# I spent 18 months building an AI-native ecommerce plugin for WordPress. Here is what I learned.

> Source: <https://dev.to/mukto90/i-spent-18-months-building-an-ai-native-ecommerce-plugin-for-wordpress-here-is-what-i-learned-1636>
> Published: 2026-06-26 13:36:12+00:00

Quick intro: I have been writing WordPress since 2009 and shipping products since 2017. For the last 18 months I have been building ** EasyCommerce**, an AI-native ecommerce plugin, as a WooCommerce alternative. It has been stable and in production since 2025, nearly 30 releases in, with real stores running on it.

A few decisions I would defend:

**1. Dedicated database tables from day one.** Orders, products and customers live in their own `wp_ec_*`

tables instead of `wp_posts`

and `wp_postmeta`

. More on why in a follow-up post, but the short version is that ecommerce query patterns and the post/meta model do not get along at scale.

**2. AI as core, not a bolt-on.** The headline feature is a shopping agent with 23 tools that can run a full conversation with a customer, search the catalogue, apply a coupon and place an order. It is agentic, not a prompt box.

**3. Ship in the open**. I will be posting the architecture calls, the things that broke, and the onboarding numbers here.

If you build WordPress or ecommerce products: what is one architecture decision you made early that you would make again?