This was my presentation at WordCamp Brisbane 2015. In this presentation I show how you can create a membership site using WooTheme’s WooCommerce plugin. Although there are a number of membership specific plugins around, WooCommerce brings with it a number of benefits. First and foremost, WooCommerce is a trusted and well supported plugin, which is easy to setup and use. It’s currently estimated to be powering approximately 28% of all eCommerce sites. Other benefits include the number of available extensions, and in particular, payment gateways, which are ideally suited for membership sites. On top of that, if you want to sell products to your members, you automatically have the ability to do so, nice and easily. I outline the benefits of using WooCommerce, over dedicated membership plugins and also discuss which plugins (along with WooCommerce) would be required and how to go about setting them up.

1. Anthony Hortin
@maddisondesigns
Building a
Membership Site
with WooCommerce

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What’s available

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What’s available

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Things to Consider
Ease of setup/use

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Prorated charges

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Content dripping

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eCommerce Support

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Upsells/Downsells

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Support

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Receiving Payments
9/10 support PayPal* 3/10 support eWay*All support Stripe*
*Out of the 10 previously mentioned membership plugins

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Receiving Payments
Only 1 out 10 supports all 4 major Australian Banks*
(and PayPal, Stripe, eWay and many others)
*Out of the 10 previously mentioned membership plugins

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Benefits of WooCommerce
Most popular eCommerce plugin (powers 24% of all eComm sites*)
*http://trends.builtwith.com/shop

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Fully security audited by leading WP security firm Sucuri

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Extensive range of add-ons

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15+ different Australian Payment Gateway add-ons

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Extensive range of reports

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Ability to sell products easily (digital, physical, affiliated etc.)

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No need for separate membership & shop logins

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Easy to setup and use

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What you’ll need
WooCommerce (free)
Groups plugin (free)
Groups for WooCommerce (paid)
WooCommerce Subscriptions (paid)
Stripe or some other Payment Gateway plugin (paid)

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Getting Started
Install and activate all your plugins

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After Activating WooCommerce, install the WooCommerce Pages
Getting Started

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Install & activate the free WooThemes Helper plugin for updates
Getting Started

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Configure Base Location & Currency
WooCommerce > Settings > General
WooCommerce Setup

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Turn off Shipping Calculations as we’re dealing with digital products
WooCommerce > Settings > Shipping
WooCommerce Setup

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Turn off Enable guest checkout
Enable Force secure checkout (ie. SSL) if required
WooCommerce > Settings > Checkout > Checkout Options
WooCommerce Setup

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Enable our Payment Gateway (eg. Stripe)
Add API Keys if required
WooCommerce > Settings > Checkout > Stripe
WooCommerce Setup

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If your payment gateway doesn’t support subscriptions, you may
want to enable the option to Accept Manual Renewals
WooCommerce > Settings > Subscriptions
WooCommerce Setup

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Groups
Groups is an efficient and powerful
solution, providing group-based
user membership management,
group-based capabilities and
content access control
“

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Add a new Group by entering a name in the Access restrictions
Quick-Create field then Save or Update your page
Adding Membership Groups

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Assign an existing Group by typing & selecting a name in the
Access restrictions Enforce read access field
Adding Membership Groups

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WooCommerce
Subscriptions
WC Subscriptions makes it easy to
create and manage products with
recurring payments
“

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Groups for
WooCommerce
Groups for WooCommerce is a
WordPress plugin that allows you
to sell memberships
“

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Creating a subscription is just like creating a regular product
Products > Add Product
Creating Subscriptions

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Make the product a Simple Subscription and Virtual
Set your Subscription Price per Day/Week/Month/Year
Set how long the subscription should last
Creating Subscriptions

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Add the Groups your customer will become a member of
Creating Subscriptions

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Our Subscription Products

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Our Subscriptions
View all your subscriptions in the Dashboard
WooCommerce > Subscriptions

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Our Product Orders
View all your orders in the Dashboard
WooCommerce > Orders

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WooCommerce
http://woocommerce.com
WooCommerce extensions
http://www.woothemes.com/product-category/woocommerce-extensions
Subscription Payment Methods & Gateways
http://docs.woothemes.com/document/subscriptions/payment-gateways
Groups
https://wordpress.org/plugins/groups
Groups for WooCommerce
http://www.woothemes.com/products/groups-woocommerce
WooCommerce Subscriptions
http://www.woothemes.com/products/woocommerce-subscriptions
Links to remember

41. I’m Anthony Hortin
You can find me here
@maddisondesigns
maddisondesigns.com
@easywpguide
easywpguide.com
Thanks!
Questions?