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Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #193 of Loop WP!

Last week, we learned more about Shopify Merchant fees for OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce and their implications for WooCommerce.

This week is part one of a three-part mini-series based on Beau Lebens interview on the Do The Woo Podcast.

Let’s go! 👇

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Some Important Context

🎉 This week’s newsletter is a follow-up to Issue 191, which has not only been my most popular newsletter of this year, but of the last 15 months!

Issue 191 was “The Future of WooCommerce - A Conversation with Matt Mullenweg” and was based on Matt’s interview with the Do The Woo Podcast.

💡 If I had known how successful Issue 191 would be, I wouldn’t have cut it short (it was a long email), and I won’t be doing that with this week’s newsletter, which is why it’s spread over three weeks.

Matt’s interview left many gaps, and I had questions and pushback, which led to Issue 191 of this newsletter. Do The Woo picked up on this and featured many of my questions in their follow-up interview with Beau Lebens (Artistic Director and Lead at Woo).

🎉 It was a superb interview, really, really good. Beau answered my questions (and everyone else’s) very honestly and transparently.

  • This week, we will look at the first three questions from the interview.

  • Next week, it’s the remaining questions, and some very important ones.

  • In two weeks, we’ll compare and contrast Matt and Beau’s answers with some of my thoughts mixed in.

So, let’s get cracking with Beau’s answers! 👇

  • Q = Question,

  • A = Answer from Beau (unless otherwise stated).

  • 💡 = My comments.

1) Woo’s competitive advantage for merchants: “Freedom” vs “control”

❝

Q: (Katie Keith, replying to my follow-up to Matt Mullenweg):

From a store owner’s perspective, what are WooCommerce’s competitive advantages over the next five years, given that most merchants “don’t care about ownership or open source” and just want low friction?

A: Beau agrees that “a great product” with low friction is the baseline expectation.

“Having a great product that… doesn’t introduce friction… that does all the things that you need it to do… applies to everybody.”

Beau reframes “open source/ownership” as something merchants care about when they lose it, and says the community hasn’t explained it well.

He positions Woo’s benefit as control (enabled by open source and flexibility), especially for merchants who need customisation or operate in regulated markets.

Beau describes this as: “…the way we talk about that is actually more about control than freedom - control in their hands.”

💡 Semantics are important, and I like Beau’s positioning of “control”. I agree with Beau that merchants care about open-source/ownership when they lose it. I also agree that the community hasn’t explained this well.

I personally explain the open source benefits to clients, but does everyone (community), and do we do it well? I don’t think WooCommerce does this well at all, itself, its messaging.

🚨 Woo should be leading by example. Look at the “What is WooCommerce?” page…not a single reference to open source.

2) Woo events: WooConf, WordCamps, and “WooCommerce Day”

❝

Q: (Katie, summarizing my take)

“If there’s clear appetite for a dedicated Woo event (e.g., Checkout Summit momentum), should Automattic be more intentional, rather than leaving it to community pressure?”

A: Beau says he’d love a WooConf. “It is something that we’re looking at internally… can we do it at the level that we want to do it at…No promises just yet unfortunately.”

Beau paid tribute to community events (e.g., Checkout Summit) and highlighted the opportunity cost of running a major conference and the cost-to-benefit ratio:

“We want to make sure we do it right… in a way that’s sustainable… not just… once.“

💡 I do get where Beau is coming from, I do, and I am glad Woo is looking at it internally. I’ve organised a WordCamp, and I know the complexities events bring, but sometimes you need to go through some pain and give it a go.

This leads to a question asked by Dave in the live Q&A, “What about a WooCommerce day - Bolted onto WordCamps?“

Beau, James, & Katies all answered the question. They discuss adjacent/side events, but note WordCamps are volunteer-led and can’t appear to “push one specific product.”

  • Beau: “I don’t think WordCamp would allow it… they don’t want to be seen like pushing one specific product.”

  • James: Avoid “muddying” WordCamp’s independence and purpose.

💡 Again, those are fair points from Beau and James, but for me, this further underscores the need for WooCommerce to resume hosting dedicated events in some form.

3) Who Woo serves and how priorities work: Merchants, Builders, Agencies, and Shoppers

❝

Q (Katie Keith, quoting the presubmitted question and my follow-up):
Woo serves “merchants, product builders, and agencies” - are goals aligned, and how are they prioritised?

My follow-up question in Issue 191 based on Matt’s interview as two-fold:

1) What are the goals for each segment?

2) How are those goals being achieved?

Both Beau and James tackled this one, and key points from their answers are as follows. 👇

  • Beau doesn’t give numeric goals and says responsibilities are split across sub-organisations that tend to focus on different parts (e.g., Automattic for Agencies, which focuses specifically on agency programs).

  • In Woo's core, priorities are “a mix,” and he adds a fourth stakeholder: shoppers.

  • Beau frames “shoppers” as interdependent: merchants need good shopper experiences, and builders/agencies need customisation to meet merchant needs.

  • James emphasises continuous feedback loops with merchants (including different sizes) plus agencies/devs: “A lot of listening and iterating and improving based on what we hear.”

  • James noted the difficulty of defining “core” when small and large merchants need different things: “A small merchant… doesn’t need the same features that a massive merchant… needs.”

💡 I really appreciated the clarity provided on this, as Matt’s answer was pretty vague, and I highly commend the work that the likes of James and Brian Coords are doing in the WooCommerce community.

Whilst we don’t need numbers, I would love to see a published set of goals and priorities for each of these segments, so that:

  • There is public accountability.

  • The community can identify goals and priorities to see whether we can help achieve them.

All of Woo’s (and Automattic’s) goals and priorities will not be mine or yours, {{first_name|friend}}, but there will be occasions when there is collective responsibility.

That’s it for this week, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Before You Go - Checkout Summit

It’s just over two months to the Checkout Summit, and Early Bird ticket pricing ends on February 15th. Grab your 30% off before it’s gone!

🚨 This is the first dedicated WooCommerce event in years, and there will be no recordings or streams.

If you haven't heard of Checkout Summit or aren’t sure about the cost and the benefits, Rodolfo’s latest video explains everything.

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👋 Until next time,

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