WooCommerce and the Chocolate Factory
With WooCommerce businesses scattered all over the world, it’s not often I get to do an interview in person. But this is an entrepreneur story that could only come from San Francisco.
Last week I spoke Dandelion Chocolate founder Todd Masonis, at their factory location in San Francisco’s Mission District.
After selling their consumer internet business to Comcast in 2008, Todd and business partner Cameron went down a path of experimentation and discovery that eventually led them into the business of fine, small batch chocolate making.
Read on to learn more of Dandelion Chocolate’s unique story.
Cart Abandonment and WooCommerce
Imagine you are in a shopping center. You fill your shopping cart up with stuff; shampoo, a couple of birthday cards, a book. But then something happens—perhaps you are called away to an emergency—and you decide to abandon your shopping cart in the middle of the store.
While most people would only abandon their shopping cart in a physical store for a serious reason, in eCommerce, cart abandonment is quite common. The average cart abandonment rate for 2015 is 68%, according to the Baymard Institute.
Many factors are thought to cause cart abandonment. This post will focus on three of the things you can do to minimise the friction in your checkout process, as a WooCommerce store owner.
Wedding Season with WooCommerce
Spring is upon us in the Northern Hemisphere (or almost upon us if you follow the astronomical season) and you know what that means… It’s almost wedding season!
WooCommerce provides an excellent platform for wedding businesses—from the edible to the aesthetic, from the conventional to the quirky—to sell their products and services online.
Let’s check out a small collection of wedding website examples built with WordPress and WooCommerce.
WooCommerce, Subscriptions and Good Karma: the Story of Alpha Dog Food
Royce Reed has taken his passion for healthy pets and harnessed the power of WooCommerce to build his pet food subscription business, Alpha Dog Food.
I had the pleasure of chatting to Royce last week about his experience starting and running Alpha Dog Food. Some of the highlights include: how they’ve implemented their Ambassador (affiliate) program, which benefits Alpha Dog Food and many of their clients, including great animal charities like the Humane Society of Atlantic City; Royce’s seven favourite things about WooCommerce (we agree Royce, it’s so hard to choose!); and how Alpha Dog Food wound up accepting Bitcoin payments, and Royce’s experience with that so far.
I hope you enjoy reading this interview as much as I enjoyed doing it!
WooCommerce: A Platform for Independent Film Websites
Sunday night’s 2015 Oscars drew our attention to the great movies of the past year. But films aren’t just for giant Hollywood studios and celebrities.
There are a surprising number of independent businesses, festivals, and organisations that are doing film-related work, and are using WooCommerce and WordPress to underpin their web presence.
From dedicated film sites to independent studios, from fantasy film festivals to sites dedicated to the business of film, WooCommerce provides the ideal platform for scrappy film entrepreneurs to take their ideas to the world.
Let’s check them out.
From the Artist to the Businessperson: WooCommerce for Artists
If you are an artist, one thing you might want to think about is setting up a website to showcase—and potentially sell—your work.
You could also consider using your expertise to offer online art courses and/or creative mentorship, or booking out your available time for in-person lessons.
If all of this sounds good to you—and you’re looking for a bit of inspiration—below are four examples of art websites using WooCommerce to power their online businesses.
Why Same-Day Shipping Is Closer Than You Think
One of the most persistent challenges for eCommerce store owners is shipping.
In an instant gratification era—when Amazon has the scale to offer customers free two-day shipping for $99 per year—smaller eCommerce sellers are constantly challenged by how to get their goods into customers’ hands as quickly and cheaply as possible.
We’ve previously written that there are three main participants in the eCommerce delivery wars: the Old Guard (USPS, UPS, FedEx); the eCommerce Giants (Amazon, Google); and the Groundbreakers (Uber, Matternet).
Sidecar, a ridesharing service from San Francisco, has identified itself as another potential Groundbreaker this week. While it’s not as big, recognisable or as well funded as competitors Lyft or Uber, Sidecar is the first rideshare service to focus its package delivery efforts on eCommerce merchants.
Using WooCommerce to Build a SaaS in 3 Days
Bryce Adams is a WooThemes ninja who—in his spare time—built a handy little SaaS (Software as a Service) business called Nomad SMS.
Nomad SMS allows you to easily create a local phone number in over 15 countries and receive SMS messages to that number in your inbox and online. Anybody who’s had the frustrating experience of being locked out of their bank account while traveling or overseas will see the benefit of this simple idea.
Bryce got some love from WooThemes and others on Twitter for Nomad SMS, but when it was featured on the hot product aggregation site Product Hunt, traffic to Bryce’s little side project really took off.
Bryce was kind enough to talk to me about the whirlwind experience of building Nomad SMS in three days—using WooCommerce and Subscriptions—and releasing it to the world.
Flexing eCommerce Muscles with Flex Foods
Flex Foods prepares restaurant-quality, healthy meals to be delivered to their customers’ homes in Tallahassee and Jacksonville on a daily basis.
Last week I had an interesting conversation with Stacey Reinstein, one of the co-owners of Flex Foods.
I learned all about what it’s like to run a local food delivery business using a subscriptions-based online store.
Refresh Your Health. Drink Tea With WooCommerce.
One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to cut back to one coffee per day.
I’ll be honest with you, so far it sucks.
If you’re trying to do something similar, perhaps a switch to tea might ease the transition? (I sure hope so).
Luckily, a bunch of savvy entrepreneurs are using WooCommerce to sell tea online and spread the word about the health benefits of tea.