From eCommerce
WooConf 2016: WooCommerce Powered Drones, Branded Limes and Texas Tacos
Well, we didn’t know whether it was possible to top the first WooConf, but team Woo managed to do it the week before last. If you couldn’t make it to Austin for WooConf this year (or even if you could but you’re now suffering post-conf withdrawals), we’ve tried to recreate the magic for you here. Fix yourself a taco with diablo sauce, mix a margarita, and join us for a trip down WooConf memory lane.
WooCommerce Vancouver March 2016 recap
This was the first WooCommerce Vancouver meetup for 2016 as we took quite a long break over the holidays, but it was a meetup worth waiting for. We were lucky to have Behdad Berati to talk about WooCommerce and Google Analytics 101
WooCommerce London November 2015 Recap
This meetup! This meetup was a perfect storm! It was brilliant! It ended up being brilliant, despite all the things that went wrong. We learned about using plugins and getting plugins to play nicely with each other, and picked up other nuggets of wisdom along the way.
WooCommerce London October 2015 Recap
The WooCommerce London meetup in October featured Nejc Skoberne, from Cone Headed Cat and TransferWise speaking about performance marketing.
WooCommerce Melbourne September 2015 Recap
The first WooCommerce meetup in Australia was held on September 24th, and I was sent down to Melbourne to share the Prospress love and chat all things WooCommerce. Just under 25 locals attended the first meetup which was held in the office of the Emote Digital team. There were many familiar faces amongst the crowd (some of whom I have met previously overseas at #WooConf, and here in Australia at previous WordCamps).
WooCommerce London September 2015 Recap
This Monday we had our September London WooCommerce meetup, hosted by Realex Payments. With Marina out of town, it was up to Elliot and myself to orchestrate everything.
The London meetups usually start out with networking, talking amongst each other, consumption of refreshments. We planned a Q&A session where those who came could ask questions, and we’d try to answer them using our collective knowledge about all the things: Paul and Alan from Realex about the nitty gritty of payments, Elliot about the business cases, and myself mostly about developer focused topics.
Content Marketing For Subscription Businesses
Content marketing is a form of marketing that any subscription business can use to its advantage. The great news is that there are very low barriers to entry, meaning any online subscription entrepreneur can give it a go.
When done well, content marketing can help you attract new customers to your online store. It can also allow you to add value to your existing customers’ experience.
There are four main areas of content marketing that we will cover in this post:
1) What is content content marketing?
2) Content is easy in WooCommerce/WordPress.
3) What is SEO and why does it matter?
4) What’s relevant? Making sure your content adds value for customers.
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.
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.
The Psychology Behind Luxury and eCommerce
Luxury and eCommerce, do they go hand in hand?
After all, luxury is about exclusivity, being part of a story, feeling special. eCommerce, like other internet-based trends, is often about democratisation.
Yet, eCommerce companies like Yoox Group, Net-a-Porter and Gilt have all shown that there are eCommerce models for luxury fashion. And as Federico Marchetti, the founder and CEO of Yoox Group, told John Seabrook of The New Yorker, there are those people that want to link the seemingly divergent planets of luxury and eCommerce:
“I loved the fact that they were so different, and I could bring them together. Fashion was all about exclusivity, and Internet was all about democracy; fashion was for the élite, Internet for the masses—someone had to link the two planets.”
But is luxury the exclusive purview of traditional luxury powerhouses, the kinds of brands Marchetti works with at Yoox, like Dolce & Gabbana, Armani and Diesel?
Or can small and medium sized eCommerce businesses, such as many of those using WooCommerce, get in on the act?