Building and running a successful WordPress e-commerce site takes a lot of work. It's hard to stand out in the vast sea of other stores online. You can overcome this by using the right tools, such as a WordPress product table plugin.
An e-commerce product table is an ideal way to make your store more effective and user-friendly. This is a handy listing of all your products, where visitors can see what you have to offer and make purchases in one convenient location. It’s a powerful feature that’s surprisingly easy to set up.
In this article, we’ll explain what a WordPress product table is, and why it can benefit your online store. Then we’ll show you how to create an e-commerce product table with either Posts Table Pro or WooCommerce Product Table, depending on which e-commerce plugin you use. You'll learn how to set up a WordPress e-commerce table view, whether you're using Easy Digital Downloads, BigCommerce, WooCommerce or another plugin. And as a bonus, I'll even tell you how to create a WordPress product catalog without needing an e-commerce plugin! Let’s get started!
Posts Table Pro WooCommerce Product Table
How a WordPress product table can benefit your e-commerce site
Most e-commerce websites provide customers with some way to browse products, while also giving each item its own individual page. However, it’s often difficult to compare products, or to purchase a lot of different items at once.
A product table, on the other hand, can show off some or all of your offerings on one organized page:
As you can see from this example, an e-commerce product table lists every item on its own line, while providing concise information about each one. You can also include filters, so customers can quickly search through and sort products. Then, they can add the items they want to their carts – all from the same page.
WordPress product tables like this are hugely beneficial to an e-commerce store, because:
- Customers can see everything you have to offer at a glance, or you can present a carefully curated selection of products.
- It’s easy to compare items quickly, so customers can decide what they want.
- A concise table takes up less room on your site than other methods of organizing products.
- The purchasing process is simplified, since customers can buy multiple items from one place, and they don’t need to visit individual product pages.
You can use WordPress product tables as the sole method of displaying your products, or combine them with more traditional product lists and search features. To add one to your e-commerce site, you’ll need the best product table plugin WordPress has to offer. Choose a plugin based on which WordPress e-commerce plugin you're using:
- If you're using WooCommerce - you need the WooCommerce Product Table plugin.
- If you're using any other WordPress e-commerce plugin, e.g. Easy Digital Downloads, BigCommerce or something else - you need the Posts Table Pro plugin.
An introduction to Posts Table Pro: The e-commerce product table plugin for any store
If you’d like to add an e-commerce product table to your website, you’ll want to check out Posts Table Pro:
This plugin enables you to create customizable product tables easily. You can tweak how each table will look, as well as which information will be presented (and in what order). Plus, you can use various filters to make your table searchable and sortable. In short, this is a product table plugin WordPress users can use to improve their e-commerce sites’ design.
To get started, you’ll need to purchase the plugin, then install and activate it on your WordPress website. After that, you can visit the new Post Tables → Settings section in your dashboard:
Here, you’ll need to enter the license key you were provided when you bought the plugin, and select Save Changes. With that done, open up the page where you want to place your e-commerce product table (or create a new page). In the Text tab, paste in the following shortcode:
[posts_table]
This will automatically add a table to your page:
By default, this table will display all your site’s blog posts. However, you can quickly configure it to display your store’s products instead. Exactly how you do that will depend on which e-commerce plugin you’re using.
For now, save the page where you just placed the shortcode. Then, let’s look at how to create a WordPress product table using two of the most popular e-commerce plugins!
How to create a WordPress product table for any e-commerce plugin (3 examples)
To turn your WordPress website into a booming online store, you’ll need to use a dedicated e-commerce plugin. There are a lot of excellent choices available, and it’s up to you to pick your favorite. The great news is that you can create a WordPress product table for just about any e-commerce plugin.
To show you how this works, we’ll introduce two of the most popular WordPress e-commerce plugins and see how they integrate with Posts Table Pro.
1. Easy Digital Downloads product table
Plugins like WooCommerce are general e-commerce plugins suitable for selling a wide range of product types. If you’re looking to specialize in selling downloadable content, however, you might benefit from using a more targeted solution.
That’s where Easy Digital Downloads comes in:
Easy Digital Downloads is a perfect e-commerce plugin for selling virtual products, such as software, music, photos, or e-books. It’s optimized for displaying these kinds of items, and cuts out unnecessary features you won’t need (shipping options, for example). Plus, it works smoothly alongside Posts Table Pro as an Easy Digital Downloads product table plugin.
Once again, you’ll first need to make sure Easy Digital Downloads is installed and activated on your WordPress site. Just like most eCommerce plugins, this plugin adds a new post type to your site – although in this case it’s called Downloads. Go to Downloads → Add New and create separate products for all your digital products.
Then, you’ll need to modify your e-commerce product table plugin shortcode so WordPress knows what type of content to display. This time, your initial shortcode will look like this:
[posts_table post_type="download"]
Your product table will now include all of your Easy Digital Downloads items. As described in the previous section, you can go on to customize your product table and get it set up just right.
For full instructions, check out our detailed guide on using Posts Table Pro to create an Easy Digital Downloads product table.
Tip: Don't forget EU VAT rules for digital products!
If you're using a WordPress product table to sell digital products - which you must be if you're using EDD! - then you also need the Easy Digital Downloads EU VAT plugin. This is essential if you sell to customers in the EU, as you're required to charge them EU VAT even if you're not based in Europe yourself.
2. BigCommerce product table
BigCommerce is one of the most popular e-commerce solutions out there that now lets you connect your store to a WordPress website.
If you’re already using BigCommerce to power your online store and are looking for a way to list your products in a table layout then you’ll need a WordPress website to display the product table on. However, if you already have a separate BigCommerce store and WordPress website, you simply need to connect your store to your site before you can create a product table.
To get started, you’ll need to have a BigCommerce account with some products added to it and a WordPress website to display the product table on. Next, install and activate the BigCommerce for WordPress plugin to your WordPress website to connect your BigCommerce store to your website. You can then install Posts Table Pro, which provides the table layout.
Once you’ve activated the plugin, you’ll notice that the products in your BigCommerce store are automatically added to your WordPress website. Next, you’ll need to modify your product table plugin shortcode to display the BigCommerce products. Your initial shortcode will look like this:
[posts_table post_type="bigcommerce_product"]
Finally, when you preview the page (or post) you added the product table shortcode to, you’ll see that the product table includes all of your BigCommerce products. If you’d like, you can go back to the Settings screen to customize your product table however you’d like.
For complete step-by-step instructions, check out our detailed guide on how to create a BigCommerce product table in WordPress using Posts Table Pro.
3. Create a WordPress product table with other e-commerce plugins
Ok, so now you know how to create an Easy Digital Downloads product table. In a minute, I'll also show you how to use a different plugin to build a WooCommerce product table. But what about other WordPress e-commerce plugins?
Fortunately, you can use Posts Table Pro to create a WordPress product table for any e-commerce plugin. The only condition is that the e-commerce plugin must create its own custom post type for storing products. Nearly all WordPress e-commerce plugins do this, so it shouldn't be a problem.
To use Posts Table Pro to list other e-commerce plugins, you need to find out the slug for its products custom post type. You can easily do this by viewing your list of products in the WordPress Dashboard. For example, if you're using Easy Digital Downloads then you would click on 'Downloads'. Once you can see the list of products, look at the URL in your browser address bar. You'll find the custom post type slug as part of this URL.
Once you've figured out the slug for your products post type, simply add it to the Posts Table Pro shortcode. Replace where I've added 'slug' in red.
[posts_table post_type="slug"]
Your WordPress product table will list all your e-commerce products.
Create e-commerce product tables with WooCommerce
WooCommerce is even more popular than Easy Digital Downloads. That's why there's a dedicated plugin to create e-commerce product tables with WooCommerce.
If you run a WooCommerce store, then you'll want to use our dedicated WooCommerce Table Plugin. With over 2,000 users, it's hugely popular for creating a WooCommerce order form, WooCommerce restaurant ordering system, product list view, and much more. It comes with extra support for WooCommerce features, such as add to cart buttons and checkboxes, filter widgets, stock status, and product star ratings.
Create a WordPress product catalog - without an e-commerce plugin!
So far, I've talked about how to create a product table using any WordPress e-commerce plugin. But what if you're not selling online at all, and don't require an e-commerce facility? For example, what if you want to list services or products that are sold offline?
The good news is that you can do this too. The beauty of the Posts Table Pro plugin is that it can create product tables for literally any content type in WordPress - not just e-commerce products. As a result, you can use it to create non-ecommerce product catalogs.
Here's how to set it up:
- First, install the free Pods plugin on your website. Follow the instructions in this tutorial to create a 'Products' or 'Services' post type with any extra fields you require.
- Next, install Posts Table Pro. Use it to list your non-ecommerce 'products' in a table on your website.
Perfect!
Tip: Even if you're not selling online, it's often easier to use an e-commerce plugin. Most e-commerce plugins come with options for selling offline. For example in WooCommerce, you can sell offline simply by not entering a price for the product - and this will hide the 'Add to cart' button' so the product is not purchasable.
Conclusion
As an e-commerce store owner, you’ll face a lot of competition no matter what you’re selling. For that reason, you’ll want to do everything you can to make your products easy to view and buy. Fortunately, Posts Table Pro and WooCommerce Product Table offer a simple solution for listing products in an attractive and convenient table view.
Using this tool, you can set up an e-commerce product table on your site quickly and easily. What’s more, it works well alongside the most popular e-commerce plugins. Whether you’re using WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, or something else entirely, our WordPress product table plugins are ideal for increasing your sales.
If you would like to read more about the WooCommerce Product Table plugin, check out this review by LearnWoo!
Do you have any questions about how to set up an e-commerce product table in WordPress? Ask away in the comments section below!
Posts Table Pro WooCommerce Product Table
Image credit: geralt.