A practical guide to bulk price adjustments in WooCommerce

Running an online store often means adjusting prices and other product information. Here, I'll show you how to change the price in WooCommerce for individual products and in bulk.

In this detailed guide, we'll explore everything there is to know about changing product prices in WooCommerce. Here's an overview of what we'll discuss:

• How to change the price in WooCommerce for individual products.
• How to change prices in bulk in WooCommerce.
• How to change prices based on user roles in WooCommerce.
• How to change prices for variable products in bulk in WooCommerce.
• How to schedule a price change for a specific time frame.

First, I'll show you what's possible with WooCommerce's built-in features. Then, I'll share three powerful add-ons that can extend WooCommerce's native features and make changing product prices much quicker and easier.

The plugins covered in this post:

• WooCommerce Discount Manager - The best plugin to change prices for sales and discount promotions.
• WooCommerce Wholesale Pro - The best plugin to change prices in WooCommerce based on user roles.
• WooCommerce Bulk Variations - The best WooCommerce plugin to change variation prices (and other product data) in bulk.

Let's jump right in.

How to change prices in WooCommerce using its default options

There are three different methods to change prices in WooCommerce using its native options:

• Individually on a per-product basis: Changing the original prices and sale prices from the Edit product page of each item.
• In bulk for multiple products: Using the bulk product editor from the "Products" list table.
• In bulk via a CSV file: Using the CSV Product Importer tool to export a CSV file that contains products and prices, updating the prices, and re-importing the CSV.

I'll cover each of these methods in detail in a bit. However, it's important to note that there are limitations to changing product prices using WooCommerce's native options.

Key limitations of WooCommerce's default price change feature

• The default methods work best with simple products. Except you are updating WooCommerce prices individually for each product, you can't edit variable products, grouped products, or other complex product types. So, for instance, if you run a WooCommerce shop that sells products available in different sizes and colors, you'll have to adjust prices for each variation individually.
• It can be tedious. If your store has a large product catalog, such as hundreds or thousands of products, it will take forever to manually update product prices.
• CSV technicalities. Updating product prices in bulk via a CSV file isn't the easiest thing to do. You must properly structure the column headers and data when creating and formatting your CSV file. If you make a mistake, you'll have to troubleshoot and fix the file. WooCommerce beginners or non-technical users might struggle with this.

Nevertheless, there are still some situations where the native options work fine. For scenarios where it isn’t sufficient or you want to change prices without the hassle, I’ve covered top-notch plugins for a wide range of use cases in detail below.

Without further ado, let's look at how to update prices in WooCommerce using its native options.

How to change the price in WooCommerce for individual products

1. Head into your site's admin dashboard.
2. In your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Products → All Products.

   

3. Locate the specific product whose price you want to change and click on the product to edit it.
4. In the Product Editor, scroll down until you find the Product Data section.

How to change the price in WooCommerce for simple products

1. Select the "General" tab from the "Product Data" module.

   

2. Enter the new price in the "Regular Price" field. If you want to offer the product at a discount, enter the sale price in the "Sale Price" field.
3. Scroll up and hit "Update" to save the changes.

Changing the price for variable products in WooCommerce

1. Select the "Variations" tab from the "Product Data" module.

   

2. Select the "Edit" button next to each variation to expand its settings. Update the regular and sale price fields.
3. Scroll up and hit "Update" to save the changes.

How to change the price in WooCommerce for grouped products

Grouped products don’t have their own prices. Instead, they're linked to individual simple products. To change the prices of a grouped product, follow the steps above to change the price for simple products.

Changing the price for external/affiliate products in WooCommerce

1. Select the General tab from the "Product Data" module.

   

2. Update the new prices in the "Regular Price" and "Sale Price" fields, as appropriate.
3. Scroll up and hit "Update" to save the changes.

How to change the price in WooCommerce using the bulk product editor

1. Head into your WooCommerce site's admin dashboard.
2. In your dashboard, navigate to Products → All Products.

   

3. Locate the specific products whose prices you want to change and check the box next to each product.
4. Scroll up to the "Bulk Actions" dropdown menu at the top of the product list.
5. Select "Edit" from the dropdown menu, then press "Apply".
6. In the Product Editor, scroll down until you locate the Product Data section.

   

7. Look for the "Price" and "Sale Price" fields. Select the change you want to make to all selected product prices — either increase or decrease by a fixed amount.
8. Scroll down and hit "Update" to save your changes.

How to the change price in WooCommerce for multiple products via a CSV file

1. In your site's admin, go to Products → All Products and select "Export".

   

2. Choose the columns you want to export. For this purpose, the most important columns are the "ID", "Regular price" and "Sale price".
3. Press "Generate CSV" and download the file.
4. Open up the CSV file using a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets.
5. Locate the "ID", "Regular price" and "Sale price" columns.
6. Change the prices as appropriate. Make sure not to change the IDs, as these are essential for matching the products in your store.
7. Save the file as a CSV after all the updates.
8. Head back into your site's admin, navigate to WooCommerce → Products, and press "Import" from the top of the page.

   

9. Click "Choose File" and select the CSV file with updated product prices from your computer.
10. Tick the "Update existing products" checkbox and click "Continue".
11. Map the fields from your CSV file to the correct WooCommerce product fields.

    

12. Press "Run the Importer".

That's it. Once the import is complete, go to WooCommerce → Products and check a few products to verify that the prices have been updated correctly.

Make bulk price adjustments using WooCommerce Discount Manager

If you want to change product prices to create a sale or discount offer, then you need WooCommerce Discount Manager.

WooCommerce Discount Manager is a powerful dynamic pricing plugin that lets you easily slash product prices for various types of sales. It lets you:

Not to mention, the whole process is completely pain-free for customers. They don't have to apply coupon codes or do anything to take advantage of the special prices. It's automatically applied to eligible customers.

Let's look at how to set it up on your website.

How to change prices with WooCommerce Discount Manager

For this tutorial, I'll show you how to configure the plugin to change prices across multiple products by a fixed percentage.

Step 1. Create the discounted price offer

1. Get the WooCommerce Discount Manager plugin and activate it on your site.
2. Navigate to Marketing → Discounts in your WordPress admin.
3. Press "Add New".
4. Give the discount offer a name.
5. Pick "Simple discount" as the desired discount type.

   

6. "Which products?" - Specify the products that are eligible for the discounted price: all products, particular product categories, or particular products.

Step 2. Specify products, add conditions, set availability, and more

1. Next, specify the products or categories for the discounted price apply to (you'll only see this if you chose to discount particular products or particular products in the previous step).

   

2. Define the fixed percentage amount off.
3. Enable the sale badge feature to add WooCommerce's native label to products now available at the discounted price. This will be visible on WooCommerce product pages, shop page, product recommendations, and more.
4. "Applies to" - Specify who you wish to apply this price change, whether everyone, selected roles, and selected users.
5. "Availability" - Click on "Always available" to offer discounted prices indefinitely and "Specific dates" to schedule it.
   

   

6. "Product page content" - Add a custom promo message to the WooCommerce product page to tell customers about the discounted product prices. For example, "🤑Lowest price ever: $25 off! 🤑".
7. Decide where you want the custom sale banner and price displayed on the product detail page.
8. "Cart notice" - Add another custom message promo to the cart page. For example, 'Congrats 🎉! You have received your $25 discount 🛒!'.
9. Hit "Save".

And that's it. Head to the front end to view the price changes.

Changing prices using WooCommerce Wholesale Pro

WooCommerce shops that sell to both retail and wholesale customers need a way to change the price for wholesale buyers. So it makes sense to invest in a plugin that allows for wholesale-specific pricing. There may also be a need to hide prices from retail customers.

Enter: WooCommerce Wholesale Pro.

WooCommerce Wholesale Pro is a simple-to-use plugin that lets you create user roles in your store and change prices for users based on their roles.

It creates a wholesale version of your store so you can change the prices for B2B users without affecting their retail prices. Wholesale and retail users will see the same products, but their prices will vary based on their assigned roles.

Depending on your preferences, you can even choose to hide prices completely for logged out users.

You can also use WooCommerce Wholesale Pro to impact other pricing behaviors, such as whether each user role is taxable or tax-exempt and determine whether the wholesale discount for an item should include or exclude sales prices that affect the base price of the item.

Top features of WooCommerce Wholesale Pro

• It lets you add as many wholesale roles as needed, each with custom pricing.

  

• You can set up storewide and category-specific percentage discount offers. This knocks off the prices of eligible products in minutes.
• It lets you add wholesale price rates for individual products — whether simple, variable, or external.

How to change prices with WooCommerce Wholesale Pro

1. Add the WooCommerce Wholesale Pro plugin to your site.
2. Set storewide discounts for each wholesale role:
   • Navigate to WooCommerce → Settings → Wholesale → Roles in your WordPress site's admin.
   • Select the role that you wish to add a wholesale discount to.
   • Enter the discount percentage in the 'Discount' field. Don't add the "%" symbol.
   • Hit "Save changes".

That's about it. Repeat the steps to add more percentage discounts for other wholesale user roles.

A quick note: Refer to this guide for more details, including how to set category-specific, product-specific, and variation-level discounts which will change prices for each wholesale role.

Edit variation prices in bulk using WooCommerce Bulk Variations

WooCommerce's default method for changing prices works fine for small stores whose products don’t have a lot of variations. But, it can be tedious for stores with a large, highly variable inventory.

That's where WooCommerce Bulk Variations comes in.

WooCommerce Bulk Variations is a powerful plugin that lets you change product data for variable products — prices, images, stock information, etc. — in minutes.

In addition to allowing you to bulk edit products, it makes things simpler on the front end too. You can showcase product attributes, options, stock details, prices, and other details in a price matrix on the front end of your site, like this:

Or like this:

Shoppers can easily specify their desired product quantity and add multiple variations to their carts at once.

Top features of WooCommerce Bulk Variations

• It lets you change prices, images, stock status, etc. of variable products in bulk with just a few clicks.
• It adds a filter menu to the "Edit Product" screen where you can easily locate specific product variations based on their attributes.
• You can specify the variations to be updated, all other variations will remain unchanged.
• It lets you add showcase product information in a sleek, functional table layout on the front end: prices, variation descriptions, attributes, options, and stock information.

A quick note: Refer to this guide for a detailed description and guide on how to edit variation prices in bulk using the plugin.

Best practices for managing your WooCommerce store's pricing strategy

These tips will help you understand the impact of price changes and boost sales and revenue in your ecommerce store:

• Use Google Analytics and WooCommerce analytics reports: WooCommerce provides decent built-in analytics and reports to track sales performance. You can sync Google Analytics on your website to better understand customer behavior. Keep an eye on metrics like total sales, average order value, and the number of orders before and after implementing pricing changes.
• Conduct A/B tests: With A/B testing, you compare different pricing strategies to see which performs better. A simple way to do this with WooCommerce Wholesale Pro is to create user roles to add two separate groups of customers with identical attributes. Then test different prices for the same products and analyze which price point is better for your business.

Monitor revenue, profit margins, average order value, customer acquisition costs, and other key performance indicators (KPIs) over time and use them as a reference point for future pricing-related decisions.

That's how to change the price in WooCommerce!

It's pretty normal for ecommerce stores of all sizes to change prices and other product details from time to time.

WooCommerce's default options work fine if you're updating the price for a handful of items. But, they can be tedious and aren't ideal if you have a large product inventory.

In this step-by-step tutorial, I've shown you how to change product prices in WooCommerce using its built-in options. I also shared the top plugins to make the process quicker and hassle-free:

• WooCommerce Discount Manager - The best plugin to change prices for sales and discount offers.
• WooCommerce Wholesale Pro - The best plugin to change prices in WooCommerce based on user roles.
• WooCommerce Bulk Variations - The best WooCommerce plugin to change prices for variable products in bulk.

Get started with these plugins and change prices in minutes!