WordPress/WooCommerce in the Azure cloud platform and publishing your first product

WordPress as a CMS and WooCommerce as it most popular e-commerce/e-shop plugin. Create your e-shop in the Microsoft Azure cloud platform and publish your first product. Presented at the Found.ation/Micosoft event http://thefoundation.gr/events/workshop-create-successful-eshop/.

Transcript

1. WordPress/WooCommerce
   in the Azure cloud platform
   and publishing your first product
   Takis Bouyouris
   Antonis Zachopoulos
   Web Developers @ Nevma
   "Workshop: Creating a successfull e-shop"
   Found.ation, The Hub Events – Sat. 21/02/2015
   

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2. 21/02/2015 ­ WordPress/WooCommerce ­ Found.ation ­ Hub Events ­ Takis, Antonis, Nevma
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   Nice to meet you
   ●
   Nevma (http://www.nevma.gr)
   ●
   Web design & web development agency
   ●
   Based in Athens, since 2010
   ●
   Specialises in WordPress development, since 2007
   ●
   Also we
   ●
   (try to) keep the WordPress Greek Community active
   ●
   organise the WordPress meetup in Athens
   ●
   Many thanks to Found.ation and Microsoft for the invitation
   

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   Contents
   ●
   Introduction
   ●
   Hosting
   ●
   Workshop – WooCommerce hands on
   ●
   Conclusions
   ●
   Questions
   

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   Introduction
   WordPress, WooCommerce.
   

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   WordPress
   ●
   A blog engine
   ●
   A Content Management System
   ●
   A web application platform
   ●
   A mobile application platform
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   WordPress usage
   ●
   Over 70million total installations
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   Powers roughly 20% of CMS enabled web sites today
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   That's popular!
   

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   WordPress ecommerce plugins
   ●
   WooCommerce (6,309,850 downloads)
   ●
   WP Ecommerce (3,005,196 downloads)
   ●
   Jigoshop (432,620 downloads)
   ●
   Cart66 Lite (166,809 downloads)
   ●
   MarketPress (WPMuDev) (148,706 downloads)
   ●
   iThemes Exchange (60,099 downloads)
   ●
   Eshop (cart) (601,667 downloads)
   ●
   Easy Digital Downloads (533,758 downloads)
   

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   WooCommerce
   ●
   WooThemes (the company)
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   The most popular (for sure)
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   The most complete (most probably)
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   The most promising (cross your fingers)
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   WordPress beauty
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   WordPress data structures
   

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   WooCommerce features
   ●
   Product inventory
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   Product categories
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   Product attributes
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   Grouped products, Variable products
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   Orders, reports
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   User accounts, user management
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   Coupons
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   Product reviews
   

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   WooCommerce features
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   Stock management
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   Guest checkout
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   Import products
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   Export products
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   Payment options
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   Shipment options
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   VAT management
   

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    WooCommerce themes
    ●
    WooThemesThemeforest
    http://themeforest.net/
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    CSSIgniter
    http://www.cssigniter.com/
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    MojoThemes
    http://www.mojo-themes.com/
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    TemplateMonster
    http://www.templatemonster.com/
    

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    WooCommerce popular plugins
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    Table rate shipping
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    CSV import suite
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    WebIT greek payment gateways
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    WooCommerce multilingual
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    WooCommerce Product Add-on
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    WooCommerce Subscribe to Newsletter
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    WooCommerce Add Charges To Payment Gateway
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    WooCommerce Facebook Tab
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    WooCommerce Product Bundles
    

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    Common issues
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    Multi-language catalogue, not a solved problem
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    Big catalogue, big load times
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    What is big: 4-5K products and up
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    Lots of categories/taxonomies/filters
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    CDN/Caching with a cart
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    ERP communication (especially in Greece)
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    Wholesale/Retail with different VAT levels
    

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    Hosting
    The constant debate!
    

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    Hosting traditionally
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    Shared hosting
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    VPS, VM
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    Dedicated server
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    You need a sys admin
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    You defend yourself against hackers
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    You take your own backups
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    So, at best you have a reliable server and a reliable sys
    admin who does not do much sleeping every day
    

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    The managed hosting promise
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    The grid, the cloud
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    The rise of managed hosting
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    Mind only about your CMS
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    The rest is... “managed”
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    Resources
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    Scaling, speed
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    Security
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    Backups, rollbacks
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    Maybe it's a holy grail, time will tell
    

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    Azure, Micrososft's take
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    Azure is Microsoft's cloud service
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    A few clicks and you get
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    Websites
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    A WordPress
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    A Joomla!
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    A Drupal
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    Virtual machines
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    Servers
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    Databases
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    Backups
    

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    Workshop
    let's do it already!
    

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    The traditional way
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    Cpanel/Plesk/whatever >
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    Databases >
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    Create database &
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    Create database user &
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    Connect database to user;
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    File Manager/FTP/whatever >
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    Download WordPress &
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    Upload its files &
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    Install WordPress &
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    Install WooCommerce;
    

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    The managed hosting way
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    Things can go wrong with the previous process
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    OK, there are some tools to automate it, like WP-CLI
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    But they are mostly for power users
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    Watchout
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    Your hosting is managed
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    Your WordPress is not
    

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    Azure
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    Azure dashboard
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    Create website (wizard)
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    Developer tools
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    FTP access
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    Database access
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    You can manage your own resources
    (CPU, RAM, disk, scale)
    

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    Settings
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    WordPress files and database ready
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    Complete WordPress installation
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    WooCommerce installation
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    WooCommerce theme installation
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    Important settings
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    Permalinks
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    Basic WooCommerce pages (cart, user account, etc)
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    Taxes
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    Payments
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    Shipping
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    Inventory
    

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    Inventory
    ●
    Product categories
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    Product attributes
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    Add a product
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    Simple product
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    Variable product
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    Grouped product
    

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    Conclusions
    WooCommerce can be your friend.
    

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    Conclusions (-)
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    Some plugins are necessary
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    Updates break things
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    Need for good support
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    You will write some code
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    Or depend on someone you trust to write it for you
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    Scale with caution
    

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    Conclusions (+)
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    It works!
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    A complete system
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    Lots of plugins
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    Vibrant community
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    WordPress based
    

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    Questions
    are we still in the Eurozone?
    

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    WordPress Greek Community
    ●
    Join us
    ●
    Facebook:
    https://facebook.com/groups/WordPressGreekCommunity
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    Twitter: https://twitter.com/wordpressgrcomm
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    Website: http://www.wpgc.gr
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    Meetup coming up shortly
    

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    Thanks for listening
    Takis bouyouris
    takis@nevma.gr
    https://www.facebook.com/takis.bouyouris
    https://www.linkedin.com/in/takisbouyouris
    Antonis Zachopoulos
    antonis@nevma.gr
    https://www.facebook.com/azachop
    http://gr.linkedin.com/in/zachop
    Nevma
    http://www.nevma.gr
    

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29. WordPress/Woocommerce
    in the Azure cloud platform
    and publishing your first product
    Takis Bouyouris
    Antonis Zachopoulos
    Web Developers @ Nevma
    "Workshop: Creating a successfull e-shop"
    Found.ation, The Hub Events – Sat. 21/02/2015
    ●
    

    View Slide