Simplify Commerce by MasterCard is a massive player in the payments industry and we are proud to work with them to offer secure, reliable payments to WooCommerce stores. They have been a dependable partner for many WooCommerce stores and developers, always ensuring their businesses get paid securely, quickly and with the least amount of fees.

Their versatile payment platform is also continuously increasing its features and ways for businesses to keep track of their growth. Their latest payments Apple Watch app is only one example of how they help business owners keep tab on their business while juggling all their other duties.

This versatility is winning over stores in droves. Already numerous WooCommerce stores and developers are using this integrated gateway to power their payments.

“We believe that no business should be limited because it can’t accept a payment, and every customer should be able to pay how they want to pay. We’ve been helping developers integrate Simplify into some of Woo’s best eCommerce stores,” said Vice President of Technology, Rahul Deshpande.

Some of their merchants include the spicy hot Huy Fong Foods and are featured in their latest round of merchant testimonials on YouTube’s Simplify Commerce channel.

“We are proud of the work we’re doing with Woo, and were excited to connect with our Woo merchants and showcase our new innovations at the conference this year,” Deshpande continued.

Part of their innovations this year include their increased security features, which Siddique Hameed, Technical Evangelist for Simplify Commerce discussed in his presentation during the conference.

“Security is something we’ve always taken seriously and we are continuing to do so,” Hameed said. “Small business merchants shouldn’t think they are immune to card-not-present fraud because they’re too small. That is not the case.”

Hameed made some excellent points during his WooConf presentation. Our top four that we recommend businesses pay attention to are below.

• There’s been a 32% increase in fraudulent transactions from the second half of 2013 to the first half of 2014.
• Businesses have seen a 254% increase in fraud attempts on digital goods in 2015.
• 42% of US merchants who sell online are reporting an increase in card-not-present fraud.
• Simplify Commerce is offering a new security product which is open exclusively to WooCommerce clients for a beta.

Simplify Commerce, which is available for businesses in WooCommerce 2.2 offers its businesses a payment technology that is easy to integrate and enables your customers to accept payments via website, mobile app and in person. Learn more about Simplify Commerce and Woo here.

Thank you!

A huge shout out to MasterCard for their great work in the world of online payments, and for coming aboard and supporting WooConf 2016 as a black belt sponsor.

With more than 179 million active customer accounts, PayPal has created an open and secure global payments ecosystem that people and businesses choose to transact with each other online, in stores and on mobile devices, with peace of mind and ease.

We’re proud to work with them to offer payments on WooCommerce stores across the world and are delighted to have them aboard as black belt sponsors for WooConf next month! Read on to learn more about their offering.

PayPal for WooCommerce

PayPal enables you to securely receive online payments for the products and subscriptions in your WooCommerce store via PayPal, credit card and debit card and is included free in WooCommerce core.

The PayPal Powered by Braintree extension does all the technical work for you so you can help future proof your payments to accept PayPal, credit and debit cards and whatever emerges next. It also includes brilliant features like One TouchTM and recurring billing

Using the “Hosted Fields” approach offered by PayPal enables this extension to easily integrate into your checkout flow without impacting your store’s design. You can connect to PayPal by clicking a button (there are no API keys to cut and paste).

Once connected, there are text fields to customise the text displayed to your customers at checkout.

5 neat things about PayPal

• PayPal is a truly global payments platform available in 203 countries, allowing customers to be paid in more than 26 currencies
• In 2015, 28% of the 4.9 billion payments PayPal processed were on mobile.
• PayPal offers a choice of how your customers pay or get paid online, in stores and on mobile devices
• PayPal processed $10,200 payments each second (Q4 2015)
• Braintree, a PayPal company, had $50B in authorized payment volume last year

Black belt sponsors for WooConf

We’re excited to have Juan Benitez, GM of PayPal braintree joining us at WooConf to share about disruption and the future of eCommerce:

“PayPal and Braintree are uniquely positioned to enable merchants and consumers to connect whenever and wherever, and with the rise of mobile usage this connection is becoming more and more critical. Juan Benitez will touch on how PayPal and Braintree are working to continue to deliver innovative products that bring merchants and consumers together.” – Juan Benitez

Juan Benitez

Some words from our sponsors

“Together, PayPal and Braintree are continuously committed to evolving our open platform to drive the future of commerce forward. This includes partnering with industry leaders like WooCommerce. As its core payments provider, WooCommerce will include some of the best product experiences to its ecosystem that PayPal has to offer.

PayPal powered by Braintree is an all-in-one solution, offering seamless checkout experiences and simple payments processing as well as allowing merchants to accept all major forms of payments including PayPal, to all WooCommerce customers. We are especially excited about our participation WooConf this year as it give us an opportunity to showcase our partnership and technology face-to-face, to both developers and merchants.”

Thank you!

A huge shout out to PayPal Braintree for their great work in the world of online payments, and for coming aboard and supporting WooConf 2016! We look forward to seeing your team there and doing great things for the remainder of this year and beyond.

 

We’re two weeks away from WooConf and couldn’t be more excited that the time is almost here. Here is a day-by-day walk through of the conference to give you an idea of what your days will look like, for the resting state of your soul as you plan, etc.

Tuesday evening

If you get in early on Tuesday, the registration desk will be open from 6-8pm on the 2nd floor of the W hotel, located on 2nd and Lavaca St. We’ll be there ready to greet you, so do pop along.

The WooConf Help Desk, sponsored by Prospress and SkyVerge will be open on Tuesday evening with ninjas on hand to start answering questions and talking shop with you. It will get crowded over the course of the week, so this is a good gap to get some quality one-on-one time!

Get a good night’s rest so you can greet the dawn (and your fellow attendees) bright and early on Wednesday!

Wednesday

If you’re an early riser, you’ll be pleased to know there will be folk ready to greet you for breakfast at 7:30 am, again on the 2nd floor of the W hotel, where you can check-in at registration, grab your badge and get a bite to eat (fresh fruit, cereal, granola, yogurts and pastries).

We will be starting at 9am sharp, allow time to find a good seat for the first keynote from Matt Mullenweg who will be giving us the traditional State of the Woo. Matt will be introduced by Joel Bronkowski, Chief Business Development Officer of WooThemes and Dre Armeda, the MC of WooConf.

The morning sessions will wrap up after we hear from Chris Lema about selling crazy amounts of lipstick, after which we’ll make our way back to the 2nd floor at the W hotel for lunch. You’ll be able to grab a seat outside on the terrace, or take your lunch on a stroll. Sponsors will be setup in the Great Room and social room, and we encourage everyone to take the extended lunch break to network and grill our sponsored partners on how they can help you take your WooCommerce experience to the next level.

At 1:30 in the Great Room at the W, we will have Mark Hagan, eCommerce Development Manager from Heartland Payments, teaching us how to create a checkout experience that converts, followed by Ellen Wixted, from Avalara giving us important tax information every shop owner should know.

At 2pm (both days, in fact) the tracks will split for an hour and a half into developers and store owner topics. On Wednesday the Developer track will be hosted at ACL, while the Store Owner track is hosted in the Great Room at the W hotel. No matter your role with WooCommerce, the talks on both tracks are sure to help improve your eCommerce and WooCommerce experience.

The afternoon breaks will feature a snack bar at the W with sessions resuming again at 3:40pm. Kenn Kelly will kick us off letting us know why WooCommerce doesn’t just have to be a cart and we’ll be ending the day with WooThemes own, Bryce Adams, giving us live demos taking that idea to a whole new level. You won’t want to miss seeing WooCommerce IRL the way Bryce will be demonstrating…

To close day one, we invite you to join us  back at the W hotel 2nd floor for Happy Hour from 5-7pm sponsored by Ordoro. Appetizers and drinks will be served and you can chat the night away with sponsors, ninjas, WooExperts and fellow attendees. There will no doubt be spillover thereafter to some of the excellent local bars Austin has to offer, so stick around for a fun evening.

Thursday

Join us once again for breakfast from 7:30am on the 2nd floor of the W hotel. Like on Wednesday, our sponsors, ninjas and WooExperts will be on hand at the help desk until the morning sessions start at 9am. Juan Benetiz, the General Manager and CTO of Braintree will kick off day two with his outlook on the future of eCommerce. Check out the agenda for more detail on day two’s sessions.

One not to be missed: at 1:45pm during lunch on Thursday at the W in the Great Room, Ashwin Raj, head of Amazon Payments and Amazon Webstore in North America, sharing tips on how to drive conversions by enhancing the customer experience.

At 2pm tracks will split again with store owners at ACL and developers at the W.

Day two will end strong with our excellent closing keynote speaker, Andy Sernovitz, New York Times bestselling author of Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking and avid WooThemes fan and customer. Rumor has it Andy might just be bringing copies of his book to hand out so look sharp during his session.

After Party!

Y’all are invited to join us for the WooConf After Party, sponsored by PayPal and ShipStation and hosted at the Speakeasy, on 412 N Congress Ave.

A taco bar, tasty cocktails and fun games will be ready for you as you continue to network and we wind down to celebrate the close of our second ever conference dedicated to WooCommerce. Woo!

Friday

For those in town on Friday post WooConf, join us for a networking lunch from 12:30-3pm at the ABC Brewery. There are some workshops taking place on Friday at various locations (spaces were limited and are full).

Thank you!

We’re very stoked to host you all this year and look forward to seeing you in just two weeks!

We’re delighted to have many of our key partners aboard to sponsor WooConf this year and of course, are glad to give them a spotlight by way of thanks. Perhaps there are a few things you don’t know about these guys? Dive in.

Black belt

MasterCard

Heard of MasterCard? Of course you have, it’s a household name in global payments and the familiar double dot on many a credit card.

This trusted brand is a massive player in the payments industry worldwide and we are proud to work with them to offer secure, reliable payments on WooCommerce stores with their gateway, Simplify Commerce by MasterCard.

PayPal

With more than 179 million active customer accounts, PayPal has created an open and secure global payments ecosystem that people and businesses choose to securely transact with each other online, in stores and on mobile devices.

We’re proud to work with PayPal to offer payments on WooCommerce stores across the world and are delighted to have them aboard as black belt sponsors for WooConf next month!

Brown belt

ShipStation

ShipStation enables store owners to streamline their self-fulfillment through order management, batch label creation, and dozens of automation features. ShipStation can sync orders not only from WooCommerce, but also popular marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and so many more.

“Our enhanced integration with WooCommerce complements the WooCommerce model by making shipping easy and since we offer flexible, scalable plans as well as a free trial, new users have an easy starting point to get their shipping done” – Robert Gilbreath, ShipStation’s Vice President of Marketing.

Heartland

“Grow online sales, reduce PCI compliance scope with our patent pending technology, and start accepting online payments faster with Heartland’s downloadable payment extension for WooCommerce. Heartland’s solutions are omni-channel and can support your business from online to brick-and-mortar, all while providing best-in-class 24x7x365 US-based customer support. We’re excited to exhibit at WooConf and look forward to meeting the developers and store owners that make up this great community. Stop by our booth to learn more!”

Orange belt

JetPack

Jetpack is a single plugin that gives you the most powerful WordPress.com features, hooking your self-hosted WordPress site to WordPress.com’s infrastructure to take advantage of robust stats, easy social sharing, and a whole lot more.

Avalara

Avalara AvaTax calculates sales tax based on concise, geo-spatial mapping — accurate down to the rooftop level. It works with an extension that plugs into WooCommerce, so your buyers get an accurate calculation automatically on every shopping cart checkout. To find out more about AvaTax contact us today about scheduling a live demonstration.

We’re looking forward to hearing from Greg Chapman, Vice President of Business Development at Avalara about How faster ecommerce deliveries trigger new tax requirements.

MailChimp

Join more than 10 million people who use MailChimp to design and send 600 million emails every day. MailChimp’s features and integrations allow you to easily send marketing emails, automated messages, and targeted campaigns. And our detailed reports help you keep improving over time.

SiteGround

No matter if you are just starting your new WooCommerce store or you want to transfer an existing project, you will enjoy a smooth and easy initial setup. With SiteGround you will get lightning speed, awesome WP tools, strong security and support you will love!

Pay with Amazon

Pay with Amazon enables millions of Amazon buyers to purchase from your WooCommerce store by using the payment and shipping information already stored in their Amazon accounts.

Yellow belt

White belt

Thank you all, and see you at WooConf 🙂

We don’t have the data to back it up, but we’d venture to say that Austin might have the largest number of amazing coffee shops per capita of any city in the US. For freelancers, remote workers and conference goers looking to get some work done, these gems provide reliable Internet and powerful caffeinated fuel.

With that in mind, we compiled a list of some favorites from around the WooConf venue to help you stay productive while visiting this fair city.

By Proximity (5 min walk max)

Best view: Altas

Tucked away from the busy streets of downtown Austin and overlooking the beautiful Lady Bird Lake, Altas offers a peaceful atmosphere unlike anywhere else.

#ootd office of the day #datafreeaustin

A photo posted by Clayton Stout (@cfstout) on Mar 16, 2016 at 9:26am PDT

Altas boasts delicious food and coffee, plus an unbeatable deck and a quieter atmosphere, and it’s a bit off the beaten path.

Austin-est:

Jo’s Coffee
Jo’s Coffee on South Congress is an Austin stable – particularly the iconic ‘I love you so much mural.’

@rocco_roni knows where the free dog treats are in Austin. Come back soon! #josdogs #joscoffee #iloveyousomuch

A photo posted by Jo's Coffee (@joscoffee) on Jan 28, 2016 at 4:44pm PST

Their downtown location serves a full breakfast, lunch and dinner, they’re very dog friendly (as seen above) and are just a short walk from the W. But be warned: this place gets busy, so plan ahead, and avoid it if you prefer true quiet.

Closest & most-food-filled:

Austin Java

If you’re hungry and don’t want to wander, Austin Java is a great go-to. The City Hall location is right across the street from the W, making this the closest coffee shop, and most likely to be overrun with WooConfers.

Austin Java also has a full kitchen and serves all manners of delicious goodies:

What a beautiful view from the Austin Java patio! #wishyouwerehere?

A photo posted by Austin Java (@austinjava) on Feb 27, 2016 at 7:08am PST

Since it’s located in City Hall, Austin Java tends to be populated by city staffers, so watch out for a rush right around 8 a.m. and on Thursdays, when City Council is in session.

Still close but farther afield (15-20 minute walk)

Quiet and reliable: Hideout

Part coffee shop, part theater, the Hideout is spacious, calm and quiet, at least compared to any other option in the downtown area.

While slightly noisy at times (it’s still a coffeeshop in downtown Austin), the reliable internet and comfy seating options make it the perfect place to get lost in work, away from the hustle and bustle of WooConf.

It’s also a great place tocatch some improv or get a beer after the work day is done.

Delicious pastries: Easy Tiger

For the most delicious of noms, head over to Easy Tiger, the fantastic bakery nestled in the middle of the city. The intoxicating aroma of fresh-baked bread will hit you as soon as you walk in the door, but it doesn’t stop there: there’s also pastries. Oh, are there pastries.

All for this idea! #croissantfriday Repost @mal_beck with @repostapp. ・・・ Every Friday should be croissant Friday. #techspaceATX

A photo posted by Easy Tiger (@easytigeratx) on Feb 19, 2016 at 9:48am PST

Easy Tiger was named the best bar in Texas by Business Insider and has ping pong. What more could you want?

Austin-tastic: Cenote

On the other side of I-35 in East Austin, Cenote is a spacious spot with lots of seating inside and out. Depending on the time of year, you can sometimes see exactly what we mean by Keeping Austin Weird right at Cenote.

Sam the 6th street cowboy AKA Samta Claus will be at Cenote this Saturday. Skip the mall an get your Santa photo East side style! 2pm – 5pm

A photo posted by Cenote (@cenoteaustin) on Dec 16, 2015 at 11:18am PST

Cenote also has a full kitchen filled with delicious goodies, lots of outlets to plug in your computer and seriously delicious coffee.

Not for the faint of heart (20 min walk + CATS)

This one is not for those too picky about keeping their keyboards cat-hair-free: Austin has its very own cat cafe. If you’ve got a soft spot for tiny furry friends, enjoy whimsy or just want an excuse to stop working when a cat inevitably sits on your laptop, this is the place for you.

Catisfaction guaranteed! #sxsw2016 #bluecatcafe #sxsw

A photo posted by Blue Cat Cafe (@thebluecatcafe_austin) on Mar 16, 2016 at 5:25pm PDT

Blue Cat Cafe serves vegan food and coffee via a food trailer in their front yard.

Be careful though: many of the cats are up for adoption, so you may go home with more team members than you started with.

Want more options? Search for yourself and let us know if you spot anything that looks promising.