Matt Mullenweg, the WordPress co-founder and Automattic CEO, has been embroiled in a very public and legal fight with WP Engine these last few weeks over the use of WordPress as a trademark and fees Automattic believes WP Engine owes to the WordPress project — sparring that has resulted in WP Engine issuing legal demands of its own.

But Automattic’s position on the matter did not materialize overnight. 

According to an internal blog post a source shared with TechCrunch, Automattic was crafting a plan to get significantly stricter about trademark enforcement across WordPress and its e-commerce platform WooCommerce since at least the beginning of the year. Separate sources have confirmed the authenticity of the post.

The message — penned by Automattic’s then-chief legal officer Paul Sieminski in January 2024 on the company’s “P2” (a version of WordPress aimed at internal communications) — outlined a plan for how Automattic would approach this strategy, through direct negotiations with companies and via legal action from “nice and not nice lawyers and trademark enforcers.” And Automattic potentially would register further trademarks going forward.

“We will be using a multi-pronged strategy that will involve some additional trademark registrations … legal cease-and-desist letters, and a formal paid licensing program for the partners,” Sieminski noted. (He left the company in April 2024.)

This is effectively what has played out. 

In July, the WordPress Foundation filed trademark applications for both “Managed WordPress” and “Hosted WordPress,” which are pending in status. And Automattic issued a cease-and-desist letter to WP Engine at the end of last month. Neither Automattic nor the WordPress Foundation has yet to publish any further guidance, however, on fair use. 

The WordPress Foundation, a nonprofit, has owned the trademark for WordPress since 2010, when Mullenweg founded Automattic as a commercial entity to sit on top of the open source framework. 

Mullenweg’s reasoning for transferring that trademark to the foundation was that, even if there were a changing of the guard at Automattic, the trademark would remain safe with the foundation and the open source project could live on. 

Automattic holds the exclusive commercial license for WordPress, and its recent actions signal a major shift in how it’s positioning itself as a guardian. 

In addition to giving some context to Automattic’s recent legal actions, the internal blog post also underscores how tension has escalated in the WordPress ecosystem, where the collaborative aspects of open source projects have had to be balanced against business interests. 

Many contributors and developers have pointed out how this fight could negatively impact the WordPress community. That would be a change from past form since Automattic previously appeared to have a less adversarial relationship with prominent players in the ecosystem. It had even been an investor in WP Engine to spur more ecosystem activity. It was bought out, we have learned and confirmed, when Silverlake took a controlling stake in WP Engine in 2018.

The internal post — which only refers to Automattic, no mention of WP Engine or other companies building on the WordPress framework — is primarily focused on the “WordPress” trademark, including its circular logo. Sieminski emphasized Automattic is the only company allowed to use these in its name and branding.

He also clarified Automattic’s role around WordPress.org. The initiative “doesn’t involve creating or explaining any new rules” beyond its trademark policy, he writes.

Google also makes an appearance in the post — primarily as a vehicle for enabling abuse of the trademark.

“A brief perusal of Google Ads and hosting company landing pages will turn up a lot of ‘Managed WordPress,’ or companies that offer ‘WordPress Hosting.’” he wrote. “Is this OK? Can we clamp down on these things? The answers are … no, and yes.”

Automattic, he wrote, would seek to work with Google to keep it from amplifying companies and links that misused the branding. “Overall, they can help but we cannot rely on them 100%,” he added.

The post covers trademarks related to WooCommerce, Automattic’s Shopify competitor that it acquired in 2015. WooCommerce is 100% owned by Automattic, and Automattic is following the same enforcement strategy for it and its “Woo” branding. Enforcement, the counsel wrote in the internal blog post, “will probably be easier and cleaner because it’s less of a community asset.” (WooCommerce itself is also open source.)

There are some murky areas in the dispute that Automattic has with WP Engine and WordPress trademark enforcement. One of these concerns the trademarks that were filed in July 2024. In a conversation with TechCrunch last month, Mullenweg claimed he didn’t know who filed these on behalf of the Foundation, or why. He said that he doesn’t know about day-to-day operations of the Foundation and volunteers are the ones who handle it. 

The Foundation has three directors, including Mullenweg. The others are Mark Ghosh, who sold his website, a popular WordPress blog, to Mullenweg in 2014, and Chele Farley, a former Republican politician whose campaign Mullenweg lent money to. Both of them have been almost invisible from Foundation activities or speaking about the WordPress ecosystem.

For now, the focus of the dispute has been between Mullenweg and WP Engine. “If there are violations of the trademark, of course, we need to enforce our trademark. I’m not aware of any others that are as egregious or as harmful as WP Engine,” Mullenweg told TechCrunch in late September.

We reached out to Automattic for comment for this story and Mullenweg replied directly. He did not give a direct answer to the question of whether the dispute with WP Engine was a one-off or setting a precedent for further action. 

“We do trademark enforcement all the time! It’s part of protecting the trademark,” he wrote. “Usually it’s pretty minor, and a UDRP or email takes care of it. However, WP Engine’s misuse of the WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks was so intrinsic to their business it required a more substantive deal, which I honestly thought was going to happen (it makes sense, from a business point of view) prior to [the September WordPress conference] WordCamp, which is why we allowed them to sponsor [the U.S. event].”

He added that the company was “upgrading a lot of our legal team right now.”

You can contact this reporter at [email protected] or on Signal: @ivan.42

With over 5 billion internet users worldwide, businesses are now tapping into E-commerce to expand market reach, which was inaccessible through traditional brick-and-mortar stores. However, success doesn’t end with merely establishing an E-commerce website. 

Tools are needed to do well in this competitive market. One tool is the Content Management System (CMS), which provides the framework and functionality needed for businesses to create, optimize and manage their online stores. 

WordPress dominates the CMS market, and surely using it will help in your business success. However, it takes the right and proven strategies to boost your online store, and this article is here for that. 

Why Choose WordPress for an E-commerce Website?

In the early days of WordPress, they were used primarily for blogging, but they have been adding more features and plugin libraries. Now, 43.5% of all websites are using WordPress, which shows its influence in content creation and digital management worldwide. 

Source

Among other CMS platforms, WordPress dominates the market – holding 62.6% shares. This highlights the benefits WordPress offers to its users.

• Flexibility and Customization

WordPress offers customization options through its library of themes and plugins. The open-source nature of WordPress allows deep customization, where businesses can create features and functionalities tailored to their branding.

WordPress, being an open-source software, is free to use. Though there are premium themes and plugins that can be bought, they are more affordable than other e-commerce platforms when it comes to subscription fees. 

Google now uses mobile versions of a site’s content, which makes mobile-friendly websites important. WordPress themes are mobile-responsive, making online stores seamless across all devices. Also, this design will allow businesses to cater for users who prefer smartphones and tablets when shopping.  

WordPress comes with search engine optimization (SEO), where businesses can improve the visibility of their stores in search engine results. You can customize links, meta tags, and mobile responsiveness to enhance the website’s SEO performance.

As the leading CMS platform, you’ll have access to an active and vast community of developers, designers and users who can provide resources, including tutorials, documentation, forums, and professional support.

Setting up Your WordPress E-commerce Store

Businesses should establish a WordPress-based E-commerce store — from choosing a hosting provider to selecting themes and plugins — to set up their online business for success.

1. Choose the Right Hosting Provider

Cyberattacks are increasing due to reliance on IT systems, and e-commerce is their prime target because they handle and store sensitive information – from customers’ names, payment card data, and addresses to birthdates. This is why choosing the right hosting provider is important for security and speed. 

A good host helps make sure that your website has fast loading times to retain customers and improve conversion rates, as a slow website negatively impacts sales because of high bounce rates. Choose a hosting provider that provides security features, such as SSL certificates, firewalls, and regular backups that protect your data.

2. Install and Configure E-commerce Plugins

After choosing the hosting provider, install the e-commerce plugins needed for the functionality of your website. Select a responsive, fast-loading customizable theme that is mobile-friendly, such as Storefront, Shopkeeper and Astra, as they are known for ease of customization and speed – a significant portion of online shopping on mobile devices.

3. Select a Suitable E-commerce Theme

A theme will make a store appealing to the users, reflecting its brand. You can use WooCommerce, a leading WordPress plugin. With it, you can set up product pages, manage inventory, handle payments, and customize aspects of your stores.

Other plugins are also plugins available for your needs, such as:

• Easy Digital Downloads – selling digital products
• WP eCommerce – more traditional e-commerce experience
• Ecwid – integrating store with social media platforms

Optimizing Your WordPress Store for Conversions

After setting up your WordPress E-commerce store, you need to optimize it for conversions, as one of any other business’s goals is to enhance UX and increase sales conversions. Strategies for optimization include:

Craft a Seamless User Experience (UX)

Site structure and navigation play a role in creating a seamless user experience (UX), affecting how customers interact with your website. Key points in improving these are having simple navigation, effective product pages and a streamlined checkout process.

• Simple Navigation: Ensure that your website is intuitive. Organize your menu and make essential information accessible. Your structure should also let users find what they need easily with just a few clicks.
• Effective Product Pages: Product pages should be visually appealing and informative by incorporating high-quality images, detailed descriptions, pricing, and customer reviews, helping customers make decisions.
• Streamlined Checkout Process: Customers won’t complete the checkout process if it takes too long, so simplify it by minimizing the number of steps and using autofill options on forms and multiple payment methods for convenience.

Utilize Effective Call-to-Actions

Call-to-actions are buttons on your site, telling customers the action to take and driving sales to the e-commerce site. Make your CTAs stand out using contrasting colors and clear action-oriented text, which encourages users to take action. For example, “Add to Cart”, “Get Started”, or “Buy Now”.

You may also experiment with different formats and placements using A/B testing to determine which version yields the highest conversion rates based on real user data.

Implement Trust Signals and Security Measures

Building trust with potential customers through trust signals and security measures helps increase conversions to your e-commerce store, as customers will feel confident in their purchasing decisions.

• Make sure that your website has SSL certification for secure connections of transactions. You may also reassure customers about their safety during shopping by displaying security badges and trust seals.
• Positive feedback can influence potential buyers’ decisions as it establishes the trust and credibility of your brand, so encourage customers to leave reviews.
• Consider money-back guarantees, easy return policies, and transparent shipping information to alleviate concerns about purchasing from an online store.

Ensuring Optimal Store Performance

A well-performing website not only enhances customer satisfaction but also encourages repeat visits, increasing conversions and sales. Maintaining high performance for your WordPress e-commerce store provides a positive user experience and favorable search engine rankings.

Regular Site Maintenance and Updates

Regular updates and maintenance help protect your site from vulnerabilities and improve performance. Neglecting these can slow loading times, broken features and security risks.

You can use tools (Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, or Pingdom) to monitor site performance, as they provide insights into loading speeds, help identify any issues affecting user experience, and suggest improvements.

Managing and Securing Customer Data

As customers trust you with sensitive information, you should maintain high standards of data protection that not only comply with regulations but also build customer confidence.

• Comply with regulations by being transparent about data collection and usage practices.
• Regularly back up your website to safeguard against data loss that may potentially be due to hacking or technical failures.
• Schedule backups based on update frequency–daily for active sites or weekly for less frequently updated ones.

Scaling Your WordPress E-commerce Store

As your business grows, scaling your WordPress e-commerce store becomes essential to meet increasing demand and ensure a seamless shopping experience for customers.

Expand Product Lines and Categories

Expanding your offerings is a natural way to scale your e-commerce store. You can identify market trends and opportunities and manage inventory efficiently to meet customer demand.

• Identify market trends and opportunities: Conduct regular market research, analyze customer feedback and observe competitors to stay attuned to market trends. You can use Google Trends and social media analytics to spot emerging opportunities for your brand.
• Managing inventory: Tracking your inventory can help you streamline operations and prevent stockouts or overstock situations. Inventory management tools like TradeGecko or Zoho can help you track stock levels, manage orders, and forecast demands.

Enhance Site Performance for High-traffic

As your business grows, your e-commerce store visitors will also increase. Optimizing images, minimizing HTTP requests, and leveraging caching help handle this high traffic and maintain optimal performance. Your site should be able to handle spikes in traffic without compromising user experience.

A Content Delivery Network allows users to access data from the nearest location, which reduces latency. Additionally, a clean database helps improve site speed to cater to higher traffic. Consider removing unnecessary data such as spam comments, post revisions, and unused plugins.

Integrate Third-Party Platforms and Services

Integrating third-party platforms improves your site’s functionality and user experience.

• Select payment gateways that offer flexibility and security.
• Make sure that shipping options are easy to configure.
• Provide real-time tracking information.

CRM can also help track customer interactions, manage leads, and automate marketing efforts. This allows businesses to tailor communications based on customer behavior and maintain customer relationships effectively.

Case Studies: Successful E-commerce Sites Built with WordPress

Lugz is a footwear brand that rebuilds its website using WordPress and WooCommerce to maximize performance, efficiency and conversions. With these, they were able to streamline enterprise resource planning integration and minimize time to create data structure and import product data.

French Today helps you speak French in actual conversions. This successful e-commerce website is powered by WordPress and WooCommerce sold over 20 recorded audiobooks with a vast collection of blog posts on language and culture in France.

Final Thoughts: WordPress Is a Go-to CMS for E-commerce

WordPress offers e-commerce businesses opportunities to build, optimize, and scale online stores successfully. With the right strategies, it can be a go-to CMS for e-commerce ventures looking to thrive in the competitive digital marketplace. 

Start your journey to e-commerce success and explore the potential of WordPress to power your online store today!

Featured image by Shoper on Unsplash

While there are no shortcuts to success, there are shortcuts to a more efficient workflow. We may not think about them much, but these keyboard shortcuts have helped millions of people make their daily—even hourly—workflows faster and more efficient. 

Some of our favorite shortcuts at WordPress.com help us bypass menus, create post drafts with a single click, quickly access bulk management options, and effortlessly find useful blocks in the editor. Let’s take a look and see how you can use these same shortcuts right now.

1. Command Palette with ctrl+K (or cmd+K)

First up is the Command Palette—think of it like a Swiss Army knife for your site. 

What It Does: Instead of clicking around menus and hunting for the right setting or page, you can press ctrl+K on Windows or cmd+K on Mac to instantly open a WordPress-specific search bar. From there, you can access pages, posts, settings, and even plugins. It’s your shortcut to just about anything you need in WordPress. The Command Palette is accessible when you are logged into your site and have a Block theme activated. 

How to Use It: Press ctrl+K on Windows or cmd+K on Mac to open the command palette. Start typing what you’re looking for, like “new post” or “theme settings,” and hit enter when the option pops up. Voilà! You’re instantly taken where you need to go.

Productivity Boost: This shortcut is a lifesaver when you’re deep in your workflow and don’t want to break your concentration by clicking through menus. It’s especially useful for developers or site owners juggling multiple tasks.

2. Quick Post drafts from the toolbar

If you’ve ever been struck by a brilliant idea while browsing your site, you know the frustration of having to navigate to the dashboard to jot it down. Enter the Quick Post Draft shortcut! This lets you start a new post directly from the admin toolbar without breaking your flow.

What It Does: Start drafting a post from anywhere on your WordPress site (while logged in) by clicking the “+ New” icon in the admin toolbar and selecting “New Post.” No more navigating to the dashboard, and no more interruptions.

How to Use It: While logged in, click the “+” icon in the toolbar, select “New Post,” and start typing. That’s it! You’re already in draft mode, ready to get your thoughts down. Simply save the post as a draft for later, or let those creative juices fly right then and there.

Productivity Boost: This is perfect for those moments when inspiration strikes, whether you’re looking at your homepage or checking your latest blog post. Instead of wasting time going to the dashboard and clicking through menus, you’re writing instantly.

3. Bulk Edit posts, pages, or products

If you’re managing a large WordPress site with a lot of content, you’re probably familiar with the hassle of updating multiple posts or products, one by one. The Bulk Edit feature can save you loads of time by letting you edit several posts, pages, or WooCommerce products all at once.

Note: In order to use the Bulk Edit feature for Posts, ensure you’re using the Classic view. Follow this support guide for more details.

What It Does: You can modify categories, tags, status, author, and more across multiple items in just a few clicks. Whether you’re managing a blog, an eCommerce store, or a portfolio, bulk editing makes site management much faster.

How to Use It: Go to the Posts, Pages, or Products section of your WordPress dashboard. 

Select the items you want to update using the checkboxes on the left-hand side, choose “Bulk actions,” then select “Edit.” Clickk Apply.

From there, you can change multiple settings at once, including categories, tags, and visibility.

Productivity Boost: This shortcut is a game-changer for anyone managing content-heavy or product-rich sites. You can handle mass updates without touching each individual post or product, making it a must-have for developers, content managers, and site owners.

4. Use / to search for blocks in Gutenberg

If you’re using the Gutenberg block editor, you might have found yourself scrolling endlessly through the block library to find the exact block you need. Well, guess what? You don’t have to! The slash-command (/) lets you search for any block instantly, speeding up your workflow.

What It Does: Typing / followed by the block name (like /image or /heading) pulls up the block you need instantly and without endless scrolling.

How to Use It: While in the Gutenberg editor, type / followed by the name of the block you want to add (e.g., /image or /quote). Select the block from the dropdown, and boom, you’re good to go!

Productivity Boost: This shortcut is a massive time-saver for anyone working in the block editor. Whether you’re building complex layouts or writing a blog post, it eliminates the need to manually search for blocks.

Ready to save time with keyboard shortcuts?

There you have it—four simple yet powerful shortcuts that can dramatically improve your WordPress experience. Whether you’re looking to speed up content creation, navigate more efficiently, or manage large batches of posts, these tips will help you work smarter, not harder. 

And remember, WordPress is packed with these kinds of hidden gems, so don’t hesitate to explore and find even more ways to streamline your workflow.

Time is precious—let WordPress help you make the most of it. Looking for a powerful managed WordPress host? Check out WordPress.com’s plans that offer unmatched speed, unstoppable security, and unlimited site visitors.