Please note that some text has been redacted and replaced with equivalent statements, omitting references to individuals or projects.
cally
Hey Patrick amigo, quick q for you..
I’m working on getting a pretty good sized retailer onto WooCommerce. They’re very much a recognized brand. However, for bandwidth/usage it’s not too intense1.
cally
They asked about “clunkiness” in WooCommerce, and I was wondering if you had a chart, or threshold where you start to see this?
pmgarman
Really depends on the site and how it’s built, to be honest REDACTED [we’ve built and run WooCommerce sites with databases over 100GB in size, which ran better than some sites that have databases less than 1GB].
Do you have new relic or anything running?
cally
It’ll be built from scratch and put on an entry level dedicated box at WP Engine, so we could run New Relic.
At this time they’re contemplating platforms, and it’s between Woo and Shopify.
They’re familiar with REDACTED. 😉
pmgarman
Well if you need to bring in some expertise,
I’m not longer at REDACTED 😉 REDACTED is my sole focus.
cally
I saw.
I creep you once and a while, y’know? 😉
pmgarman
Ha keeping tabs on me
cally
Lol
Mostly wanna know what you have your hands in!
pmgarman
We’re working with REDACTED on their managed platform and part of that is *the* feature plugin for custom order tables
cally
Deep down tho, you still hardcore Woo? Or, if a large brand lands on your doorstep, would you ever recommend Shopify? What would that tipping point be?
pmgarman
Just to start 😀
cally
I’m like 100% against Shopify, lol. But I haven’t put it all into words yet.
pmgarman
I work heavily on both now, depends on their level of customization and how much they want to “manage” it
cally
*the* feature plugin for custom order tables
You’ve always got your hands in something good!
pmgarman
It’s good for someone who has a simple site and doesn’t want to deal with the headache of WP/WC
cally
depends on their level of customization
How far can you customize Shopify? For example, could you easily add subscriptions, or multi-language as an add-on? I’ve never built on it.
pmgarman
multi language basically means you run multiple stores, thats essentially your only real option
customizations, you can customize the html essentially. and then whatever you can do via the API.
with enterprise “plus” plans, you can do a bit more. but thats minimum $2k/mo. and that is now going to go up a lot from my understanding
unless you are paying $2k/mo, your checkout URL is my.shopify.com or something
cally
Yea they’re definitely considering Plus, and it’s funny you mention price, because that is definitely an uncertainty I wondered about.
pmgarman
plus: it can handle a significant number of orders/min. REDACTED
con: all customizations are significantly more involved
cally
To me it sounds like the advantage of Shopify is:
– Allows for a lot of orders.
– No worries for maintenance
Is that about it?
pmgarman
apps have long term costs you can’t ever get away from. customizations of your own if it touches the API means you need to host and run your own custom application
yeah thats the main points
a lot as in, it handles the biggest flash seller in the world
cally
lolol
Good to know.
pmgarman
REDACTED
cally
So a very extreme edge case.
What about the payment gateway, too? I think they penalize you for not using their’s, correct?
pmgarman
they don’t “penalize” you, but, you don’t get the benefits their white label stripe offers.
stripe won’t even talk to you if you are using shopify, you *must* use their shopify payments
cally
I heard they add a % point for using a 3rd party.
pmgarman
which you don’t get your own stripe
yeah you have transaction fees unless you use theirs. but i’m not sure if plus changes that
cally
So the benefits really aren’t that much.
IMO
Then concerns if the company goes bankrupt, restricts features, etc. It’s a lot to pay for some convenience.
About Woo scalability, progress is being made then, as you’re working on it now?
pmgarman
the benefits to the lay person is “you dont have to manage your site, they do it for you” where WP/WC you *really* have to manage it. you need someone monitoring it if you are doing any sort of volume or want to run it right, you need to deal with updates/etc
cally
Okay, so assuming they have a Saucal or Patrick Garman, they’re covered. Plus, all the benefits of full flexibility and ownership.
Patrick Garman REDACTED
pmgarman
yeah basically
tl;dr – if you are paying more than $2k/mo to run your site (hosting and maintenance), then it’s worth considering, if you have a simple site that doesn’t require much customization.
without plus you can’t even use the discounts api
so you can’t create coupons unless you do it by hand
$2k/mo to have the power to import coupons
at the end of the day i’ve worked on the largest WC site ever, and now the two largest Shopify stores ever. I’ve broken things on both, Shopify has banned my API keys because i was stressing things.
cally
Lol, you’re the man.
And that’s at current pricing. If pricing goes up at Shopify, things change.
What are the two sites on Shopify?
pmgarman
Which, it is going up
i don’t know if they have publicly said it or not. plus is now also a transaction or % based model
cally
You know by how much?
pmgarman
let me look it up, i can find out from some other people. REDACTED was grandfathered in
REDACTED was #2 at shopify, REDACTED was #1
cally
That would be great. And, is it okay if I share this information? Ofc, I want to ask you first.
Dude, how do you land these all star customers?
pmgarman
REDACTED wasn’t a client, REDACTED was my full time job, REDACTED was under the umbrella of REDACTED and REDACTED was the second brand. REDACTED < i built that site
cally
I’m gonna wear a Patrick Garman t-shirt at WooConf2
pmgarman
theres a lot of separation and similarities at the same time. but at the end of the day architecturally what my role became when on shopify was connecting things together and building internal tools and applications
ha you should. some mindsize jerseys, garman on the back
cally
hahahaha, i was thinking more like those rapper t’s.. your face on the front.
Maybe wearing a crown ?
my role became when on shopify was connecting things together and building internal tools and applications
And these were hosted off-site, therefore putting you back in the realm of maintenance, etc.
pmgarman
haha
yeah it was a custom application that i developed myself (built on laravel spark) from the “ground” up
thats how we did reporting, i exported all shopify data through the API, thats why ops hated me
would run 20 threads of API calls
cally
wow, so exporting the data pounded the API and they didn’t like it..
ha damn.
pmgarman
their API kind of sucks for large data
cally
♥ Metorik for that type of thing.
pmgarman
yep – which doesn’t support shopify, yet
bryce has promised me an API 🙂
cally
lol
So, there you have it. Whether you like it or not, you’re going to need some technical chops. Might as well suit up, or let us handle it. Trust me, it’s a lot better than censorship, or this.
