I suspect that Barn2 were considering developing their WooCommerce Bulk Variations plugin before exploring a possible acquisition or partnership, given demand is there: a quick search on ahrefs returns 331 keywords for bulk editing related keywords for WooCommerce, with over 5K volume searched globally. The number of keywords and volume of searches is a bit higher for Shopify too.
In her announcement post, Katie Keith, Founder and CEO of Barn2 Plugins, explains why the deal makes sense.
At Barn2, we focus on solving real problems for WooCommerce store owners. One of the biggest challenges we see—especially on large or complex stores—is the time-consuming process of managing products one by one.
That’s where Setary comes in. It provides a clean, spreadsheet-style interface for managing your products in bulk. You can quickly update prices, manage stock levels, attributes, and more—saving hours of work and reducing the chance of errors.
It’s exactly the kind of product we love: simple, purposeful, and transformative for large ecommerce stores.
The announcement also addresses the overlap with WooCommerce Bulk Variations: “Setary takes this to the next level by letting merchants simultaneously bulk edit variations across their entire store.”
I asked Katie if the plan was to ‘absorb’ Setary into her existing portfolio of WooCommerce plugin, but that’s not on the roadmap:
Setary will remain independent and sold on its own website, but I will be cross-promoting it with our other plugins in the same way that we do with actual Barn2 products. I even published a product page for Setary on the Barn2 site, and I hope people don’t get confused when they are then sent to the Setary site to complete the purchase!
Apart from the possible confusion Katie mentions, it will be a bit harder to cross-promote Setary as part Barn2 Plugins Marketing Ops, having to maintain separate customer databases, platforms, etc… Brand plays a part too. If Setary is an established and known brand in the WooCommerce space, then it makes sense keep it separate. Less so if it isn’t. I don’t think the Shopify version should keep the Setary brand.
Why a 50/50 partnership?
Please note: I’m speculating a fair bit here, reading between the lines, so happy to be corrected.
It looks like Setary isn’t attracting much organic traffic, and their free plugin in the WordPress Plugin Directory has only 100+ activations. These are not the only channels to distribute and sell a plugin, of course, but I get a feeling that despite building a great product, they are struggling to get traction. This is becoming a common theme in the WordPress ecosystem, by the way. Developers need to market their products too, and that’s hard and time consuming. The good news is that they have found the perfect partner.
I think that a full acquisition would have made more sense for Katie, as would rebranding Setary as a Barn2 product and selling it alongside the rest. Operationally, promoting and managing a second brand adds cost. On the plus side, Thomas Hopcraft, Setary founder, will feel as invested in the project as it originally was.
If you have a great WordPress product that is struggling to grow, and don’t want to sell it, consider finding a similar partnership. You don’t have to sell it, or part of it, either – you can put in place some kind of long term agreement.
You should also think about future partnerships as plan your next venture. How attractive is it going to be?
