As part of our transition to WordPress/WooCommerce we knew we would not have the same experiences we had previously. The trade-off having a template to make layout a breeze leads to precision formatting requiring more effort. Where before all I needed to do was draw a text box, apply a style (font, size, spacing) and start typing now I need to dig into coding to ensure what is see here is what I get there.
At launch of our new store we will not be able to provide any of our customized sets. Where Ecwid made this easy, allowing a customer to select each variable, WooCommerce requires you to pay for an expensive “plug-in” to get the same result. The mission is to get the basics fully functional first before we start adding in extras. This means we will have to put off offering something we have offered previously.
Granted, we built what we had gradually over a longer period of time and now are looking to recreate it all in a matter of a couple weeks. The pressure is on to be able to flip a switch and YOU will only see a sparkly new website.
Work needs to be done for our existing customers to be able to see an easy migration. Existing customers will not be able to track their purchase history once this is all complete. We may be able to have both stores functional on our end for some time for our reference but we won’t be able to give that access to our customers without creating confusion. We will be looking into exporting as much information as possible and make the full disclosure of what customers will need to do to create a new account with our WooCommerce store.
We are on target to have the new site in position to be fully tested and operational by mid May. By the end of June we will be closing our Ecwid store to the public. We are not sure what our options will be for those who shop directly through Facebook as we have not looked into WooCommerce integration.
Our big hope is that once we get this all up and running we can start adding all those cooler features we wanted to add way back – mainly Subscriptions for our most heavily used products. A poll may be in order to learn what people may be looking for in such a service.
Again, by the time you read this all the work has likely been completed. Some of you reading this may never have seen our soon to be former WebShop. It was clunky, but it was OURS – well, outside of the functionality of it. We know that this new WebShop will be better. As the parents of this baby we are sad to see her grow up so fast and those chubby cheeks becoming less rosy.
Big Thanks!
John