How to display & filter a big spreadsheet of WooCommerce products

WooCommerce is fantastic for selling products. But unless you're a database expert, it's not easy to manage a big product inventory once the products are uploaded to your site. Do you ever find yourself exporting products to CSV and using an Excel spreadsheet to view data and filter for information? If so, then this post is for you.

The WooCommerce Product Table plugin offers a different way to view a list of all your products with various filterable data. You can quickly find specific products, search and sort by any column, and filter based on information such as category, tag and custom taxonomy.

Bill Jacobson recently told us how much time he has saved by switching to WooCommerce Product Table instead of exporting to a spreadsheet. He was so pleased with the time-saving that he left the plugin a 5 star review:

Keep reading to learn how you can stop using spreadsheets to manage product data from your own WordPress WooCommerce store!

How this WooCommerce spreadsheet plugin works

Instead of exporting to CSV and managing products in a spreadsheet, WooCommerce Product Table lists your inventory on a page on your website.

You can either make the product management page available to your customers, or you can mark it as Private and use it for internal purposes only. I'll tell you how to do this in a minute.

As well as the product name, you have full control over which columns of data appear in this WooCommerce spreadsheet view. For example, you can include columns for attributes, categories, tags, price, stock (including exact stock levels if needed), weight and dimensions.

There are lots of ways to find specific products in the spreadsheet view. WooCommerce Product Table comes with several search and filtering options built-in:

Or for even more advanced filtering options, you can use the WooCommerce product spreadsheet layout with the purpose-built WooCommerce Product Filters plugin. This works perfectly with WooCommerce Product Table to add enterprise-level filtering to the spreadsheet view. Here's an example:

Why is this better than using spreadsheet software?

As you can see, viewing products in WooCommerce Product Table is very similar to viewing them in a traditional spreadsheet using Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets. The difference is that the spreadsheet layout is generated automatically from the WordPress database. You don't need to waste time exporting products to XML or CSV and then open them using spreadsheet software.

How to list products in a WooCommerce spreadsheet layout

1. Install WooCommerce Product Table and activate your license key.
2. The table builder will open when you first activate the plugin. Alternatively, access it later at Products → Product Tables.
3. Use the options to choose how you want your WooCommerce spreadsheet layout to work. Here are some useful options for managing WooCommerce products in bulk:
   1. Columns - List the columns of data that you want to include in the spreadsheet layout. You probably want columns such as name, price, attributes, and stock. I expect you don't need customer-facing columns such as image and add to cart column.
   2. Product filters - Choose which filter dropdowns to show above the WooCommerce spreadsheet review. You can add filters for categories, tags, attributes/variations, and any custom taxonomy.
   3. Lazy load - Tick this box if you're listing more than about 50 products. This speeds up the table by loading 1 page worth of products at a time.
4. Now create a new page for the WooCommerce spreadsheet layout. If you want to make it private, go to the 'Publish' section in the top right corner of the Add/Edit Page screen and choose the 'Private' visibility option. This hides the page from normal customers, so that only logged in Administrators and Store Managers can see it.

   

5. The next step depends on whether you're using the Gutenberg block editor or another page builder. If you're using Gutenberg then insert the 'Product Table' block and select your table. Alternatively, copy the table's shortcode from Products → Product Tables and paste it into your page builder.
6. Finally, publish the page and view your spreadsheet of WooCommerce products. Now you can start managing products directly on your website, without having to bother exporting to CSV or XML first!

Can I use WooCommerce Product Table to edit products in a spreadsheet format?

While WooCommerce Product Table itself doesn't provide inline editing, you can easily add this with the Universal Frontend Editor plugin. This lets you add an 'Edit' link to your public-facing product tables. Logged in users with the correct role can use this to access an editable WooCommerce product spreadsheet, from which they can edit the products inline.

Read our tutorial on how to add a front end spreadsheet editor with inline editing.

If you don't want to make the spreadsheet editable, then you can click on any product in the table and edit it from the single product page:

1. Make sure you're logged into your WordPress website as an Administrator or Store Manager.
2. View your WooCommerce spreadsheet page and click on the name of any product in the table. This will take you to the single product page.
3. Next, click the 'Edit Product' link in the WordPress toolbar at the top of the screen.
4. This will take you to the Edit Product screen, where you can make changes and save.
5. Refresh the WooCommerce spreadsheet page, and the changes will instantly appear. (Tip: If you regularly edit products or need to see live stock information in the table, do not enable the caching option on the plugin settings page. This ensures that you always see the latest live data about each product.)

What else can the WooCommerce spreadsheet plugin do?

This article is about how to use the WooCommerce Product Table plugin to list products in a convenient spreadsheet layout for store owners. However, that's only a tiny part of what the plugin can do.

The plugin is particularly popular for creating a one-page WooCommerce order form layout for customers. Instead of just showing read-only data in the table, you can include add to cart buttons and variation selectors. Your customers can quickly find products, choose variations and add them to the cart - all on one page. This is a great way to increase conversions as it's much more user-friendly than standard store layouts.

You can use WooCommerce Product Table in different ways around your site. For example, you can add a read-only spreadsheet view to a private page for your internal management purposes. Separately, you can create a public WooCommerce order form page with more interactive features such as add to cart buttons.

Install this WooCommerce spreadsheet plugin on your site, and you'll be amazed at how many different ways you can use it!

Where to get the plugin

Many WooCommerce store owners waste time exporting products into spreadsheet software in order to view data and perform filters. If you just need to view products without editing them en masse, then there's an easier way!

Instead, you can use WooCommerce Product Table create a WooCommerce spreadsheet-like view directly on your website. This can be public or hidden from public view. The products are listed instantly, with no need for export plugins or manual data entry. Simply view your product list page, use the filters to find specific products, and think about how to spend the extra time!