Yesterday we hosted our WowCommerce: An eCommerce Survive and Thrive Guide event at The Ivy in London.
The event started at 8am and consisted of a breakfast panel by three leading experts in eCommerce: Our Founder & Director David Lockie, Paul Walker the Head of Digital at Bodyism, and Marina Pape the WooThemes Brand Manager at Automattic.
David Lockie kicked off the session with a short introduction on eCommerce, and why here at Angry Creative we care about it so much. There’s still an enormous amount of opportunity out there, and much more can be done to improve the process from a consumer’s point of view. By incorporating the right combination of elements, your eCommerce website can work well for both you and your customers.
Marina Pape (Automattic): WooCommerce vs. Shopify
Automattic’s WooThemes Brand Manager Marina Pape’s talk focused on the difference between using Shopify and WooCommerce with your WordPress site.
Whilst Shopify is the best solution for some, WooCommerce is by far the most flexible and cost-effective platform for most businesses. WooCommerce powers 37% of online stores, and there’s been a whopping 15 million downloads of it in the WordPress store.
In eCommerce there’s no “one size fits all” solution. WooCommerce has specific extensions for different businesses, enabling you to tailor your website to what your audience needs. Features such as subscription services can be costly to implement with developers, but there are a variety of different plugins available in WooCommerce that can do this for you.
Paul Walker (Bodyism): Building an online presence
The story of Bodyism’s success is a slightly unusual one. James Duigan (personal trainer to many celebrities) wrote the first Clean and Lean book, which soon went viral – but in an offline sense. People would buy multiple copies of the book to hand to their friends and family, who would then pass it on to their friends and so on.
Unfortunately their competitors hit the online market first, so Clean and Lean had some serious catching up to do.
With a new (WordPress) website, social media accounts, and email marketing set up, Paul had the tricky task of finding their fans offline and getting them to spread the word online.
Bodyism achieved this by going out and talking to people (Paul would hit cafes armed with an iPad and a mailing list), and by playing close attention to their analytics and conversion rates. Instead of spreading themselves thin across multiple channels, they focus their efforts on the ones that are converting.
David Lockie (Angry Creative): Agile eCommerce
Having a team involved with every touchpoint in the eCommerce process is vital when it comes to effective CRO. Without having full knowledge of the business values and goals, you won’t be able to optimise your pages correctly.
Creativity is key when it comes to A/B split testing though, so don’t be afraid to make big changes and remember to incorporate the personality of your business. Take the reigns off and trust your team.