Tom Nora has extensive experience in eCommerce dating back to 1995 when he helped build Amazon's first site. He discusses trends in eCommerce technologies over the past 5 years including an increased focus on speed, mobile, and specialized commerce sites. He provides advice for WordPress developers to learn skills beyond just development like growth hacking, billing workflows, and HTML email marketing to succeed in eCommerce.

1. @tomnora
The Future of
WordPress eCommerce
Technologies
!
@tomnora | tomnora.com |

2. @tomnora
Questions…
• Experience Level
• Freelancers vs. Salaried Employee
• PHP Devs, JS Devs
• Target Client Size
• Building Commerce Sites?
• Building/Selling your own Plugins?

3. @tomnora
Me…a Hybrid Personality
• EE to Sales-Mktg to Startup CEO (x5)
• Started and/or Led several Web Software
Companies + mentor startups. (~20)
• Web Developer/CTO since 1999
• Recent CEO of neoREY, a face recognition
based e-payment startup

4. @tomnora
Me…a Hybrid Personality
• Currently building CMS sites - “Commerce +
Community”
• Lots of Drupal work past 3 years but shifting
away from it.
• Also consulting to Apple on WEB SPEED for
eCommerce (their CDN)
• Have 5 WP.org sites and 3 WP.com blogs

5. @tomnora
My First eCommerce
Experience
• 1995 My company Rogue Wave built first Amazon
site - C++ plus Oracle

6. @tomnora
eCommerce Back End
• 1997 We Invented / Launched Net.h++ Product Line
• C++ Library - Shopping Cart Security over TCP/IP

7. @tomnora
eCommerce Experience
• 1999 Founded, built and
sold Wonders of the West!
• Online Shopping for Fine
Art and Travel based in
Durango, Colorado
• Lots of CSS, JS
• Images everywhere
• Ahead of its time

8. @tomnora
My Current Focus
BEAUTIFUL
UI
!
BIG
WP
PROJECTS
!
NEXT-­‐GEN
FRONT
ENDS
!
WEB
SPEED,
DECREASE
LATENCY

9. @tomnora
Biggest WordPress
eCommerce Sites
…So Many More

10. @tomnora
Merging of 2 Forces
Consumer!
Empowerment !
!
Ease of Use
Push Button
2 Hour Website
!
“Personal
Commerce”
Big Dev Shop!
or Internal!
!
Flexibility
Optimization
Advanced Features
Team of 10+
Amazon
Etsy
SquareSpace
Wix
Shopify
Magento
Volusion
!
This Gap!
!
!
=!
!
WP LAND!
(Often drop WP Here)

11. @tomnora
Merging of 2 Forces
Consumer!
Empowerment !
!
Ease of Use
Push Button
2 Hour Website
!
“Personal
Commerce”
Big Dev Shop!
or Internal!
!
Flexibility
Optimization
Advanced Features
Team of 10+
FREELANCE SHOPS!
!
CMS PLATFORMS
!
$30K TO $300K JOBS
!
“A Billion Dollar
Market”
!
!
BUT It’s a Moving
Target!

12. @tomnora
The Past ~5 Years in
eCommerce Technologies

13. @tomnora
Trending Newer eCommerce
Technologies
…Lots of Javascript!!

14. @tomnora
Trending Newer eCommerce
Technologies = Speed

15. @tomnora
Job Growth - Old vs. New

16. @tomnora
“Survivor” or Comeback
eCommerce Technologies
You must know these…
and maybe should understand these…

17. @tomnora
Today’s WP Needs =
“A Digital Experience”
MOBILE
(TOUCH)
FAST
and
INTUITIVE
SECURE
(*WP
myth)
BEAUTIFUL
INTERFACES
SOCIAL
INTEGRATION
!
DID
I
MENTION
“FAST”?
(#1
REASON
PEOPLE
ABANDON
CART)

18. @tomnora
Mobile eCommerce Growth
2011 - 2016

19. @tomnora
Specialized eCommerce
SCommerce
RCommerce
!
FCommerce
(big
in
SoCal)
!
MCommerce
Food
Commerce

20. @tomnora
So Cal based eCommerce
Fundings
HauteLook
$41M
acq.
by
Nordstrom
$270M
Beachmint
$73M
Silicon
Valley
VCs
JustFab
$164M
monthly
VIP
memberships
Sole
Society
$20M
HauteLook
founder
$
Shave
Club
$23M
launch
2012;
Top
VCs
ChowNow
$8M
restaurant
ecommerce
tools
!
none
are
WP…

21. @tomnora
ECommerce =
Mobile Payment Technologies
!
E-­‐Payments
Mobile
Wallet
No
Passwords
Security
Gateways
Must
be
Very
Fast
… WP plugins for all of these

22. @tomnora
The Beautiful Commerce UI
STYLE WILL RULE THE WORLD!
!
CSS, Sass/Less, JS Animation!
!
Everything looks like an iPad App - iOS Front End!
!
Touch Screens on the Desktop - OSX, MS!
!
BIG BUTTONS! Image as a Button!

23. @tomnora
Non-Dev Skills
You Must Have
GROWTH
HACKING
SAAS
MECHANICS
(ie
MRR)
A/B
TESTING
BILLING
WORKFLOW
!
HTML
EMAIL
MARKETING
“WHY
WP”
ANSWERS

24. @tomnora
Case Study: Shopify
Started as WP dev shop, now a SaaS
eCommerce !
Raised $122 Million in VC since 2010!
Stack = Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, MySQL!
Makes WP-specific Widget(s)!
Still use WP for their blogs

25. @tomnora
Parting Advice
BUILD
SOME
PLUGINS,
WIDGETS
!
LAUNCH
YOUR
OWN
COMMERCE
APP/SITE
!
BUILD
“IPAD
LIKE”
INTERFACES
!
LEARN
WAY
BEYOND
WP
-­‐
CSS3,
JS,
Angular
!
PARTNER
-­‐
DON’T
DO
IT
ALONE
(look
for
partners
here)

26. @tomnora
eCommerce Impact on
Shopping Habits

27. @tomnora
Contact Me if you want to
discuss anythingTom Nora
!
email:
t@tomnora.com
!
Blog:
“The
Startup
CEO”
tomnora.wordpress.com
!
TWITTER:
@tomnora
@cowlow
!
LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/in/tomnora/
!
Drupal.org
tmno
!
GitHub:
cowlow