Horrible Experience (Most expensive FREE plugin!)

  • This plugin has cost me so much time, money and nerve, I am struggling to find the right words to explain my situation without getting banned from the forums forever.

    I regret building my client’s ecommerce business on WooCommerce so badly, for so many reasons. I am looking to rebuild EVERYTHING free of charge on a proper shop platform, because I’m actually ashamed for recommending WooCommerce. As it turns out, a really dumb mistake!

    1. Hosting
    Try and find a hosting company that runs it well, good luck. WP and Woo with a number of plugins running add a MASSIVE load to the server, easily 10-20 times that of a regular WP site. You’ll be needing a 4x CPU server with at least 8GB of RAM if you want to live through your first sale like this. Dedicated resources that are. I haven’t been able to find proper hosting below $200/month and in fact, I am still not HAPPY.

    2. Pricing
    Despite being free, you’re looking at about $750-1500 in additional purchases easily just to get basic functionality in the REAL WORLD. The list keeps growing..

    3. Support
    At the end of the day, it’s free sh!t. They care about selling their extensions and earning their completely unbiased hosting recommendation affiliate’s commission on their website so that’s where their manpower is.

    I have to say I’m completely puzzled about why WooCommerce is so popular. To me it only borrows from its big brother’s image and just doesn’t ever really deliver.

    To me, WOOCOMMERCE IS A TRAP.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Thread Starter SVTX

    (@svtx)

    This is a perfect example:

    So every sh!tty self coded cart plugin has PDF invoices because they are so damn basic. Not with WooCoomerce. But they offer plugins for that… wait.. what the actual F is this??

    https://woocommerce.com/products/pdf-invoices/
    https://woocommerce.com/products/print-invoices-packing-lists/
    https://woocommerce.com/products/sequential-order-numbers-pro/

    THREE plugins for $129.80 a year just to be able to generate, email and print a freaking PDF file!?

    Shame on you, folks. Shame on you.

    I recommend buying WooCommerce extensions at Codecanyon (they are one time purchases only!)

    • This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by SVTX.

    Hi SVTX,

    Thank you for your feedback. I’m sorry to hear you’ve not had a positive experience with WooCommerce. I’m happy to help, and see if I can clarify a few points to assist.

    1. Hosting

    There are many hosting companies who are able to run WordPress and WooCommerce out of the box. WooCommerce.com itself runs WordPress, WooCommerce, and several extensions, and runs smoothly on hosting which is available to anyone to purchase.

    Running through https://woocommerce.com/start/ presents a selection of hosting options as part of the setup flow.

    2. Pricing

    It’s important to note here that the WooCommerce ecosystem caters to all budgets, with multiple marketplaces offering extensions for WooCommerce core, at varying prices. That said, it’s also important to note that your store is a place where money is sent and received, and is generating money for a business, so why not spend appropriately on the best possible tools for the task? Costs of extensions can be recouped over time, as this is for an income-generator.

    We are regularly reviewing pricing, and will definitely take your feedback into account.

    3. Support

    I don’t see any direct mention of your support experience in this point. Our happiness team are available 24/5 to discuss any and all WooCommerce questions, be it pre-sales or extension bug reports/feedback. I’d encourage you to continue to use our happiness team’s service, even if you haven’t yet already.

    4. Multiple extensions and pricing

    On your list of three extensions, “PDF Invoices” is the only extension there which is actually required in order to generate, email, and print invoices. Sequential Invoices is an adjustment to how invoice numbers are generated, and doesn’t impact the printing itself. Print Invoices and Packing Lists is designed for fulfillment of the orders.

    I hope this helps to clarify a few points above. If there are any questions we can assist further with, please do let us know, and log a ticket in our accounts/pre-sales queue marked “For Attention: Matty”.

    Thanks and regards,
    Matty.

    Thread Starter SVTX

    (@svtx)

    Hi Matt,

    I appreciate you take the time to elaborate, thank you for that. Please mind I’m currently deeply frustrated by Automattic’s way of cunduct so I may come across as being rude or pretentious, which I assure you I don’t mean to be at all.

    I agree with you on the fact that WooCommerce is built for businesses and as such they should have to pay for their infrastructure, yes.

    HOWEVER

    I’m guessing a very large percentage of Woo users are tiny to medium sized businesses at best and if I (just an example now) took only the extensions I needed most, I would be paying over one THOUSAND dollars a year just in RECURRING license fees. And those are only the plugins you make.

    That is delusional is what it is.

    WooCommerce borrows a lot of trust from WordPress but it cuts people’s throat and bleeds them dry as they follow it into its deep dark layers. This isn’t a free plugin at all. It’s an open source demo of a very expensive modular product advertised as a free and complete solution, which frankly it is still not.

    There’s no middle ground here and it’s very frustrating. Ultimately people would trust your plugins more than 3rd party ones but you make it too hard to justify them for the vast majority of your users.

    I would like to see you consider a membership plan that includes at least the most basic PRO extensions at an actually affordable price. It puzzles me this doesn’t exist already. You have one poor bundle for Subscriptions that’s comprized of an odd selection of plugins and way too many themes but there’s no choice for different kinds of businesses at all. None. (WHY?)

    Sure, ultimately you’re not responsible for all that because you’re ‘only offering a free plugin’ but I also see you don’t seem to GAF and I am pointing out the fact that this gets recognized on the outside here.

    This all could go SO much better for everyone involved if a little more consideration for your actual users was involved.

    Thank you for taking the time to take my notes on this, I’ve been wanting to get this off my chest for a long time.

    Kind regards,
    SVTX

    • This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by SVTX.
Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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