Viptor Says: Celebrating 10 Years of WooCommerce

by Vipe Team in WordPress Society; Published on 04.10.2021

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Hi! Your space friend, Viptor, is here! Cue the music and join me in belting out the “Happy Birthday” song! Sing as loud as possible! Wait, you might be wondering, “Who are we singing “Happy Birthday” to?”. Well, I and our WordPress Agency for Development want to wish the biggest Happy (belated) Birthday to the one and only, the Number 1 eCommerce platform in the world – WooCommerce! Woo-hoo!

Just a week ago, on September 27, WooCommerce celebrated its 10th anniversary. Wow, that’s 10 years full of amazing growth and incredible success! As a WordPress addict myself, I am so proud of everything that WooCommerce has achieved over the span of these 10 years. The eCommerce platform celebrated its birthday with a festive blog post on their site, in which they took a trip down memory lane and recalled the exciting journey they’ve had so far.

Look, I’m a total nerd when it comes to WordPress and WooCommerce. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, since I’m surrounded by professional WordPress developers every single day, here at Vipe Studio. And what do you think we, WordPress nerds, love to geek about? Code – we’re crazy about coding. After all, this is what we do best. And so, for that very reason, I simply can’t help myself, and I want to share with you something that WooCommerce put in their celebrational blog post.

For the love of WordPress website development, and WooCommerce, I present to you the line of code that started it all:

add_action('wp', 'woocommerce_init', 0);

Ah, I get a warm, fuzzy feeling just by looking at this code. With that being said, in today’s article, I will be glancing back at some of the most significant moments from WooCommerce’s history that led them to the stellar position they take today. Read on and celebrate this wonderful 10th anniversary together with our WordPress development agency!

That Time When WooThemes Started Thinking About eCommerce

So the WooCommerce journey began in 2010 when WooThemes started considering the idea of adding eCommerce functionality to their collection of popular themes. Back then, the team explored various ways of achieving this new functionality feature. The WordPress developers from Vipe Studio are very familiar with this kind of process where you go back-and-forth through different ideas, regarding web development.

We were curious to find out that there was even an idea that revolved around making eCommerce functionality available as part of each theme. But then, as things began to take shape it was announced that WooThemes would be hiring two of the developers behind Jigoshop. Their new job? Create a dedicated eCommerce plugin called WooCommerce. And so, the journey that would change the eCommerce industry for the better began.

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WooCommerce Is Finally Born!

Here’s the important date that our WordPress development company wants you to remember – September 27, 2011. This is when an internal team of just four developers launched the very first iteration of the WooCommerce plugin. What a day it must have been! The whole WordPress community absolutely loved the much-anticipated release. What’s more, the word spread quickly, and the news for the creation of WooCommerce was covered by some major publications.

The first version of WooCommerce was named “WooCommerce 1.0”, and it launched with nine extensions and six themes available for use. That included ‘Wootique’ – a free offering that had been specifically developed for the launch. From there, things progressed pretty quickly and, in 2012, WooCommerce started powering WooThemes.com, proving it can play in the big league, thanks to its huge scalability.

Our WordPress Agency for Development looked up what Warren Holmes, the COO of WooCommerce, had to say about the 10th anniversary of the platform. His words did not disappoint. He said it’s pretty hard to believe that 10 years have passed already and that they’ve been having so much fun.

“It’s surreal to see our product literally changing lives”, he said, and he also added that the ecosystem around WooCommerce has enabled the start and growth of thousands of businesses. As the WordPress developers from Vipe Studio can also confirm, there are millions of happy customers who have enjoyed the WooCommerce experience.

Warren Holmes also shared that the development of their team has been phenomenal with so many talented individuals growing not just their careers but their families too. Our WordPress development agency loves this sentiment as we, ourselves, are growing steadily as a company, and we know just how amazing this can feel.

WooCommerce Reaches 5 Million

And so the story continues. 16 months after the launch of WooCommerce, the team celebrated a big milestone by reaching 500,000 downloads. Just 137 days later, there was another occasion to celebrate as they hit 1 million downloads. This really proved the huge interest there was (and still is) for eCommerce in the WordPress space. 1 million downloads also meant that the plugin was of truly stellar quality.

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Then, in 2014, the first WooCommerce event, WooConf, was launched. It was a two-day conference that focused on all things WooCommerce and eCommerce. The event was held in San Francisco with more than 300 attendees. Our WordPress development company really loves the story of how just the night before the first-ever WooCommerce conference started, the platform surpassed the massive 5 million downloads.

The team didn’t know that at the time, but it was at WooConf 2014 that another big thing began taking shape. At that very same conference, the WooThemes co-founders started discussions with Matt Mullenweg. And what do you think they talked about?

That’s right, they discussed a potential acquisition by Automattic. More on that in the next section of this article. Shortly after the conference, WooCommerce launched its first-ever eCommerce-focused official theme in the WordPress Theme Directory. It was called Storefront.

The Automattic Era Begins

In 2015, four years after the launch of WooCommerce, WooThemes was acquired by Automattic. My friends at our WordPress Agency for Development still remember the insight Matt Mullenweg gave into the decision. In a video announcing the acquisition, he said that at a WordCamp a few years ago, someone asked him when they were going to make the creation of an online store as easy as that of a blog.

Everyone in the room applauded loudly. Mullenweg knew very well that there was a demand for better eCommerce functionality but at the time that was something outside the scope of what Automattic could do well. The WooThemes team proved to be the perfect match for Automattic because they shared many similarities.

For example, they too had a passion for open-source technologies and had a strong link to the existing WordPress community. There could not have been a better fit for the Automattic family. The WordPress developers from Vipe Studio actually told me that at the time, this was the largest acquisition Automattic had ever made.

The WooThemes team consisted of 55 members and this was a number big enough to signal the bright future that laid ahead eCommerce and WordPress. The WooThemes brand was retired one year after joining Automattic. This was in favour of a new strategy that focused solely on WooCommerce.

So WooThemes.com began redirecting to WooCommerce.com. As far as the theme development is concerned, it continued to be a part of the business, but it was now under the WooCommerce brand. The second WooConf event was held that same year, in Austin, Texas, and attracted visitors from all around the globe.

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My friends from our WordPress development agency have watched the continuous growth of the WooCommerce team ever since. I was curious to learn how they were able to start developing their own suite of products to further support their merchants. Some of the products you may recognize, include WooCommerce Subscriptions, WooCommerce Shipping, and more recently, WooCommerce Payments.

At the beginning of 2019, WooCommerce launched their mobile app for iOS and Android, giving users the opportunity to manage their business on the go, which was another great feature. And just like that, drop by drop, the pond became an ocean, and today WooCommerce has more than 150 million downloads.

I and the WordPress developers from Vipe Studio believe that the success of WooCommerce is due largely to the commitment of their team, partners, and community of contributors.

As of today, the WooCommerce Marketplace has more than 730 official extensions and themes. WooCommerce has also been translated for 66 different locales, which allows so many people to use it. Our WordPress development company reminds you that one in four stores is powered by WooCommerce. Talk about a success story!

Happy 10th Anniversary, WooCommerce! Here’s to Many More!

So this is it, folks, WooCommerce is now 10 years old! Our WordPress Agency for Development celebrates this occasion wholeheartedly as we are part of the ever-so-growing community of WordPress and we love every bit of it.

I and the WordPress developers from Vipe Studio are avid WordPress and WooCommerce users and we will continue to be part of the platforms’ journeys. We’re absolutely positive that the future holds even more growth and success for our favourite CMS and its fellow eCommerce plugin.

Let’s sing “Happy Birthday” once again and send our best wishes to the whole team behind WooCommerce – you guys rock! Here’s to many more, and we can’t wait to see where the next 10 years take you.

Who knows? 10 years from now, I might be writing a blog post about WooCommerce launching in space. I will surely be able to lend a (space) hand in that endeavour! Bye for now and see you soon! Make sure to regularly stop by the blog of our WordPress development agency to stay updated on everything WordPress-related.