Sean D. Conklin

  • Jetpack CRM implementation

    I recently migrated into Jetpack CRM free edition (no premium add-ons used). This is a great free plugin with significant premium add-on capabilities, supported by the same company as WordPress.com and WooCommerce.com Here’s my experience with it so far: I like how the admin menu offers regular main menu item mode versus individual main items…

  • WooCommerce to Shopify migration

    Sometimes I get quote requests for migrating a WooCommerce store over to Shopify. I can provide a ballpark figure after getting clarity in some areas, namely: Ballpark cost estimates Item Hours Cost Setting-up the Shopify store settings (locations, shipping, policies, payment methods, consulting with client) 2 $250 Applying style guide (color sets, fonts, menus, header,…

  • WooSesh 2023 presentation on Block Theming

    Registration for WooSesh 2023 October 10th-12th is now open 🙂 This is a free three-day annual event operated by WP Sessions. It features excellent speakers and topics for WooCommerce Store Builders. Don’t miss this event if you work on or own a WooCommerce powered storefront. My presentation on Block Theming is scheduled to air at…

  • Beware of hosting company practices

    I had a troubling exchange with a hosting company yesterday that I feel is worth sharing. A new client with a smaller site has been paying ~$60 monthly for a 4GB (RAM) virtual private server. It’s large for her use (compared to the 2GB server that I run my own sites on). She pays for…

  • Cart and Checkout Blocks are going mainstream

    We have newer WooCommerce Cart and Checkout experiences powered by WordPress Blocks, AKA Gutenberg. These have been available for years via the WooCommerce Blocks beta plugin and were wrapped into WooCommerce core starting in version 6.9 from September 2022. Plugin compatibility has been consistently improving ever since. As-of the recently released WooCommerce 8.0 this is…

  • PHP 8.2 is rolling out now

    All sites should be running PHP 8.0+ by now given PHP 7.4 lifecycle ended late last year. PHP 8.0 will hit EOL later this year and sites should be upgrading at this time. PHP 8.1 was released in December 2021 and was succeeded by PHP 8.2 in December 2022. PHP 8.1 speeds-up WordPress 3.5% according…

  • Why you need to keep your Shopify theme up to date

    Update: I’ve discovered the achilles heel of Shopify. Having worked with Shopify over the past six months, I’ve observed how important the theme is to the storefront. It’s a highly opinionated design and feature layer that contains design settings and custom code. Update from October 16th, 2023 I took a peek at five stores that…

  • Onboarding WordPress VIP Go

    I recently helped migrate a client into WordPress.com VIP Go enterprise hosting. This hosting is for larger sites with hosting budgets starting around $25,000 per year. It’s an opinionated platform that applies perhaps the greatest degree of WordPress management available. Here’s notes I took on the process: For more details on WordPress VIP, see their…

  • Hear me chat with fellow developers Zack Stepek and Carl Alexander on today’s (6/6/2023) Do The Woo Podcast episode! We covered a large gamut of WooCommerce development – from plugins to the full site editor, blocks, performance, staging, AI and more. Click the button to open the episode on the Do The Woo website. There’s…

  • After careful consideration, I’ve decided to join the Shopify Partner Program and start working on proprietary Shopify powered sites as well as continuing to work on open-source WordPress + WooCommerce powered sites. Recent statistics from BuiltWith indicate that Shopify leads greatly over WooCommerce Checkout, particularly in the United States market. Information I hear from colleagues…

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