eCommerce Start to Finish

Meetup Meeting Notes: eCommerce Start to Finish
Monday, September 8, 2014 7:00 PM
The Austin WordPress Meetup Group
HubAustin Coworking 706 W Ben White Blvd #202B

This month’s Deep Dive Discussion will examine the eCommerce process — SSLs, shopping carts, merchant accounts, and the other things you need to know before, and after, you install an eCommerce solution.

Toyin Akinmusuru, WordPress Developer, eCommerce Consultant, and founder of the HubAustin Coworking space will facilitate this month’s discussion. Just a reminder to Deep Dive attendees — this is not a typical ‘classroom-presentation’ format meet-up — DDD is dedicated to the exploration of a WordPress-related topic, driven by the questions and comments of the attendees.

Why is this topic important to you?  According to Forrester research, in 2013 U.S. eCommerce reached the $230B mark. As consumers increasingly move their shopping dollars online, this growth is poised to continue. WordPress site owners and managers need to think about how eCommerce options might help them grow their business.

3 takeaways from this meeting:

1) NEVER store credit cards

2) choose a secure password – long, and not a word found int he dictionary

3) you’re never finished with building your site

SLIDE 1 one time payments
stripe
paypal
2checkouts
amazon payments
authorize.net ( good for large payments)

SLIDE 2 – recurring payments
chargify
stripe – good w/ wp e.g., woo commerce
paypal – same as above

SLIDE 3- physical products
where are you shipping
what are you shipping
how are you shipping

SLIDE 4- shipping vendors
usps
fedex
ups
dhl – when going to Africa, handed to dHL even if you use fedex
canadapost

private freight e.g,
youship
also airline to airline – but w/ restrictions e.g, electronics, liquid

SLIDE 5 – where to you sell?
online only
one retail location
multiple locations
– important for inventory

SLIDE 6- hosted or self hosted?
(hosted options – all sas)
gum road – can do it in 10 minutes
shopify – think this one is best
big commerce – office in atx
volusion – office in atx
magenta co – larger, need more technical adept
(to say hello – it costs $20k / will integrate w/ FB, Google analytics)

SLIDE 7- Self-Hosted options
wordpress
magento
zen cart
virtue mart
w ecommerce

perl, ruby on rails, php, java –
php e-commerce is
woo commerce is big rival to magento
zen cart – is not as pretty
drupal or joomla – good options in their frameworks

SLIDE 8 – wordpress ecommerce plugins
market press
jigo shop
woocommerce
cart 66

woo commerce has a lot of themes, alot of people are using it
Q: re framework
woo has good documentation
started off w just themes, so good background for less technical
but good section on how to write your own plugins on top.
woocommerce easiest – because so many people using it
e.g, million download, 150+ k using it

should I store credit cards – NO
don’t be obviously stupid
let the payment processor worry about technology, security, etc.

worked at hosting company – amazed amount of ‘exploits’
you’re doing other things to take care of the site
exposing yourself to whole big area

when say international – we mean Europe
in SA, Asia, –
paypal is best for int’l

SLIDE 9- Product types
simple
variable
subscription

woo commerce is one plugin
but woo commerce also has plugins
e.g, billing times, shipping types
$49-$200 for each plugin
1x fees kind’ve, for 2 years – but have to pay again for upgrades
ones officially from them are better integrated
works better with their other stuff
when make big sweeping changes – don’t tell others till well after
so there’s work better

Q: any benefits to using a Woo theme to use w/ woo commerce
but many other good ones
mileage may vary

not so much on theme level, more on plugin theme
Q: Genesis –
A: works fine since no hooks into Woo commerce – and no plans to compete

Cart action – is not something you have in a normal in a theme, so woo commerce will fit
when there’s a version change, there may be blood

wpavengers – gpl – not technically themes but a plugin optin to woo commerce plugin
the day woo does a big release – do NOT upgrade

it’s up to expectations of customer – e/g, choose single unless customer wants something different

invoice – plug in
donations  – hasn’t done but probably a plug in
– nick- gravity forms may be best – can program a shopping cart
– convio may have one
– paypal gives you a code to drop on your page

can you automate different vendors?
good example is paypal or amazon –
create a sign up – change permission level to vendor
– payment can go to you or straight to vendor
docan is better multivendor
so official woo commerce is probably better

how to gather data –
google analytics – need a different code for each site, google does it so it knows what to index
mix panel – best analytics that you can buy, takes some software work to get the bang out of it
have clients have their own – or you become their gatekeeper
you can be set up as an authorized user –
have a chat w/ them or they will drive you crazy
GA runs on javascript, it drops in code – doesn’t work on duckduck, if java is turned off – just covers 80-90% of who’s on
GA lets you create a custom report
most want to know how many are on sites, how much is being made – e.g, with keywords
keyfactor to moing to mixpanel – if jumped over google analytics – give data in real time (e.g., 5 seconds – relies on session state; google drops in line of code which reports back to their servers

pro features – abandoned shopping cart

SLIDE 10 –  social media
fb
pinterest
instagram

SLIDE 11 – how to market
adwords
fb advertising
retargeting – my buys and adrolls will do this but take a % of price – hold cookie for 14 days or month
affiliates – pay people to sell your product, e.g, amazon gives 47% to affiliates
commision junction (cj.com), linkshare, rewardstyle, good cartel for mom’s e.g, for palmolive, proctor and gamble,

SLIDE 12 – advanced techniques
up sells/cross sells – single biggest increase to sales
bundles
abandoned cart – send email or retarget them,
drip campaigns –  thx for signing up, have you used product, like a super responder
getdrip.com
faceted search – checkbox searching based on your parameters
woo doesn’t do it well built in, but there’s a plug in

do it because there’s increases to your bottomline – sometimes 10% but sometimes up to 70%
a little bit more is always good
you’re never finished with building your site

Q: in instagram, what is interaction there
A: put on instagram, if you have set of fans – will take you to link w/page
same as twitter
just another marketing channel
pic primes you more than text

Q: thoughts on testing VCI or PCI or BCi compliance
don’t store use credit card
only up aftet $18k in sales
use good long passwords – which a human can’t figure out (though computer can)
put on reputalbe web host e.g,  wp engine
almost all hosted ones will do a good job, self hosted – do the obvious stuff
i didn’t patch it, have credit cards in text files
not hard, but have to do all of them
search WP
OWLSP in town meets/ talks about best practices
level of scrutiny –
easiest  way is link to paypal esp for donations
let other defend your castle
a smart person fixes problems, a genius avoids them

have sign paper, but it’s paper
apple didn’t secure it to 3 chances –

if have wp – force secure password – link to username ,
limit bad passwords to 3 tries

sucuri.net – free plug in, takes a snapshot, takes  you if someone changes it, or someone
s truign to hack your
also bruteprotect, bought by Automattic, will block botnet’s to whoever is also using bruteprotect
a botnet might use hundreds of ip – but one or two will block
Karen –  ipsecurity plugin
good to use more than one – yes

check last months’ notes on security  http://handsonwp.com/knowledge-base/basic-wordpress-site-security-practices/
free at basic level

you can always use woo theme w/o woocommerce
only time it makes a difference is switching from one ecommerce to another