Discover the easy way to embed, stream and sell videos on your WooCommerce store. We'll do it with the best WooCommerce video gallery plugins.
Are you looking for a way to showcase or sell videos on your WooCommerce store? There are several ways that you can use videos on your store:
Creating a WooCommerce video gallery - Display preview or promo videos on your main shop pages to grab visitors' attention. This is a great way to boost sales of any type of product, whether you're selling videos or something else such as clothing.
Selling videos with WooCommerce - You can also use WooCommerce to sell actual video products, which customers can then download or watch online.
An example of a WooCommerce video gallery
Keep reading to learn how to use WooCommerce video gallery plugin to display videos on your shop pages, as well as how to sell videos in WooCommerce. Customers will be able to watch a video preview for each product without leaving the page, and add the product to their cart right from the same gallery.
I'll also provide some tips on other ways to display video in WooCommerce, such as in a "Quick view" product lightbox, or in a dedicated "Video" tab on the product page.
How to create a WooCommerce video gallery
Why WooCommerce Product Table makes a great video gallery plugin
WooCommerce Product Table lets you display allor someof your WooCommerce products as a flexible grid/table. You can control exactly what information displays in your table including add to cart buttons and - you guessed it - product videos.
The advantage of a table view is that your customers can watch videos for multiple products on one page - there's no need for them to keep going to the individual product page. You can do this by adding embedded video players directly to the product table on the shop page. This is ideal for WooCommerce video streaming, as customers can view the video directly on. your website.
Similarly, your shoppers will also be able to select variations and add products to their carts right from the video gallery - again, no multiple tabs or page reloads required. Whether you're selling videos with WooCommerce or just want to use video to promote other types of product, it's a more convenient approach for visitors.
Below, we'll show you how to set up this WooCommerce videos plugin. After that, I'll show you some extra ways to display video in WooCommerce, and also how to sell video products.
Step 1: Add video to WooCommerce products
To get started, you need to add an embedded preview video to the individual products that you want to display with WooCommerce Product Table. This is how customers will stream the video online.
The process is the same whether you're selling videos with WooCommerce or just adding video to a regular product. You do have some choices for where and how you add the video, though.
First off - how. There are lots of ways to easily add video to WooCommerce products:
The easiest way is to just embed a video player from YouTube or Vimeo. Simply paste the video URL into the product and WordPress will embed it as a proper video player.
If you don't want YouTube branding, you can pay for one of Vimeo's unbranded plans, or a service like Swarmify. This can seamlessly import and serve YouTube video but with an unbranded player.
Now, the where.
If you're not already using the Product short description field, that's the easiest spot to add your video. In fact, that's what we'll do for this example. All you need to do is embed your video in the text editor using normal WordPress oEmbed functionality. This is incredibly easy - simply paste the URL of your video from YouTube, Vimeo or similar.
But if you're already using the short description field for something else, you can also create a custom field to embed your videos using a free plugin such as Advanced Custom Fields.
Finally, add videos to all the products you want to display with the WooCommerce video gallery plugin.
Step 2: Create a product table for your WooCommerce video gallery
Install the plugin and then go to Products → Product Tables. While you should set up each step to see what interests you, if you want to create a WooCommerce video gallery, I recommend that you configure these settings as a minimum:
Columns - Make sure to include the short description or the custom field that you added to hold your video. And if you're planning to add quick view to your video gallery, then you should also add a 'Quick view' column.
Add to cart column - Configure how you want your add to cart button to function, including variations.
Lazy load - If you have lots of products with WooCommerce videos, you might want to enable lazy loading for performance reasons.
Once you've created the video table, go to Products → Product Tables → Settings and enable the 'Shortcodes' option. This ensures that your embedded WooCommerce video players load properly in the table.
Step 3: Add the video gallery to WooCommerce
Now, you just need to choose where in your store the WooCommerce video gallery will appear. There are two ways to approach this:
Tick the relevant boxes on the plugin settings page to show the product table layout on your main shop and category pages. You can do this via the first page of the table builder.
Use a 'Product Table' block or a shortcode to add WooCommerce video streaming galleries to other pages. You can find the shortcode for your table at Products → Product Tables.
Once you have set up the video gallery in WooCommerce, it will look something like this:
Can I embed video playlists?
If you want to show more than one video per product, then you can embed entire video playlists into the WooCommerce video gallery. You can easily do this using the video playlist shortcode that comes with WordPress itself.
WooCommerce audio and video gallery containing an audio file, a single video, an audio playlist, and a video playlist
Use the following instructions to add a video playlist to any of the fields you're displaying in the product table:
Click the 'Add Media' button.
Choose the 'Create Video Playlist' button on the left.
Upload and select the videos you wish to include in the playlist.
Click the 'Create a new video playlist' button on the bottom right.
On the next screen, add any captions for each video and change the settings as required.
Creating video playlists in Gutenberg
At the time of writing, the above instructions only work if you're using the classic WordPress editor and not Gutenberg. Hopefully Gutenberg will add a video playlist button in future. In the meantime, you can create video playlists by adding the following shortcode to a Gutenberg 'Shortcode' block:
Replace the ID's with the actual ID of each video you wish to include in the playlist. You can find these by going to the 'Media' section of the WordPress admin, clicking on a video, and looking at the URL at the top of your browser tab. For example, if the URL ends /wp-admin/upload.php?item=12345 then you need to add the ID 12345 to the shortcode.
Add WooCommerce videos to a quick view lightbox
So far, you've learned how to create a WooCommerce video gallery with embedded video players in the main product list. You can use the widths option in WooCommerce Product Table to choose how much space the video player column takes up. However, videos inevitably require a fair amount of vertical space. If you want to list products in a more compact way, then it might be better to show the videos in a quick view lightbox for each product:
Using WooCommerce quick view is better than just adding video players to the single product page. That's because you don't want to take customers to a separate page for each product - that slows things down and takes them away from the main product list. By watching sample WooCommerce videos and adding to the cart from a quick view lightbox, the customer remains on the same page. This stops them from getting lost and encourages them to add multiple products to the cart.
Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Quick view, enter your license key and choose your quick view settings. Make sure you enable the short description, as this is where you've added the video players. You can choose whether or not to show other sections such as the product images or add to cart buttons.
Add 'Quick view' quick_view to the list of columns in the Product Table (Products → Product Tables).
And that's it!
Add a video tab to the product page
And finally, let's think about where else you can display video on the WooCommerce product page. One way to do this is to add a dedicated 'Videos' tab, which allows you to display video without cluttering up the page layout. You can do this with the WooCommerce Product Tabs plugin, which lets you add extra tabs to the product page.
How to stream videos on WooCommerce
We have already touched on WooCommerce video streaming, but I want to make sure it's totally clear before we move on.
Steaming videos involves allowing people to actually watch the video on your website. They don't download it - they watch it in an embedded video player embedded on the website.
This means that you can use several of the methods that we already discussed to enable video streaming:
When you embed videos directly in a product table, then visitors can stream them from your main shop pages.
Whichever method(s) you choose, it's very straightforward to add video streaming to WooCommerce. Just host the videos on any streaming service such as Vimeo or YouTube, and paste the URL wherever you want them to appear on your WordPress site.
How to sell videos on WooCommerce
Above, you learned how to create a customizable WooCommerce video gallery. However, what if you're specifically looking to sell videos on WooCommerce?
In that case, the same basic steps apply for creating the video gallery, but you'll want to go about creating your WooCommerce products a little differently.
That is, in the example above you learned how to display videos in a gallery as a way to showcase a product. Now, you're going to learn how to make the video the product itself.
Can you sell videos on WooCommerce?
Most people think of WooCommerce in terms of selling physical products that are shipped to the user. However, it's equally well-suited for selling virtual or downloadable products.
This means that you can sell videos on WooCommerce whether you're selling physical videos to post, or virtual videos to stream online or download.
Types of video you can sell with WooCommerce
You can use WooCommerce to sell absolutely any type of video. This includes:
All video genres - fiction, nonfiction, films, movies, educational video.
Any type of video - animations, commentary, drone footage, behind-the-scenes event coverage, how-to video tutorials, interviews, presentations, promotional product videos, stock footage, motion graphics and presets, After Effects project files, Apple Motion or Cinema 4D templates, Flash elements files, video overlays and textured, Premiere Pro templates, social media video templates, video effects and transitions.
All video file types - MP4, WEBM, AVI, QuickTime, WAV, and many more.
Whatever sort of video you want to sell online, keep reading to discover the best way to do it.
Setup instructions
The basic steps to sell video in WooCommerce are as follows. I'll be focussing on selling videos for streaming online or downloading, but you can also sell physical videos to post to the customer:
Upload the video file somewhere accessible.
Mark products as Virtual and Downloadable.
Add video file to WooCommerce product.
Let's go through them in detail…
Step 1. Upload video file somewhere accessible
To get started, you'll need to upload the video file itself to a place where visitors will be able to download it.
For a small file, you can just upload it straight to your server via your WordPress Media Library.
However, if you have larger files, or if you're planning to have a ton of downloads, a better option is to use a dedicated storage service like Amazon S3 or DigitalOcean Spaces. These services are affordable, reliable, and lower the burden on your site's server.
Step 2: Create a virtual, downloadable product
Next, create a new WooCommerce video product:
Go to Products → Add New.
Add the product title - this will usually be the WooCommerce video name.
Type a main description of the video. This will help with the SEO of the video product page by being crawled by search engines.
Choose any categories or tags for the video. Customers will be able to filter by these to find specific videos.
In the 'Product data' section, make sure to check the boxes for Virtual and Downloadable:
Step 3: Add download or streaming link
After you tick the 'Downloadable' box in Step 5 (above), you should see a new Downloadable files section appear in the General tab of your WooCommerce video product.
If you want customers to download the video they bought, then fill this in as follows:
Click the Add File button and insert the download link for where the video is saved. As we discussed in Step 1, this might be in the WordPress Media Library or it might be on a third party video host like Vimeo.
Add a download limit and expiry date if required.
Alternatively, you can allow people to stream the video online instead of downloading it. To do that, simply enter the URL of wherever they can stream the video. This might be a hidden page on your WooCommerce site containing the embedded video. It might also be a link to a third party video hosting site such as Vimeo.
Once you're finished, Publish the video product as you normally would.
Step 4: Add custom fields to WooCommerce video products (optional)
When you're selling video online, there might be extra fields of product data that you need to display about each video. For example, perhaps your WooCommerce video gallery needs fields for resolution, video length etc.
You can easily add custom fields using a free plugin like Advanced Custom Fields or Easy Post Types and Fields. Simply use your chosen plugin to add as many fields as you like to the 'Products' post type. You can then use WooCommerce Product Table to display them as extra columns in the video gallery.
What happens when customers purchase a video product?
When someone purchases the video from your WooCommerce store, they receive an email containing a unique link to download the video file.
For best results, combine this method for selling videos with the earlier section of this tutorial on how to create a WooCommerce video product gallery. That way, customers can watch the embedded video preview directly on your shop pages, and then purchase the full video.
What about piracy?
With the example above, even people who didn't purchase a video would still technically be able to download it if someone shared the link with them.
Now, digital piracy is something you're never going to stop, so a lot of store owners will just live with that and focus on finding more paying customers.
But if you are concerned and want to at least make it harder for people to share the download links, you can use the Download limit and Download expiry options to limit access:
Just be aware that these restrictions might frustrate some legitimate customers who want to download a file multiple times or in the future.
Go build your WooCommerce video gallery!
And that's it - you just added a user-friendly WooCommerce video gallery to your store. You also learned how to sell video online in WooCommerce, either for download or streaming.
Not only can visitors browse videos for multiple products without leaving the page they're on. They can also add products right to their carts for a smooth, friction-free checkout process.
The WooCommerce Product Table plugin makes it easy to add video to your shop pages. Get it today and start promoting your products with video:
Have any other questions about how to use a WooCommerce video gallery plugin? Leave us a comment!
If you're creating an order form for your e-commerce store, then you're likely to want a WooCommerce one-page checkout too. Keep reading to learn how to enable WooCommerce one-page shopping.
WooCommerce one-page checkout lets customers select products and complete their purchase within a single page. One-page shopping is excellent for user experience because it's fast, so the customer is less likely to get frustrated and you're less likely to have a high cart abandonment rate.
The perfect WooCommerce one page checkout plugin needs two things:
An easy way to view and find products, select options, and add them to their order without leaving the page. This involves listing WooCommerce products in a quick one-page order form.
A WooCommerce checkout form - either underneath the product order form or in a popup on the same page.
Unfortunately, setting up WooCommerce one-page shopping isn't as easy as it sounds. Most order form plugins meet the first requirement but come short with the second one. And the official WooCommerce.com extension for one-page checkout isn't great at displaying products.
This tutorial will tell you how to meet both requirements - no coding required! You'll learn how to list products in a quick order form, with a choice of two types of WooCommerce single page checkout.
But first, let’s cover the basics – what is a one-page checkout?
What is WooCommerce one-page checkout?
A WooCommerce one-page checkout can either appear on the page under the products, or as a popup on the same page
As I mentioned above, a WooCommerce single page checkout allows customers to select products and complete their purchases – all on one page.
Why do I need a WooCommerce one-page checkout plugin?
Typically in WooCommerce, a customer needs to add products to their shopping cart, then go to the cart page and then to the checkout page. This means that there are multiple steps to the point of making a purchase.
In the simplest of terms, this is bad. Research shows that 22% of abandoned carts happen because the checkout flow is too long. The more pages the customer has to click through to make a purchase, the less likely they are to complete it.
A WooCommerce single page checkout combines all the steps onto one page, allowing for a faster checkout experience.
You can speed up the purchase process by using a WooCommerce single-page checkout plugin to list products and allow customers to complete their journey on the same page. This is why even WooCommerce has created its own one-page checkout plugin. But there’s a catch 😲
The 3 best WooCommerce one page checkout plugins
Next, let's explore the 3 best plugins for adding one-page checkout to WooCommerce. We'll start with the official extension from WooCommerce.com. That's a good starting point but has limitations. As a result, Plugin #2 will provide an alternative way to implement one-page checkout, and Plugin #3 works alongside the official extension to add the missing functionality.
Read about all three plugins to choose the combination that will work best for your customers.
It does this well, except that it lists products in a very basic way. That's fine for displaying one product or a small number of products with a checkout form underneath. However, this plugin is useless for product selection if you have a large number of products. It also fails to deliver if you want to enable customers to search, sort, and filter the list of products to find what they're looking for.
Any ecommerce store with numerous products needs to seriously consider user experience and make things easier for the customer. This involves listing products in a user-friendly way:
The products have to be easy to find.
All the important product data needs to be visible at once, without having to visit multiple pages.
Customers need to be able to choose quantities and compare variations from one page.
Luckily, there are two easy ways to improve on this. We'll do this with Plugins 2 and 3 in this list.
Plugin 2: Display a popup checkout on your main shop pages
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
I think that the most user-friendly way to enable one-page checkout in WooCommerce is to display the checkout in a popup window on the same page as your products. That way, you don't add clutter to your shop pages - and yet customers can quickly check out on the same page where they add products to their cart.
With this type of WooCommerce single-page checkout, the checkout form appears in a popup instead of below the list of products. In this case, the customer journey looks like this:
The customer visits the product table page and uses the search, sort and filtering to find the products they want.
They select the products and add them to their cart.
A popup immediately appears over the product table. The customer makes any changes to the selected products, enters their details and completes the purchase without having to leave the page.
You can easily add this type of WooCommerce one-page checkout with the WooCommerce Fast Cart plugin. This lets you display a popup cart and/or complete checkout on the same page as your products. When a customer adds a product to the cart, you can either display the popup on-page checkout automatically, or let them click on a floating cart icon to launch it.
Use the WooCommerce Fast Cart plugin to add a popup checkout to your shop pages
Go to the WooCommerce Fast Cart settings page at WooCommerce → Settings → Fast Cart.
Choose how you want the fast cart to work. In particular, I recommend enabling the 'Direct Checkout' and 'Auto Open' options. Together, these make the checkout appear as soon as customers add products to the cart. It's the fastest way of using the plugin for a WooCommerce one-page shopping experience.
Plugin 3: List products in a searchable order form with one-page checkout underneath
When we discussed Plugin #1, I told you about the limitations of using the WooCommerce One-Page Checkout extension on its own. The main problem was that it lists products in such a basic way, with no way to search or filter them. That's where WooCommerce Product Table comes in.
This bestselling WooCommerce one-page checkout plugin lists products in a searchable order form, allowing for a quick browsing experience. You can list hundreds or even thousands of products, with quick search and sort filters so that customers can easily find what they want. After adding products to their order, customers can add their details and checkout, directly on the order form page!
An example of one page shopping in WooCommerce
You'll need two plugins to implement this method:
WooCommerce Product Table to list products in a searchable one-page order form. This will allow you to list all your products in a single easy-to-navigate table which you can place on any page. You can choose which columns of information to include, add product variation dropdowns, and even add a search box and filters. The lazy load option lets you list hundreds or even thousands of products, neatly separated by pagination links.
Together, this will create a seamless checkout experience for your customers. They won't have to switch between pages to find each product they are interested in. It's true one-page shopping, regardless of how many products you have.
Setup instructions for WooCommerce one-page checkout
Use the table builder at Products → Product Tables to choose the essential information about your product tables. This includes which columns of information to display about your products. Here are some tips for creating an effective WooCommerce one-page shopping experience:
You may wish to prevent people from leaving the one-page order form and clicking through to the single product page. To do this, click the pencil icon for each column and open the Advanced column to disable the link on that column.
If you want to list lots of products, you'll probably want to choose the 'Checkbox' add to cart option. This adds a multi-select option so that customers can add lots of products to the cart at once.
If you're selling variable products, then choose either the 'dropdown' or 'separate' variation options. This lets customers choose variations directly in the order form instead of having to click through to the single product page. (After all, that would defeat the purpose of a WooCommerce one-page checkout!).
Enable the 'Quantity' option so that customers can buy more than one of each product.
Finally, go to the plugin settings page at Products → Product Tables → Settings and make these changes:
Disable the 'Ajax Cart' option. By leaving this box unticked, the page will reload when customers add products to the cart, displaying the one-page checkout underneath with the correct products.
Keep the number of Products per page fairly low so that customers don't have to scroll too far to view the checkout under the table. If you have more products than the number of rows, then pagination links will appear under the table so that they can view more products without leaving the page.
Step 2: Create a landing page listing your products
WooCommerce Product Table lists your products above the one-page checkout, like this
This is where we create the page that we'll be using as our WooCommerce single-page checkout:
Create a new page (Pages → Add New).
Add a shortcode to the page: [product_table id="123"] (replace "123" with the actual ID for your table, which you can get from Products → ProductTables. Alternatively, if you're building the page with the Gutenberg editor then you can insert the 'Product Table' block instead of using a shortcode.
This will list all your products with the options you chose on the plugin settings page.
You can add as many product tables as you like to the page - just create multiple tables and insert them, each listing different products.
Step 3: Add one-page checkout to WooCommerce
Next, you need to add one-page checkout to the page you just created.
Edit the product table page that you created in Step 2, above.
Add the following shortcode underneath the product table shortcode: [woocommerce_one_page_checkout]
Your finished WooCommerce order form page should look something like this in the WordPress back end:
This will create a WooCommerce single-page checkout with a product table at the top, and the checkout form below.
FAQ
What is the best WooCommerce one page checkout?
The best WooCommerce one page checkout allows customers to complete their purchase as quickly as possible. You can achieve this with the WooCommerce Fast Cart plugin by allowing checkout in an on-page popup. Equally, you can achieve it by combining WooCommerce Product Table with the official One Page Checkout extension.
Both are good options from a functionality standpoint. However, you may want to consider your customer's behavior and preferences when choosing which WooCommerce single-page checkout to use. If your customers usually buy a single or just a couple of items per session, you may want to go with the pop-up checkout option. It's fast and seamless and allows for a very quick checkout:
On the other hand, if your customers tend to purchase several different items at a time or would prefer a more traditional checkout experience, you may want a checkout form below your products. This way, customers can take their time to add products to their cart one by one (or remove products if they change their mind). Finally, they can scroll down to the checkout form once they're ready to place the order.
How can I create a custom checkout page in WooCommerce?
In this article, we've looked at how to display the default WooCommerce checkout under a list of products; and how to display it in a popup checkout. None of these plugins will actually change the design of the checkout.
We have a separate article on how to create a custom checkout page. Once you've done this, the customized checkout will automatically appear in your one-page checkout - whichever of the above plugins you are using. That's because they inherit the styling of the default checkout, so if you edit this then it will be reflected in your one-page checkout.
Is a one step checkout better than a multistep checkout?
The beauty of WooCommerce one page checkout is the speed of making a purchase. WooCommerce multistep checkout does the opposite by adding extra steps to the process. However, the two concepts are more compatible than you might think. This is because you can add a multistep checkout to a single page - for example, as tabs within that one page.
This handy plugin is perfect if you want to streamline your checkout process or even add custom checkout fields. For example, you can use it to collect extra information from each customer. This will appear on the WooCommerce one-page checkout, whether you've added it below the list of products or in a popup checkout.
You can also use the editor to write more persuasive calls to action and change the purchase button - instead of the standard 'buy now' CTA, you can easily do some A/B testing to find out what works best for your customers.
Can I disable the WooCommerce cart completely?
If you're using Plugin 2 (i.e. Fast Cart with a popup checkout), then you can easily disable the cart. Simply enable the 'Direct Checkout' and 'Skip Cart Page' options on the plugin settings page. That way, customers can only access the checkout and there are no back doors to the cart page.
However, this is a bit trickier if you're using Plugins 1 and/or 3. Even though the checkout appears below the list of products, there are still ways for customers to access the cart page. For example:
The cart link will still appear in your navigation menu and/or header (depending on your theme and menus).
When the customer adds products to the cart, they will see a success message linking to the cart.
If your WooCommerce order form page includes a sidebar with the 'WooCommerce Cart' widget, then the contents of the cart will show after they add products. This widget includes links to the cart and a separate checkout page.
An Add to Cart success message with a link to the Cart page.
It's absolutely fine to use these checkout features alongside one-page checkout. It gives customers a choice. For example, if they want to edit the contents of their cart, they can click through to the cart page and check out afterwards. This is handy because WooCommerce one-page checkout lists the products in the cart without any means to edit them.
However, some online store owners prefer to completely disable the WooCommerce cart and just use the one-page checkout. That's fine too.
How to do it
The simplest solution is to add a 301 redirect to stop people from accessing the cart page. You can do this by installing the free Redirection plugin and redirecting the cart page to wherever you like.
For example, you might redirect the cart page to the WooCommerce checkout. This is the checkout page defined in the WooCommerce settings, and is separate from the one where you've added a product table.
Alternatively, you could add an anchor link to a point underneath the product table on your one-page checkout page, and create a redirect so that people are taken there when they click on a cart link. When a customer adds a product to the cart and sees the success message with 'View Cart' link, clicking it will scroll them down the page to the WooCommerce one-page checkout under the product table.
Get the best WooCommerce one-page checkout plugin now 🚀
In conclusion, a WooCommerce one-page checkout can greatly enhance the shopping experience for your customers. It can increase your conversion rate, and ultimately boost your online sales.
By streamlining the checkout process and reducing the number of steps, you can eliminate unnecessary barriers. This makes it easier for customers to complete their purchases.
With the right implementation and customization, a one-page checkout can be a powerful tool for any WooCommerce store looking to improve their checkout process and drive growth. So, take the time to consider which type of one-page checkout is best for your business.
To add one-page checkout to WooCommerce, you can either:
Both options offer a great way to reduce cart abandonment by optimizing how customers complete their purchases. Choose the right plugins for your needs, and make your customers happy 😄
Looking for a WooCommerce purchasing club plugin to create a free or paid members-only store? In this post, we're going to share two different plugins that you can use to create all types of purchasing clubs on WooCommerce.
With these plugins, you'll be able to make all or some of your store private and either give users access for free or require them to make a one-time or recurring payment.
There's a lot of flexibility and edge cases involved, but we're going to make sure to give you enough information to:
Choose the plugin/method that's right for you and your store.
Get set up with all the necessary WooCommerce purchasing club features at your store.
What types of WooCommerce store can benefit from a purchasing club?
Purchasing clubs have plenty of use cases that go beyond your stereotypical "wine of the month" club (though they're certainly great for that as well!).
Here are some of the many situations where a purchasing club can make sense:
Wholesale stores - you can create a special area for wholesale members while keeping your regular store for retail customers. This is great for wholesale buying clubs running on WooCommerce.
Membership sites - if you run a membership site, you might want to create special products that only your members can purchase.
Special discounts - you might want to offer a special set of discounted prices for members to create a discount shopping club.
Employee/staff purchasing - if you sell special products to your employees (like uniforms), you want to keep that area private.
Marketing efforts - a purchasing club adds scarcity, which can aid your marketing efforts. For example, you can give users who register with an email address access to special products/prices as an incentive to help build your list.
You can probably think of plenty of other stores that can benefit from a purchasing club - this is by no means an exhaustive list! And here's the good news...
You have different options to create a WooCommerce purchasing club
As the saying goes, there is more than one way to skin a cat. No, I don't know who was running around skinning cats in the 1800s, but the core meaning holds true when it comes to creating a WooCommerce purchasing club.
That is - you have options. And these options depend on the type of WooCommerce purchasing club that you want to create.
Generally, purchasing clubs break down into a few distinct types. You have clubs where:
Only members can shop at the store - anonymous visitors can't purchase anything. This is a true private shopping club.
Members can view unique products that are members-only, but anonymous visitors can purchase the rest of the products. This is kind of a hybrid.
Members and anonymous visitors have access to the exact same products, but members get a special discount. This is more of a discount shopping club.
Then, you have the whole other decision of whether members need to pay for access or can register for free.
To address these various use-cases, we're going to show you tutorials on two different methods to create a members-only WooCommerce purchasing club:
WooCommerce Protected Categories - this method is more flexible and lets you choose between free/paid memberships and whether or not to make all of your products members-only. Skip to tutorial.
WooCommerce Private Store - this method is simpler but not quite as flexible. It makes your entire store private, which will only fit certain types of purchasing clubs. Skip to tutorial.
How to pick the WooCommerce purchasing club plugin that's right for you
Ok, so now that you know what your options are - how do you pick the approach that's right for you?
Here's a general guideline of when to pick each plugin...
WooCommerce Protected Categories
WooCommerce Protected Categories is your best option if you want any combination of these features (you don't need to use all the features at the same store):
Require members to pay a one-time or recurring subscription. Recurring revenue is a great way to monetize any club membership because it ensures you always have revenue coming in no matter how many products your customers actually buy.
Make some products public and some private. If you want to display different products based on which type of user is shopping, this is the method you want.
Create multiple levels of memberships. This lets you show different products to different types of members.
Make all of your products members-only. You can also just make everything private, if needed.
Essentially, WooCommerce Protected Categories can help you create all three types of private purchasing clubs that I listed above.
WooCommerce Private Store is your best option if you want these features:
Create a 100% private purchasing club. With this method, only members will be able to purchase products - anonymous visitors won't see anything.
Make your club free to registered members or require payment. Because the entire store is private, this is good if you're offering free access or running a members-only store where users make their payment offline and then get digital access (e.g. a local purchasing club). You can also use a plugin like Gravity Forms to require users to pay to register.
Essentially, WooCommerce Private Store can help you create the first type of private purchasing club (where only members can shop).
Beyond the differences discussed above, WooCommerce Private Store is also a little simpler to setup, though both plugins can be configured fairly quickly.
Using WooCommerce Protected Categories to create a WooCommerce purchasing club
As a quick reminder, this method lets you:
Choose whether or not to require users to pay a subscription for access to your private products. Again, this subscription approach is great because it ensures you always have recurring cash flow coming into your business.
Make all your products part of the purchasing club or still leave some products available for guest users. You can also just offer different prices on the same products for members of your purchasing club.
Create multiple levels of membership, where different users have access to different products.
Step 1: Choose whether to make your purchasing club free or paid
There are three ways you can let users sign up:
For free
A recurring subscription
A one-time payment
WooCommerce Protected Categories can help you create a free members-only purchasing club all by itself, but if you want to accept recurring subscriptions, you'll need the YITH WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin.
If you're planning to make your purchasing club free, you can safely skip to the next step. But if you want to accept paid subscriptions to get the aforementioned benefit of stable, recurring revenue at your store, here's a high-level look at how you can use the WooCommerce subscriptions plugin.
If you want to accept recurring subscriptions, you'll use the YITH WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin to create a "subscription product" that's public. Visitors can then purchase this product and, once they purchase it, unlock all of the other hidden purchasing club products.
All you need to do is use the plugin to grant access to the hidden products to the Subscriber role that WooCommerce Subscriptions uses. If users ever stop paying their subscription, the WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin will change their user role (and thus remove their access to your purchasing club). You can also give users a password if you'd rather not rely on user roles.
If you want to accept one-time payments, you can create a regular public WooCommerce product that gives users access to the store's password.
Do you want to hide all of your products or just specific categories of products?
Do you want to hide your products with a password or by WordPress user role? Or both?
Hide all products or just some products?
WooCommerce Protected Categories automatically hides any subcategories of a hidden category, as well as all the products inside the category/subcategories.
This opens up a few possibilities. If you want to...
Hide all of your categories, you can create one "Purchasing Club" parent category and put all your products inside.
Leave some products publicly available, you can leave most of your products in public categories and just make specific categories private with the plugin.
You can also use the latter approach to create discounts for purchasing club members by creating a private category with discounted versions of your products.
Tip: Using the free Duplicate Post plugin lets you quickly duplicate the products that you want to discount. You then just need to change the price in the hidden category.
To make a category or categories private, go to Products → Categories and use the Visibility controls to make a category either:
Password protected
Private and only visible to specific user roles
What's the difference? That's the next question…
Use password protection or user role privacy?
WooCommerce Protected Categories gives you several different ways to hide your members-only products, which you saw above. The options to consider for your members-only purchasing club are:
Password Protected - users need to enter a password to view the hidden category (and all the products/subcategories contained inside). This gives you a lot of flexibility for granting access because it's not tied to user accounts.
User Role Protected - only logged in users with certain user roles can see the hidden category (and all the products/subcategories contained inside). This is most helpful for subscription purchasing clubs because you can automatically grant access to the Subscriber user role that the WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin utilizes for active subscribers. Or, you could grant access to any registered user or a custom user role created with the free User Role Editor plugin.
You can use either approach to restrict your private purchasing club to members only. And if you want to create different membership levels with access to different products, then you can do this too. With the password protection option, just create different passwords for different categories. Or with the role protection option, restrict different categories to different user roles. Easy!
Even with different membership levels, you can still use a single login page - users will be automatically redirected to the relevant category based on the specific password that they enter.
Step 3: Configure other plugin settings, like the login form
You can access the plugin settings by going to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Protected categories. Then, you can configure:
Whether or not to show protected categories in navigation menus or your public-facing store
Where to locate the general login page for WooCommerce password protected categories
How long the password should unlock the hidden categories for
Specific details about your password login form
What happens if a logged out user tries to access a role protected purchasing club category
How shoppers can access your WooCommerce purchasing club
If you decided to use password protection, you can give access to shoppers either by:
Creating a unique password for each shopper (this is fine for small clubs, but doesn't work great at scale)
Using one shared password for all club members
If you're selling a membership product, you can automatically send the password by using the Follow Ups plugin to automatically send purchasers an email.
If you're using private role protected categories, WordPress will automatically send new users their login details. You should also add navigation menu links to make it easier for shoppers to find the purchasing club products.
To make it even easier, you can also:
Use the Peter's Login Redirect plugin to automatically send users to the private purchasing club category after they log in.
Use the Follow Ups plugin to send them an email with instructions on how to access their private club products.
Using WooCommerce Private Store to create a WooCommerce purchasing club
As a quick reminder, this WooCommerce purchasing club plugin lets you:
Make your entire WooCommerce store private
Give members access either by creating a WordPress account or just entering a password that you give them
Allow members to register for free, only register members who have made an offline payment, or require payment.
Step 1: Choose how to make your purchasing club private
The plugin is very simple to configure, which is one of the reasons it's a great option if your purchasing club won't be affected by its limitations in comparison to the previous method.
Once you install and activate the plugin, go to WooCommerce → Settings → Private Store to configure the plugin.
Here, you can either:
Create one or more passwords that give access to your store without the need for a WordPress user account.
Check the Logged in users box to automatically give access to users who do have a WordPress account. You can also select which user roles will have access.
You can also combine the two approaches if you want a way to give certain types of users access without creating an account for them.
If you're going to give any users the password, you can configure the plugin's login form in the Login form section. And you can also create a redirect URL to take users to a certain page after logging in.
If you're exclusively going with the password protected approach, you're pretty much done now!
All you need to do is give verified users the password and direct them to your store. When they land on any store page, they'll need to enter the password before they can see or purchase products:
Step 2: Customize registration page for a more branded experience (if allowing registration)
If you want to require users to create a user account rather than just entering a password, you'll want to create a more branded login/register page for WordPress accounts.
To do that, you can use:
Theme My Login - lets you customize the core WordPress login/register pages' appearances. Also includes a helpful option that lets you hold new registrants for admin approval before they can access the purchasing club products.
Gravity Forms - though this is a premium add-on, the User Registration Add-on gives you a lot of flexibility for handling new user registrations. It also lets you create a completely custom registration/login page (that is, you don't need to use the core WordPress pages). You can also require a payment via PayPal if you want to charge for membership.
Enjoy your new WooCommerce purchasing club
There you have it! Two different ways to create a members-only purchasing club at your WooCommerce store.
For most purchasing clubs, WooCommerce Protected Categories is the best option because it offers more flexibility. But if you just want to make your entire store private to create a 100% private shopping club, WooCommerce Private Store offers a simpler, but more limited, option.
Do you have any other questions about how to create a WooCommerce purchasing club using either of these plugins? Leave a comment and we'll do our best to help out!
If you’re running a wholesale ecommerce store or trade shop, then you know this type of business comes with particular challenges. You’ll need to find a way to display all your items effectively and cater to multiple types of customers. A WooCommerce trade account plugin is an essential part of this.
Fortunately, there are plenty of tools that can help you out. This is especially true if you’ve built your trade shop using WordPress and WooCommerce.
With a WooCommerce trade account plugin, you can get the exact functionality you need to keep your ecommerce platform running smoothly.
In this article, we’ll talk about why your store might need a WooCommerce trade account login. Then we’ll show you how to use the best WooCommerce trade account plugins and explain how to add a trade-friendly order form to your site. Let’s get started!
Introducing WooCommerce trade accounts
In WooCommerce, a trade account refers to a hidden ecommerce area designed for businesses and customers placing wholesale or trade orders. It is a distinct type of account that offers specific pricing and a user experience tailored to the needs of trade customers. Trade accounts provide a platform for trade customers to access these exclusive features.
Benefits of trade accounts in WooCommerce
There are lots of reasons to offer a trade account facility in your WooCommerce store:
Exclusive pricing: WooCommerce trade accounts allow you to offer trade customers exclusive pricing. This enables you to provide wholesale discounts and special pricing based on trade status, order volume, or other criteria. It helps foster stronger relationships with trade customers and encourages repeat business.
Tailored catalogs and products: With trade accounts, you can customize product catalog visibility specifically for your trade customers. This allows for the presentation of trade-only products or variations. You can highlight trade-specific items, and hide products only intended for retail customers. This improves the browsing experience for trade customers as they only see the products which are aimed at them.
Streamlined ordering process: The best WooCommerce trade account plugins provide a streamlined ordering process tailored to the needs of trade customers. They may include features such as bulk order forms, quick reordering of previous purchases, and advanced search options. This simplifies the buying experience, saves time, and improves efficiency for trade customers.
Account management and insights: WooCommerce trade accounts offer dedicated dashboards where trade customers can manage their account information, track order history, view invoices, and access other account-related features. It provides transparency and convenience for trade customers, enhancing their overall experience and facilitating efficient account management.
Enhanced customer support: Trade accounts often come with dedicated customer support channels, providing trade customers with personalized assistance and faster response times. It ensures that trade customers receive the necessary support and guidance for their specific needs, building trust and loyalty.
Increased order minimums and credit terms: Trade accounts allow businesses to set higher minimum quantities for trade customers, ensuring profitability and efficient order processing. Additionally, trade accounts can offer credit terms or payment methods tailored to the needs of trade customers, enabling them to manage cash flow effectively.
Industries that can benefit from having a trade account
Trade account functionality can benefit a variety of industries that engage in business-to-business (B2B) transactions. Here are some examples:
Wholesale distribution: Industries involved in wholesale distribution, such as electronics, consumer goods, or building materials, can benefit from trade account functionality. It enables them to offer custom pricing, bulk order options, and personalized catalogs to their B2B customers.
Manufacturing and industrial supplies: Manufacturers and suppliers of industrial equipment, machinery, or raw materials can utilize the WooCommerce trade account to provide B2B clients with specialized pricing, product customization options, and streamlined ordering processes.
Hospitality and food service: Industries like restaurants, hotels, or catering services can benefit from trade accounts to access exclusive pricing, bulk ordering capabilities, and specialized product ranges for their specific needs.
Health and beauty products: Suppliers or distributors of health and beauty products, such as cosmetics or salon supplies, can utilize trade account functionality to offer different prices, bulk ordering discounts, and personalized product recommendations to their B2B customers in the beauty industry.
Professional services: Industries offering professional services, such as consulting firms, marketing agencies, or software development companies, can benefit from trade account functionality by providing exclusive access to specialized services, discounted rates, and personalized support for their WooCommerce B2B client portals.
Educational materials: Companies involved in the production or distribution of educational materials, textbooks, or e-learning resources can utilize trade account functionality to offer discounted pricing options, bulk ordering options, and customized catalogs to educational institutions and B2B customers in the education sector.
Why you might need additional tradeshop plugins for your WooCommerce store
When it comes to building an online store of any type, WordPress is an excellent platform. It’s secure, beginner-friendly, and quick to set up. While WordPress does lack specific e-commerce features, these can easily be added using a trade shop plugin such as WooCommerce.
Small, basic shops may not need anything else. However, wholesale stores and trade shops have particular needs, which might not be fully met by WooCommerce. For example, here are just a few of the special challenges facing online trade stores:
Out of the box, WooCommerce doesn't differentiate between different types of customers. There's no way to separate out the experience for retail and trade customers. You can't charge dynamic pricing, show different products, or provide a separate WooCommerce trade account facility.
Trade buyers have different needs from retail shoppers, as they already know what they want and need a quick way to make their selections. You might be selling hundreds or thousands of items, so you’ll need a way to organize them effectively and help trade users find what they need quickly.
WooCommerce assumes that your store will be available to the public. However, if you’re only selling to other businesses, you might want to hide your entire store from public view.
To add these features to your trade shop, you’ll need some additional tools. As it turns out, the WooCommerce Wholesale Pro account login plugin is perfect for the job.
The best WooCommerce trade account plugin
Now, let’s look at WooCommerce Wholesale Pro - a WooCommerce trade account plugin that will help you customize your store. It's perfect whether you're creating a trade-only shop or a WooCommerce store with separate public and trade areas.
WooCommerce Wholesale Pro has all the features you need for trade login and every other part of your B2B area.
Trade account and user registration
Trade users can register for an account and log in on the trade account page. This gives them access to the trade-only section of WooCommerce, which normal retail customers can't see.
As the administrator, you can choose whether to allow trade users to register and log in immediately, or hold their application for approval first. Moderating new B2B users adds an extra layer of security to your trade login.
Here's an example of a WooCommerce trade account and registration form in action. NRD Web Design used WooCommerce Wholesale Pro for their client Best Remy Hair Extensions. They added 'Wholesale Login' and 'Wholesale Registration' links to the website header, intuitively driving trade users to the private section.
WooCommerce trade prices
Nearly all B2B stores offer special trade-only pricing rules to logged-in users. Retail customers pay the recommended retail price (RRP), whereas trade users get variable discounts on the RRP.
WooCommerce Wholesale Pro makes it easy to add product pricing to WooCommerce. Logged in wholesale buyers will see the discounted pricing, and retail customers continue to see the standard pricing.
You can even add multiple wholesale user roles, each with percentage discounts. This is ideal if you offer tiered pricing or role-based pricing in your WooCommerce trade store.
Trade-only products
With WooCommerce Wholesale Pro, you can either sell the same products to everyone (with the correct trade pricing for B2B users, of course) - or you can sell different wholesale products to the two groups.
Each product category has the option to show it to public shoppers, trade users, or both. This makes it easy to sell trade-only products which are hidden from the retail store.
This feature is also ideal for creating a 100% private store, with no retail area. Simply mark all the categories as 'Wholesale Only', and your formerly public shop disappears from view! Only logged in B2B customers can see it from the private WooCommerce trade login area.
How to set up a WooCommerce trade account area
To get started, you’ll first want to purchase and install the WooCommerce Wholesale Pro plugin. Then, you’ll need to activate your license key. Navigate to WooCommerce → Settings, and select the Wholesale tab:
Enter your license key here, and click on Save changes at the bottom of the page.
Next, you’ll want to configure the powerful plugin’s settings. These are all located on the same Wholesale page. Choose a shop page to use for the trade login, and decide whether to enable WooCommerce trade account registration (with or without moderation).
There are lots of other options for customizing your trade login area. Go through all the settings and set it up exactly as you like.
That’s it! Now you can start adding trade users who can log into the B2B area or add them manually via the WordPress admin.
Create trade-only order forms for your WooCommerce store
By now, you know how to add a private WooCommerce trade account area to your store. Trade users can easily log into their accounts and access trade-only products and pricing. But what about the actual experience of using your WooCommerce trade shop?
Retail customers are happy to spend time browsing and choosing products. By default, WooCommerce is set up so that customers have to visit individual product pages to see and purchase each item they want. That's fine for most retail customers, who want to look at large images and read lots of information before making a decision. However, your trade users have completely different needs.
This creates a terrible user experience for a WooCommerce trade store, however. You’re selling a lot of products, and customers are likely to place large orders for multiple items at once. Requiring them to visit each specific product page will only slow them down.
Logged in trade customers already know all about your products. They've bought them before and are simply reselling them to their own customers. They don't want to waste time browsing or looking at pictures. Instead, they need to quickly view a list of all your trade products, where they can choose product quantity and add multiple products to the checkout at once.
You can do this by using WooCommerce Wholesale Pro with its sister plugin, WooCommerce Product Table. This adds a quick order form layout which perfects your WooCommerce trade shop.
What features can your WooCommerce trade order form have?
WooCommerce Product Table makes it easy to create a customizable one-page order form. It lists all of your items on the main trade store page, and also works on product category pages in the trade login area:
Woo Product Table lets you:
Make product comparisons simple, by showing off everything you have to offer side by side.
Help people find what they want quickly, by using searching, sorting, and filtering functionality.
Enable customers to tick all the items they want and purchase them from one page.
Enable the wholesale order form layout in the trade login area without affecting the experience for retail users. Or if you prefer, you can use it in the retail area too!
Where to get the trade order form
When you buy WooCommerce Wholesale Pro, you can choose whether to buy it on its own, or with WooCommerce Product Table for a discount. You'll need both trade shop plugins to get a trade login area complete with trade order forms.
Setting up user roles and permissions for trade customers
Setting up user roles and permissions for trade customers is a crucial aspect of managing wholesale operations using WooCommerce Wholesale Pro. This WordPress buy sell trade plugin offers robust features that allow you to customize user roles and access. Here's how you can set up user roles and permissions for trade customers using the best WooCommerce Wholesale plugins:
Creating custom user roles: WooCommerce Wholesale Pro enables you to create custom user roles specifically for trade customers. You can define roles such as "Wholesaler," "Trade Customer," or any other relevant designation. These roles will differentiate wholesale customers from regular retail customers within your WooCommerce system.
Assigning capabilities: Once you've created the custom user roles, you can assign specific capabilities or permissions to each role. Capabilities determine what actions or features a user with that role can access.
Controlling catalog visibility: WooCommerce Wholesale Pro allows you to control which variable products or product categories are visible to trade customers. You can set up rules that restrict certain products to wholesale customers only, ensuring that they have access to trade-specific offerings. This customization ensures that wholesale customers see relevant products and helps streamline their browsing experience.
Restricting access to non-wholesale areas: WooCommerce Wholesale Pro gives you the ability to restrict wholesale customers' access to non-wholesale areas of your wholesale website. This prevents them from accessing retail-specific features or wholesale prices that are not relevant to their WooCommerce trade account. By limiting access, you create a focused and streamlined experience for wholesale customers.
Integrating with user role management plugins: WooCommerce Wholesale Pro integrates with popular user role management plugins, such as "Members" or "User Role Editor." This integration provides additional flexibility and control over different user roles and permissions. You can leverage these WordPress buy sell trade plugins to fine-tune and customize the capabilities and access levels of WooCommerce wholesale suite further.
Add a WooCommerce trade account area today!
WooCommerce is an excellent way to sell online, but it’s designed to work best for customer-facing retail stores. If you’re building a trade shop, then you’ll need a WooCommerce trade account plugin to add the extra features you need.
The WooCommerce Wholesale Pro plugin adds everything you need for a professional trade account and B2B area. Either use it to power your entire store, or run it alongside your main retail shop.
Complete trade features include trade login and wholesale registration forms, trade cart discounts, trade-only products, unlimited user roles, quick order forms, and more!
Full documentation, support, and video tutorials.
Love it or your money back!
Do you have any questions about how to use WooCommerce tradeshop plugins effectively on your site? Let us know in the comments section below!
If you want your WooCommerce store to succeed, you'll need to design it with the needs of your specific customers in mind. For instance, shops that regularly sell items in large quantities may require something beyond a traditional layout.
These stores can benefit from making the ordering process quicker and more efficient. Fortunately, this can easily be achieved by setting up a WooCommerce bulk order form. This feature will enable your customers to buy everything they need on one page, and add it all to their cart with a single click.
In this guide, we’ll explain how WooCommerce bulk order forms work and discuss what kinds of e-commerce stores they’re most suited to. Then we’ll walk you through how to set up and customize one. We'll use the WooCommerce Product Table plugin for selling multiple products in the same order form; or WooCommerce Bulk Variations to create bulk order forms listing the variations for a single product. Let’s get to work!
An introduction to WooCommerce bulk order forms
Most WooCommerce stores are structured so that customers must visit each product's individual page to buy it. This works well for shops where visitors are likely to purchase only one or two items per visit.
However, what if you’re running the type of shop where customers tend to buy many products or variations at once (such as a wholesale store)? Forcing them to navigate to every product page will only slow them down. This leads to frustration and increases the risk that they won’t complete the bulk purchase.
That’s where a WooCommerce order form plugin comes in handy. This adds a one-page product table to your site, either listing one or many products like this:
1. Use WooCommerce Product Table to list multiple products
2. Use WooCommerce Bulk Variations to list variations for one product
Customers can see all your products and variations at once (or the ones you’ve selected to display). They'll have the important information about each item right at their fingertips. Most importantly, they can pick everything they want to buy on the form, and add their entire order to the cart simultaneously in bulk. It's the perfect way to allow bulk buying in WooCommerce.
A WooCommerce bulk order form can be a smart addition to your site. It streamlines the buying process, improving the user experience at the same time. As a side benefit, it also promotes all your products, and encourages visitors to buy more items.
How to know if your store needs a WooCommerce bulk order form
Of course, not every site needs a bulk order form. How do you decide if this feature is right for your WooCommerce store?
The short answer is that a bulk WooCommerce order form comes in handy for any shop where customers tend to make multiple purchases in the same order. The more likely your visitors are to buy in bulk, the more beneficial this type of order form can be.
Let’s look at a few examples of e-commerce sites that will find a WooCommerce bulk order form invaluable.
Wholesale stores
If you’re running a WooCommerce wholesale store then a bulk order form plugin is essential. Your customers are likely to know exactly what they’re looking for, and to buy dozens or hundreds of items at once. Requiring them to browse through separate product pages to choose their quantities and variations is hardly the optimal solution.
With a WooCommerce bulk order form, on the other hand, you can enable buyers to make selections quickly. This is a smart way to encourage them to keep coming back.
Of course, some stores regularly sell items in bulk to individual customers. Office supply shops and similar sites are a perfect example. Customers will often want to purchase everything they need for their office in one convenient order. You need to make this bulk buying process easy for them.
The same applies to any store where the products offered are fairly simple and self-explanatory. Rather than listing out each type of printer paper on its own page, you can offer all the options on a one-page bulk WooCommerce order form.
Grocery and catering businesses
Bulk grocery stores are becoming more common, since few people purchase only one or two food items at once. These customers aren’t likely to need a lot of in-depth information about each product. A WooCommerce bulk order form plugin lets them check off everything on their shopping list, and move on:
The same goes for catering businesses, and some types of restaurants. Customers ordering food online will appreciate the option to select everything they want on a single page.
Which is the best WooCommerce bulk order form plugin?
At this point, you probably know whether you’d like a WooCommerce bulk order form plugin for your online store. All that's left is to choose the best tool for the job.
You'll need one of the following plugins:
WooCommerce Product Table - create bulk order forms listing multiple products. If you have variable products then the variations are either listed as dropdowns for the customer to choose from, or on separate rows of the table. Comes with search, sort and filters to help customers find what they want more quickly.
WooCommerce Bulk Variations - create a bulk order form listing the variations for a specific product. This normally appears on the single product page, but you can list variations anywhere on your site.
As a reminder, here's what the two options look like:
1. Use WooCommerce Product Table to list multiple products
2. Use WooCommerce Bulk Variations to list variations for one product
Both bulk order form plugins let you list products or variations on your WordPress site, and customize it fully. They are 100% integrated with WooCommerce, and are excellent tools for creating a bulk order form.
How to design an effective WooCommerce bulk order form (in 4 steps)
Fortunately, both plugins are very easy to use and customize. Now, we'll take a look at how you can use each one to set up your own WooCommerce bulk order form.
The following steps will walk you through the process of creating and customizing a WC bulk order form with WooCommerce Product Table. Let’s start with the basics!
Step 1: Install and activate the plugin
The first thing you’ll want to do is purchase and install the WooCommerce Product Table plugin. You can do this on an existing or new WP site. Just make sure you have WooCommerce installed, and you’ve added all the products you want to display.
After that, navigate to Products →Product Tables and click 'Add New'. This will open the product table builder. We'll use this to create a WooCommerce bulk order form.
Step 2: Customize your bulk order form settings
At this point, you can start customizing your WooCommerce bulk order form. There are a lot of options you can configure. To get you started, we’ll run through a few of the most important settings to consider when setting up a bulk order form for WooCommerce.
2a. Choose where to add the bulk order form
The first page prompts you to decide where to use the WooCommerce bulk order form on your site. You can either:
Add the bulk order form manually to a page as needed.
Enable the order form view globally on your main shop pages.
Depending on your selection, the following page lets you choose which products to include in the bulk order form; or which shop templates to enable it on.
2b. Add product data to the bulk order form
The next step is to choose which columns of product data to include in the order form. WooCommerce Product Table supports basically every possible type of product data. This includes the name, featured image, categories, tags, product attributes, dimensions, and so on.
Don’t forget to include an Add to Cart button! That way, customers can add products to the cart from the bulk order form.
2c. Configure the add to cart column
The next page is also important:
By selecting the Quantity selectors checkbox, you enable customers to easily purchase more than one of the same item. Then, in the Add to cart button dropdown menu, choose the Checkbox or Button and checkbox option. This is crucial and will let customers check off all the items they want and add them to their cart with one click (using a handy button at the top or bottom of the order form).
If you have variable products then it’s a good idea to enable Product variations in the table. That's because customers shouldn’t have to visit individual product pages to see all of an item’s variations. Instead, you can display product options (such as colors or sizes) within your Woo bulk order form, either as a dropdown list or on separate lines.
2d. Search and sort
Just below, you may want to add one or more Filter dropdowns:
These let customers filter the order form so that it only displays items meeting a certain criteria (such as products in a particular category.
Pro tip: For even more advanced filtering options, use WooCommerce Product Table with the WooCommerce Product Filters plugin instead.
2e. Consider enabling lazy load
On the 'Performance' page, enable the Lazy load option if your WooCommerce bulk order form will contain more than about 20 products.
This is important because if you have hundreds or thousands of products then your bulk order form can take a while to fully load. By enabling this option, you’ll speed up the process so customers don’t have to wait.
Step 3: Generate your WooCommerce bulk order form
When you’re done creating your first bulk order form, you’re ready to actually add it to the page. (You can skip this step if you selected the option to use the bulk order forms on the main shop pages as they'll be added automatically.)
Open up or create a page, and add the 'Product Table' block. Alternatively, if you're not using the WordPress block editor then get the shortcode from Products → Product Tables and add that instead.
You can view the finished bulk WooCommerce order form on the front end using the Preview button:
When you have published the page, customers will now be able to use the order form to make bulk purchases. Before wrapping up, however, let’s look at a few more optional features you can add.
Step 4: Add ‘extras’ to your WooCommerce bulk order form
In this final step, we want to present a few extra features you can use to enhance your WooCommerce bulk order form. While these options aren't required, they can be a valuable addition.
Add product quick view lightboxes
A WooCommerce bulk order form is a brilliant way to enable one-page shopping. But what if you want a way to display more information without taking customers to a separate page? What happens if you have too many variations or product options to fit neatly into the order form?
Add quick view buttons or links to the bulk order form.The answer is to use WooCommerce Product Table with its sister plugin, WooCommerce Quick View Pro. This lets customers view extra product information in a popup lightbox window. It's a great option because customers are not taken to a separate page. When they close the lightbox (either by closing it manually or adding the product to their cart), they remain on the bulk order form. This encourages them to buy more and more from the order form, increasing your average order value.
The quick view plugin has lots of options so that you can control how customers can access extra information from the bulk order form:
Choose whether to open the quick view by clicking on the product image, name or a dedicated quick view button.
Rename the quick view button to anything you like, e.g. 'Configure', 'View More Images' or 'Choose Options'.
Show or hide the quick view icon.
Choose whether to display the product image gallery in the lightbox, and/or product information and purchase details.
Choose exactly which product data to include in the lightbox.
Upsell with extra product options
As we’ve discussed, you can easily display product variations in your bulk order form. However, what if you also want to offer add-ons to specific items? To do this, you can purchase the Product Options add-on extension for WooCommerce:
This extension is simple to use, and gives you more flexibility in what you can let customers buy using your bulk order form. Here's an example of how the add-on fields appear in the bulk order form:
Show the cart contents on the bulk order form
It can also be a nice touch to display the customer’s cart contents and subtotal right on the page, and let them check out straight away. You can do this easily by installing the WooCommerce Fast Cart plugin.
Now, your customers will be able to access their cart and complete their order from the bulk order form page:
Case study – Darren Bowen Photography’s WooCommerce bulk order form
Darren Bowen is a photographer who sells his photographs online at Darren Bowen Photography. On the website, customers can also buy a range of mugs and iPad smart covers all printed with Darren’s images.
Buying the mugs and iPad smart covers in bulk is easy because of the two WooCommerce bulk order forms powered by our WooCommerce Product Table plugin.
It's an easy to understand order process. The customer chooses the right quantities on the bulk order form, then uses the “add to cart” function. Once everything’s in the cart, the customer can check their order before proceeding to pay. From there, it's a fast and simple one-click single-page checkout.
Carry on reading to find out how you can add your own WooCommerce bulk order form.
#2. WooCommerce Bulk Variations setup guide
Next, we'll look at how to create bulk order forms for your variations with WooCommerce Bulk Variations. As we saw earlier, this plugin lists the variations for a specific product in a variations grid or matrix.
WooCommerce Bulk Variations lets customers view and purchase variations in bulk. This is the easiest way to sell more variations and increase sales. It also saves you time by letting you add and edit variations in bulk.
Customers can use quantity selectors next to each variation to quickly add multiple product variations to their cart. You can use the WooCommerce Bulk Variations plugin as either a bulk order form or a price matrix.
With WooCommerce Bulk Variations, you can display products that have either one or two attributes used for variations. The plugin automatically lists your variations in a matrix-style grid format. For example, if you sell t-shirts and have Size and Color as attributes, your bulk variations matrix might look something like this:
The bulk variations order form has a quantity box for each variation. This makes it easy for customers to quickly add products to cart and proceed to checkout. The best part is that customers won't have to select each variation individually. This speeds up the purchasing user flow.
Most people add these to the single product page, so I'll show you how to do that.
Step 1: Install WooCommerce Bulk Variations
Log into the WordPress admin and install the WooCommerce Bulk Variations plugin.
Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Bulk variations and activate your license key from the order confirmation email.
Choose the default settings for your bulk variation forms, and whether or not you want to enable them automatically.
Step 2: Add bulk variation order forms
If you used the option on the settings page to enable the bulk variations form for each product automatically, then you can skip this step! Alternatively, you can enable it for specific products only by going to the Add/Edit product page.
Product with 1 or 2 attributes which are used for variations will have an extra 'Bulk variations' tab in the 'Product Data' section of the page:
You can use this to configure the variations grid for each product individually.
If you want to display the bulk variations order forms elsewhere, then you can do this using a shortcode.
Step 3: View the variations grid
Finally, view the product page and you will see the variations listed in a beautiful bulk order form like this:
Bonus tips
You can use the following tips to enhance your bulk variations forms whether you're using WooCommerce Product Table or WooCommerce Bulk Variations.
Use minimum quantities to force customers to buy in bulk
So far, we've looked at 2 ways to create a WooCommerce bulk order form which makes it easy for customers to buy in bulk. However, we haven't done anything which actually forces customers to purchase bulk quantities. They can still place small orders if they wish to do so.
That's why it's important to set some WooCommerce minimum quantity rules in your store. These prevent customers from placing low quantity or low value orders. As a result, you create a bulk-only store and ensure that every order is profitable.
To do this, you need to use WooCommerce Product Table or WooCommerce Bulk Variations with the WooCommerce Quantity Manager plugin. This lets you set a range of minimum quantity rules to your store:
Add a minimum order quantity for the entire cart.
Set minimum quantities for specific categories, products or even individual variations.
Specify minimum values that the customer must spend before they can complete their order. Again, this can be set for the entire order or per category, product or variation.
Get more sales with quantity-based bulk discounts
Research into buying psychology has proven that customers buy larger quantities if they believe they're getting better value. This fits perfectly with a bulk WooCommerce order form.
Use your bulk order form with the official WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing plugin. Set up quantity discounts to reward customers for buying in bulk. It's a great way to increase your revenue from the same number of customers!
Speed up the bulk ordering process by skipping the cart page
Finally, you can speed up the buying process even further by automatically directing customers to their cart when a product is added. This option is found under WooCommerce → Settings → Products. Just check the box next to Redirect to the cart page after successful addition:
You can even use a dedicated plugin to skip the cart completely, and move customers directly to the checkout page. Customers who order in bulk are usually busy people, after all. The quicker you can make the buying process, the better their experience will be.
Create a bulk WooCommerce order form today!
If you're only selling a handful of items, then it makes sense to feature them on separate pages. However, if you're moving a lot of products on a daily basis, then you need a better way to display them. For shop owners, this means using a WooCommerce bulk order form pluign.
Choose whichever plugin is best for your store:
WooCommerce Product Table lists multiple products and variations in a bulk order form with searching, sorting and filtering.
Both plugins come with full support and a no-risk 30-day money back guarantee. They only take a few minutes to set up, so install your chosen plugin and start selling in bulk today!
Do you have any questions about how to build the perfect WooCommerce bulk order form? Let us know in the comments section below!
In today's online world, people expect to view and buy absolutely everything online. This goes way beyond ordering physical products. If you sell services then it's equally important to add a WordPress services list to your website. It's surprisingly easy to sell services online.
In this ultimate guide to selling service products, I'm going to teach you how to create a WordPress services list using a choice of plugins. We'll learn how to list and sell services on a WordPress e-commerce site with either WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads.
You'll discover how to sell services for a fixed one-off price, by the hour or day, or sell recurring services with ongoing subscription payments. Along the way, I'll provide useful tips on how your WordPress services list can upsell and sell more services to each customer.
Let's get started!
What is a WordPress services list?
A service is defined as "The action of helping or doing work for someone". This means that services are work that you provide manually for a person or organization. Selling services differs from selling products because you provide them directly to each customer. This may be face-to-face in person, or online. The key point is that you (or your employees/contractors) will be personally involved in providing services. In other words, you'll be service providers. A service cannot be fully automated, because if this happens then it becomes a product instead!
With this in mind, you might be wondering how to add a WordPress services list to your website. After all, a service is carried out manually and not online!
The answer is that you can create a WordPress services list by separating the sales and provision of the service. Services can be listed and sold online in a similar way to products. The difference is that once a customer has ordered a service online, you will carry out work for them manually instead of posting them a product. So you sell the service online, and carry it out in real life.
And of course, these days you can productize and automate services, too! For example, you might sell software-as-a-service (SAAS) on your website. The instructions in this article will work whether you carry out services manually or automatically. Either way, you'll learn how to create a WordPress services list with options and 'Buy' buttons.
How listing services in WordPress works
First, the customer visits your website and views WordPress services list This might be a simple list of one or more services, or you might provide variation options. You might sell one-off services for a fixed price, or charge by the hour. Perhaps you'll generate recurring revenue by selling subscriptions to your services? You might have a dedicated page for ordering service, or your WordPress services list might appear in an e-commerce order form directly on the pages describing your services.
Second, the customer orders the service directly from the WordPress services listThey choose any options from the WordPress services list and adds the service to the cart. They then view the cart and checkout, including paying online with credit card/debit card or PayPal checkout. The customer receives a 'Thank you for your order' email, and you receive an email with the order information. You can use this option with either WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads, including with the option for extensions such as selling time-based bookings - I'll show you how to do all of these later.
Finally, you contact the customer to arrange to provide the service This can be done outside of your WordPress website, or automatically depending on your setup. Either way, it will fit nicely into your usual working processes.
Do I need an e-commerce plugin to create a WordPress services list?
If you want to keep it really simple, then you might want a WordPress services list without the e-commerce side of things. However, you'd be missing out on many advantages of using e-commerce to sell services online.
Benefits of adding e-commerce to your list of services
Online payment for services By using a WordPress e-commerce plugin such as Easy Digital Downloads or WooCommerce, you can sell services and take payment online. There's a choice of payment gateways such as PayPal and Stripe. This saves you time compared to collecting payment offline and chasing invoices. It's also better for your service business' cash flow because customers pay upfront, before you provide the service.
List services more effectively When we get to the e-commerce section of this tutorial, I'll show you how to list services in a searchable pricing table with filters, buy buttons and extra information. This is vital if you're listing more than a couple of services.
Easier to upsellWordPress e-commerce plugins come with options to sell more services through up-selling and cross-selling. This can involve advertising one service on the sales page for another service. Or it can involve adding optional extras to encourage each customer to buy more. Either way, it's easier to do this if you link your WordPress services list with WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads.
Built-in recording and invoicing With a simple service order form that doesn't use e-commerce, your sales aren't recorded anywhere. You have to maintain manual records about the services provided. In contrast, an e-commerce plugin keeps records of all your sales and sends invoices or payment receipts. This saves you admin time. To save even more time, there are even WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads extensions to automatically send data to accounting software such as Xero and QuickBooks.
Reporting E-commerce plugins come with embedded analytics and reporting. You can see statistics on who has bought your services and which are selling best, directly in the WordPress Dashboard. This helps you to make your service business more successful, making ongoing improvements over time.
Offer appointments more efficientlyIf you're selling bookable appointments, you can save time and money by selling these services through WordPress. The easy of use should also drive more sales for you.
Some examples: Service products you can sell online
Before we start with the setup instructions, I'll share some examples of services that you can sell online. You can sell any type of service in WordPress, for example:
Professional services - architecture, conveyancing, document preparation and review, legal services, real estate advice, medical, will writing.
Expert services - online business, copywriting, CV writing and resumes, career development, coaching, consulting, lifestyle, life coaching, love and relationships, marketing, photography, search engine optimization (SEO), social media, web analytics.
As well as selling your time, you can package services into specific 'products' which people can select and order from you, such as website technical support, online training sessions or coaching webinars. For example, we had one web design client who used his WordPress website to sell remote Skype advice sessions. If you're a blogger or freelance writer, you might be interested in selling blogging services.
You can find more ideas for services to sell online on Google. For example, Amazon lets people sell professional services (such as assembling and installing products) through their site. Similarly, Fiverr is an online marketplace for freelance services. Whatever type of services you offer, keep reading to learn how to sell them online in WordPress.
Which e-commerce plugin is best for selling services in WordPress?
There are two main e-commerce plugins which are perfect for creating a WordPress services order form:
WooCommerce is the world's leading e-commerce plugin, powering over 44% of all online stores. While it does let you sell physical products, it also comes with virtual products that are perfect for selling WooCommerce services.
Easy Digital Downloads is popular for selling virtual and digital products in WordPress. It's generally used to sell downloadable products such as WordPress plugins or ebooks. It's also ideal for selling services in Easy Digital Downloads.
Even better, both WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads are free WordPress plugins. I'll recommend some paid add-ons that will help you to sell services more effectively. However, the core e-commerce plugins are free of charge.
Choosing an e-commerce plugin for selling services online
Like I said, WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads are both good options for selling services in WordPress. So which one should you use?
A lot of service businesses sell using Easy Digital Downloads because it only deals with virtual products. This keeps it simple behind the scenes. WooCommerce comes with several shipping options (such as shipping rates, tax calculation, and shipping labels) many of which are on offer with WooCommerce Services plugin from Jetpack. However, the fact that WooCommerce can sell physical or virtual products isn't a disadvantage. If you disable the shipping options then these will disappear anyway, which keeps things nice and simple in the WordPress admin.
There are a few reasons to choose WooCommerce over Easy Digital Downloads:
If there's any chance that you might sell physical products and need to charge postage one day, then you should definitely choose WooCommerce. This simply isn't possible with Easy Digital Downloads.
It's also slightly easier to use WooCommerce to display the WordPress services list in a table. I'll show you how to do this with both plugins in the next sections. However, there's one extra step with Easy Digital Downloads that happens automatically with WooCommerce.
If you want to sell your time based on the number of hours or days, instead of charging a set price for each service, then WooCommerce is best.
If any of these points apply to you, then I'd recommend selling services in WooCommerce rather than EDD. Otherwise, they're both excellent options and you should read about each one to choose which is best for selling your services.
Tutorial 1: How to sell services with WooCommerce
1. First, set up WooCommerce
In the WordPress admin, go to Plugins → Add New and search for 'WooCommerce'.
Install the main WooCommerce plugin and activate it.
After you activate WooCommerce, you'll be invited to run the Setup Wizard. Do this, and choose your store currency, tax settings, etc. When it asks "Will you be shipping products?", do not tick this box. You're selling services, so you won't need the shipping settings.
On the payment gateways page, enter the email address that you use to log into PayPal to accept PayPal payments for services. I recommend Stripe for credit card and debit card payments (you'll need a Stripe.com account for this). Ideally, add your PayPal and Stripe account so that customers can choose how to pay for your services. If you want to give your customer base a 'Pay Later' option of paying manually offline too, choose the 'Check' payment option. You can then change the wording for this payment gateway as needed. (Tip - it doesn't need to say 'Check' at all - this is just a handy way of creating an offline payment method in WooCommerce.)
At the end of the Setup Wizard, click the button to Create Your First Product.
For more in-depth tutorials on setting up WooCommerce, check out these guides.
2. Add service products to WooCommerce
You'll be taken to the Add Product screen. This is where you'll add the first service to sell in WooCommerce.
Add a product title and description, plus categories and tags as required. Also upload a product image if you like, although this isn't essential for selling services with WooCommerce.
Use the 'Inventory' tab to limit the number of each service that people can buy from you in WooCommerce. This is useful if you have limited capacity. There's also a box that you can tick to prevent customers from buying more than one of each service.
Click 'Publish'.
Go to Products → Add New and repeat these steps for each service that you want to sell in WooCommerce.
3. Create a WordPress services list of your WooCommerce products
Next, we need to display your service products on the front end of your website. This is essential so that people can view your services in WooCommerce and buy them online.
WooCommerce comes with some built-in layouts for displaying products. Unfortunately, these aren't at all suitable for selling services. You don't want your service website to look like a clothes shop!
Instead, you need to showcase your list of services in WordPress in a professional-looking table layout. You can do this using the WooCommerce Product Table plugin. Once you've added your services as WooCommerce products, the Product Table plugin will automatically list them in a user-friendly table layout.
Why is a table good for listing services in WordPress?
Services sell better in a WooCommerce table because:
This layout prioritizes information rather than images. (You can include a small thumbnail picture if you like.)
If you have lots of services, it's easier for customers to find the services they need via built-in filters and keyword search box. Customers can view prices, choose options and add services to the cart directly from this service pricing table layout. For more information (like testimonials), customers can simply click through to the single page.
The other benefit of displaying WordPress services in a table is that you can insert the table anywhere on your website, without using a website builder.
For example, a lot of WordPress sites have a 'Services' pages containing text describing their services. It's best to display the WordPress services list for purchase directly on the Services page, instead of linking customers to a separate shop page. You can add an e-commerce table of service products directly within the content of your service pages, keeping everything in one place.
How to show a WordPress services list in a WooCommerce table
Read through all the product table options, and choose the ones that will present your services most effectively.
Next, create a page where you want to create a list of services in WordPress. Alternatively, edit an existing page on your website. For example, you might want to list the service options with prices and buy buttons directly on a page which already describes your services.
Either copy a shortcode from the final page of the table builder and insert it into a page. Alternatively, add the 'Product Table' Gutenberg block and select your table.
Your finished table of services might look something like this:
Nice!
4. Use product variations to provide a choice of services
In step 2, I told you how to create a simple service product with a fixed price and no options. WooCommerce also supports variable service products.
The instructions to create a service with variation options are similar to the ones in section 2, above. However, when you go to the Product Data section, use the Product Type dropdown to select 'Variable Product'. You then need to create attributes on the Attributes tab, and select these to create variations on the Variations tab. For each variation, you need to add a price and tick the 'Virtual' box to use it to sell services.
In this example services list, I created a 'Legal Services' product with a 'Service Type' attribute. I used this to create variations for 'Conveyancing', 'Wills' and 'Divorce Services', each with their own service cost:
If you select variation dropdowns on the WooCommerce Product Table plugin settings page, then the table will list 1 product per row. Each product will have a dropdown so that customers can choose variation options.
Alternatively, if you selected the separate variations option, then it might look something like this:
WooCommerce Product Table with each service variation on a separate row
Both are good options for selling options from the WordPress services list.
5. Use WooCommerce subscriptions to sell regular ongoing services
So far, we've talked about create a WordPress WooCommerce services list with a one-off price for each service. This may fit your business model, but most small business owners know that recurring revenue is the holy grail. With this in mind, you might want to sell ongoing subscription services via your WordPress website.
Fortunately, you can do this with the official WooCommerce Subscriptions extension. This will set up an ongoing payment plan or subscription for each service. The customer will be billed automatically at the correct intervals, using their chosen payment gateway.
WooCommerce Product Table with Subscription Service Products
First create a subscription on the plugin settings page.
Next, instead of creating a Simple Product, you should select 'Subscription Product' from the 'Product Type' dropdown.
Set an ongoing cost for your service, for example an initial setup fee followed by a regular monthly payment.
Both PayPal and Stripe support recurring subscription payments. This is much better than sending invoices for manual payment each month. No more chasing overdue invoices - it all happens automatically via your WordPress website and WooCommerce!
Please note that WooCommerce Product Table doesn't work with variable subscriptions. To use the plugins together, we recommend adding each subscription option as a separate product. Another option is to add the options as product add-ons instead of variations. The add-on options will appear in the add to cart column of the table of subscription services.
6. Use product add-ons to sell optional extras
Let's say you're selling website maintenance services. You might have created 3 service products: Weekly Maintenance, Fortnightly Maintenance, and Monthly Maintenance. But how can you sell more services to each customer?
The answer is the WooCommerce Product Options extension. This handy plugin lets you add a range of optional extras to your service products in WooCommerce. These appear alongside the add to cart button, offering a powerful incentive for customers to order more from you.
In the following example, I used Product Options to add tick boxes for extra dog grooming service options. As well as ordering a basic dog grooming session, customers can tick boxes to add different types of doggy haircut. The dog grooming products are displayed using the WooCommerce Product Table plugin with Product Options and Subscriptions. As you can see, this is a great way to significantly increase revenue, from the same number of customers.
WooCommerce Product Table with the official Product Options plugin
How to sell services by the hour or day
You've learned how to use WooCommerce to sell services for a fixed price. But what if you want to sell your time, rather than a specific service? Luckily, you can do that too.
To sell critical services based on the amount of time, the instructions are similar to the ones I provided above. You'll just need to activate a few extra options when you create your product table:
Tick the 'Quantity' box to display a quantity picker in the buy column for each service.
When you set your product table columns, click on the pencil icon for each column to customize the wording. It needs to be clear that the service is priced by the hour or day.
Alternatively, if you're not selling all your services by the hour, then you can just add the unit to the product name. Here's an example of what this might look like when you list WordPress services:
Tip: Use quick view to provide more information
By now, you know how to display a list of services in WordPress in a table layout. Maybe you want to show extra information about each service, but don't want to send people to a separate page for each service. Maybe you have too many variations or add-on options to fit into the table view.
If this applies to you, then you can add the WooCommerce Quick View Pro plugin to show extra information and purchase options from a lightbox window:
Next, I'll reveal how to use Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) to create a WordPress services list. This is similar to WooCommerce, so read about the two e-commerce plugins and choose the one that best suits your needs.
Easy Digital Downloads is nice because it's simple and only contains the features you need to sell virtual products such as services. There's nothing extra to weigh it down, such as shipping options which you don't need for listing services.
However, the downside of EDD is that it's less popular. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it means that fewer companies have developed useful add-ons and extensions for it. For example, you can use EDD to create your WordPress services list - but you can't add the other handy plugins which I mentioned in the WooCommerce section above. For example, there's no Easy Digital Downloads quick view or product add-ons plugin.
But if EDD is the right e-commerce plugin for your WordPress services list, then this is how to set it up:
1. First, set up Easy Digital Downloads
In the WordPress dashboard, head to Plugins → Add New. Type 'Easy Digital Downloads' into the search box.
Install and activate the plugin.
Navigate to Downloads → Settings and choose the settings that you'll use to sell services with Easy Digital Downloads.
2. Add your services in Easy Digital Downloads
Now it's time to start adding your services as EDD products:
Go to Downloads → Add New.
Add your EDD service product name and description. You can also add categories and tags, plus an image if this will help to promote the service.
Add the service price.
Click Publish.
Repeat these steps for each service that you want to sell using Easy Digital Downloads.
3. Use product variations to provide a choice of services
Like WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads also comes with a 'Variable Pricing' option. You'll see this when you add the price for your service in EDD. If you want to offer different options for a particular service, tick this box and add all the options. Set a price for each service option.
You can use this to provide quantity discounts to reward customers to buying more services, or for selling different service options at different prices.
4. Create an Easy Digital Downloads WordPress services list
Next, we need to list your services for sale on the front end of your WordPress website.
Like other WordPress e-commerce plugins, the standard Easy Digital Downloads store layouts aren't ideal for selling services. This isn't surprising, because they're mainly designed to sell digital products such as ebooks and WordPress plugins.
You can showcase the WordPress services list more effectively with the Posts Table Pro plugin. This dynamic WordPress table plugin lets you list all sorts of content from your website in a table view. It's particularly popular for creating an Easy Digital Downloads product table.
Customers can view your WordPress services list anywhere on your website, see the price and any other data you choose to display, select options, and add services to the cart. They can then checkout and pay for their services online with Easy Digital Downloads.
How to list services in an Easy Digital Downloads table
Install the Posts Table Pro plugin on your WordPress website and activate it.
Go to Post Tables → Settingsand activate your license key from the order confirmation email.
Follow the instructions in this tutorial to list your EDD service products in a table. You can use Easy Digital Downloads to sell services via any page on your website. Just put the Posts Table Pro shortcode wherever you want to display your WordPress services list.
Your finished table of Easy Digital Downloads service products might look similar to this:
Perfect!
5. Sell service subscriptions with Easy Digital Downloads
Finally, you can install the EDD Recurring Payments extension to take regular payments for services. This automates the payment for regular services, so you don't need to worry about taking payment manually.
Selling bookable services with EDD bookings
You can also use the EDD Bookings extension to sell services using Easy Digital Downloads. This means that a client can pay for a service for a specific period of time. This can apply to doctor's appointments, yoga sessions, consultancies, hairdresser appointments and much more.
Once the extension is installed, you can set up Services, each with its own set of criteria.
Every service will have its own name, description and image, all of which are used when the client selects a service from the booking form. A service will also have one or more session types. For example, a consultancy could be offered as a 30-minute session or a 60-minute session. They would each have their own price.
The availability of a service is when it will be available for booking. As an admin, you can set up various rules to determine the dates and times your clients will see as bookable on the calendar in the booking form.
To list your bookable products on your website, follow the instructions in the previous section to list them with Posts Table Pro. Instead of having purchase buttons directly in the table, use the 'Links' option to allow customers to click through to the single download page for each service. From there, they can complete the booking form and purchase the service.
As the business owner, you will be able to monitor all your bookings from a list or calendar view. You may also create bookings manually from the back-end, which works great for bookings that are requested in-person, on the phone or via email.
If you want customers to book specific times, then combining Posts Table Pro with EDD Bookings is the perfect solution.
Start selling services in WordPress!
Even though you carry out services manually, you can save time and get more customers by selling services in WordPress. Use the instructions above to display the WordPress services list and let customers order services online and pay manually, or automate the sales process for your services using WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads. Once you've added your list of services to WordPress as e-commerce products, use either WooCommerce Product Table or Posts Table Pro to display them in a user-friendly layout.
This is the best way to attract customers and sell more services. To take things to the next level, you can set up an email marketing and digital marketing strategy to promote your services.
If you've used any of the methods in this tutorial to sell and list your services in WordPress, please let me know how you get on. I'd love to add some case studies to this article (which will include a link to your website!). Please add your comments below.
Need to hide a WooCommerce category from the shop page? Sometimes you might have products that you don't want to publicly list on your shop page. To your dismay, though, WooCommerce doesn't have the option to hide categories from the shop page.
One of the key features of WooCommerce is its ability to organize products into categories, making it easy for customers to navigate and find what they're looking for. However, there may be times when you want to hide a particular category of products from the shop page.
Sometimes you need a happy medium between hiding a single product and hiding your entire WooCommerce store. Perhaps you have some products that are not quite ready for public release, or maybe you want to restrict certain items to a specific group of customers. Whatever the reason, you may be disappointed to learn that there is no option for WooCommerce hide category from shop page.
This can be a frustrating problem, especially if you have spent a lot of time and effort creating your WooCommerce product categories and organizing your inventory. Thankfully, there are a few methods available that can help you achieve your goal of hide category from shop page WooCommerce.
Benefits of hiding categories in WooCommerce
One of the key features of WooCommerce is its ability to organize products into categories, which can be helpful for customers who are trying to find specific products on the website.
However, there are situations where WordPress site owners may need to hide category WooCommerce of products. For example, if a product is out of stock or has been discontinued, you may not want that category to be displayed on the WordPress website. This can help to avoid confusion for customers who may be interested in the product, only to find that it is not available for purchase.
Another reason why it's important to be able to use WooCommerce hide category feature is to simplify the navigation of the website. When there are too many categories displayed on the website, it can be overwhelming for customers to find the products they are looking for. By hiding specific categories on your ecommerce store, you can provide a simplified user experience for your customers and potentially improve your store's SEO or search engine ranking. Hiding irrelevant categories reduces clutter, highlights the most relevant products, and can lead to higher customer engagement and satisfaction, ultimately resulting in increased conversions.
When to hide categories in your WooCommerce store
Effective category management is a key aspect of running a successful online store. Improving website usability and enhancing the customer experience can be achieved by strategically hiding certain categories in WooCommerce. To learn how to hide categories in WooCommerce and implement this effective approach, continue reading. Here are some common examples of when hiding categories can be beneficial for WooCommerce shops:
Discontinued products: When a product is no longer available for purchase, it's important to remove it from the website to avoid confusion. By hiding the category of discontinued products, you can ensure that customers don't see or try to checkout these items.
Out of stock items: If a product is temporarily out of stock, you may want to hide category WooCommerce until the product is back in stock. This can help to avoid customer frustration and reduce the number of inquiries about the availability of the product.
Seasonal products: Some products may only be relevant during certain times of the year. For example, Christmas decorations may only be relevant during the holiday season. By hiding the category of seasonal products during the off-season, you can create a more streamlined user experience and avoid overwhelming customers with irrelevant products.
Restricted products: Some products may be restricted by age, location, or other criteria. By hiding the category of restricted products, you can ensure that only eligible customers are able to access these items.
Exploring different methods to hide WooCommerce categories
If you want to hide specific categories on your WooCommerce shop page, there are two main methods you can use.
Method 1: Using a plugin to hide categories
Using a plugin is the recommended method for hide category from shop page WooCommerce. The main benefit of using a plugin is that it is easy to use, even if you don't have much technical knowledge. All you need to do is install the plugin, activate it, and then configure the settings for WooCommerce hide the category from shop page.
To help, we're going to show you how to hide a category in WooCommerce shop page via a user-friendly plugin.
Our simple written tutorial and video will show you how to customize how your hidden WooCommerce categories function - all without writing a single line of code.
Method 2: Hiding categories with code snippets
The second method for hide category from shop page WooCoomerce involves using code snippets. This method requires more technical knowledge than using a plugin, but it can be useful if you want more control over how categories are hidden.
To use this method, you will need to add some code snippets to your theme's functions.php file or to a custom plugin. You can find code snippets for hide category WooCommerce stores, and then modify them to suit your specific needs.
You can customize the code for WooCommerce hide category from shop page in a specific way or to achieve a particular result. However, it's worth noting that using code snippets can be risky if you don't know what you're doing, as a mistake could break your site or cause other issues.
The best plugin to hide a WooCommerce category
The problem
There are lots of reasons why you might want to use WooCommerce hide category from shop page from the main page. For example, maybe you're creating a WooCommerce wholesale store and need to hide the wholesale categories from the shop page. Maybe you're selling customer-specific products, with a hidden category for each company.
Whatever you're reason, unfortunately, WooCommerce doesn't come with an option to do this.
While it is possible to use a PHP function for WooCommerce hide category from shop page, that solution:
Isn't very user-friendly because it requires you to work directly with PHP code, rather than a human-friendly interface.
Makes it difficult to change which categories are hidden later on, because you'll need to dive back into the code every time you want to make an adjustment.
The solution
WooCommerce Protected Categories offers a simpler solution to hide a WooCommerce category (including all products/subcategories inside). It:
Gives you more flexibility than the WooCommerce PHP function in terms of how shoppers interact with your hidden categories.
Lets you choose which categories to hide right from your WordPress dashboard.
Lets you decide whether use WooCommerce hide category from the shop page completely, or whether to show them but require customers to enter a password or login to access a protected category or its products.
How does this WooCommerce hide categories plugin work?
To hide WooCommerce categories, you can use the WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin. It enables you to conceal one or multiple WooCommerce product category within your WooCommerce store. When you hide a category from the shop page…
All the products inside that category are also hidden.
You can choose whether or not to display hidden categories and their products on your shop page, category pages, archive pages, and search results.
With the WooCommerce hide product category functionality, you have the flexibility to decide whether hidden categories and their associated products should be visible in your navigation menus and widgets.
And as I mentioned earlier, you can "unhide" your categories via:
A password - once a user enters a correct password, the plugin automatically unlocks all the products in that category. They can then navigate through the hidden category and its sub-categories without having to re-enter the password.
User roles - by utilizing the WooCommerce hide category by user role feature, you can restrict visibility of hidden categories and their corresponding products exclusively to users with specific user roles.
Individual users - only selected logged in users can see the hidden category and its products.
Have a read through this glowing review from a happy customer using the WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin:
I highly recommend Barn2's 'WooCommerce Password Protected Categories' plugin for a whole range of uses. For our particular use, we needed to allow only certain categories of our products to be accessed by 'select' customers, with a shared password. The plugin enabled us to do this really simply and cost-effectively. Whenever we have needed any assistance with the plugin Barn2's team have been very helpful and prompt with their replies.
I'm sure this is a decision you won't regret.
Step-by-step guide: How to hide WooCommerce categories with WooCommerce Protected Categories
Below, we'll show you how to hide WooCommerce categories on shop page using WooCommerce Protected Categories.
Step 1: Choose how to hide your categories
First, install and activate WooCommerce Protected Categories in the WordPress admin panel. Next, go to Products → Categories to hide WooCommerce categories on shop page.
You can either create a new category to house your hidden products or you can edit an existing category. Whichever method you choose, you'll see a new Visibility section at the bottom of the page. Click the 'Protected' option, and choose between:
Password protected Visitors will need to enter a password to see the category. You can create multiple passwords to unlock the category if desired.
User roles Your category will only be visible to certain user roles.
Users Your category will only be visible to the users that you select here.
Once you've hide WooCommerce categories on shop page or category page via either method, go to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Protected categories to configure a few more basic settings.
Step 2: Configure general plugin settings
One especially important group of settings is Category Visibility.
If you want to completely remove a WooCommerce category from the shop page, you should uncheck both boxes. Alternatively, tick both boxes to still display the category, but require users to enter a password or login to see its contents.
Use the other settings to control your password login form, and what happens when a logged-out user tries to access a protected category:
Step 3: Enable password protection, user role restriction, and more
Once you've hide WooCommerce categories on shop page, you'll want to provide other ways for selected customers to access them. There are a few ways to do this, depending on whether you've hidden the categories behind password protection or user login.
Providing access to WooCommerce password protected categories
Create a central category login form by adding the shortcode [category_login] to any page. Customers will be directed to the hidden category with the password they have entered. Once unlocked, the customer will be able to see the protected category, products and pricing and cart buttons on the main Woo shop page. The protected content will remain hidden from the store catalog for everyone else. As store owner, you can customize the hidden category login page in the plugin settings.
Providing access for a user or role-protected WooCommerce categories
If you've created user or role protected categories, then there are some different settings for your hidden categories. These let you choose what happens when someone without the correct privileges (e.g. a logged out user) tries to access a WooCommerce hidden category or product.
To provide access to the WooCommerce hidden category, simply encourage users to login as usual. For example, they can login using the WooCommerce Account page, which shows a login form for logged out users.
I also recommend using the free Peter's Login Redirect plugin. Use it to redirect users to the correct hidden category after they log in. This gives you fine-grained control over where each individual user or user role is redirected after logging in.
Attendees download course materials ahead of the training session. But these materials need to be kept private. That’s why they needed a WooCommerce hide category WordPress plugin. Files are hidden behind a password protected category page and eLearning Launchpad sends out passwords to access the page. From there, customers can download materials. The Free Downloads WooCommerce Pro plugin lets eLearning Launchpad capture customer data before files are downloaded.
The downloads are set up as WooCommerce products even though they aren’t being sold on the ecommerce site. This is to simplify managing the downloads and take advantage of the benefits, such as being able to hide categories and products in WooCommerce.
Below, I'll show you how to use this WooCommerce hide category plugin…
Alternative method: How to hide categories through shortcodes
Another way to utilize WooCommerce hide category on your main shop page is by using HTML and CSS. This method requires some technical knowledge.
First, you need to inspect the category you want to hide on your product page using your browser's developer tools. You can then identify the HTML element that represents the category and its ID or class. Once you have this information, you can add some custom code that hides the category by setting its display property to "none."
It is important to note that using how to hide categories in WooCommerce only affects their visual display and does not impose any actual access restrictions. Users can still access the hidden category through direct links or by typing its URL. So, if you want to restrict access to the category, you'll need to use the WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin.
It's worth noting that if you're not familiar with coding, using this method can also be risky. A mistake in your code could break your site or cause other issues. Therefore, you should only use this method if you have some basic knowledge of HTML and CSS or if you're working with an experienced WordPress developer.
Efficient category management is crucial for a well-organized and user-friendly online store. Here are some tips to optimize your category management process. Use them to ensure smooth navigation and a seamless shopping experience for customers:
Organize categories thoughtfully: Take the time to carefully plan and structure your categories. Ensure that they are logical, intuitive, and reflect the products you offer. Consider creating subcategories or using parent-child relationships to further organize your products. This helps customers easily locate the items they are looking for and improves the overall browsing experience.
Utilize conditional rules: Leverage the power of conditional rules to further customize category visibility. With the right plugin, like WooCommerce Protected Categories, you can set up rules based on user roles, membership levels, or other criteria. For example, you can hide specific categories from general customers while making them accessible to VIP members-only. This level of control allows you to provide tailored experiences to different customer segments.
Prioritize category display: If you have overlapping or conflicting rules for category visibility, prioritize the display order. For example, if a customer belongs to multiple user roles, you can prioritize the display of categories associated with their highest role.
Regularly review and update: Category management is an ongoing process. Regularly review your category structure, rules, and priorities to accommodate any changes in your product offerings or customer segments. Monitor customer feedback and behavior to identify areas for improvement or potential adjustments to your category management strategy.
Test and optimize: Experiment with different category arrangements, conditional rules, and priority settings. This lets you find the optimal configuration for your specific business needs. Test the user experience and gather feedback to fine-tune your category management strategy.
Start hiding WooCommerce categories today!
If you have products that you don't want to publicly list on your WooCommerce shop page, you can easily hide them using the Protected Categories plugin. This is the best WooCommerce hide category from shop page option. That's because it's easy to use and doesn't require technical knowledge.
The plugin is super-flexible. You can choose to require a password, restrict access to certain user roles, or only allow specific individual users to view the hidden categories.
Questions about how to hide a category in WooCommerce shop page? Leave a comment and we'll do our best to help.
Thierry at Photo Studio TNK is a photographer in Paris, France. He does photoshoots for clients and then sells them securely on his WooCommerce photography website. Thierry spent a long time searching for suitable WordPress plugins that would allow him to do this. After much research, he found the perfect solution in our WooCommerce Protected Categories and WooCommerce Product Table plugins, combined with some other third party plugins.
The way it works is that each photography client has their own hidden WooCommerce category, containing their photos. No one else can see these hidden photos. When the client enters the password, they are taken to an exclusive WooCommerce page listing their photos in a filterable table layout. They can view photos, select variations and quantities, and add multiple photos to the cart. This makes it quick, easy and secure to order photo prints with WooCommerce.
After telling Thierry's story, I will provide step-by-step instructions on how you can achieve the same setup to sell your own photography in WooCommerce.
Thierry's WooCommerce photography story
"Let us start with who I am.
I am a studio and wedding photographer: https://photostudiotnk.com/en (not every page is translated in english, I never had the time…).
I am 58.
In other lives I used to be an engineer, a searcher, a software developer, the CEO of an Open Source Company, etc., but I have practiced photography since I was a kid.
Some years ago, I decided to quit « industry world » to become an independent photographer and build my own company.
My business model is mainly about studio photo sessions and weddings. But selling prints is also part of my business (I print photos by myself on a A2 Canon Pro Printer).
The problem
If you have dozens of photos every week, you can find software that can be more or less OK to sell prints.
But, for weddings, which are the main source of revenues, nothing really exists on the shelf to sell prints. (I have tested nearly every software that exists - either with WooCommerce, or independent of WooCommerce.)
Between May and October, I have about 500 photos to post-treat and put online EVERY WEEK. And no software exists for this amount of photos. I need to show photos to customers in a unique easy to use interface, where they can buy several photo prints on the same page.
The solution
The first thing to do is to make a product for each of the 500 weekly photos. Using CSV to do this is archaic and prehistoric!!!
So, now I use this to make products from each of my photos. And it does this very well.
Now, some thoughts about galleries, lightboxes, etc…
I think that galleries, with fancy layouts, lightboxes, etc, belong to the past.
Why?
because more than 70% of web accesses are made from smartphones. Who cares about galleries, lightboxes, fancy boxes and gallery themes to see photos on a smartphone?
Of course, I have to « show » the photos to my brides, grooms and their guests, so I need « something » for showing the photos.
But, from a marketing point of view:
the page to see the photos and to buy them MUST be the same (no click to go to a shopping page): this is a key point: when a potential customer is on a page to see photos, do not ask him to go on another page to buy prints!!
the photos should be "big" enough both for desktops screens (30% of my customers) and for mobiles (70% of my customers), without need of gallery functions or lightboxes. What I sell is photo prints, not gallery themes!!
So I decided to give the WooCommerce Product Tables plugin a try.
My settings
Here is some feedback about my settings:
Lazy load is mandatory with 500 photos in a category.
Image size « original » is the only way to get big enough photos both on desktops and mobiles. I tried « large » but it does not work on mobiles, image size is not responsive. medium is too small on desktops, and defined sizes seem not to be responsive. (Editor's Note: All themes have different default image sizes, so you'll need to experiment to find the right size for your photos or add a custom size.)
I added a filter of each wedding moment (engagement, preparation, church, cocktails, etc) using categories (sub categories of the main category for a given wedding).
Use the add to cart checkbox option to add photos to the basket. This encourages customers to buy more photos…
I customized this template to show my « free downloads » category on the same page as the photos. This is because I offer free low res photos downloads to my customers using the Free Downloads WooCommerce plugin.
Photography client login page (created using WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin)
Hidden client gallery & sales page selling photo prints (created using WooCommerce Product Table plugin)
How to create your own WooCommerce photography website
Thank you very much to Thierry for sharing his story. Next, I'll provide step-by-step instructions on how to use WooCommerce to sell to your own photography clients via their own individual client area.
Your finished WooCommerce photography website will have these features:
Each client will have their own private category, hidden from public view. You can choose whether clients must enter a password to view and buy their protected products, or log into their individual user account. (Either way, we'll need the WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin for this.)
You can easily bulk upload photos from each photoshoot to the WordPress Media Library and convert them into sellable WooCommerce products. (We'll need the Product CSV Import Suite plugin for this.)
Each client's photos will be displayed in a filterable table layout with add to cart checkboxes. (We'll need the WooCommerce Product Table plugin for this.)
Before you start, you need a WordPress website with WooCommerce already installed.
Step 1 - Create a private WooCommerce category for each photography client
Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Protected Categories in the WordPress admin. Paste the license key from your order confirmation email, and make sure the Catalog Visibility boxes are unticked. This keeps your photography clients' photos hidden from the public parts of your site.
Go to Products → Categories and create a separate category for each client. Choose the 'Protected' option and either password protect the category or use the 'Users' option to automatically unlock them for individual logged in clients. Either option is fine, but the 'Users' option will require you to create a separate user account for each client. If you don't want this, then use WooCommerce password protected categories instead.
Add any sub-categories, e.g. 1 for each of the client's photoshoots, or 1 for each part of their wedding. Leave these set to 'Public', as the plugin will automatically protect them with the same protection as the client's main category.
Finally, create a user-friendly way for clients to access their hidden photo product categories. This depends on what type of category protection you're using for your WooCommerce photography products:
Password protected categories - Create a new page where customers will log into their hidden category. Add the shortcode [category_login] to insert a login form. Link to the photography client login page from the main menu on your website (Appearance → Menus).
User-protected categories - Add a link to the WooCommerce 'Account' page to your website menu. This displays a client login page for logged out users. Install the free Peter's Login Redirect plugin and go to the plugin settings page. Create a login redirect for each client so that they are automatically forwarded to their hidden photo category after logging in.
Step 2 - Bulk upload photos from each photoshoot and convert them to WooCommerce products
Use these instructions to create a gallery for each photography shoot. This will let you upload all the photos to the WordPress media library, before you convert them into WooCommerce products.
Use the Products CSV Import Suite documentation to create a CSV file containing the data for all the photos and variations that you want to add as products, plus the URL's of the photos you just uploaded.
Import your CSV file to WordPress in order to create the products, each one linked to the correct photos.
Now, go to the 'Products' list in the WordPress Dashboard. You'll see your photos listed as proper WooCommerce products, complete with prices, variations and more.
Step 3 - Sell to your photography clients with a WooCommerce product table layout
In the WordPress Dashboard, go to Products → Product Tables.
Choose all the settings for your product tables. On the first page, select the option to display it on your shop and category page templates. It's also a good idea to activate variation dropdowns if you're selling variable products, and choose the 'checkbox' add to cart button style to encourage customers to buy more.
Now go back to Products > Product Tables and edit the table you just created. This page has more advanced options, including an 'Image size' option. As Thierry suggested above, you'll want to experiment with different image sizes to perfect the presentation of your photography products.
Finally, view one of your password protected category pages. Once you've entered the password, you'll see all the client's photos in a neat product table grid.
Bonus step (optional) - Add a WooCommerce quick view gallery for each product
If you only need to upload one image for each product, then you can skip this step. Or if you're uploading multiple images for each product, then you need a way for customers to view the full image gallery. That's where a quick view gallery comes in!
The WooCommerce Quick View Pro plugin is designed to work on its own, or alongside WooCommerce Product Table. It adds quick view links and/or buttons. You can choose what information to include in the quick view lightbox. This includes the full product image gallery with a choice of 2 gallery styles (thumbnails or bullet navigation). You can also show product data and add to cart options directly in the quick view.
Quick view lightbox with thumbnail image gallery and no product information
3 WooCommerce Quick View layout options: Image only, Product Details only, or both
2 gallery styles for multiple product images - bullet navigation or thumbnails.
Quick view is the perfect addition to your list of WooCommerce photography products.
Once you've completed these steps, the next step is to give your customers the logins so they can start buying photo prints online!
There are lots of reasons why you might need to create an all products list on a single page of your WooCommerce website.
For example, maybe you want to create an index page listing your entire inventory. Maybe you don’t like the way products are listed on the main WooCommerce shop page, and would prefer a WooCommerce list view on your homepage. Perhaps you’re building a WooCommerce order form and want customers to be able to quickly select products from your whole range.
I’m going to tell you how to use our bestselling WooCommerce all products list plugin to display all products in a table.
And it’s not just any table. Your all products table can contain whatever product data you like, with user-friendly extras such as search box and filters. Unlike some WordPress table plugins, it will even be fully responsive and work beautifully on mobile devices and tablets!
Keep reading and I’ll tell you all about it.
What is the WooCommerce all products list plugin?
You can list all products in a table using the WooCommerce Product Table plugin. This popular all products list plugin for WooCommerce takes the products already in your WooCommerce store, and automatically lists them all in a flexible table layout.
The plugin has over 50 options, which let you configure your all products tables to your exact requirements. Here are some of the main plugin features to list all WooCommerce products in a table:
Choose your table columns The product list plugin supports all the standard WooCommerce product data. Each piece of data (product information) can be listed as a separate column in the all products list. You can keep it simple and just list all your WooCommerce products with a column for the product title and nothing else. Or if you prefer, you can add extra columns for other product data (or "Free Download" links), and even extra columns for WooCommerce custom fields and taxonomies. This makes it a very powerful way of listing all your e-commerce products.
One-page order form option If you just want to list all products for information purposes, that’s fine. You can create a basic WooCommerce list view, either with links to the single product page where people can purchase or with no links at all. Alternatively, you can include an add to cart column in the list of products. After adding products to cart, customers can proceed straight to checkout. This column converts your product list into a fully-fledged WooCommerce order form, complete with variation dropdowns, add to cart buttons and quantity arrows.
More features
Let customers search and filter the all products table - If you have a large product inventory, then you’ll want to add extra controls to help customers find specific products. WooCommerce Product Table comes with an optional search box. You can also add filter dropdowns above the list and/or sidebar filter widgets. Customers can click column headers to re-order the list in real-time. This makes it quicker to find products. Or for even more advanced filtering, install the WooCommerce Product Filters plugin.
Set the order of the all products list - By default, the plugin lists all WooCommerce products with the most recent first. You can change this and order in other ways, e.g. alphabetically. This is AJAX-based so it will appear to happen in real-time.
Choose pagination styles and how many products to list per page - Your WooCommerce product table will list all products on one page, but that doesn’t mean that you want them all visible at once! Control how many rows of products to show on each page of the table. Choose from 4 pagination styles to display page numbers and previous/next buttons.
List unlimited products - With a one-page product list plugin, you’re potentially loading far more data at a time than the default WooCommere layout. WooCommerce Product Table makes this possible as it has a lazy load option. By activating lazy load, the table loads 1 page of products at a time. This keeps it loading quickly, even if you display hundreds or thousands of products.
Choose whether to include images - Some products sell best with big images, others with small images, and others with no product images at all. You can do any of this with WooCommerce Product Table.
Optional quick view - WooCommerce Product Table has a sister plugin, WooCommerce Quick View Pro. Use both plugins together to add 'Quick View' buttons to your list of products. Customers can use these to view extra product data and images in a lightbox, without having to visit the single product page. Once they're done, they can proceed to checkout.
How to list all WooCommerce products in a table
Here's what you need to do to create a list of all WooCommerce products in a table layout:
In the WordPress admin, go to Products → Product Tables. Go through all the settings, choosing the ones that you want for your WooCommerce all products list.
Now create a page where you want to list all products in a table (Pages → Add New).
Add the all products list to the page using one of these methods:
Using a shortcode - You can get the shortcode from the final page of the table builder or Products → Product Table.
Using the block editor - Insert the 'Product Table' Gutenberg block and select your table.
Publish the page and view it. You’ll see a list of all your WooCommerce products, professionally presented in a neat table layout.
Well done - you’ve created an all products table in just 5 simple steps. Nice!
What if I don’t want all products in the table?
This article is about how to use WooCommerce Product Table to create a list of all of your WooCommerce products. If you want to choose which products to include, that’s fine too. The plugin has plenty of options to display products based on category, tag, and various other data.
This way, you can choose to create a list of products from a specific WooCommerce category instead. For example, you can list IOT (Internet of Things) products on one page and regular tech products on another. Or, you can list all WooCommerce products that fall under a specific tag. For some online stores, this may deliver a better user experience to shoppers.
As you can see, it’s easy to use WooCommerce Product Table to list all products in a neat table view. Spend some time experimenting with the plugin options and getting the list exactly how you want it.
I’d love to hear how you use the plugin to display products. Do any of the use cases that I mentioned above apply to you, or are there others I’ve missed? Please leave your comments below.
