out

Anna: How do you make a unique website that stands out from the competition? Because there are so many websites and it’s so hard to compete, for example, with Amazon and the other ones who are really having a big influence on our shopping behaviors. What do we do as business owners, as WooCommerce builders to make something that stands out and generate more business for ourselves,

Meher: Simple UI, simple purchase flow. You have a product description should be to the point, the cover image should be attractive. The user should not have 10 steps to go to purchase, reduce the number of steps, get the user, if they like it, go ahead, purchase. And your sale has gone through. Simplest, easiest workflow. I believe is the key to earning good in your eCommerce store.

Abha: How important are those pictures then, that you’ve talked about?

Meher: It is important because that’s the first thing the eye catches before it even goes to the text. Because visually, it is attracting to users. If your pictures are not attractive, they’ll just scroll through. Even if the material or the outfit or the book is very good. If your image is not good, people tend to just scroll through. Even if you go on the top websites like Amazon and all, if you don’t have an attractive picture that stands out to your audience, your product can be easily missed. Is that definitely, or photo images. And photo shoot it is one thing I definitely recommend all my clients.

Abha: You’ve done a lot of training to help other people in the WordPress community and in WooCommerce and WordCamps about pictures and making sure your pictures tell a story. Is that something that is part of your roots as a developer as well. To be able to tell stories with everything that you build.

Meher: Yes, because as a child, I was always given pictures and told to develop stories. So as an adult also, I always looked for pictures. I always looked for dydrants. I always look for images, which will make my mind process and think, okay, how this will be? Will this be interesting? Okay, this looks nice. Will it fit me? Because a lot of people may not read the material that much. They look at the picture and they visualize themselves using it. Or if it’s a garment. Visualizing themselves in the garment, or if it’s a book, they start developing then go characters, in their mind. So pictures are definitely important

Abha: And it’s obviously a great way to sell product as well. And we know that on the WooCommerce website, there’s lots of information about how you can do that too. And lots of the meetups, I think, also feature there.

Meher: Yes, they do. And also, I think WooCommerce, the core itself, gives you flexibility of adding images and gallery to your product pages. It’s already built in the WooCommerce core itself.

Advice on building your own Woo story

Abha: Meher, obviously, you’ve talked about your love for WooCommerce and building things and making things available to people, regardless of them not having to be a big conglomerate or an international firm as yet. And growing that store, growing that Easter presence in terms of people listening to this today, who are wanting to start their own Woo builder story, what would you recommend? Where would you say they should start?

Meher: Start by going to your meetup. Start by talking the people. Start by exploring the product and listen to a lot of podcasts they are inspiring enough. You know, sometimes you may not come across in your local community, what you can come across through different forecasts and through the global community, interact with people, talk to them. That’s how a Woo story is built.

Abha: Definitely. Anna and I obviously love Do the Woo and we’ll recommend it to everyone listening that it’s a great place to find out and learn and just be part of that amazing community. And we’re so lucky to have Bob that helps make all that possible. So do tell your fellow developers, Meher and anyone listening to this. If you have a Woo builder story to share, get in touch. We’d love to hear more about it. Meher, is there anything else that you’d like to share and let us know about where people can get hold of you?

Meher: I would definitely, first thank Bob to create such a platform for Woo developers to come and share their stories, Woo developers to comment in, how they’ve interacted with clients, what unique they have built. And let the world know that there are lot of unique developers who build amazing products. You can always contact me on Twitter at Meher Bala, LinkedIn at Meher Bala. I have my own website, meherbala.com.

Anna: That’s awesome. I think that we got some pretty nice insights from you, Meher. And we really appreciate you taking the time to share those with us. We’re looking forward to discovering more about your work and your learnings and your involvement in the community. Thank you so much, Meher.

Meher: Thank you, Anna. Thank you Abha. And thank you, Bob.