What is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is a plugin for WordPress that was initially released on September 17th, 2011. Since then, it has become extremely popular due to its ease of use and powerful features. WooCommerce powers more than 20% of e-commerce sites which is an incredible number!
Automattic acquires WooCommerce
Automattic, the creators of WordPress, recently acquired WooCommerce, but what does this really mean? In the near future, Automattic hopes to offer Woo as an option for their WordPress service. More importantly, what will happen to other e-commerce plugins? This is what Easy Digital Download’s Pippin Williamson had to say on WP Tavern:
I run one of the other e-Commerce plugins and am not concerned. Will it changes things? Absolutely. Will it kill us all off? Absolutely not.
Part of running a successful business is adapting to changes. If this requires that we make some changes to our business, that’s exactly what we will do.
– Pippin Williamson http://wptavern.com/automattic-acquires-woocommerce
The future will definitely be interesting not only for developers and Automattic, but WooCommerce’s competitors.
Who uses WooCommerce?
Wikipedia states that there are more than 380,000 vendors currently using WooCommerce. Clients range from Amazon to FedEx to Paypal; thanks to the fact that the plugin is open-source and documented. WooCommerce even has a support page where you can leave a question.
Is WooCommerce for you?
WooCommerce, being the most popular e-Commerce plugin for WordPress, certainly has detractors; however, WooCommerce is actually pretty easy to use. With Automattic’s acquisition, the platform will undoubtably become even more powerful. It will be exciting to see what the future has in store for WordPress.com and WordPress.org users.
In short, WooCommerce is a great plugin to get started on; the recent acquisition also ensures that WooCommerce is here to stay.
