WordPress-focused web host Bluehost today announced a tool that will help SMBs manage their online stores. Known simply as Online Store, it boasts the ability to get up and running quickly – a key attribute for SMBs – including storefronts & product pages (front end) and payment processing (back end).
As an additional component, the new eCommerce product features a marketplace component. Known as Online Store+Marketplace, it lets SMBs manage and monitor product inventory across marketplaces like Amazon, Etsy, and eBay. The point is to integrate with an SMB’s main store in a seamless way.
Altogether it’s all about easing the onboarding and management process for time-starved and tech-novice SMBs. Though there are ample eCommerce tools on WordPress (more on that in a bit), SMBs are often left to fend for themselves in figuring out how to implement and optimize them.
“As one of the largest online presence and commerce providers in the world, we believe that online selling should be for everyone, and Bluehost’s new Online Store experience delivers on that ideal,” said Newfold Digital (Bluehost owner) president Ed Jay. “It starts with a guided onboarding experience that helps users get up and running smoothly, without getting bogged down in complexity.”
Infinitely Expandable
This move importantly builds on the WordPress core, which again is BlueHost’s specialty. One of the benefits of WordPress is that it’s a basic framework that is infinitely expandable, given that the platform is open source. That has spawned thousands of plugins for all kinds of functional needs.
What this means is that website owners can assemble a functional mix of plugins and other components to essentially build a customized website – the type of thing that would require a designer and a 5-digit development budget a decade ago. This has unlocked lots of capabilities for website owners.
However, managing all those plugins – though democratized – still requires some tech savvy. For this reason, entities throughout the WordPress stack have started to add functionality to their services to ease this burden, which resonates with amateur website owners and, especially, SMBs.
BlueHost is one of the entities in that stack in that it sits at the hosting layer. In fact, that’s an opportune place because it’s one of the first things secured when launching a WordPress site. So smart web hosts are starting to deepen customer relationships beyond hosting, which is what Bluehost is doing here.
Tip of the Spear
Panning back, this move is aligned with an ongoing trend that we’re tracking: the expansion of website services. Websites are the “tip of the spear” in being the first point of entry to a potentially broader range of adjacent services. After an SMB gets online, how does it then evolve into an online business?
This was the reasoning behind the website builder that BlueHost launched about a year ago. As we wrote at the time, it’s a logical handoff from securing your host to getting started on building the actual site. Today’s move follows in the same footsteps and we expect other adjacent website functions to follow.
“WordPress is such a capable, flexible platform, and this new eCommerce experience introduces that depth of functionality in such a way that the people we serve – often busy small business owners – can make the most of it,” said Jay. “Users can then build on that strong foundation with our powerful, hand-selected site-building and commerce plugins. It truly is an eCommerce offering for all.”
