Development Archives - Business Bloomer

WooCommerce Release Videos To Understand What’s New

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In a recent Business Bloomer Club Slack thread, the discussion centered around how WooCommerce communicates its version updates — and how hard it can be to actually understand what changed.

Reading GitHub changelogs, tracking PRs, or scrolling through developer notes is often not enough. Store owners want to know if something affects their sales. Developers want to know if something breaks their custom code.

That’s exactly why a new approach was introduced: short, focused YouTube videos that explain each WooCommerce release. Not just a list of fixes and features, but context, examples, and commentary — aimed at helping the WooCommerce community stay up to date without the friction.

Should WooCommerce Work Without JavaScript?

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In a recent Business Bloomer Club Slack thread, an interesting—and admittedly niche—question came up: what happens to a WooCommerce website if JavaScript is disabled?

While most developers rarely (if ever) test this scenario, it sparked a brief but insightful exchange on how modern WooCommerce stores rely on JavaScript for nearly everything. From dynamic cart updates to checkout validation, many core features break instantly when JavaScript is turned off. But does that even matter?

The question isn’t whether your store should work without JavaScript—it’s whether it needs to. And that brings up accessibility, progressive enhancement, and whether we’re building experiences that completely depend on a scripting language that might fail.

Should Clients Add WooCommerce Products Themselves?

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In a recent Business Bloomer Club Slack thread, we discussed the best approach when onboarding a client to a newly built WooCommerce store—especially when it comes to adding their products for the first time.

Should you walk them through the WordPress admin UI and teach them how to do it manually? Or do you require them to compile their inventory in a spreadsheet that can then be imported?

The trigger for this discussion was a tweet wondering what other developers typically do: teach or template? The real answer, unsurprisingly, is “it depends.”

WooCommerce: Order Meta with HPOS and API

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In a recent Business Bloomer Club Slack thread, a member raised an important question about WooCommerce HPOS (High-Performance Order Storage) and API compatibility.

Their developer had built a custom integration using the legacy WooCommerce API, and one of the key operations was saving metadata to orders. This metadata was used to associate internal order numbers from a third-party system.

With WooCommerce shifting toward HPOS for order management, the member wanted to confirm if their integration would require changes — especially when saving order meta. If the current implementation uses functions like $order->update_meta_data(), would that still work seamlessly with HPOS?

This is a common concern for developers who rely on programmatic access to orders, especially when orders are linked to external systems. The good news is that HPOS is designed with backward compatibility in mind, but certain practices need a closer look. Let’s go through what changes, what stays the same, and how to future-proof your API integrations.

How I Ditched a WooCommerce Plugin for My Own Code

Premium WooCommerce plugins are great — until you realize you’re only using 10% of the features, while still loading all the code, dealing with updates, and paying for a license you don’t fully need.

That’s exactly what happened to me. One of my plugins was doing a job I could replicate with a few custom functions. So I decided to ditch it and replace it with my own code — lightweight, specific, and built just for my store.

But I didn’t just jump into coding blindly. I documented the whole process in a 3-part YouTube series, from scoping the replacement, to prompting an AI for help, to testing the final result on a dev store.

In this post, I’ll summarize the approach, share key takeaways from each step, and help you decide when it makes sense to build instead of buy — especially if you’re comfortable writing WooCommerce snippets.

WooCommerce Needs Its Conference Back (WooConf)

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In a recent Business Bloomer Club Slack thread, a shared frustration surfaced: it’s been over 8 years since the last official WooCommerce conference — WooConf 2017 in Seattle.

That’s 3,000+ days without a dedicated space for WooCommerce developers, store owners, and professionals to connect, learn, and shape the future of the platform.

The earlier events (San Francisco in 2014, Austin in 2016, and Seattle in 2017) offered a rare but powerful opportunity to gather the Woo community in one place. Workshops, talks, hallway chats — it all fostered momentum and collaboration.

Since then? Silence. WooCommerce’s growth hasn’t slowed, but the community feels increasingly fragmented. It’s time we talk about why WooConf disappeared — and why it needs to return.

WooCommerce 10.0.2 and the Culture of Patch Releases

In a recent Business Bloomer Club Slack thread, a deep and lively discussion emerged around WooCommerce 10.0.2 — the first stable release in the 10.0.X series — and what it says about the broader release culture within the WooCommerce ecosystem.

The conversation reflected longstanding frustrations, conflicting philosophies, and thoughtful ideas for a more reliable future.

WooCommerce 10.0.0 was originally due on July 7, 2025, then pushed to July 14, and rapidly followed by two patch versions.

Official communication even recommended skipping directly to 10.0.2 — a move that didn’t sit well with many developers and professionals relying on Woo in production.

WooCommerce Blocks: The Extensibility Challenge

In the fast-evolving landscape of ecommerce, WooCommerce has long stood out as a flexible and powerful platform, largely thanks to its deep extensibility. Developers (like myself), agencies, and store owners have historically leveraged its robust hook system to customize virtually every aspect of an online store.

However, with the advent of block-based editing and the new Cart and Checkout blocks, a palpable tension has emerged within the community. This shift, while promising a more streamlined user experience, has inadvertently created new hurdles for those who build and extend on the platform.

The very superpower of effortless customization, once a hallmark of WooCommerce, seems to have been diminished, leading to a crucial conversation about the future direction of the platform and its commitment to the developer ecosystem.

This was vividly illustrated in a WooCommerce Slack “office hours” session held just yesterday, where core block developers were present, and numerous passionate community developers participated.

The discussion went through the heart of these concerns, exploring the challenges faced by extension developers and the urgent call for renewed focus on developer-centric extensibility.

Fixing QIT PHP Compatibility for WooCommerce Marketplace Submissions

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In a recent Business Bloomer Club Slack thread, a member sought advice on submitting a plugin to the WooCommerce Marketplace.

The challenge was passing the Quality Insights Tool (QIT) PHP Compatibility check when using Composer dependencies, like Symfony MBString polyfill, which triggered false positives.

Despite using conditional loading for PHP 8.0+ and comments to bypass checks, the issue persisted.

Best WooCommerce Plugins for License Management

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In a recent Business Bloomer Club Slack thread, a member sought advice on lightweight, optimized plugins for managing licenses and enabling remote updates of WooCommerce plugins.

The discussion highlighted the need for efficient and actively maintained solutions to avoid performance issues.

The conversation revealed several options, including plugin alternatives, server-side solutions, and even custom coding. For WooCommerce store owners selling digital products, finding the right license manager can improve customer experience, automate updates, and secure product access.

WooCommerce: Managing Store Redesigns Without Losing Data

Redesigning a WooCommerce store can be a rewarding yet complex task, especially when ensuring the live site continues to operate seamlessly. The challenge lies in merging changes from a staging environment to the production site without losing critical transactional data such as orders and customer details.

For stores with frequent sales or high traffic, even small downtime or data inconsistencies can result in significant customer dissatisfaction or financial loss.

Most developers and store owners wrestle with questions like: Should they opt for a manual migration, leverage hosting tools for selective syncing, or use advanced solutions like two-way syncing tools?

Each method has its own benefits and pitfalls, from time investment to automation reliability. Moreover, ensuring the integrity of WooCommerce’s scattered database structure adds to the complexity.

Let’s explore the common approaches and best practices for tackling store redesigns while keeping the live site functional and data intact.

WooCommerce Devs: Grow Your Plugin Business on WPBay

Creating high-quality plugins is only half the battle. The real challenge lies in gaining visibility for your product, generating traffic, and capturing value in a sustainable way – ideally through recurring, stable revenue. As any developer knows, building an excellent product often isn’t enough without effective marketing behind it.

This challenge is particularly acute for smaller developers who lack a large audience or the resources to invest heavily in marketing and sales infrastructure. Many turn to marketplaces as a solution, only to find these platforms are often uncompetitive, imposing restrictive terms and limitations that can effectively hold developers hostage through one-sided agreements.

That’s why we’ve created WPBay: a developer-first marketplace designed as a genuine alternative. We offer a real solution with low commission rates, flexible licensing and pricing options, non-exclusivity, and powerful developer tools.

With WPBay, you can finally sell your plugins and themes on your own terms, maintaining control while reaching the audience you deserve.

Should There Be a “Classic WooCommerce” Plugin?

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In a recent Twitter thread, I asked why no one had yet built a “Classic WooCommerce” plugin — something akin to Classic Editor and Classic Widgets.

After all, those two plugins have over 12 million active installs combined, proving there’s a strong demand for keeping things… well, classic.

The tweet triggered a few replies, so I thought I’d expand on the idea here. What would such a plugin actually do, and more importantly, would it be useful?

Let’s dive into this “just curiosity” thought experiment and explore potential use cases, roadblocks, and community sentiment.

Running Custom Server-Side Code on Checkout Field Blur in WooCommerce

A recent query in the Business Bloomer Club asked for advice on executing custom server-side code when a user enters their email address during checkout in WooCommerce, specifically after the field loses focus (similar to how the cart updates for coupons and shipping).

This setup can be useful for verifying user input dynamically without a full page refresh.

Here’s a guide on how to achieve this functionality using AJAX and JavaScript.

Resolving Undefined Variable Errors in WooCommerce Custom Code

In a recent Business Bloomer Club thread, a member encountered an undefined variable error in a WooCommerce snippet they were using to display custom order statuses on the admin dashboard.

Despite the functionality working correctly, Query Monitor flagged an error message due to a missing initial value for a PHP variable. Properly initializing this variable before using it is essential to prevent PHP errors and ensure code stability.

Here’s a breakdown of the issue and a step-by-step solution to help avoid similar problems in your custom WooCommerce snippets.

Tag: Development