Thinking of launching a dropshipping business? You’ll need a reliable platform to set up your store.
WordPress is an excellent choice for building your ecommerce site, and the best thing is that it’s open-source. So, you have the freedom and flexibility to create your store on a budget!
It’s packed with everything you need to get your dropshipping business off the ground.
Not sure where to begin?
Here’s how to start a WooCommerce dropshipping store in 18 steps:
If these steps seem overwhelming, don’t worry. We’ll break each one down in detail throughout this guide.
We’ll also dive into finding profitable dropshipping products, setting up your store, and developing marketing strategies to attract traffic to your site.
Ready to get started? Let’s dive in!
Starting a dropshipping business can be an exciting journey. It offers a chance to earn income, but remember that success isn’t guaranteed and comes with its share of risks.
Treat it like any real business, and you’ll be steps ahead of many others!
If you’re new to WordPress, let’s clear up some common confusion before diving into the installation of WordPress and the WooCommerce plugin.
People often mix up WordPress.com with WordPress.org, but they’re quite different.
WordPress.com is like Shopify 一 it’s a fully hosted service. Your website lives on WordPress.com’s servers, freeing you from the hassle of finding a host or managing site maintenance.
However, this convenience might limit your customization and monetization options, which isn’t ideal if you’re aiming to scale your dropshipping business.
WordPress.org, on the other hand, is what many consider the ‘real WordPress.’
It’s an open-source software that’s free to download and install on your own hosting account.
Plus, it opens up a world of plugins that WordPress is famous for!
We’ll focus on WordPress.org in this guide, as it’s free and feature-rich for your dropshipping needs.
Now, onto WooCommerce.
This powerful plugin turns your WordPress site into a fully functioning ecommerce store at no cost.
It is essential for creating a dropshipping website as it provides the framework for product listing, cart functionality, checkout processes, and payment options.
With this background, let’s move on to installing WordPress and WooCommerce.
Installing WordPress and WooCommerce directly with your host is the hands-down simplest path.
For instance, with SiteGround, you just pick ‘WooCommerce’ during setup, and it automatically installs both WordPress and WooCommerce for you.
This one-click installation saves a ton of time!
And if you hit a bump? Most hosting services offer support teams ready to jump in and assist. So, if you’re stuck, don’t hesitate to call on them.
If you prefer a more hands-on approach or your host doesn’t offer direct installation, you’ll be setting up WooCommerce manually.
First, make sure you have a WordPress site ready.
Then install WooCommerce by following these steps:
After activation, WooCommerce’s setup wizard will guide you through setting up.
The five steps include:
We’ll dive deeper into choosing themes in Step 5.
Before we jump into setting up your WooCommerce dropshipping store, take a moment to seek out some inspiration:
And don’t just stick to dropshipping examples. Broaden your search to include ecommerce shops, not just the big ones like Home Depot, Porter & York, and UPS.
Explore smaller yet popular brands that choose WooCommerce for their online stores, such as:
Take a look at everything from their store layouts to checkout processes and landing pages 一 there’s a lot to learn!
One of the first decisions you’ll need to make is what type of dropshipping store you will open.
You have three main options: general, niche, and one-product stores.
And guess what? Each of them comes with its unique pros and cons!
We often suggest starting with a niche or one-product store. Why? Because the benefits and challenges of these stores generally outweigh those of a general store.
For instance, a niche store offers these five advantages:
In short, starting a dropshipping business with a niche or one-product store can simplify the process of building a sustainable operation.
If you want to learn more about the differences between general, niche, and one-product stores, check out this article!
Note: It’s okay if you’re not entirely sure about the store type right now. You can start by selecting the products you want to sell, and then choose the most suitable store type based on those decisions.
Now that you’ve decided whether you’re launching a general, niche, or one-product store, it’s time to choose a theme that matches your niche.
Think of your theme as your website’s outfit. It sets the first impression and vibe of your store.
The good news? You can easily refresh your store’s look by swapping out your theme for a new one!
There are two ways to add a theme to your store:
WooCommerce offers three themes:
Storefront is a solid choice for most dropshipping stores, though it’s pretty basic and might have limited customization options.
For more flexibility, you can choose a free third-party WooCommerce theme like OceanWP. Keep in mind that you might need to opt for a paid plan to fully customize it to your taste.
To install a third-party theme, follow these steps:
Looking for a quick recommendation of the best WooCommerce dropshipping themes?
Take a look at 10 Best WooCommerce Dropshipping Themes in 2024.
If you’re new to dropshipping, choosing what to sell can seem daunting.
However, this decision is not one you should rush.
Your choice of product, supplier, and marketing efforts, play a key role in the success of your dropshipping store.
It’s common to see that certain items are relatively easy to sell, while others are fairly hard to sell.
These ‘easy’ sellers are often referred to as ‘winning products.’ They share some common features that make them stand out, like:
Spend some time understanding these characteristics. It can make a huge difference in your strategy.
We also suggest checking out our list of the best dropshipping products.
See if you can spot the winning traits in them. This exercise can give you a clearer idea of what to aim for in your product selection.
Understanding what makes a good dropshipping product is your first step. Now, it’s time to choose the products you’ll sell in your store.
One way to do this is by going to a website like AliExpress and start browsing.
But with millions of options, where do you begin?
It’s quite challenging, isn’t it?
That’s why we recommend using a product research tool. It makes the process of finding winning products so much easier!
If you’re not sure which tool to pick, try our product research tool quiz to find one that best suits your needs.
Not a fan of quizzes? Some excellent tools to explore include Sell The Trend, Niche Scraper, and Thieve.co.
Our personal favorite among these is Sell The Trend, which comes with some amazing features.
For instance, one of our favorite features is called ‘The Nexus,’ which you can use to find a lot of product ideas:
Sell The Trend does come with a subscription fee of $39.97 per month, but they free 7-day trial for you to test it out.
If you are not 100% convinced yet, take a look at our in-depth review of Sell The Trend!
You may have found a product you think would be nice to sell, but that’s just half the story.
You’ll also need a dropshipping supplier to sell you the product and ship it directly to your customer:
Selecting a supplier is another task, but it’s manageable when you know where to look!
We’ll offer some recommendations for excellent suppliers shortly, but it’s good to know how to spot a good one:
Got it?
Let’s explore some of the best suppliers out there now!
We’ve made an overview of them in the table below.
Click ‘Read Review’ to open a new tab with our detailed supplier assessment, including their pros and cons.
These dropshipping platforms easily integrate with your WooCommerce dropshipping store. They allow you to browse and import products with a click of a button.
If you’re interested in suppliers in a specific region, you can find them in these lists:
These lists also include dropshipping suppliers specializing in specific niches. For instance, if you’re starting a fashion store, you might find a supplier like BrandsGateway that exclusively sells fashion items!
Tip: If you’re not sure which dropshipping supplier is the best for you, we’ve created a quiz that lets you find out simply by answering a few simple questions!
Alternatively, you can find a local supplier through a quick Google search.
In our experience, they often provide fast delivery times, which is essential for dropshipping stores.
Choosing a local supplier can also save you from the ‘software fees’ often charged by platforms like Spocket or Syncee on their higher plans.
However, most local suppliers don’t offer direct integration with WordPress websites. So, you might have to add products and process orders manually.
Tip: Always order samples before committing to a supplier to ensure product quality.
Once you’ve picked your supplier, check if you can connect it to your WooCommerce store.
Some suppliers offer a way to integrate with WooCommerce, while others don’t.
Being able to connect your supplier to WooCommerce will make it much easier to do tasks like:
The good thing is, for most suppliers in the table above, you’ll find an app (on the WordPress plugin store) that lets you hook up that supplier to your store.
For example, here’s the one for Spocket:
After choosing a supplier, it’s time to add products!
In our experience, it’s best to enter the essential details about your products now. This way, you can get a sense of how your store is taking shape before you dive into customizing it.
If you’re using a dropshipping platform like CJdropshipping or Syncee, you can simply add a product from their catalog with a single click.
Dealing with a local supplier? You’ll probably be adding products yourself.
If you’re familiar with WordPress, you can bulk upload your product details using a CSV file directly into the platform.
For those adding products one by one, check out this detailed WooCommerce guide on adding and managing products.
By now, you should have a clear understanding of how your dropshipping store will function, the product(s) you’ll be selling, and the supplier you’ll be partnering with.
But before you can be sure the product you’ve picked is a good one, there’s one more important thing to check一its selling price.
When deciding on the price of your product, it’s not just about choosing a number based on gut feelings.
You need to factor in costs such as product costs, marketing expenses, taxes, hosting fees, app costs, and psychology.
For example, let’s say you buy a product for $5 from your supplier and sell it in your store for $20.
While this might seem profitable, you also have to account for additional expenses such as:
Plus, other extra costs!
So, you need a pricing strategy to ensure you are profitable!
Creating a pricing strategy can be an extensive topic, so it’s best to do it according to our complete dropshipping pricing strategy guide!
Once you have a pricing strategy, you can also test it using our profit margin calculator:
Your WooCommerce store gets even better when you add plugins. You can add features like pop-ups, size guides, and memberships using plugins.
The best part is that almost all of the 55,000+ WordPress plugins are free or follow a freemium pricing model.
To start, check out these essential (and free) WooCommerce plugins for your dropshipping website:
Once your dropshipping site is up and running, you can continue to add more features.
You can then do your own research and install plugins by navigating to Plugins > Add new through the WordPress dashboard.
But you should know that the more plugins you add, the slower your website can get.
Also, always install plugins from reputable companies to avoid the risk of hacking or being locked out of your own dropshipping store.
Next, let’s add content to your dropshipping store by creating the standard pages that any ecommerce store needs.
Think about your FAQs, return policy, and shipping policy pages.
Although these pages might seem a bit boring to create, they are crucial for every online store!
If you want more insights into these standard pages and how to create them, this article will surely help!
To customize your dropshipping store, you need to:
Let’s start with your dropshipping logo!
Your store’s logo is as crucial as your store name—it sticks with your visitors.
For tips on designing a logo that stands out, take a look at this guide:
How to Get a Logo for Your Dropshipping Store? (5 Options)
Now, let’s style your store!
From the WooCommerce dashboard, go to Appearance > Customize. The ‘Customizer’ provides a live preview of your store as you make changes.
Here’s what you can personalize:
For more details on managing layout, store notice, and more, read this detailed article here.
Fantastic progress! You’re almost set to welcome your first customers to your WooCommerce store.
The only thing left to make your WooCommerce store ready for sales is setting up your shipping, payment gateways, and tax settings.
Let’s set up your shipping!
It does look complicated, but don’t worry; we’ll simplify the process for you.
First, you need to set up shipping zones.
These are the regions where you’ll ship goods. For example, a ‘Domestic’ zone can cover all US states, or a ‘West Zone’ for just the western ones.
Next, add shipping methods to the zones. WooCommerce supports three primary shipping methods:
You can assign different methods to different zones depending on your needs.
And finally, you need to apply rates to your shipping methods.
Finally, apply rates to your shipping methods. If your supplier charges a $10 shipping fee for any US state, you could set a flat rate of $10 or more for all zones.
To access these settings, go to WooCommerce > Settings > Shipping in your dashboard.
For a more detailed walkthrough, check out this free guide.
Next, let’s do your taxes!
Setting up taxes is straightforward with WooCommerce, especially if your customers are in the US, Australia, Canada, the UK, or Europe.
Just use the WooCommerce Tax plugin, which is free and automates sales tax calculations at checkout based on the customer’s location.
If you’re in another country, explore country-specific tax plugins in the WordPress Plugins store.
As for payment gateways, here’s an overview of the best payment gateways for WooCommerce:
This step may seem small, but many merchants get stuck here.
Understanding how to manage refunds and returns with dropshipping suppliers can impact the success of your dropshipping venture.
These two parts are super important if you want to keep your customers happy.
Remember, happy customers mean fewer complaints! You definitely don’t want to end up in a situation like the dropshipping store in the example below:
Like the step before, if you want to learn more about this, we suggest checking out these articles.
Keep in mind that these articles above are long, but they cover everything you need to know about each topic!
Once you’ve set up your WooCommerce storefront, it’s time to kick off marketing!
Remember, marketing is an ongoing process. It’s not a one-time task; you need to be consistent and persistent.
That being said, there are lots of different ways to market your store. Again, the best ones depend on what you want to achieve.
If you’ve identified your niche, product, and target audience, you will find your best marketing method in this article!
For a quick guideline on which marketing method suits you, check out the following infographic:
Again, marketing is a big subject, so this article about marketing for dropshipping will definitely help you further!
Once you’ve decided on your plan, you’re ready to launch your WooCommerce dropshipping store!
If you’ve made it to this step, congratulations!
Many people don’t reach this point because it demands a lot of effort. But if you’re reading this with determination, we’re proud of you!
This step is all about ongoing testing until you find products that work well for you and your dropshipping store.
Continue with product research, test new products, and tweak your WooCommerce dropshipping store to improve conversion rates.
Think about using a Heatmap tool like Hotjar to see what your visitors do on your store.
Implement split testing for elements such as colors, descriptions, and more. (Learn how to track your store visitors here.)
We’ll write more articles about this in the future, but for now, we’ve got some great resources for you from other people:
That’s awesome!
Now, it’s time to scale the product and maximize your earnings from it!
While we haven’t covered this topic extensively on the blog yet, we do have some fantastic YouTube videos for you to watch if you want to learn more about scaling your WooCommerce dropshipping store:
Meanwhile, keep testing new products because that product could become unpopular in seconds. It could all change the next day!
Someone might discover your product, replicate everything (but at a lower price), and run similar advertisements.
If your product is selling well, consider importing it in bulk to your location or using a fulfillment center like Amazon (although other options are available).
Buying in bulk provides more flexibility, such as customizing the package design, adding additional products, and including a business card.
If you want to learn more about transitioning from dropshipping to buying in bulk, we suggest watching this informative video below:
First of all, starting an online store is a smart move as online shopping is one of, if not the fastest-growing segments of the retail industry.
Look at the growth of retail ecommerce sales worldwide:
You can see that sales are surging.
But why should you start a WooCommerce store in particular?
Simply put, WooCommerce is one of the best overall ecommerce platforms. Not surprisingly, it’s the second most popular shopping cart in the world!
With over 5.8 million stores and a presence in more than 175 countries, WooCommerce offers dropshippers valuable features like:
If you’re not sure if WordPress (with WooCommerce plugin) is the best platform for you, take our quiz here for a personalized recommendation based on your specific needs.
Now that you know how to create a WooCommerce dropshipping website, here are some amazing tips that will help you take your store to the next level.
You can start a WooCommerce dropshipping store with a minimal budget.
However, operating without some investment is not realistic, especially when you’re just learning the ropes.
While dropshipping is more cost-effective than traditional retail, you’ll eventually need to invest in software, website design, and paid plugins as your store expands.
For a deeper understanding of the financial aspects of running a dropshipping store, refer to this comprehensive guide:
Complete Guide: Can You Start Dropshipping Without Money?
Just like too many apps can slow down your phone, excessive plugins can have a similar effect on your site.
They not only impact site speed but also require careful management for updates and compatibility.
Plus, plugins can have security vulnerabilities. The more plugins you have, the higher the risk of security issues.
To maintain a healthy WooCommerce site for your dropshipping business, install only those plugins that are absolutely necessary for your operation.
Just like a physical shop can face unexpected events like storms or power outages, your online store needs protection from its own digital disasters like hacking, faulty updates, or accidental data losses.
To safeguard your WooCommerce store, read this free guide on how to back up and restore data for it.
If you have any more questions about WooCommerce dropshipping, take a look at these FAQs:
Yes, WooCommerce supports dropshipping. Many dropshipping businesses use WooCommerce as their platform due to its flexibility, customization options, and wide range of available plugins.
No, you need some technical expertise to run a WooCommerce store. While adding plugins might be easy, handling security, backups, and troubleshooting requires experience. However, there are tutorials available to help beginners in navigating these technical aspects.
Yes, dropshipping is profitable in 2024, especially with the right mindset focused on building a genuine business rather than a ‘get rich quick’ scheme. Success in dropshipping relies on a strategic approach and a commitment to delivering value to customers.
Before we go, we’ve created a quick summary of this article for you, so you can easily remember it:
That’s a wrap! Now you have the key information to kickstart your WooCommerce dropshipping website in 2024.
Remember, success doesn’t happen overnight, so keep at it and avoid falling for the ‘get rich quick’ idea.
In fact, our blog doesn’t endorse paid dropshipping courses; they’re why we started this resource in the first place.
Curious about our take on why these courses are a waste of money? Check out our thoughts here.
Good luck with setting up your WooCommerce dropshipping store!
Ready to move your dropshipping store to the next level? Check out the articles below:
Plus, don’t forget to check out our in-depth guide on how to start dropshipping here!
A CEO is no longer expected to talk candidly about open source. Maybe business leaders have never expected open source to be anything but serve their business interests. Not every CEO takes advantage of open source to the degree we have seen in recent months. But no one is free of blame. Open source means different things to different people, and everyone uses it for their own purposes.
The colloquial use of open source gives companies like Meta the opportunity to use open source as they wish. Even high-ranking people in the open source community discount the problem. They say it’s OK. Open source is still moving forward. The kids don’t care — all they want to do is build models.
There is no playbook or good versus evil here. Many thoughtful people want to find a way to solve the mess we’ve seen surface in the WordPress saga of the past few weeks.
To recap, for those who haven’t been sufficiently online the past few days: Matt Mullenweg, co-creator of WordPress, the popular open source content management system, has been accusing WP Engine, a WordPress hosting provider, of violating WordPress’ trademarks and using its servers without compensation. The two organizations’ lawyers have exchanged cease-and-desist letters (more on those later). At the stroke of midnight UTC on Tuesday, WordPress blocked WP Engine’s access to its servers.
As this episode unravels, a fresh flow of ideas about open source has emerged. At least one CEO has established an important approach to solving issues like those we see with WordPress and WP Engine.
In a thoughtful post on his personal blog, Dries Buytaer, creator of Drupal, described the issue today as a makers-takers problem, where “creators of open source software (“Makers”) see their work being used by others, often service providers, who profit from it without contributing back in a meaningful or fair way (“Takers”).”
CEOs are on both sides of the perspective he details. He knows the people involved and has a solution that makes sense for the Drupal community. He calls it a “contributor credit” program.
Buytaer comes from the same world as Mullenweg. Drupal and WordPress are open source content management systems.
Still, open source is a tool for CEOs to use for profits, sometimes illusions, and leverage against commercial competitors. We’ve seen this with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who calls Llama, the company’s large language model, open source, which it is not.
And now we face someone who has long enjoyed a gleaming image in the open source community but now faces many questions about his intent.
Earlier in the week, we interviewed Mullenweg, who said WP Engine should fork WordPress.
“I think a fork would be amazing,” he told TNS. “They should fork WordPress, because what they offer is not actually WordPress. They call it WordPress, but they really screw it up.”
Mullenweg now wants to own a chunk of WP Engine, and he’s using his bully pulpit to pound away until he gets what he wants. He’s called WP Engine “a cancer.” He openly rails about the WP Engine executive team and Silver Lake, the private equity firm that has invested in it, using tactics we’ve become far too accustomed to from all sorts, who we don’t have to name here.
It’s a victim tactic. Mullenweg and Automattic, his holding company, talk like they are the victims of an evil plan, rooted in trademark violations. Following the victim’s logic, Mullenweg has to attack. He and his team have to block WP Engine from the WordPress servers.
Now comes the news from The Verge that WordPress demanded 8% of WP Engine revenues each month in exchange for being considered a contributor to the WordPress open source project. That would also mean WP Engine could not fork WordPress, but it would allow WP Engine to use the trademark.
The Verge:
“[C]hoosing to contribute 8 percent to WP Engine employees would give WordPress.org and Automattic ‘full audit rights’ and “access to employee records and time-tracking” at the company. The agreement also comes with a ban on ‘forking or modifying’ Automattic’s software, including plug-ins and extensions like WooCommerce.”
This raises questions about Mullenweg’s hearty support for a WP Engine fork. For perspective, WP Engine competes with Automattic. Just be clear on that one.
Mullenweg has made it confusing for almost everyone involved. There are huge supporters who want WordPress to survive, and there are end users who don’t have any clue about open source or even that their sites run on WordPress servers.
WP Engine, on the other hand, has its own issues. It does not give much in return for using WordPress. The company, under CEO Heather Brunner and founder Jason Cohen, uses the WordPress name. They call it fair use.
Further, WP Engine uses the work invested by the WordPress community into the service without the engineering overhead required if it had to maintain its own fork, which would cost millions and take quite some time to develop — a year, two, three?
What drama. If you are hearing about this for the first time, Mullenweg, who created the web content management system WordPress, has been relentless with his attacks on WP Engine for what he claims are trademark violations. It came to a head at WordCamp in Portland earlier in September when Mullenweg called WP Engine “a cancer” on the community.
On Sept. 23, attorneys sent a cease-and-desist letter to WP Engine on behalf of Mullenweg’s holding company Automattic and WooCommerce. Among its demands: that WP Engine stop all unauthorized use of WordPress’s trademarks and “provide an accounting of all profits from the service offerings that have made unauthorized use of our Client’s intellectual property.”
The letter suggested that “even a mere 8% royalty on WP Engine’s $400+ million in annual revenue equates to more than $32 million in annual lost licensing revenue for our Client.”
On Sept. 25, in lieu of action by WP Engine, Mullenweg blocked WP Engine’s access to the WordPress servers. He then gave a reprieve on Sept. 27 after users contacted him. Mullenweg said users thought they were paying WordPress, not WP Engine.
“They thought they were paying me, to be honest, that’s why they were pissed off,” Mullenweg said. “And so I was like, ‘Oops, OK, we’ll turn it back on.’“
WordPress blocked WP Engine’s access to its servers Tuesday at UTC 00:00.
The odd thing: no sign of trouble so far from WP Engine users; a WP Engine spokesperson declined to comment when contacted by TNS about whether the company had heard from customers having problems. WP Engine must have set up the mirrors and all to WordPress.org. How that affects performance and the rest is still not understood.
In our interview, Mullenweg said users now hopefully understand that they are paying WP Engine, which does not pay WordPress for auto updates and everything else WordPress provides. Users, he argued, should be mad at WP Engine, not him and his team, who run the servers. Again, Mullenweg expresses that he and his team are the victims.
WP Engine is simply not responding, Mullenweg said, except through a cease-and-desist letter its attorneys sent Automattic on Sept. 23 after his repeated attacks.
The letter sent on WP Engine’s behalf reads in part, “Mr. Mullenweg’s covert demand that WP Engine hand over tens of millions to his for-profit company Automattic, while publicly masquerading as an altruistic protector of the WordPress community, is disgraceful. WP Engine will not accede to these unconscionable demands, which not only harm WP Engine and its employees but also threaten the entire WordPress community.”
WP Engine did not answer The New Stack’s question about forking WordPress, but a company spokesperson did have choice words about Automattic’s licensing demands.
“We, like the rest of the WordPress community, use the WordPress mark to describe our business. Automattic’s suggestion that WP Engine needs a license to do that is simply wrong, and reflects a misunderstanding of trademark law. To moot its claimed concerns, we have eliminated the few examples Automattic gave in its Sept. 23 letter to us.”
For example, WP Engine has made some minor changes, namely changing WordPress to WordPress1 and WooCommerce1 on the site’s front page.
Overall, users had almost no warning that their sites would be disrupted. This is an odd way to treat users, especially when they are such huge fans of your platform.
Here’s where open source becomes a problem for users. Most people do not know how they get the updates to their CMS. But once their site stopped working, they became entangled in a battle between Mullenweg and WP Engine.
Meanwhile, most users are just trying to keep their sites working.
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Amidst the controversy, Mullenweg acknowledged he could have done better in reaching out to the community.
“To be fair, I have not been the best at public relations or publishing things,” he told TNS. “That’s why we try to be very clear at UTC 00, Oct. 1 … at this exact time, their network, WP Engine servers will no longer be able to access our networks.”
But a fork? The cost to set up the servers, the network, the load balancers, on and on, would cost millions and could take years. At its peak, WordPress serves 30,000 requests per second and 40% of the entire Web, according to Mullenweg.
Users have an option, he said. They can move to a different hosting provider. He mentioned Bluehost and his own company, WordPress.com, as two options.
There has been confusion about open source AI and server-side public licenses. Now, we’ve got the WordPress debacle. Oh, and there’s talk about Oracle owning the JavaScript trademark. The fun never ends.
But people are working on the problem, particularly the single point of failure issue that has become more apparent since WP Engine’s servers were cut off.
Here’s a thread worth reading from Reddit, about how to solve the problem of a single point of truth. The problem is a severe one, but maybe a fork is not the answer. Instead, perhaps it’s a way to solve matters that can easily happen if sites aren’t updated:
The vulnerability should be apparent: if WordPress.org goes down for any reason, millions of sites stop updating. A coordinated attack (zero-day implementation coupled with a DDoS attack that prevents updates from going out from zero-day) could be a disaster the world over. And, if the Foundation ever decided to get out of the update business, or ran into financial difficulty, or Matt decides to retire to Aruba and quit WordPress entirely — whatever the case may be — there’s no Plan B.
So, the community needs a plan B — and maybe that’s most important. Stop the bickering. Instead, look for ways to modernize the WordPress infrastructure so users don’t get entangled in corporate wars that use open source as a proxy to fight battles that leave casualties scattered across the web.
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“WPE’s nominative uses of those marks to refer to the open-source software platform and plugin used for its clients’ websites are fair uses under settled trademark law, and they are consistent with WordPress’ own guidelines and the practices of nearly all businesses in this space,” the lawsuit said.
Mullenweg told Ars that “we had numerous meetings with WPE over the past 20 months, including a previous term sheet that was delivered in July. The term sheet was meant to be simple, and if they had agreed to negotiate it we could have, but they refused to even take a call with me, so we called their bluff.” Automattic also published a timeline of meetings and calls between the two companies going back to 2023.
Mullenweg also said, “Automattic had the commercial rights to the WordPress trademark and could sub-license, hence why the payment should go to Automattic for commercial use of the trademark. Also the term sheet covered the WooCommerce trademark, which they also abuse, and is 100 percent owned by Automattic.”
Exhibit A in the lawsuit includes a letter to WP Engine CEO Heather Brunner from a trademark lawyer representing Automattic and a subsidiary, WooCommerce, which makes a plugin for WordPress.
“As you know, our Client owns all intellectual property rights globally in and to the world-famous WOOCOMMERCE and WOO trademarks; and the exclusive commercial rights from the WordPress Foundation to use, enforce, and sublicense the world-famous WORDPRESS trademark, among others, and all other associated intellectual property rights,” the letter said.
The letter alleged that “your blatant and widespread unlicensed use of our Client’s trademarks has infringed our Client’s rights and confused consumers into believing, falsely, that WP Engine is authorized, endorsed, or sponsored by, or otherwise affiliated or associated with, our Client.” It also alleged that “WP Engine’s entire business model is predicated on using our Client’s trademarks… to mislead consumers into believing there is an association between WP Engine and Automattic.”
Web hosting provider WP Engine has filed a lawsuit against Automattic, and WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg, accusing them of extortion and abuse of power. The lawsuit comes after nearly two weeks of tussling between Mullenweg, who is also CEO of Automattic, and WP Engine over trademark infringement and contributions to the open-source WordPress project.
WP Engine accused Automattic and Mullenweg of not keeping their promises to run WordPress open-source projects without any constraints and giving developers the freedom to build, run, modify and redistribute the software.
“Matt Mullenweg’s conduct over the last ten days has exposed significant conflicts of interest and governance issues that, if left unchecked, threaten to destroy that trust. WP Engine has no choice but to pursue these claims to protect its people, agency partners, customers, and the broader WordPress community,” the company said.
The case document, filed in a court in California, also accused Mullenweg of having a “long history of
obfuscating the true facts” about his control of WordPress Foundation and WordPress.org
Mullenweg had criticized WP Engine for infringing WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks. He called them the “Cancer of WordPress” and also called out WP Engine’s private equity partner, Silver Lake, for not caring about the open-source community.
Later, WP Engine sent a cease-and-desist letter, asking Mullenweg and Automattic to withdraw these comments. Automattic then sent its own cease-and-desist, accusing WP Engine of infringing WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks.
Notably, Mullenweg banned WP Engine on September 25 from accessing WordPress.org resources, including plug-ins and themes, and preventing WP Engine customers from updating them. Two days later, Mullenweg provided a temporary reprieve and unblocked WP Engine until October 1.
On Wednesday, Automattic published a proposed seven-year term sheet that it had sent to WP Engine on September 20, asking the hosting company to pay 8% of its gross revenues per month as a royalty fee for using the WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks.
Alternatively, WP Engine was given the option to commit 8% by deploying employees to contribute to WordPress’s core features and functionalities, or a combination of both people hours and money.
WP Engine didn’t accept these terms, which included a probation on forking plugins and extensions from Automattic and WooCommerce.
You can contact this reporter at [email protected] or on Signal: @ivan.42
WordPress biz Automattic details WP Engine deal demands • The Register
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