Today marks an important milestone for our team: WooCommerce finally has its own home.
We’ve moved our site over from WooThemes.com to WooCommerce.com to provide focus for our team, clarity for our customers and to reflect what has become Woo’s core business.
Read on to learn some of the history behind WooCommerce and what motivated this change in our site.
Conceiving Woo
↑ Revenir en hautIn March 2008, sitting in my London home office — and by that I mean a desk in a small bedroom — I fondly remember pushing pixels around in Photoshop attempting to design a logo for a company Adii, Magnus and myself had just named: “WooThemes,” a play on “Woot” and “WordPress.”
“Woo” text placed in a vector speech bubble. Using the “Apple Casual” font with a back to front “W” character. The symbol looked unique and bold, and with a not-so-subtle gradient we ticked the Web 2.0 stereotype.
That was the start of our adventure and the brand that has carried us on a significant journey. Over time, « Woo » turned out to be the acronym for « winning others over, » a slogan we rally behind.
Over time, « Woo » became an acronym for « winning others over, » a slogan we rally behind.
A seismic shift in focus
↑ Revenir en hautThemes was an obvious suffix to Woo. It’s what we proudly built, sold and serviced.
We loved our Woo brand, so we tagged the name onto a lot of our product releases. WooFramework. WooSidebars. WooDojo. In 2011, when our eCommerce plugin launched we had no hesitation in calling it WooCommerce.
Long story short, WooCommerce exploded, and our focus largely shifted. Ever since then we’ve been refining, scaling, and extending WooCommerce as a platform, and growing the team that supports it. We’ve barely come up for air, and somewhere along the way the line between WooThemes as a business and WooCommerce as a product, got a little blurry.
Moving to a better-fitting home
↑ Revenir en hautWooCommerce is an eCommerce solution for WordPress. Built by the Automattic team. Find out more at WooThemes.com
That’s a confusing selling proposition, if ever there was one. We knew it was something that needed attention — especially for new customers who haven’t tracked our progress and seen us evolve.
As such, today the rehousing of WooCommerce has finally taken place, something we’ve longed to spend time on and get just right.
With our bigger team we’ve found time to flip the switch on WooCommerce.com. A huge amount of conversation across all of our teams has taken place behind the scenes over the past months. The discussion and input has made it clear it’s that we’re hugely proud of our brand, resulting in a host of different ideas as to what was best for all our customers, including those who have been with us from the very start.
What to expect from Woo moving forward
↑ Revenir en hauteCommerce has been driving our business for years. Continuing to lead the charge in changing the way people do business online is what makes us tick. We remain committed as ever to open source, the open web and being a business that enables other businesses to thrive.
Over the next months, we will iterate fast on new user experience both within the WooCommerce platform and on this site. We’ll continue to hire and train ninjas to improve customer experience and ticket response times. Our elevator pitch will be perfected and we won’t leave quite as many people scratching their heads.
On another note, WooCommerce Connect is also entering Alpha 2, watch that space.
Everything has changed and yet nothing has changed. Our quest to win others over continues.
A few FAQs to finish things off
↑ Revenir en hautSo are you not making themes anymore?
Storefront and Canvas remain our focus and enable our customers to sell more beautifully. All our themes moved over to WooCommerce.com and nothing changes for our customers.
What happens to WooThemes.com?
It re-directs to WooCommerce.com. We have a longer term vision to perform a heart transplant and build a new WooThemes.com — catering for all our Automattic themes — powered by our talented theme wranglers at Automattic. We didn’t want to delay any further on WooCommerce.com though.
It’s nearly your birthday. Any plans?
Well, a few of our loyal, long-serving customers might be aware the day is around the corner and be asking… For the second week of July our whole team will be in Berlin on WooTrip. Celebrating the last year big year at Automattic, and planning for the future.
Our birthday, July 9th, actually falls on a Saturday this year. We therefore plan to delay our beloved birthday promotion to the end of July. Whilst your business is unaffected by an IRL meeting, we want to ensure we can provide our best support through the busy sale period.
Please have patience with us and keep an eye on your inbox to find out first about commencement of our annual birthday sale.
Thanks for reading and we look forward to hearing your comments and feedback below.
About
I’m really happy for you but would this have anything to do with the error I now get in all my sites telling me that
wp_remote_get() failed. The WooCommerce plugin updater won’t work with your server. Contact your hosting provider. Error: SSL: no alternative certificate subject name matches target host name ‘woocommerce.com’
More than a name change??
Hi! Is it working now?
Congrats! Blessings! And BEST WISHES to the Future of WooCommerce!!
….is it bad if I can name every person in that photo?
So, now you’re bringing back WooDojo, Right?
>….is it bad if I can name every person in that photo?
me too, although being in it probably helps 😉
Congrats!
You did an excellent job so far with all of the great plugins, extensions and super friendly support!
Best wishes for your amazing future!
Thanks for all of what you did for millions of eCommerce store in the internet.
Cheers Hendra! We appreciate you being along for this journey with us. 🙂
Bonjour Nicole,
Je ne comprends pas que rien n’est en Français. J’ai dû mal à faire quelque chose. Merci
Congratulations! I remember looking for a new platform and finding WooCommerce not long after you launched. I watched, I researched and I asked others for opinions. Most people had no idea and those that did said I was mad. Nine months later we launched and a few months ago we redid the site, again using Woo and Storefront. As a non-tech user, not a dev or designer, I find Woo the best cart I’ve worked with and the staff (including Mark who emailed me with thoughtful suggestions in the early days) always patient and approachable. Keep up the great work and here’s to many more years of success!
Thank you so much for the kind words Ruth! We are happy to have you along for this journey with us and wish you many more years of happiness as part of the Woo family 😀
Well done all involved. I have actually been around since the beginning watching canvas first versions launch to now WooCommerce getting all grown up. I am very pleased to see Canvas still continuing on here, I am a little concerned over this last year that Canvas really has not gotten much love and well I would love to see it mature more and really dominate as a framework. One day possibly. Keep on doing what you do best and give great customer support. Cheers
Always great to still see your gravatar pop up in the comments. Thanks for the kind words. Rest assured there’s lots of behind the scenes work / discussions being had about Canvas!
Yeah, it’s great to see an original Canvas user commenting 🙂 I’m currently the lead developer on Canvas, and we’ve just released version 5.10.1 – we’ve taken some time looking at the future of Canvas, and we are working hard to add some new things to keep adding value. So keep watching this space, Canvas is getting some love!
I think it is a great move. Congratulations.
Thanks for your support 🙂
Well done team. You build a great product and my web design company uses your tools regularly. Keep it up, wishing you continued success.
Congrats!
You did an excellent job so far with all of the great plugins, extensions and super friendly support!
without this all we can’t do much more in our wordpress shopping cart sites.
Best wishes for your amazing future!
Thanks for all of what you did for millions of eCommerce store in the internet. 🙂
Thanks,
Ketan.
I feel stabbed in the back by supporting « Woo Themes » and purchasing and renewing the All Themes package a few times now just to have you focus on the WooCommerce plug-in. Extra fees for Storefront plug-ins, no more child themes for Canvas. Utter disappointment. I’ve yet to take the time to build a site using a theme and now feel that I’ll just be let down as the list of retired themes grows. Seriously, you’re screwing everyone that has supported you with your lack of updates and MAJOR retirements over the years.
Sad, very sad.
Bob
@Mark,
Congratulations on making this move. Definitely, WooCommerce must have its own unique space on the Internet. You guys have come a long way!
For the past few months, we’ve been working with WooCommerce API and developed a native iOS and Windows based point of sale app (look up CloudPOS on iPad AppStore). We’d like to get in touch with you to discuss how we can partner together and build a strong POS platform for WooCommerce store owners alike. Please send me an email so we can discuss more. Thanks.
Amjad
Congratulations guys for this great journey!
Congrats WooCommerce! Hope to see WooCommerce going into the enterprise ecommerce section someday soon.
Thanks Leo. 🙂
Congratulations on your next adventure!
Just wondering if there is a CRM to link into Woocommerce in your roadmap?
Excellent question – we’ve started on an integration with Salesforce (as requested here: http://ideas.woocommerce.com/forums/133476-woocommerce/suggestions/2662544-salesforce-integration). In the meantime, Zapier does support moving specific data from WooCommerce to Salesforce with zaps: https://zapier.com/zapbook/salesforce/woocommerce/ – pretty handy.
Thanks and do let us know if you have any further questions or suggestions!
I’ve been thinking about this, WooThemes -> WooCommerce. Glad it happened! Congrats, you guys are awesome!
Cheers Rg, you’re pretty awesome yourself 😀
I have been thinking about this. Woocommerce.com. Wish you good luck guys.
Thanks and Regards
Rajilesh Panoli
Cheers Rajilesh 🙂
WOW.. these my thinking over 1 years ago. why woothemes not to change woocommmerce?. & now finally!.
I’ve been using woocommerce since 2011 until today for my business & my client. easy to use & have a lot extension.
Thank you Fajar! It’s been a long time coming in some ways. 🙂 We’re so happy to hear your feedback, please do let us know if you have any ideas for improving WooCommerce in any way. Happy to have you as a customer!
Thanks for providing such a great platform to enable sell our products on our own. It helps Entrepreneurs like me and many others.
You guys are amazing ! Wish you all good luck for your future !
WooCommerce Rock !!
Thanks for being a supporter Nirav, we’re happy to have you on board. Let us know what we can do to continue supporting you 🙂
Glad to see Woo getting stronger and more focused. You folks are a big part of what makes my business work. Thanks for that.
And thank you for allowing us to be part of what you do David, it’s an honor. 😀
Super excited for you guys. WooCommerce has been a key player in helping rocket our business selling niche products in a niche space. Good job.
I noticed that your link above for Connect is redirecting to https://woocommerce.com/-connect, resulting in a 404.
Just an FYI… and we’re looking forward to the future!
Hey Cory, thanks for noticing that 404, we’ve fixed it this morning. Your sharp eyes are appreciated 🙂
We appreciate your excitement and echo it back tenfold! Feel free to reach out if there’s anything we can do to make your experience better, we’re always happy to hear your ideas.
Canvas is structurally a beautiful framework and one of the best I’ve ever worked with. Very happy to hear that it is going to get WooCommerce’s focus.
Also, congratulations on your company’s evolution! You all proved yourselves to be the best at what you do! It’s always a pleasure dealing with you all. Cheers!
Definitely Carlos, we’ve heard the love for Canvas and are rallying our team behind it accordingly. It would be a mistake not to.
Thanks for your kindness. 🙂
Link redirects to a 404 error in the text « On another note, WooCommerce Connect is also entering Alpha 2, watch that space. »
I’m hoping to learn if WooCommerce Connect plans to add any features for stores selling virtual/downloadable products and not just physical products.
Hey there Dan, thanks for your sharp eyes — we have fixed that 404 this morning. Funny enough the move to WooCommerce.com (and some redirects our team were doing behind the scenes) is what temporarily broke that link. 😛
As far as your Connect question goes, really anything is possible. Being still in alpha, we have our sights set on features easily within reach, which right now happen to be shipping extensions we’re familiar with/have strong support behind. In the future (and with more testing) we can certainly look at the demand for services beyond shipping providers and expand accordingly.
This freshly minted WooIdeas page might be of interest to you: http://ideas.woocommerce.com/forums/133476-woocommerce/category/167367-category-woocommerce-connect You’re welcome to add an idea you’re keen on to it, or just let me know and I’ll be happy to add one for you.
Thanks 🙂
Congratulations and best wishes for all you plans, inspirations and vision regarding to eCommerce! I am using WooCommerce in all my shop project and I am totally happy with it!!!
Best from Germany
Bettina
Hey Bettina, we are in Germany right now (the Woo team)! Hello from next door, perhaps 😉
More importantly — thank you for the well wishes, glad to hear you are happy! Let us know if we can support you in any way.
Sounds like a good move guys – all the best for exciting times.
My personal request is for more customisation for the Woocommerce plugin in terms of appearance and functionality.
Looking forward to development.
Thank you Martin, appreciate your kind words and feedback. We are working on both of those things in one very special project, so do stay tuned. 😉
Congrats…
PRETTY PLEASE – can you come up with a membership plan for wocommerce extensions….. I’m sick of seeing the likes of woogang etc……
Cheers
Alex
We hear you Alex. That’s been a request we’ve heard a few times. Worth bringing that discussion to the table again, surely. We are finishing up a yearly meetup with all ninjas and I’ll see if I can’t chat with a few folks about that possibility.
Thanks for your feedback.
Congrats on the move! I think it makes perfect sense for it to be housed here. I didn’t know about the acronym – love it! Yay Woo!
Thanks Kelsey! It’s quite fitting we think. 😀
I was wondering about the future development of Canvas and when we might see a significant update.
I read something quite some time ago about Canvas v.6 being on the way but have heard nothing since. I also read that Woo was moving away from themes and concentrating on commerce and I notice the website is now called Woocommerce.
Does this mean Canvas is being phased out?
Any information much appreciated as I am quite heavily invested in Canvas for a number of websites and feel it is falling significantly behind products like Elegant Themes’ Divi.
Hey Woodmark, Canvas is not being phased out. We are actively putting development behind it. However we hit a crossroads quite some time ago where we had to consider what was best not only for the theme and for our customers, which meant delaying v6 as we decided how to approach future development. Additionally, there have been some team shifts internally which have resulted in new resources being placed behind it (which unfortunately requires a bit of time getting folks up to speed or old duties transitioned over).
We posted this a little while ago about the future of the theme, and much of the information still holds true: https://woocommerce.com/2015/11/future-of-canvas/
We certainly understand the fear that our themes will become left by the wayside and don’t want that to be the case at all. So we are working hard to push out some updates and new developments sooner rather than later.
If you have any questions please do let us know. And thanks so much for your feedback and comment, it’s always good to hear from our customers in an honest and straightforward manner.
Oh, haha! I just realized that the domain had changed. I was wondering what happened when I came here yeaterday but just figure it out after reading this. LOL. I feel so stupid. Regardless, gratz on the move, and hope for the best from you guys the rest of the year! <3
It’s ironic that you have a story out about marketing on a budget. You need to with the cost of your extensions. Wanted to import products into some websites $249USD dollars by the time I convert that into NZD add the cost of the vendor plugin theme,security,form and SEO plugin costs costs I don’t even make that much money in a year.
An import function I would have expected as standard, surely.