Epiphany  ## Metadata - Author: [[Crossword]] - Full Title: Epiphany - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/8218bee5-949d-4e55-be98-501a12d423d3 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Why WooCommerce Dominates WordPress** - WooCommerce dominates WordPress e-commerce because alternatives are scarce and the ecosystem is extensive. - That dominance creates inertia that makes large-scale changes difficult despite recognized product limitations. Transcript: Jonathan Not going to say to protect the innocent. I'm nervous. What they said is, because I asked, we were talking about e-commerce and their plans for their product and what they want to do. And it is something that they care about. It's on the roadmap. And the comment that they made was when they say e-commerce, what they really mean is WooCommerce, because there aren't any other options in WordPress besides WooCommerce. And that made me think of you. Luke It made you think of me because I shared a product with you that came up for me in the week. I can't remember where I saw it, but I saw this person raving about how good FluentCart is. Yep. And how they're like moving all their WooCommerce stores across to it. Now, of course, because everybody knows I'm no huge fan of WooCommerce. I think it's clunky. I think it's overly, uh, up salesy and it's, it's not a great product. And so when I saw this fluent cart thing, I was like, Oh yeah, I'll check that out. And, uh, I didn't, and at least the website looked good. Have you had a chance to have a further look? Jonathan Only a little bit so far. When you first sent it to me, I thought it was a different product. There's a product out there called SureCart, which I had seen, and I hadn't found that interesting. It's basically a SaaS that does some stuff in WordPress. I'm like, okay, interesting. I just kind of left it alone. I think the thing that I was thinking of is in our conversations over the years, there's no denying Wu's dominance in the e-commerce and WordPress space, right? ([Time 0:00:15](https://share.snipd.com/snip/746362e4-e23d-4211-8632-1e71fdb297b5)) - **First Impressions Of FluentCart** - Luke saw someone raving about FluentCart and considered switching his WooCommerce stores over. - He liked the look of the website but hadn't tried the product yet. Transcript: Luke I can't remember where I saw it, but I saw this person raving about how good FluentCart is. Yep. And how they're like moving all their WooCommerce stores across to it. Now, of course, because everybody knows I'm no huge fan of WooCommerce. I think it's clunky. I think it's overly, uh, up salesy and it's, it's not a great product. And so when I saw this fluent cart thing, I was like, Oh yeah, I'll check that out. And, uh, I didn't, and at least the website looked good. Have you had a chance to have a further look? Jonathan Only a little bit so far. When you first sent it to me, I thought it was a different product. ([Time 0:00:52](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e3e73d23-88f6-47a4-a99d-5da3aff3a813)) - **Four Ways to Beat WooCommerce** - Focus on four key areas to successfully compete with WooCommerce. - Prioritize onboarding to create a better user experience than WooCommerce. - Luke thinks if you can beat Woo in all four, you've got something. - WooCommerce onboarding is full of ads. Transcript: Jonathan About the other parts and pieces it does is it going to have an ecosystem there's also like partner-led uh i don't know how someone would do it if i was tasked with like there's four things Luke I think let's hear it four things that a product could beat woo in and if you can beat woo in all four let's see if i can remember them as i say them if you can beat woo in all four then i think You've got something i think there's something there ([Time 0:04:34](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f01f3f6f-9f7e-4741-a4f1-7fb6aafcacfe)) - **Four Ways to Beat WooCommerce** - Luke shares four key areas where a new e-commerce product could outperform WooCommerce. - Focus on creating a superior onboarding experience, noting WooCommerce's onboarding is full of ads. - Design an intuitive and visually appealing interface, similar to EventKoi, contrasting with WooCommerce's complexity. - Luke believes that if a new product can excel in all four areas, it will have a chance to take market share from WooCommerce. Transcript: Luke Four things i think let's hear it four things that a product could beat woo in and if you can beat woo in all four let's see if i can remember them as i say them if you can beat woo in all four Then i think you've got something i think there's something there and the first one is onboarding if you can get a nice onboarding flow then great. The Woo onboarding is horrible. It's just constantly clicking out of ads and I hate it so much. The second one is design. I think Woo is fractured and difficult and requires like a whole course to learn how to use really. ([Time 0:04:44](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d6ea38c9-4bb8-4f02-9367-2ffe7fb9a0d4)) - **Beat WooCommerce** - To compete with WooCommerce, focus on four key areas. - Improve the onboarding process, as Woo's is clunky with excessive ads. - Prioritize intuitive and beautiful design, avoiding a fractured experience. - Streamline the add-on experience by including essential features upfront instead of relying on numerous plugins. - Simplify product editing by avoiding the standard WordPress post format. Transcript: Luke Hear it four things that a product could beat woo in and if you can beat woo in all four let's see if i can remember them as i say them if you can beat woo in all four then i think you've got something I think there's something there and the first one is onboarding if you can get a nice onboarding flow then great. The Woo onboarding is horrible. It's just constantly clicking out of ads and I hate it so much. The second one is design. I think Woo is fractured and difficult and requires like a whole course to learn how to use really. If you can come up with something that's kind of beautiful and and intuitive kind of like event koi then i think that would be really lovely and especially it doesn't have to match wordpress Exactly but especially if you can sort of try to match the vibe of wordpress then really nice of of course like i'll just add into that design piece that don't try and like make it a Gutenberg Thing. Don't try and make it a post. A product should be, editing a product should be unique. That shouldn't be something we've seen before in WordPress. I know WooCommerce has come a long way on that front, but for a very, very long time, editing a product in WooCommerce was like editing a post. And that's not something that makes sense. Jonathan That's a great insight. And oftentimes it was a big editor and then a bunch of like meta fields down below, which is like, it's a second class citizen at best. Luke So don't do that. Then the third thing is all of the add-ons. Like you want to use WooCommerce and then you go, oh, hold on, I need to install this and install this. ([Time 0:04:46](https://share.snipd.com/snip/36f03838-1fa9-48d4-adc2-be254131d851)) - Tags: starred - **Four Ways to Beat WooCommerce** - Luke shares four key areas where a new e-commerce product could surpass WooCommerce. - Focus on onboarding: Create a smooth and intuitive onboarding experience, unlike the frustrating WooCommerce onboarding process. - Prioritize design: Offer a beautiful and intuitive design, distinct from WordPress's standard post-editing interface. - Consider bundled features: Include essential add-ons within the core product to avoid the need for numerous plugin installations. - If you can beat Woo in all four, then you have something. Transcript: Luke Beat woo in and if you can beat woo in all four let's see if i can remember them as i say them if you can beat woo in all four then i think you've got something i think there's something there And the first one is onboarding if you can get a nice onboarding flow then great. The Woo onboarding is horrible. It's just constantly clicking out of ads and I hate it so much. The second one is design. I think Woo is fractured and difficult and requires like a whole course to learn how to use really. If you can come up with something that's kind of beautiful and and intuitive kind of like event koi then i think that would be really lovely and especially it doesn't have to match wordpress Exactly but especially if you can sort of try to match the vibe of wordpress then really nice of of course like i'll just add into that design piece that don't try and like make it a Gutenberg Thing. Don't try and make it a post. A product should be, editing a product should be unique. That shouldn't be something we've seen before in WordPress. I know WooCommerce has come a long way on that front, but for a very, very long time, editing a product in WooCommerce was like editing a post. And that's not something that makes sense. Jonathan That's a great insight. And oftentimes it was a big editor and then a bunch of like meta fields down below, which is like, it's a second class citizen at best. Luke So don't do that. Then the third thing is all of the add-ons. Like you want to use WooCommerce and then you go, oh, hold on, I need to install this and install this. ([Time 0:04:49](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cdbca62e-5406-4cbd-acd2-434d8bd12a09)) - **Four Ways to Beat WooCommerce** - Luke shares four criteria for an e-commerce product to beat WooCommerce. - Improve the onboarding experience, which Luke finds horrible in WooCommerce. - Focus on intuitive and beautiful design, matching the WordPress vibe without replicating Gutenberg. - Include all necessary add-ons in the core product instead of forcing users to install many plugins. - Solve for scale, which is a tricky but essential factor, even if it seems impossible. Transcript: Luke Woo in and if you can beat woo in all four let's see if i can remember them as i say them if you can beat woo in all four then i think you've got something i think there's something there and The first one is onboarding if you can get a nice onboarding flow then great. The Woo onboarding is horrible. It's just constantly clicking out of ads and I hate it so much. The second one is design. I think Woo is fractured and difficult and requires like a whole course to learn how to use really. If you can come up with something that's kind of beautiful and and intuitive kind of like event koi then i think that would be really lovely and especially it doesn't have to match wordpress Exactly but especially if you can sort of try to match the vibe of wordpress then really nice of of course like i'll just add into that design piece that don't try and like make it a Gutenberg Thing. Don't try and make it a post. A product should be, editing a product should be unique. That shouldn't be something we've seen before in WordPress. I know WooCommerce has come a long way on that front, but for a very, very long time, editing a product in WooCommerce was like editing a post. And that's not something that makes sense. Jonathan That's a great insight. And oftentimes it was a big editor and then a bunch of like meta fields down below, which is like, it's a second class citizen at best. Luke So don't do that. Then the third thing is all of the add-ons. Like you want to use WooCommerce and then you go, oh, hold on, I need to install this and install this. You end up with like a dozen plugins and you think WooCommerce is going to be free, but then you get to it and often it's not often in order to actually use it the way you were hoping to use It. You've got to install stuff from this store, sign up for an account, use the Woo stuff. Like it's all a bit of a pain and clunky, you know? Jonathan Then I can't remember number four. I had another number four in my mind. Yeah, it'll come to me. Okay. So better onboarding, better design. And I love that you brought up Venkoy. That is part of it. It's like, it caught my attention. I was like, okay, there's something different here. I'm going to pay attention. And then not forcing you to go to a bunch of like add-ons. Like the core thing, it has to solve a problem without saying, oh, you need to upsell or buy or you need to buy something else. Luke And the fourth thing is, is kind of tricky and maybe impossible. I remember it now. ([Time 0:04:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c85da37a-d4d5-4080-9899-3bca26815860)) - Tags: starred - **Four Areas To Challenge WooCommerce** - Do focus on four product areas to beat WooCommerce: onboarding, design, bundled features, and scale. - Prioritize a smooth onboarding, beautiful intuitive UI, fewer required add-ons, and a clear scale strategy or target market. Transcript: Luke Woo in and if you can beat woo in all four let's see if i can remember them as i say them if you can beat woo in all four then i think you've got something i think there's something there and The first one is onboarding if you can get a nice onboarding flow then great. The Woo onboarding is horrible. It's just constantly clicking out of ads and I hate it so much. The second one is design. I think Woo is fractured and difficult and requires like a whole course to learn how to use really. If you can come up with something that's kind of beautiful and and intuitive kind of like event koi then i think that would be really lovely and especially it doesn't have to match wordpress Exactly but especially if you can sort of try to match the vibe of wordpress then really nice of of course like i'll just add into that design piece that don't try and like make it a Gutenberg Thing. Don't try and make it a post. A product should be, editing a product should be unique. That shouldn't be something we've seen before in WordPress. I know WooCommerce has come a long way on that front, but for a very, very long time, editing a product in WooCommerce was like editing a post. And that's not something that makes sense. Jonathan That's a great insight. And oftentimes it was a big editor and then a bunch of like meta fields down below, which is like, it's a second class citizen at best. Luke So don't do that. Then the third thing is all of the add-ons. Like you want to use WooCommerce and then you go, oh, hold on, I need to install this and install this. You end up with like a dozen plugins and you think WooCommerce is going to be free, but then you get to it and often it's not often in order to actually use it the way you were hoping to use It. You've got to install stuff from this store, sign up for an account, use the Woo stuff. Like it's all a bit of a pain and clunky, you know? Jonathan Then I can't remember number four. I had another number four in my mind. Yeah, it'll come to me. Okay. So better onboarding, better design. And I love that you brought up Venkoy. That is part of it. It's like, it caught my attention. I was like, okay, there's something different here. I'm going to pay attention. And then not forcing you to go to a bunch of like add-ons. Like the core thing, it has to solve a problem without saying, oh, you need to upsell or buy or you need to buy something else. Luke And the fourth thing is, is kind of tricky and maybe impossible. I remember it now. It's scale. It's got to solve this scale. ([Time 0:04:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/77a3eb16-b0f6-4b2d-98fe-33d3e6ab1c97)) - **Product Editing Needs Its Own UI** - Editing products should be a distinct experience, not treated like editing a post in WordPress. - Luke argues product editing needs its own UI rather than relying on Gutenberg or post-style screens. Transcript: Luke It's just constantly clicking out of ads and I hate it so much. The second one is design. I think Woo is fractured and difficult and requires like a whole course to learn how to use really. If you can come up with something that's kind of beautiful and and intuitive kind of like event koi then i think that would be really lovely and especially it doesn't have to match wordpress Exactly but especially if you can sort of try to match the vibe of wordpress then really nice of of course like i'll just add into that design piece that don't try and like make it a Gutenberg Thing. Don't try and make it a post. A product should be, editing a product should be unique. That shouldn't be something we've seen before in WordPress. I know WooCommerce has come a long way on that front, but for a very, very long time, editing a product in WooCommerce was like editing a post. ([Time 0:05:09](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3135d445-03cb-4005-88af-3fc8593bd416)) - **Bundle Core Features, Reduce Add-Ons** - Avoid forcing users to install many add-ons to make core features work. - Ship useful built-in features so customers don't need a dozen plugins or paid extensions to use the product. Transcript: Luke Like you want to use WooCommerce and then you go, oh, hold on, I need to install this and install this. You end up with like a dozen plugins and you think WooCommerce is going to be free, but then you get to it and often it's not often in order to actually use it the way you were hoping to use It. You've got to install stuff from this store, sign up for an account, use the Woo stuff. Like it's all a bit of a pain and clunky, you know? Jonathan Then I can't remember number four. I had another number four in my mind. Yeah, it'll come to me. Okay. So better onboarding, better design. And I love that you brought up Venkoy. That is part of it. It's like, it caught my attention. I was like, okay, there's something different here. I'm going to pay attention. And then not forcing you to go to a bunch of like add-ons. Like the core thing, it has to solve a problem without saying, oh, you need to upsell or buy or you need to buy something else. ([Time 0:06:21](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ab0a9782-3b59-4215-8e64-977b98411e09)) - **Scale Is The Toughest Barrier** - Scale is the hardest problem for newcomers to solve and may be impossible to fully match WooCommerce or Shopify. - New products should either target smaller stores or invent new scaling approaches to be competitive. Transcript: Luke I remember it now. It's scale. It's got to solve this scale. I don't know how you do it, honestly, because some of the brightest minds in WordPress are trying to do it for Woo. So I don't, I actually don't know if it's even possible, but you've got to go either just target your audience, you know, for people that have less than a certain number of orders per day, Less than a certain number of products, but, or you've got to find a way of scaling that's going to be able to compete realistically with Shopify. ([Time 0:07:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7e93ff5e-db49-4529-b972-17ed94153e8c)) - **FluentCart Pricing Reaction** - Jonathan notes FluentCart's price is $249 for a single-site license, so it's not free like Woo's low barrier. - Luke responds that if the product earns enthusiasm, that price could be sustainable. Transcript: Jonathan OK, so Fluent Cart is a newcomer into the space from a company that's built a bunch of products like Fluent CRM. They have Fluent Forms, etc. I'm looking at the pricing and it's $249 for a single site license. That's definitely not free. What do you think about that? Luke I don't know. Maybe that's better that way. Maybe it's better. I mean, if it really can get traction, that's the thing. ([Time 0:07:54](https://share.snipd.com/snip/fa7fc3ac-83b6-4423-b8d7-d4ea1dfc2ca8)) - **Push WordPress Design Forward** - WordPress design may be due for a refresh and newcomers can push the admin UI forward. - Luke suggests products should advance WordPress design rather than only conforming to it. Transcript: Luke You know what? I've been thinking through what I said about the design, right? Jonathan Yeah, tell me. Luke And because I was looking earlier at Mike McAllister's menu plugin. Yep, menu designer. Yeah, rethinks menus in WordPress because the current WordPress way of thinking about menus is pretty terrible. And you think about that and Ollie and think about EventCoy, which are the ones that we sort of hold up as exemplars. And what I'm realizing is I used to say all the time, Jonathan, on this show, you want a product that fits in with the WordPress design. Now, the way that I think is you want a product that pushes the WordPress design forward a little bit. And I wonder, is that just my thoughts evolving over time? Or does that mean that the WordPress design, is it starting to feel a bit clunky? Jonathan Wait, okay. And actually, so this could also just be a product of the current state of the WordPress design. Yes, that's right. Luke That's what I'm saying. Like, maybe it's feeling old. Maybe I'm feeling like we need a refresh. Jonathan And I'm wrestling a bit with what I've heard, what I've read publicly versus what I've inferred versus what I've heard privately. It feels like there's something coming in WordPress. Not 6.9, but at some point here soon, probably 7.0, I'd be expecting there to be some real design updates. I think there's the question of how is that coming? This is reminding me of MP6 back in the day. Luke None of that is secret. At least it shouldn't be. There is an issue on GitHub that I've been following where people are talking about admin refresh, but frankly, it's just not getting all that much attention. Jonathan Or if it is, the attention is not public. Luke Yeah, it is. It is definitely possible there's something happening behind the scenes. ([Time 0:09:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/aa8a8b92-c55d-4fb3-9aa9-80e6ab824d9e)) - **Ship Decisively To Avoid Design By Committee** - Try shipping bold design rather than iterating in public when progress stalls from too many opinions. - Balance openness with decisive design leadership to avoid committee-driven paralysis. Transcript: Luke I don't love that. But maybe not like, you know, especially with design, you don't want something that's been designed by committee. So maybe I take it back. Maybe Automatic needs to, or maybe just, you know, forget Automatic. Let's just pay Mike a whole heap of money and just say, Mike, make this better. Jonathan Well, speaking of which, there was a public exchange on Twitter X where Mike was talking about design and he and Matt started talking publicly about what if.org would have like a refresh. And Matt was like, oh, let's talk about that. So apparently they're having a conversation about what that could look like. Oh, that's great. And that's a great example of someone like Mike and Patrick have been working hard for a long time to push the edges and make like these better design accessible to folks. And it's showing. I was talking to an agency just recently that is known for doing all this like custom design work and they just switched to using Oli as the basis for their own stuff. And they still do lots of custom, but like Oli is doing the job for them. I think that's great to see. And an example of what we like to highlight is people doing innovative things in the product space here on WordPress. So we want to see more of that. Luke Is Oli the sort of thing you could see as a default theme? Jonathan Well, I'm still educating myself on this, but like the theme paradigm is also changing. Like what does it even mean? Like what are themes going to mean in the future, right? Because a theme is really this like theme JSON with a collection of styles patterns are seems to be where things are going yeah right like a good collection of default patterns that solve Luke A particular set of problems but that that is a a thinking change i've just had a revelation life on crossword is my default position is no you gotta you gotta develop things in the open You gotta just let people see what you're doing don't do it behind closed doors but interesting i actually think if you think about it maybe it is better to have just like surprise here Is a design and then have people use it and go oh you know, actually this part isn't as accessible as it could be or this one, but would be better if it worked in a slightly different way. What do you think? Jonathan I'm more inclined towards that than not. If I think about it through the lens of how do you get stuff done? And as much as I, I don't know, and maybe part of it is in this climate, like one of the things that I've seen for people who've contributed to the project is how thankless it is. Like you'll call for feedback, get nothing. You'll put something out there or get very little. You'll put something out there and suddenly it's this like, oh, what about this? What about this? What about this? And it's like, where were you when we were asking? A ([Time 0:11:17](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cb1afbe8-3ffc-409d-a05b-b57e57b08716)) - **Smaller Products Can Shift The Ecosystem** - Successful smaller products like Oli influence agencies and the ecosystem by providing better default experiences. - Newcomers that solve key UX problems can shape wider WordPress practices despite WooCommerce's size. Transcript: Jonathan And an example of what we like to highlight is people doing innovative things in the product space here on WordPress. So we want to see more of that. Luke Is Oli the sort of thing you could see as a default theme? Jonathan Well, I'm still educating myself on this, but like the theme paradigm is also changing. Like what does it even mean? Like what are themes going to mean in the future, right? Because a theme is really this like theme JSON with a collection of styles patterns are seems to be where things are going yeah right like a good collection of default patterns that solve Luke A particular set of problems but that that is a a thinking change i've just had a revelation life on crossword is my default position is no you gotta you gotta develop things in the open You gotta just let people see what you're doing don't do it behind closed doors but interesting i actually think if you think about it maybe it is better to have just like surprise here Is a design and then have people use it and go oh you know, actually this part isn't as accessible as it could be or this one, but would be better if it worked in a slightly different way. What do you think? Jonathan I'm more inclined towards that than not. If I think about it through the lens of how do you get stuff done? And as much as I, I don't know, and maybe part of it is in this climate, like one of the things that I've seen for people who've contributed to the project is how thankless it is. Like you'll call for feedback, get nothing. You'll put something out there or get very little. You'll put something out there and suddenly it's this like, oh, what about this? What about this? What about this? And it's like, where were you when we were asking? Luke A thousand opinions in the WordPress community. Jonathan Uh but we do need progress and i think for me i remember first looking at event coy and say oh wow this is different this doesn't match my like paradigm of what i've expect when i would install A product and but what was then clear yes and clear that they were thinking through how is someone actually going to use this with WooCommerce in particular, to just bring it all the way Back. I remember when I worked at Woo, there was a lot of discussion internally about the recognition that Woo could have a big positive influence on the project as a whole. Were to tackle some of these problems, improve its own admin experiences, et cetera. Like there can be a positive influence on the ecosystem. ([Time 0:12:23](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3bca42b8-f9b7-4d1e-b21b-b55eba216278))