SPC Retail

Structural Plastics Corp (SPC Retail). Considering a WordPress/WooCommerce → Shopify migration as part of a redesign. Current recommendation: stay on WordPress.

Client Contacts

• TBD — add as they come up

Site Reference

Not yet registered in ~/.claude/skills/sites-dashboard/sites.json.

Project Info

• Job Number: TBD
• Quote: TBD
• Phase: Pre-signing / platform decision

Project Status

2026-04-09 — Follow-up notes: AI strategy + Slack tool scoping

Revisited the platform question from a different angle: how does AI implementation compare between Woo and Shopify? Then scoped out a read-only Slack + LLM tool that would let the client query sales data in natural language and receive automated monthly reports.

What we produced today: - Top 10 reasons to stay on WordPress — one-line distillation of the original reports, client-facing - AI implementation comparison (Woo vs. Shopify) — Shopify wins external AI distribution (Sidekick, agentic commerce, structured product data for LLMs); Woo wins internal AI control (full DB access, custom endpoints, no rate limits) - Slack + LLM tool scoping — two-phase plan: (1) read-only WP REST endpoints → Slack slash commands, (2) LLM intent parser + scheduled monthly reports. Baseline build ~1–2 days. Key constraint: LLM picks tools, does not query WP directly.

Reorganized this project-notes folder into subdirectories (reports/, platform-decision/, slack-tool/) following claude-docs conventions.

Status: Recommendation unchanged (stay on WP). Slack tool is a Woo-first advantage worth pitching alongside the redesign.

2026-03-25 — Initial analysis and reports

Client wants a new website regardless of platform. Their theory: Shopify might be faster/cheaper to build on. Our assessment: with this volume of content and these integrations, migration overhead negates any time savings.

What we found (from live database): - 259 published products (225 simple, 34 variable with 108 variations) - 12 product attributes, 49 product categories (7 top-level, 42 subcategories) - 109 blog posts, 13 case studies, 11 industry portfolio pages - 17 Gravity Forms (Contact Us has 1,689 entries) - 14 dFlip interactive flipbooks, 17 idea books - 24 published pages + 24 legacy Divi pages, 2,031 media files - ~110 products have assembly instruction PDFs

Interesting discovery: 136 products have a populated shopify_name ACF field with Shopify slugs, and the Product controller has a maybe_lookup_shopify() method that redirects ?product-name=slug to the Woo product. SPC either has or had a Shopify store at some point — this would need confirming before any migration.

Active integrations: WooCommerce + Stripe, Avalara AvaTax, Gravity Forms + HubSpot, Bronto (sunset), dFlip, Yoast, Wordfence, Relevanssi, weight-based shipping, Online Accessibility scanner.

Migration tax (Shopify-only work, on top of the redesign): 1. Export/import 259 products + 108 variations + 12 attribute types → metafields 2. Rebuild 17 Gravity Forms in a new tool + rewire HubSpot 3. Rebuild 11 industry portfolio pages as metaobjects + custom Liquid 4. Migrate 109 blog posts + 13 case studies via API 5. Solve flipbook problem (14 catalogs, no Shopify equivalent) 6. Build 301 redirect map for ~450+ URLs 7. Reconfigure AvaTax (may need Shopify Plus at $2,300/mo) 8. Create 49 collections from categories + nav hierarchy workarounds 9. Handle 27 non-shippable "contact to order" products 10. Upload ~110 assembly instruction PDFs + link to products

WordPress path avoids all of the above. Scope = design + new theme build. All content, products, forms, and integrations stay in place.

Claude Code setup (same session): - Created CLAUDE.md at theme root with full architecture docs - Theme uses Oneupweb's custom MVC framework (not standard WP patterns) - Namespace: Spc\ (child), Oneupweb\Base\ (parent) - Rendering: OUWRender::render() not get_template_part() - ACF registered in PHP (controller setup_acf() methods), not JSON - CSS: SCSS + Bootstrap (no Tailwind); JS: jQuery + Slick + AOS; Build: node-sass + PostCSS + UglifyJS

Status: Recommendation = stay on WordPress. Built two client-facing reports (technical migration analysis + side-by-side platform comparison).

Folder Structure

Open Questions

1. Does SPC have an active Shopify store? (136 products have Shopify slug mappings)
2. What Shopify plan would they use? (AvaTax may require Plus at $2,300/mo)
3. What's actually driving the Shopify consideration — cost, maintenance burden, or something else?
4. Is Bronto still in use or already replaced? (It's sunset)
5. Which flipbooks are still driving traffic vs. can be retired?