@tomnora

The Future of WordPress eCommerce

Technologies!

@tomnora | tomnora.com |

@tomnora

Questions…• Experience Level

• Freelancers vs. Salaried Employee

• PHP Devs, JS Devs

• Target Client Size

• Building Commerce Sites?

• Building/Selling your own Plugins?

@tomnora

Me…a Hybrid Personality• EE to Sales-Mktg to Startup CEO (x5)

• Started and/or Led several Web Software Companies + mentor startups. (~20)

• Web Developer/CTO since 1999

• Recent CEO of neoREY, a face recognition based e-payment startup

@tomnora

Me…a Hybrid Personality• Currently building CMS sites - “Commerce +

Community”

• Lots of Drupal work past 3 years but shifting away from it.

• Also consulting to Apple on WEB SPEED for eCommerce (their CDN)

• Have 5 WP.org sites and 3 WP.com blogs

@tomnora

My First eCommerce Experience

• 1995 My company Rogue Wave built first Amazon site - C++ plus Oracle

@tomnora

eCommerce Back End• 1997 We Invented / Launched Net.h++ Product Line

• C++ Library - Shopping Cart Security over TCP/IP

@tomnora

eCommerce Experience• 1999 Founded, built and

sold Wonders of the West!

• Online Shopping for Fine Art and Travel based in Durango, Colorado

• Lots of CSS, JS

• Images everywhere

• Ahead of its time

@tomnora

My Current Focus

BEAUTIFUL  UI  !

BIG  WP  PROJECTS    !

NEXT-­‐GEN  FRONT  ENDS  !

WEB  SPEED,  DECREASE  LATENCY

@tomnora

Biggest WordPress eCommerce Sites

…So Many More

@tomnora

Merging of 2 ForcesConsumer!

Empowerment !!

Ease of Use Push Button

2 Hour Website !

“Personal Commerce”

Big Dev Shop!or Internal!

!Flexibility

Optimization Advanced Features

Team of 10+

Amazon Etsy

SquareSpace Wix

Shopify Magento Volusion

!

This Gap!!!

=!!

WP LAND!

(Often drop WP Here)

@tomnora

Merging of 2 ForcesConsumer!

Empowerment !!

Ease of Use Push Button

2 Hour Website !

“Personal Commerce”

Big Dev Shop!or Internal!

!Flexibility

Optimization Advanced Features

Team of 10+

FREELANCE SHOPS!!

CMS PLATFORMS !

$30K TO $300K JOBS !

“A Billion Dollar Market”

!!

BUT It’s a Moving Target!

@tomnora

The Past ~5 Years in eCommerce Technologies

@tomnora

Trending Newer eCommerce Technologies

…Lots of Javascript!!

@tomnora

Trending Newer eCommerce Technologies = Speed

@tomnora

Job Growth - Old vs. New

@tomnora

“Survivor” or Comeback eCommerce Technologies

You must know these…

and maybe should understand these…

@tomnora

Today’s WP Needs = “A Digital Experience”

MOBILE  (TOUCH)    FAST  and  INTUITIVE  SECURE  (*WP  myth)  

BEAUTIFUL  INTERFACES  SOCIAL  INTEGRATION  

!

DID  I  MENTION  “FAST”?  (#1  REASON  PEOPLE  ABANDON  CART)      

@tomnora

Mobile eCommerce Growth 2011 - 2016

@tomnora

Specialized eCommerce

SCommerce                    RCommerce  !

FCommerce    (big  in  SoCal)  

!

MCommerce                                Food  Commerce

@tomnora

So Cal based eCommerce Fundings

HauteLook     $41M       acq.  by  Nordstrom  $270M  Beachmint     $73M       Silicon  Valley  VCs  JustFab         $164M     monthly  VIP  memberships  Sole  Society     $20M       HauteLook  founder  $  Shave  Club   $23M       launch  2012;  Top  VCs  ChowNow     $8M       restaurant  ecommerce  tools  !

none  are  WP…

@tomnora

ECommerce = Mobile Payment Technologies

!

E-­‐Payments  Mobile  Wallet  No  Passwords  

Security  Gateways  

Must  be  Very  Fast  

… WP plugins for all of these

@tomnora

The Beautiful Commerce UI

STYLE WILL RULE THE WORLD!!

CSS, Sass/Less, JS Animation!!

Everything looks like an iPad App - iOS Front End!!

Touch Screens on the Desktop - OSX, MS!!

BIG BUTTONS! Image as a Button!

@tomnora

Non-Dev Skills You Must HaveGROWTH  HACKING  

SAAS  MECHANICS  (ie  MRR)  A/B  TESTING  

BILLING  WORKFLOW  !

HTML  EMAIL  MARKETING  “WHY  WP”  ANSWERS  

@tomnora

Case Study: ShopifyStarted as WP dev shop, now a SaaS

eCommerce !

Raised $122 Million in VC since 2010!

Stack = Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, MySQL!

Makes WP-specific Widget(s)!

Still use WP for their blogs

@tomnora

Parting AdviceBUILD  SOME  PLUGINS,  WIDGETS  

!

LAUNCH  YOUR  OWN  COMMERCE  APP/SITE  !

BUILD  “IPAD  LIKE”  INTERFACES  !

LEARN  WAY  BEYOND  WP  -­‐  CSS3,  JS,  Angular  !

PARTNER  -­‐  DON’T  DO  IT  ALONE  (look  for  partners  here)

@tomnora

eCommerce Impact on Shopping Habits

@tomnora

Contact Me if you want to discuss anything

Tom Nora !

          email:       t@tomnora.com  !           Blog:         “The  Startup  CEO”      tomnora.wordpress.com  !           TWITTER:             @tomnora        @cowlow  !           LinkedIn:               linkedin.com/in/tomnora/  !           Drupal.org     tmno  !           GitHub:       cowlow