Get Ready Ecomm World, WordPress Just Got More Powerful

I recently returned from Chicago where I was fortunate to attend two events surrounding ecommerce. First, BigCommerce hosted the Ecommerce Growth Summit followed by this year’s Internet Retailers Conference and Exhibition (IRCE). WP Engine works extensively with ecommerce businesses of all sizes and excels at helping them provide unique and impactful ecommerce experiences using WordPress.  

Brent Bellm, CEO of BigCommerce, kicked off the Ecommerce Growth Summit by presenting BigCommerce’s strategy for supporting the WordPress community with their first ever, API-powered, WordPress integration. To find out more about their early access program visit: https://www.bigcommerce.com/wordpress-ecommerce-plugin/

John Hessinger, VP of Demand Generation and Growth Marketing at WP Engine, accompanied digital agency thought leaders from Modern Tribe, 5874, and The Born Group, on a panel to demystify “Headless Commerce”. This is a hot topic, and the panel discussed some of the ways brands are blurring the lines between content and commerce as they combine the known marketing/publishing power of WordPress, the world’s leading open source CMS, with BigCommerce, a robust API forward ecommerce SaaS solution powering the backend.

The next day marked the start of IRCE. It was an excellent show with several thousand attendees and nearly 600 exhibitors buzzing throughout McCormick Place on the south end of downtown Chicago. The exhibit hall was loaded with any and all brands affiliated with the ecommerce world and solutions for businesses of all sizes,  from mom and pop shops to multi-million dollar enterprises. Tools and services were presented in every direction for market analysis: email marketing automation, SEM/SEO, CMS, PPC, PIM, ERP, (what’s a conference without acronyms?) point of sale, shipping and fulfillment and much more.

This was my first time attending the conference, however, WP Engine has been at IRCE for years. Attending events like IRCE is an amazing way to meet customers and hear their stories about how our platform, often integrated with the ecommerce solutions on display at the show, is helping move their businesses forward. Pair that with the opportunity to connect with our amazing tech and agency partners like BigCommerce, Shopify, and American Eagle, and it really is a dynamic (and busy!) couple of days.

As the final day drew to a close, and the last bit of swag was frivolously being handed out, my brain and voice were ready for a rest. It was a privilege to represent WP Engine and the WordPress community at IRCE. The future is certainly bright for our platform to continue its growth into the ecommerce ecosystem.