Articles About WooCommerce

Are you looking for a way to set up a WooCommerce paywall to start charging for content? Keep reading to learn how (and why) setting up a paywall is a sure-fire solution for monetizing your content 🔥.

Subscription revenue is something that every online creator can benefit from, whether you're a blogger or a course creator. Paywalls are used to generate revenue by many large publishers, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. And for a reason!

Paywalling is one of the quickest and easiest methods of monetizing a WordPress website. While online subscriptions and paywalls are not new to the publishing industry, they are becoming more widespread across the content creation industry.

In this post, we'll explain the concept of the WooCommerce paywall and discuss how you can quickly implement it on any WordPress website. You'll learn how to:

• Use WooCommerce to charge for access to any type of content on your website (e.g. an exclusive members-only or subscribers area).
• Charge for access to a hidden area of your ecommerce online store (e.g. a members-only purchasing club).
• Use subscriptions to generate sustainable ongoing revenue from your WooCommerce paywall.

What is a WooCommerce paywall, and why set one up?

A paywall, in essence, is a mechanism to limit who can access the information on your website. Depending on the use case, the company's branding, and other factors, you may find several different names for this type of content restriction. You could find this referred to as a content locker, gated content, a WordPress paywall, a WooCommerce paywall, or another name.

As the world's leading ecommerce solution, WooCommerce is an excellent way to charge for access to your website content. That's why we're focussing on WooCommerce paywalls in this article.

To set up your paywall, you need a WordPress website plus the following plugin stack:

• The free WooCommerce plugin to get the essential ecommerce functionality, such as taking payments online.
• A paywall solution to prevent non-paying visitors from accessing the premium material.
• Finally, you might install a subscriptions plugin to take recurring payments for ongoing access to the WooCommerce paywall.

The benefits of setting up a WooCommerce paywall

Understanding paywalls and their importance

Content paywalls offer a straightforward yet efficient approach to monetizing your blog or WordPress site. If your audience likes the content you create, they will gladly pay $5 a month (or more) to access your finest work.

1,000 subscribers to your premium material would provide you with a full-time monthly revenue. If you still doubt it, here is a quick comparison to other forms of blog monetization:

• Ads often bother people and degrade their online experience.
• A decent ad network requires that your blog has hundreds of thousands of visitors in order to accept it.
• The process of creating, testing, and launching a product for other forms of revenue might take months.

In contrast, creating a paywall takes just a few minutes and doesn't require hiring a web developer. With a smart WooCommerce paywall plugin, you can accomplish this instantly (and we will show you how below).

A WooCommerce paywall is also a great solution if you offer a course or a membership. Contrary to online course platforms, such as Kajabi or Teachable, setting up a paywall on your course or online program will save you money. Platforms such as Kajabi or Teachable charge either a monthly fee or a fee from every student you add to the course. You can see how quickly it adds up. 

What sorts of sites need a paywall?

A WooCommerce paywall can help to monetize all sorts of websites. All that matters is that you have some sort of content that people will pay to access.

Here are some examples:

• Media sites and newspapers with subscriber-only content.
• Educational content, like a course or tutorial-style blog.
• Private communities for your readers. This enhances community feeling, offers premium content, and improves brand image.
• Purchasing clubs with products that only paying members can buy.

Paywalls vs memberships

It's worth understanding the difference between paywall and membership plugins. They are both methods which online content providers can use to monetize their offerings. However, they operate under different principles and have distinct characteristics:

Paywalls

• Definition: A paywall is a feature used on websites to restrict access to content. Users must pay to gain access to specific articles, videos, etc., behind the paywall.
• Types:
  • Hard paywalls: Users must pay to access any content.
  • Soft paywalls (or metered paywalls): You can access a limited number of articles for free before being required to pay.
  • Freemium paywalls: Some content is free, but premium content requires payment.
• Access to content: Typically, access to individual pieces or groups of content, possibly time-limited or pay-per-view.
• Target audience: Often used by news sites and other content-heavy platforms and apps.

Memberships

• Definition: A membership site involves users subscribing to a service, often for a recurring fee. In return, they receive various benefits, including access to content, exclusive features, community engagement, etc. You might have one or multiple membership levels.
• Access to content: Members usually get unlimited access to content or special benefits as part of their membership. It can include member-only forums, discounts, newsletters, and other add-on benefits.
• Target audience: This model is often employed by content creators looking to cultivate an engaged community around their work, or services like streaming platforms that offer various content for a monthly fee. Memberships focus on building long-term relationships with customers beyond simply giving access to restricted content.

In general, paywalls are generally used to monetize individual pieces of content or groups of content. Memberships, on the other hand, focus on building a community and offering ongoing value to subscribers beyond access to content. WordPress paywall plugins therefore offer slightly different functionality from membership plugins. For example, these plugins might include MemberPress, WooCommerce Memberships, Restrict Content Pro or Paid Memberships Pro.

You can run both models on the same platform, for example offering paywall access as part of a membership plan.

In this article, we will focus specifically on setting up a WooCommerce paywall for access to restricted content. However, you can extend the information in the tutorial to add wider membership functionality.

Will a WooCommerce paywall have a negative impact on my SEO?

Lots of people worry that having a paywall will damage their SEO. After all, search engines can't crawl restricted content.

Luckily, the assumption that a paywall will drastically reduce visitors and revenue is false. A paywall may give you a stronger feeling of community and higher-quality traffic, which can actually help your SEO. This may seem counter-intuitive, so here's how it works:

Remember, you won't be putting all your content behind a paywall. You can still have plenty of search engine friendly content which everyone can read. This shows people the value you're offering, convincing them to sign up for the premium-only content.

Recommended plugins for your WooCommerce paywall

As you can see, there are many benefits to creating a WooCommerce paywall. Moreover, making a paywall is easy. You can do it without having to deal with complicated content restriction plugins, merchant accounts, building payment gateway integrations, or managing 1,000's of member accounts.

Now it's time to learn how to set one up. To do this, you need the following stack of plugins:

1. The free WooCommerce plugin - this adds the basic ecommerce functionality to your site.
2. Password Protected Categories - this restricts access to your website content, hiding it behind the paywall.
3. YITH WooCommerce Subscriptions (optional) - this lets people make regular recurring payments to access the premium content. (Skip this step if you only require one-time payments.)

Tip: If you want to include pages within the paywall (rather than posts or a custom post type), then you'll also need to install a free plugin to categorize WordPress pages. I recommend the free Add Category to Pages plugin.

How the paywall works

People pay for premium access to your content and receive a login for your website. When they login, the unlock the paywall and can see links to the premium area in your website navigation menu. They can then navigate freely within the paywall.

You can use Password Protected Categories to hide any type of WordPress category or taxonomy. Only specific users, roles, or people with the password can get through the paywall.

Tutorial: Setting up a paywall on your WooCommerce site

Here, I'll show you how to set up a paywall on your WordPress pages easily in 3 simple steps. It's completely customizable so you can adapt it to your business.

First I'll provide a quick summary of all the steps, and then tell you how to implement them step-by-step.

How do I create a paywall in WooCommerce?

1. Install the free WooCommerce plugin and set up your payment methods.
2. Create the content that you plan to hide behind the paywall, then use the Password Protected Categories plugin to restrict access to certain user roles.
3. Create a 'Paywall' product and set the price.

Keep reading for full details on each of these 3 steps.

Step 1: Install WooCommerce

1. Log into the WordPress admin for your site, and go to Plugins → Add New.
2. Search for 'WooCommerce' and install it. Don't confuse it with other plugins with a similar name. The main WooCommerce plugin is easy to spot as it has millions of installs!
3. Once installed, disable 'Guest Checkout' under WooCommerce → Settings → Accounts & Privacy. This way, WooCommerce will create an account for each person when they subscribe.
4. Use the other settings to configure whatever you need, such as taxes and payment options for accepting payments to the paywall. For example, you can easily set up online payments via PayPal or credit card (via Stripe).

Step 2: Set up the WooCommerce paywall plugin

Before you start putting content behind the paywall, it's worth thinking about what sort of content you'll be using. The options are:

• Normal WordPress pages. This is a good option, but you'll need to use the free Add Category to Pages plugin to categorize your pages. 
• WordPress posts. Do this if you're creating a paywall for blog or news posts. However, if you also have a public blog then I'd recommend using a custom post type instead.
• A custom post type. If you want a dedicated area for the paywall-restricted content in the WordPress admin, then create a custom post type. You can easily do this with our free Easy Post Types and Fields plugin. For example, you might create a post type called 'Members Content'.

Once you've added some content and structured it into one or more categories, then you can start hiding it behind the paywall. To do this:

1. Purchase and install Password Protected Categories.
2. Go to edit one of the categories that will go inside the WooCommerce paywall. For example, if you're putting blog posts behind a paywall then go to Posts → Categories.
3. Find the visibility section, select 'Protected' and then select the user role(s) that will have access to the paywall.

Which user roles need access to the paywall?

If you're only planning to use WooCommerce to sell access to the paywall, then you can just use the built-in 'customer' role. People will automatically be added to this role when they make a purchase, so that way they will get instant access to the restricted content.

However, that won't work if you're selling other types of products too. In this case, then you should use the free User Role Editor plugin to create a dedicated role for users with paywall access. Select this custom role for all the categories that will be hidden inside the paywall.

(Tip: I also recommend selecting 'Administrator' too, so that you have access to the payroll for testing purposes.)

Step 3: Create a paywall product

Finally, you need to create a product which people will purchase in order to access the premium content.

1. Go to Products → Add New, and add information such as the product description and price. For example, the name of this product might be "Premium Access".
2. Now go to Appearance → Menus and add the product you just created to your website navigation menu. People will go to this page in order to pay to access the paywall.
3. If required, then install YITH WooCommerce Subscriptions and use it to set up a Subscription plan product for the premium content. Or if you just want to charge once for access to the paywall area, then create a standard WooCommerce product instead.

Once you have done this, then customers will immediately have access to the paywall area as soon as they buy your paywall product from its product pages. If you created a dedicated user role for paywall access in Step 2 above, then to make this work then you must use the Automatic User Roles Switcher plugin to change people's roles when they purchase the paywall product.

Bonus steps

The steps described above cover all the essentials to setting up your WooCommerce paywall. To make it even more professional and user-friendly, consider adding these extra features too.

Create a login form

WordPress itself provides a basic login form, but it's not very professional and doesn't match your website. If your WordPress theme/template provides a nice front-end login form, then I recommend using that. Add a prominent 'Login' link to your header or menu.

Alternatively, you can use the free Theme My Login plugin to create a professional-looking login page.

Add your paywall categories to the menu

Navigate to Appearance →  Menus and add links to the paywall-restricted categories to the menu. These links will only appear to logged-in paying customers.

Edit the 'Welcome' email to customers

In the previous steps, I showed you how to disable guest checkout in WooCommerce. This means that when someone pays for premium access, a user account will automatically be created for them. WooCommerce will send their login details by email.

You can edit this email in WooCommerce → Settings → Emails → New Account Email.

Create a WooCommerce paywall today!

As you can see, setting up a WooCommerce paywall is an easy and quick solution to start monetizing your WordPress site. Setting up a paywall or membership subscription is the ideal choice if you want to make money from your blog but don't want to spam your readers with ads and affiliate links.

.There are more benefits than drawbacks to locking away and charging for some of your content. While you could lose some visits and non-paying users, you will also gain more devoted customers and perhaps even build a strongly engaged community. Whether you offer online courses, membership or simply want to lock away your blog content, the best paywall plugin for WordPress is Password Protected Categories.

Try out the Password Protected Categories plugin today. Use it with the other plugins mentioned in this tutorial to take payment for accessing the paywall (either one-off or as a monthly subscription), and give paying customers access to the premium content. 

WooCommerce takes users through multiple pages before they can complete their orders. If a customer wants to buy one product, they have to go through four pages! That's definitely not ideal. It's better to put the WooCommerce cart and checkout on the same page.

Yes, the situation really is that bad for customers. First, they go to the shop page, then the product page, then the cart page, and then finally, the checkout page. The process involves even more pages for customers buying multiple products.

One way to improve the user experience and shorten the customer journey is by bringing product selection, the cart page, and the checkout page all into one page.

In this article, we’ll show you two easy ways to set up the WooCommerce cart and checkout on the same page. By the end of this article, you'll be able to create a fully functioning one-page checkout in either of these two ways:

Best ways to set the WooCommerce cart and checkout on the same page

There are two easy ways you can display the WooCommerce cart and checkout on the same page and create a better checkout flow. This can help you make your online store more user-friendly and boost sales.

The popup cart and checkout method

My favorite way to speed up the purchase flow is by using the WooCommerce Fast Cart plugin to display the cart and checkout form in a popup on the same page. Keep reading to learn more about this method or skip ahead to the instructions.

WooCommerce Fast Cart lets you show the cart and checkout on any page of your WooCommerce site. This means that if a customer wants to purchase a product when browsing your store’s catalog, they can simply click on the “Add to cart” button to open the cart and checkout page in a popup. That way, customers can quickly order products from any page they’re on - without leaving the page.

As a result, customers can review their orders, add more products, make changes to their orders, and checkout using the fast cart popup screen.

The WooCommerce Fast Cart plugin lets you display the cart and checkout in a side cart or a popup that appears in the center of the user’s screen. Either way, the entire shopping experience on your WooCommerce site is brought to a single page. It's a true one-click WooCommerce checkout.

As a result, you’ll get happier customers who are less likely to abandon their cart when shopping from your WooCommerce site.

Tip: For best results, use Fast Cart to prevent abandoned carts, and a dedicated cart abandonment plugin for the few who still leave your store.

The one-page checkout method

There's a second way to put the WooCommerce cart and checkout on the same page. It involves listing your products at the top of the page, and then a combined cart and checkout below. Customers can add products to the cart and see them in the cart at the bottom of the page. They can remove products, edit quantities, and complete the checkout fields - all on the same page.

You can achieve this by combining the WooCommerce Product Table plugin with the WooCommerce One Page Checkout plugin. Keep reading to learn more about this method, or skip ahead to the instructions.

Together, these two plugins shorten the order process and create a custom cart page on your online store. This way, you speed up the customer journey by giving users a quick and easy way to select products and checkout from your WooCommerce site:

Why have a product table on the same page as the WooCommerce cart and checkout?

Used alone, the one-page checkout plugin puts the cart and checkout on the same page. However, it's not ideal because shoppers will still have to browse multiple product pages to find what they’re looking for.

This is why we recommend using the WooCommerce Product Table plugin. It lets you showcase products in a tabular layout so customers can quickly select products using sortable and filterable product tables. You can then use the WooCommerce One Page Checkout plugin to show cart and checkout options on the same page.

This way, shoppers can quickly find the products they want to buy and add them to their cart at once using a single button. Once that’s done, they can fill out their billing details and checkout from the same page. In addition to this, customers can even edit their orders from the same page.

This simplifies the one-page checkout process on your WooCommerce store and is a great way to encourage more sales.

Setup instructions

Method 1: WooCommerce Fast Cart

You can use the WooCommerce Fast Cart plugin to display the cart and checkout in a popup on the same page.

You can use the plugin to allow customers to use the popup cart and checkout. That way, the cart opens first so the customer can review their order before progressing to the on-page popup checkout. You can also speed things up further by skipping the cart completely and immediately initiating the same page checkout.

How to set up the WooCommerce Fast Cart plugin

1. To get started, install and activate the WooCommerce Fast Cart plugin on your WordPress site.
2. Use the plugin setup wizard to choose the main settings for your same page popup WooCommerce cart and checkout.
   • You can select from two different layouts. These include showcasing the cart and checkout in the side cart or using a centered popup using the Layout section. The Auto open checkbox will automatically open the cart and checkout popup as soon as a user adds the product to their cart.
   • Make sure to enable the Allow fast checkout checkbox. This will let customers quickly checkout with their order using the fast cart popup.
   • You can also choose to skip the cart page entirely and showcase the checkout options instantly. Do this by enabling the Direct checkout checkbox.
   • In addition to this, the plugin lets you select what to display in the popup, including product images, product prices, quantity pickers, item delete buttons, coupons, cross-sells, and shipping information.

Pro tip: Displaying related products in the popup cart can help you increase the average order value on your online store.

Now when customers are finished adding products to their shopping cart, they can quickly checkout using a popup cart and checkout popup.

Method 2: WooCommerce Product Table

If you don't want to display the cart and checkout in a side cart or popup on the same page, then use method 2 instead. This displays a combined WooCommerce cart and checkout on the same page as a searchable product table.

Here's what you need to do to set the cart and checkout on the same page with WooCommerce Product Table. Either watch this video or follow the instructions underneath:

Step 1: Set up the WooCommerce Product Table plugin

1. To get started, install and activate the WooCommerce Product Table plugin on your WordPress site.
2. The setup wizard will open automatically - use it to set up your first product table. For example:
   • Specify all the columns that you want to show in your product table using the Columns field.
     

     

   • Select the Quantities checkbox to let users purchase multiple products without having to leave the page.
   • In addition to setting other product table options, such as sorting options and filters, you can also let your customers select multiple products and add them all at once to their shopping cart using the Add to cart section. Simply select Add to cart checkboxes using the Adding products to cart dropdown menu. Choose where you want to display the “Add all to cart” button using the Multi-select cart button dropdown.
     

     

3. If you're not using the Gutenberg editor then copy the shortcode from the last page of the wizard.
   

   

4. Now go to the page where you want to list the WooCommerce cart and checkout on the same page. Either insert a 'Product Table' Gutenberg block and select your table, or paste the shortcode.

Used alone, your product tables might look like this. Keep reading to learn how to add a WooCommerce checkout underneath.

Step 2: Create a page for your products, cart and checkout

In Step 1, you added a product table to a page. Next, you need to add the WooCommerce cart and checkout on the same page. You can do this with the WooCommerce One Page Checkout plugin, which add a checkouts form below the table. The checkout is editable, so it acts just like the WooCommerce cart in which customers can edit and delete quantities without leaving the page.

1. Install and activate the plugin on your WooCommerce site, then head to the page we created earlier with the product table.
2. Add a Shortcode block and paste the [woocommerce_one_page_checkout] shortcode before clicking on the Update button.

   

Now view the page. Customers can browse the product table to find what they’re looking for. They can add multiple products to their cart at once, edit their selections in the cart, and checkout – all from the same page.

Set up WooCommerce cart and checkout on the same page

The WooCommerce purchase flow is quite lengthy and overwhelming. It’s much better to use a same page WooCommerce cart and checkout plugin to improve the ordering process. Letting customers add products to their cart and checkout from the same page can help you reduce cart abandonment rates and increase conversion on your online store.

As we have seen, there are two excellent ways to do this:

• Use WooCommerce Fast Cart to display a popup cart and/or checkout on the same page as where the customer adds products to the cart.
• Alternatively, use WooCommerce Product Table and One-Page Checkout to list products in a searchable table with an editable cart and checkout underneath.

Get your chosen plugin today, and start showing the WooCommerce cart and checkout on the same page 😀

WooCommerce has various options for managing stock at variation level. It lets you set the stock status or manage stock by setting stock quantity, allowing backorders, and setting a low stock threshold. However, WooCommerce's options to manage stock at variation levels aren't perfect for all stores.

In this article, we’ll learn how to use the core WooCommerce features for variation stock control. We'll also discover the best to manage and display stock for product variations. These will allow you to:

 

How to use WooCommerce to manage stock at variation level

WooCommerce has some built-in options to manage stock for variable products (as well as simple products) on your online store. These are pretty basic and I'll share some tools for improving on them in a minute. However, first look at what you can do in WooCommerce as it comes.

1. To enable the default stock management feature, simply navigate to WooCommerce → Settings → Products and clicking on the Inventory link from the top:
   

   

2. Enable the Manage stock checkbox and set basic stock management settings. You can select the low stock level display and set a low stock threshold. This lets you show or hide out-of-stock variations. And, whenever a specific product variation is low on stock, a notification will be sent to the store manager about the stock level.

In addition to this, WooCommerce also lets you manage stock at the product variation level. To do this:

1. Navigate to the variable product’s edit page. Then click on the Variations tab under the Product data meta box.

   

2. From here, you can choose the variation you want to manage stock for and tick the Manage stock? checkbox to view the Stock quantity field. You can manage stock for each variation following this method and click on the Save changes button once you’re done.
3. This displays a stock status on the front-end when customers select the product variation they’d like to purchase.

3 ways to better display and manage stock at variation level

While WooCommerce lets you display stock information for product variations, it's not ideal. Here’s why:

As you can imagine, these issues cause frustration for both merchants and customers. Luckily, you can easily solve them by installing the best WooCommerce variation stock plugins. I'll tell you about them next.

Manage stock at variation level in bulk

As we saw earlier, it's very time-consuming to change stock settings and add stock quantities to each product individually. It's much better to install a WooCommerce bulk edit plugin and do it from a central interface.

Setary is by far the best option for this. This bulk stock editor provides a spreadsheet-style interface for updating stock and other types of product data. You can quickly manage variation stock either inline or by selecting multiple variations and performing bulk actions.

First, you view all variations in the spreadsheet and use the search and filters to find specific ones. For example, you can view all variations with a particular attribute like this:

You can then make the changes inline - as shown above - or apply bulk actions like this:

As well as setting individual stock levels, you can edit other stock-related data. For example, you can mark each variation as "In stock", "Out of stock" or "On backorder", or enable the "Manage stock" checkbox.

If you're looking for a faster way to manage stock at variation level in WooCommerce, then Setary will save you a huge amount of time.

List variations in a quick order form with stock information

So far, you're learned how to bulk update variation stock in WooCommerce. Next, let's look at ways to improve how variation stock is displayed in the front end.

The WooCommerce Bulk Variations plugin creates quick order forms which replace the standard variation dropdowns on the single product page. This provides customers with essential information about variations without needing to select an option first.

You can choose to include stock information in the bulk variations order form for each product. This can either be the exact stock quantity for each product, or just the stock status. It also greys out of stock variations to make it clear to customers when a variant is unavailable.

As well as the front end order form, WooCommerce Bulk Variations also makes it easier to manage variations for each product. It does this by adding filters and extra bulk actions to the Add/Edit Product screen:

For example, let's say that you sell a custom printed hoodie and have received a delivery of 5 units of all the Small variations. You can select all the variations with the 'Small' attribute and bulk-update the stock to 5.

While you'll still need Setary to manage variations across multiple products, WooCommerce Bulk Variations is a useful time-saver within the product editor.

WooCommerce Bulk Variations tutorial

Once you install the WooCommerce Bulk Variations plugin, the setup wizard will open. This lets you choose the main options for your variation order forms, including whether to display stock information in the variations grid.

You can also set variation grid display options for each product individually. To do this, navigate to the product’s edit page and scroll down to the Bulk Variations tab:

Enable the Product-level control checkbox and the Enable checkbox to display a variations grid for the new product instead of the default WooCommerce dropdowns.

This is how to use the bulk variation stock management features:

1. Install the WooCommerce Bulk Variations plugin.
2. In the plugin setup wizard, activate your license key and then skip the remaining steps.
3. Go to the 'Edit' screen for the variable product that you want to bulk-edit the stock levels for.
4. Open the Variations tab in the Product Data section.
5. Select the variations that you want to manage stock for. To select variations with specific attributes only, use the filters above the list of variations.
6. Use the bulk actions dropdown to change the stock status for all the selected variations.
7. Save the variable product.

Show the lead time for each variation

While WooCommerce and the above plugins can display stock information in your store, it doesn't tell customers how long they'll be waiting. You can do this with the WooCommerce Lead Time plugin.

WooCommerce Lead Time does this in two ways:

1. Displays exact waiting times on product pages, in addition to the usual stock status.
2. Optionally displays stock information on the shop and category pages, without changing your store's layout.

It's possible to show different messages for each stock status. For example, if a variation's stock reaches zero and it goes on backorder, then you can display the number of days or weeks until it will be despatched. All you need to do is set a date for when the variation will be back in stock. After that, the plugin will automatically calculate a lead time for you. This allows customers to order backorder products immediately, safe in the knowledge of how long they will be waiting.

Related: Find out how to display WooCommerce backorder products on the front-end.

WooCommerce Lead Time tutorial

Once you get the plugin, the setup wizard will open. Use it to choose how to display lead times in your store.

Here, you can select when to display lead times on your WooCommerce site as well as specify what to display as the lead time message to customers on the front-end. These settings will be applied to all products on your WooCommerce site.

You can choose between static lead times and dynamic lead times:

• Static lead times are used when the information stays the same. For example, you can display a static lead time such as “Handling time: 10 days” for a variation.
• Dynamic lead times specify when out-of-stock products will come back in stock on a particular date. For instance, a dynamic lead time might look something like “Back in stock in 8 days”. You can specify a particular date and WooCommerce Lead Time will calculate the remaining number of days before it comes back in stock.

In addition, you can set lead times for individual products and variations. Simply navigate to the product’s Edit page and click on the Inventory tab under the Product data meta box.

Set the lead time for each product or variation using the Lead time text field and click on the Update button to save changes.

Other variation stock plugins to consider

The plugins and tools mentioned above are my top recommendations for managing WooCommerce stock at variation level. Here are some additional options for you to consider, depending on your store's requirements:

1. Stock Manager for WooCommerce

Stock Manager for WooCommerce is a powerful plugin that allows store owners to easily manage their stocks from the front end. You can manage stock in a pop-up on the shop front end, and set up the product stock, Name, SKU, tax class, and prices, and even hide the product if it's out of stock.

Keeping track of the stock from the shop’s front end is made easy by assigning specific colors - such as red, yellow and green - to the manage stock buttons.

Pros & cons:

2. Product Stock Manager for WooCommerce

Product Stock Manager is a versatile extension that enables you to manage your product and variation stocks using a simple list view. You can filter the list by products type, category name, price, stock quantity, stock status, and more.

The plugin maintains a log file to view all changes to stock levels and it also comes with a dashboard that displays your current stock quantities and their values.

Pros & cons:

3. Inventory Management for WooCommerce

Shelf Planner’s Inventory Management for WooCommerce aims to solve the costly problem of accurately predicting customers’ daily demand for products.

They offer a plug-and-play forecasting engine that helps you optimize your inventory, improve your margins and reduce waste. The plugin analyses your store’s performance and creates a live order recommendation for every product on a daily basis.

Pros & cons:

4. Multi Inventory Management for WooCommerce

WooCommerce Multi Inventory Management extension by Addify enables you to effectively create and manage inventories across different locations, warehouses and stores. You can add multiple stocks for each product based on type, location and suppliers.

The extension comes with a smart stock listing page that allows you to view stock and edit products stock from a single dashboard. From which you can see a clear picture of the current stock status, change history and a list of out-of-stock, low stock and over stock products.

Pros & cons:

5. ATUM WooCommerce Inventory Management and Stock Tracking

For online store owners in need of powerful stock management, ATUM is a standout solution for WooCommerce. This free inventory management tool offers an intuitive dashboard and "Stock Central" interface that provides complete control over product inventory, suppliers, SKUs, locations, weights, and pricing.

The user-friendly layout seamlessly integrates with the WordPress admin, making it easy to quickly edit all aspects of your WooCommerce stock. ATUM's dashboard displays key business statistics and allows customization of widgets for personalized insights.

Pros & cons:

The better way to manage stock at variation level in WooCommerce

Used as it comes, you can use WooCommerce to manually manage stock at variation level and display information about out-of-stock variations. However, this doesn’t quite cut it. It takes ages to change the stock status and stock level for each variation individually. And even worse, it's very hard for customers to see the stock status of each variation.

Luckily, there are some amazing plugins to fix this for you:

• Setary is the ultimate bulk editor for products and variations.
• The WooCommerce Bulk Variations plugin creates quick variation order forms with stock information.
• WooCommerce Lead Time displays extra information about the waiting time for each variation, based on stock status. It also shows stock information on the shop and category page.

Together, these plugins help you display your online store stock at the variation level.

We hope that this article has provided lots of useful information about the different options for using WooCommerce to manage stock at variation level. Let me know which plugins you chose in the comments!

Are you looking for a way to set up WooCommerce pre order for your upcoming product launch? Keep reading to learn how (and why) setting up pre orders on your WooCommerce store will spark interest among your clients, help you validate your product idea, and streamline your inventory process.

When it comes to launching new products, the vast majority of stores get it wrong. Most businesses either don't inform customers about new items, add a waitlist plugin, or only notify them when the product is released. However, if you can get more sales by accepting orders before the launch, while clearly letting clients know when the new product will be delivered.

You can use WooCommerce pre orders to promote interest in new items. It will help you evaluate demand and collect cash before manufacturing. This way, you can decide how many items to make on your first production run and get cash upfront.

In this article, we will show you how to set up pre orders on WooCommerce and present you with the best solution to do it - WooCommerce Lead Time. This plugin allows you to easily add a pre order time to a single product page. It will keep them informed of the exact release date. As a result, customers can buy your product before it is launched.

How can your WooCommerce store benefit from WooCommerce pre order?

It doesn't matter how many views, followers, and email subscribers you have. Nothing validates a concept like having someone place a purchase for your goods in advance. Some of the most significant incentives you can have come from a consumer paying you money for your concept or product before it is fully developed.

WooCommerce pre ordering involves providing customers with the choice to pre order things that haven't yet been released. When done correctly, it can assist you in the following ways:

Why should you include WooCommerce pre order option?

WooCommerce pre ordering is an effective sales tactic that helps businesses convert leads to clients, improve client relationships, and upgrade the customer experience. Presales require time and effort to implement well. But they can significantly benefit a company's sales efforts. By prioritizing communication and focusing your sales on including pre ordering, you can achieve your business objectives way faster.

WooCommerce pre orders are also important because they help customers understand how a product or service can meet their specific business needs. Companies can guarantee clients receive the greatest and most accurate information. All thanks to improved communication at the start of the sales process. Preordering is particularly vital for businesses since it helps them to properly grasp their customers' goals and offer the greatest viable solutions for their specific needs. As a result, the sales experience is typically more tailored, with relevant solutions, streamlined procedures, and meaningful delivery.

How about physical products?

When it comes to physical products, implementing WooCommerce pre order techniques in your business can help you estimate the exact amount of products to manufacture. In this way, you won’t end up with too many or too few items.  Meeting your demand perfectly will decrease your inventory and keep costs low simultaneously.

Best plugin for Woocommerce pre orders - WooCommerce Lead Time

Even if you are a developer, putting up pre orders on your WooCommerce site without a specific pre orders plugin is challenging. Adding custom code to your theme and altering the default WooCommerce templates will be necessary. However, this way, there is a significant chances of mistakes in terms of setup, sales, and fulfilment of pre orders.

In the case of a standard WooCommerce setup, WooCommerce comes with the ability to indicate goods as in stock, out of stock, or on backorder. It does not, however, allow you to enter a lead time for out-of-stock or new items.

This information should ideally be shown on the single product page so that buyers can make an educated decision about pre ordering the product. Even though preordering usually means a longer wait time for the product, it also offers a bunch of benefits, such as discounts or bundles for the buyers. Ideally, you want this information to be obvious to the customer at the moment of purchase.

Currently, the default WooCommerce product classifications (in stock, out of stock, or on backorder) are not a good fit for preordering with a defined lunch date. Setting your new product as “out of stock” will make your customers leave your store empty-handed and go search for Google alternatives.

Our solution - WooCommerce Lead Time

WooCommerce Lead Time is the only WordPress plugin that displays pre order times on the product page, facilitating your WooCommerce product launches. The plugin streamlines the WooCommerce pre order process and eliminates the possibility of human mistakes in collecting payment information, maintaining pre order inventories, and fulfilling orders.

Instead of marking the product as Out of Stock until it is available, you can make it available for pre order straight away (e.g. using the backorder status) and clearly display the launch date or the number of days until the launch. WooCommerce will mark the pre-orders as 'Processing' in the WordPress admin until the product is launched. At that point you can remove the pre order wording and 'Complete' the orders.

WooCommerce Lead Time enables you to:

WooCommerce Lead Time is ideal for selling new not-available-yet-to-the-public items, as well as providing customers with accurate information before they make a purchase. The plugin is extremely light and works with any theme you already have on your online store.

It allows you to have total control over the stock state of WooCommerce and customise it depending on your launch dates. You will also get access to top-rated customer care, which will assist you at every step of the journey.

Before you set up WooCommerce pre order with WooCommerce Lead Time

Before you set up WooCommerce Lead Time on your online store, there are a few things you should think about:

• When (day and time) will you begin taking online pre orders?
• How long should your presale last?>
• Will you offer some additional bonuses for customers who order during preordering phase?
• When will the product be available for purchase and shipping?
• Which payment gateways are you going to use?

Your customers will be charged upfront, so you will receive advance revenue during the pre-ordering period. We also suggest planning a bigger marketing campaign for your new item preordering to build momentum for your product launch and achieve the best results.

How to set up WooCommerce pre orders for your product

#Step 1: Get the WooCommerce Lead Time plugin

If you haven't already, install the WooCommerce Lead Time plugin. In a confirmation email, you will receive the plugin files and license key. Install and activate the plugin on your WordPress website. From the admin panel, navigate to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Lead time.

The setup wizard will launch on activation of the plugin. It will take you through the main settings for displaying pre-order information.

Step #2: Show WooCommerce pre order status and lead times in your store

You may use the WooCommerce Lead Time plugin to display pre order status and lead times in prominent locations throughout your e-commerce business. It will display the product launch date on the cart, checkout and in the customer emails, so your customers will be very clear about when they will receive it.

However, we do suggest further highlighting your preorders by creating a special “New” or “Limited availability” category for them in your store.

Step #3: Set the WooCommerce pre order time

Depending on your launch and the number of products you want to include in your presale, you may set the processing time for WooCommerce Lead Time for the category of items, simple products, or variable products.

By going to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Lead time  and entering the lead time in the Global lead time field, you can set the processing time globally

[/image_border]

To define the processing time for a certain product category, go to Products → Categories and select either Static (input static lead time text) or Dynamic (compute the processing time dynamically) from the Lead time selection.

You can also adjust the processing time for specific goods with WooCommerce Lead Time (and variations). On the Edit Product page, choose the product for which you want to establish a pre order time. Scroll down to the Product information section and select the Inventory tab. You may set the product's pre order time from here. This is also applicable to variable products.

Step #4: Customize the pre order text and color

One of the most useful aspects of the WooCommerce Lead Time plugin is the ability to change the text and text color. This means you can fine-tune it to achieve the exact look and feel you desire when displaying pre order products.

For instance, you might change the custom status phrase to something like:

• Preorder ends in X days
• Available in X days
• Waiting time:
• Coming soon
• Dropping in X days

To change the text color, go to the plugin's settings page (WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Lead time) and pick a new color from the Lead time text color option.

Managing pre orders in WooCommerce

WooCommerce Lead Time makes it easy to manage your WooCommerce preorders. Once a customer purchases the product, the order is saved as "Processing", and the only thing you need to do is to mark them as "Complete" when you finally launch.

You can then despatch the product once you close your pre-order period and manufacture the needed amount.

As the payments are processed straight away, you won't need to worry about any complicated multi-step payment process or delayed payments.

Using WooCommerce Lead Time with other plugins

Customers should ideally be informed of the product lead time on the product information page. You may, however, utilize the plugin to display the lead time on your main store pages. When used with other plugins such Quick View Pro, you may display lead times in a quick view lightbox. This is particularly useful if you run a presale for multiple items in your store. This way, customers can see more information about the item they want to purchase without the need to leave the store, which increases the chances of conversion.

WooCommerce Lead Time with Quick View Pro (below)

Another plugin to consider for your WooCommerce pre orders is YITH WooCommerce Waiting List. This plugin displays an 'add to waiting list' button for items that are not yet available. When consumers add themselves to the waitlist, they receive an email as soon as the product is released. Everything is automated.

This is a good option if you don’t want to collect money before the release date of your new item. By using WooCommerce Lead Time and YITH WooCommerce Waiting List together, you can inform your customers about the lead time of your new product. And collect their email addresses at the same time.

Set Up WooCommerce Pre Orders for Products in Your Store Today

The WooCommerce Lead Time plugin may benefit your online store in various ways. It supports you in the marketing of your products or services by creating momentum before the product launch. It is also an excellent strategy to enhance income. Not only that, but also it helps your business with the technical and logistical management of the inventory on the back end.

A high-quality WooCommerce pre order plugin for your online shop allows you to manage the complexity of presales properly. Allowing customers to pre order things can help you generate income upfront for the manufacturing. It will also boost the likelihood of future product success.

WooCommerce Lead Time is the only WordPress plugin that displays lead times on the product page. It makes it easier to highlight the release date of your WooCommerce products. This plugin allows you to clearly communicate with customers when a product will be released. So that, they can order straight away (i.e. pre order) while knowing how long they will be waiting.

Ready to launch a WooCommerce pre ordering campaign? Get the WooCommerce Lead Time plugin right away!

Discover how to transform product variations with the best WooCommerce variation swatches plugins, tried and tested.

WooCommerce variation swatches let you replace standard dropdown menus with visual selectors for product options on your store. Instead of using basic dropdown lists for choices like colors or sizes, you can display clickable images, color blocks, or text labels. These visual options help customers quickly select product variations and better understand what they're buying.

The key benefits of variation swatches include:

In this guide, we'll compare the top WooCommerce variation swatches plugins to help you pick the right solution for your store.

11 WooCommerce swatches plugins compared

There are several WooCommerce variation swatch plugins available, so we've tried and tested them all. Most of them are well coded and high quality, so you should choose the one that will look the best on your site, and which gives you the most flexibility. Look out for features such as:

• Color swatches
• Image swatches
• The ability to display actual product attributes as swatches
• Other ways of creating swatches which offer more flexibility than variations
• Minimum and maximum quantities
• Advanced pricing options
• Conditional logic

Here's a table comparing the main features of the plugins we tested. You can read the full explanation below.

Plugin	Swatches	Type	Min/Max Quantities	Advanced Pricing	Conditional Logic
WooCommerce Product Options	Color, image, text, radio button + more	Either display variations as swatches or create options directly in the plugin	✓	✓	✓
WooCommerce Product Filters	Color, image, text + more	Displays swatches as product filters, not options for customers to select	N/A	N/A	N/A
WooCommerce Attribute Swatches	Color, image, text	Displays variations as swatches	⛌	⛌	⛌
ShopEngine	Color, text	Displays variations as swatches	⛌	⛌	⛌
Variation Swatches for WooCommerce	Color, image, text, radio button	Displays variations as swatches	⛌	⛌	⛌
Variation Swatches and Photos	Color, image, text	Displays variations as swatches	⛌	⛌	⛌
WowStore	Color, image	Displays variations as swatches	⛌	⛌	⛌
WPMozo Variation Swatches	Color, image	Displays variations as swatches	⛌	⛌	⛌
Swatchly	PhotosColor, image, text	Displays variations as swatches	⛌	⛌	⛌
Variation Swatches for WooCommerce	Color, image, text, radio button	Displays variations as swatches	⛌	⛌	⛌
Product Variations Swatches	Color, image, text	Displays variations as swatches	⛌	⛌	⛌

1. WooCommerce Product Options

⭐️ Rating: 4.94 out of 5 ⭐️

The WooCommerce Product Options plugin lets shoppers customize products before adding them to their cart. It's our no. 1 WooCommerce swatches plugin because as well as letting you display color, image or text variation swatches, it also comes with a wide range of product add-on fields.

• • Multiple variation swatch styles: You can replace the product variation dropdowns with eye-catching color swatches, text swatches, or even image swatches.
  • Huge range of option types: As well as creating WooCommerce variation swatches, you can list other types of field including file upload fields, text input, checkboxes, radio buttons, and more.
  • Flexible pricing: If you like, then you can charge extra fees when customers select specific items from the variation swatches. This can include basic price increases, percentage price changes, or even creating advanced price formulas.
  • Display upsells: You can display upsell offers directly on your online store with product options. Following our example, customers will be more likely to pay a bit extra for a personalized cake than a regular one.

• Min/max quantities: Control how many swatches your customers can order by setting minimum and maximum quantities on each one.
• Conditional logic: Smart conditional logic lets you dynamically show and hide your variation swatches depending on which other options the customer selects.
• Create options using variations or directly in the plugin: Unlike all the other plugins in this list, WooCommerce Product Options provides 2 ways of creating variation swatches. You can display existing attributes and variations as swatches. Alternatively, you can create the options directly in the plugin instead of using variations. This adds even more flexibility because you can use features that aren't possible with real variations. This includes min/max quantities and allowing customers to select multiple attributes, and use some of the more advanced pricing features.
• Works with other popular WooCommerce plugins, including the WooCommerce Product Table and WooCommerce Quick View Pro plugins. This way, you can display the variation swatches in product tables and quick view lightboxes.

Best for

I'd recommend WooCommerce Product Options for any store that wants a flexible and easy-to-way to add variation swatches for WooCommerce. Choose if it you want:

This product variation swatch plugin comes with a 30-day money back guarantee, so you can try it on your site risk-free. You can also view a front or back end admin demo, which is an excellent way to see how the variation swatches work before you buy.

2. WooCommerce Product Filters

⭐️ Rating: 5 out of 5 ⭐️

WooCommerce swatches aren’t just for displaying on product pages. You can also use them as product filters. The benefit of doing it this way is that it lets customers click on an image, text label, or color swatch to quickly refine the product catalog by their selection(s).

Filtering products is a more visual way for customers to find the type of products they want to see and, ultimately, add to their shopping cart.

The WooCommerce Product Filters plugin is perfect for this. It comes with:

• Attribute color swatches and image filters based on an attribute, category, or taxonomy that customers can click to filter the list of products.
• Text labels (like a tag cloud) that you can use for categories, attributes, taxonomies, and tags.
• The ability to add swatch-based filters to your shop's sidebar and/or above the list of products.
• Mobile-friendly slide-out filter panel.

Best for

Choose WooCommerce Product Filters if you want customers to be able to click on swatches to narrow down the list of products.

Remember that this plugin is about using swatches to find products via your shop and category pages, not displaying options on product pages. This means that you can either use it alone, or with any of the WooCommerce variation swatch plugins on this list.

3. WooCommerce Attribute Swatches

⭐️ Rating: 4.79 out of 5 ⭐️

The WooCommerce Attribute Swatches plugin by Iconic is a professional solution for displaying product variations better on your online store.

You can use the plugin to visualize product options on single product pages and give your WooCommerce site a modern look and feel.

• Let customers select product colors by using a color picker or use image swatches to display the product’s material and texture to describe how it looks in real life.
• Display product variation swatches on the main shop page. This way, customers can select variation options for multiple products at once using attractive-looking swatches without having to navigate to each product page one by one.

Best for

Stores wanting to display attributes as color or text swatches, and are happy that each list of swatches will be single-choice only.

4. Variation Swatches Module of ShopEngine

⭐️ Rating: 5 out of 5 ⭐️

ShopEngine is a complete WooCommerce builder add-on featuring a versatile Variation Swatches Module.

ShopEngine’s Variation Swatches Module lets you easily add attributes to your product. By using this module, you can customize and show off your product’s color or size variations. You can add radio images, labels, and colors into the product variation option fields. This will allow your customers to quickly find their desired product.

ShopEngine offers a free version of their plugin. They also offer a Pro version with multiple pricing options to suit different types of users.

Best for

Use ShopEngine if you want all of the features it offers and not just swatches. If you're simply looking for a variation swatches for WooCommerce plugin then skip this one because you don't want unnecessary bloat on your site.

5. Variation Swatches for WooCommerce

⭐️ Rating: 4.8 out of 5 ⭐️

Variation Swatches for WooCommerce by RadiusTheme is a freemium plugin offering a multitude of free features and great support.

• Showcase product variation select fields as radio, images, colors, and labels. 
• Display the variation swatches in rounded or squared shapes.
• Use the Tooltip feature to show custom images and textual descriptions of products and their variations.
• Customize the background with images and colors as well as the border colors of the swatches.

Best for

This variation swatch plugin is good for stores that want to choose the shape of their attribute swatches. It's also useful if you particularly like the tooltip feature, rather than displaying the information above or below the swatches like most other plugins.

6. Variation Swatches and Photos

⭐️ Rating: 3.5 out of 5 ⭐️

Variation Swatches and Photos is a simple plugin that replaces the default-looking dropdown fields for variable products.

• Showcase image and color swatches to represent variation options for any product on your online store.
• Choose between text, color and image variation swatches for WooCommerce.

Best for

WooCommerce stores wanting very simple variation swatches, as this plugin lacks the advanced features of our top picks such as conditional logic and additional product option fields. This plugin has the worst rating out of all the ones we reviewed, largely due to lack of features.

7. WowStore

⭐️ Rating: 4.9 out of 5 ⭐️

The WowStore WordPress store builder plugin features a WooCommerce Variation Swatches Addon, as well as a Name Your Price field.

You can use it to showcase the various product attributes. You can show your product’s color, size, or any other attribute without any hassle. And you can showcase these attributes on either the single product page or the archive page.

Furthermore, you get to show the tooltips for the attributes. You are at will to create and showcase the variations of your products - just the way you like them.

Best for

Sites that need a wider range of features which are not related to WooCommerce variation swatches, such as the page builder and upsell engines. Avoid it if you only want attribute swatches because you should only add features you actually need to your site.

8. WPMozo Variation Swatches

⭐️ Rating: No reviews at the time of writing ⭐️

The WPMozo Variation Swatches for Woo plugin makes it simple to display attribute swatches on product pages.

• Display product colors, sizes, and views from multiple viewpoints.
• Use hover tooltips, which can show both text as well as images of the products.
• Display the variation swatches separately on the product and shop pages.
• Use Inline and Separate layouts to appropriately arrange the product variation swatches.
• Use the styling options to add a unique touch and match your brand.

Best for

A WooCommerce variation swatches plugin with a reasonable number of features from a smaller WordPress plugin company. Avoid it if you want extra features like min/max quantities and conditional logic.

9. Swatchly

⭐️ Rating: 4.4 out of 5 ⭐️

Similar to other plugins in this list, the free Swatchly plugin also lets you display beautiful variation swatches on your online store.

• Free variation swatches plugin for WooCommerce.
• Add multiple types of swatches to your variable products, including label swatches, color swatches, or image swatches.
• Auto-convert all default WooCommerce variation dropdown menus into swatches. This can save you a lot of time and hassle in adding swatches to all of your variable products, especially if you have a lot of variable products on your online store.
• Override global swatch settings for each product individually. This makes it easier for you to manage variation swatches on your WooCommerce site.

Best for

WooCommerce merchants looking for a free solution who don't need access to premium support.

10. Variation Swatches for WooCommerce

⭐️ Rating: 4.9 out of 5 ⭐️

Variation Swatches for WooCommerce by ThemeHigh is a fully responsive plugin designed to help create an interactive shopping experience for your store. In addition, it makes your product pages look more appealing with beautifully designed swatches.

• Makes it super simple to display variation swatches.
• Choose from options such as color, image, radio button, or label button swatches.
• Customize how swatches look on the front-end.

Best for

Creating simple variation swatches in WooCommerce that don't need extra features like additional field types or conditional logic.

11. Product Variations Swatches for WooCommerce

⭐️ Rating: 4.7 out of 5 ⭐️

The Product Variations Swatches for WooCommerce offers an effective solution for displaying variation swatches on your online store.

• Customize the display of your store’s global product attributes easily.
• Get full control over the look and design of your variation swatches.

Best for

Stores looking for a free WooCommerce swatches plugin.

Choose the right variation swatches plugin for your store

Adding product variation swatches to WooCommerce is a great way to enhance the shopping experience. It makes it easier for customers to differentiate between product attributes and select their desired options quickly. As a result, it helps you increase conversions and makes your product pages look more professional.

The best WooCommerce variation swatches plugins offer flexible ways to display attributes as swatches. This includes showcasing them as either color swatches, image swatches or text swatches - or even in other ways such as checkboxes and radio buttons. The best plugins also offer advanced features such as min/max quantities, conditional logic, and advanced pricing options.

Our top recommendation for adding variation swatches to WooCommerce is the WooCommerce Product Options plugin. This has absolutely all the features you need, while being easy to set up at the same time. It comes with a 30-day money back guarantee, so try it on your site today!

Looking for an easy way to allow customers to customize products to meet their exact needs? Keep reading for our selection of the best WooCommerce product designer plugins.

Allowing users to customize products when placing an order can greatly accelerate conversions on your ecommerce store.

WooCommerce is an excellent foundation for a product designer website. However, on its own, it doesn’t allow customers to place custom orders.

This is why you need to use a WooCommerce custom product designer plugin. A good product designer plugin lets shoppers customize their products and order something truly bespoke.

I've tried and tested the best WooCommerce designer plugins in the market. They all work in different ways, so read about them all and choose the one with the exact type of custom product designer features you're looking for.

Best WooCommerce product designer plugins

Here's my list of the best WooCommerce custom designer plugins. Each plugin allows you to add different types of product customization options to your ecommerce store.

1. WooCommerce Product Options

The WooCommerce Product Options plugin transforms the single product page into a fully featured product configurator. It does this by adding a wide range of extra fields and options for customers to configure.

Customers can mix and match the options to create a bespoke custom product that meets their exact specification.

Some of the different product options you can add include:

• File upload: Allow customers to upload a logo, image, or design to appear on the product. Optionally allow customers to preview their uploaded images so that they can see what the final customized product will look like.
• Checkbox and radio button: Allow customers to configure different aspects of the product by making selections.
• Text fields: Allow customers to add custom text that needs to be printed on the product. This is also perfect for entering custom instructions for the manufacturer to implement.
• Dropdowns: Let customers choose from multiple options. For example, you can use this to allow users to choose a font in which the text will be printed on a product.
• Color swatches: These are perfect for letting customers pick the product color in a more visual way.
• Image options: Clickable images provide a visually appealing way to choose options.
• Text area: This is ideal for products where detailed instructions related to the custom product orders are required to process them.
• File upload: Let customers upload their own images or logos to be printed on the product.
• Display other products in the WooCommerce designer: As well as adding options directly to a product, you can display other products from your store as options. For example, a "Design your own cosmetics box" product designer might display make-up products from elsewhere in your store.
• Other niche use-case product options: You also add HTML, Visual Editor, and customer-defined price fields.

Depending on the field type, you can either create the options directly in the plugin or select existing variations to add to the product builder using the above styles.

Advanced product designer options

Importantly, WooCommerce Product Options lets you charge extra for customizations. This is a great way to upsell products and increase your average order value. For example, you can charge extra for customers who choose to add a custom engraving to a jewelry product.

There's also a conditional logic feature, where you can show and hide options in the product designer based on user selection. For example, if you're creating a WooCommerce t-shirt designer then you can hide the options for the t-shirt back until the user chooses the '2 sided' option.

Of course, you only want customers to be able to design products within the limits of what's possible. That's why WooCommerce Product Options comes with the ability to set minimum and maximum quantities. For example, you can control how many checkbox options the customer can tick. You can also set a maximum character count on text fields, for example if an engraved product can only fit a certain number of characters.

As you can see, WooCommerce Product Options has everything you need in a custom product designer. That's why it's our no. 1 pick.

Provide live previews of the customer-designed product

WooCommerce Product Options also comes with an optional 'Live Preview' add-on. This allows you to enable live previews for file upload fields. Customers can design their own product by uploading images and then resizing and adjusting them within the live preview.

Live preview is a must for any WooCommerce product designer which supports custom printed products. It's important for customers to be able to visualize the finished printed product. WooCommerce Product Options with Live Preview makes this easy.

As the store owner, you can set printable areas to control which parts of the product can be designed:

That way, you stay in control as the store owner - while the customer can design their product within the parameters you have set.

2. Product Designer for WooCommerce

Product Designer is a robust WooCommerce designer plugin that makes it easy for customers to design and customize a product according to their specific requirements.

Key features:

• You have full control over the shopping experience of your online store. This means you can create a customizable WooCommerce product and showcase additional options for the product.
• Lets you add product attributes such as product color, size, gift wrap message box, or free shipping checkboxes to your customizable products.
• Customizable products created by the plugin let your customers view the Product Designer page. This way, they can add images, clip art, text, or shapes to customize their product.
• You can also set pricing for each extra customizable option according to your business requirements. This is a great way to charge an extra fee for customized products and increase the average order value on your online store.

3. Fancy Product Designer

With over 15,000 downloads, Fancy Product Designer is a popular option for creating highly customized products on your WooCommerce site.

Key features:

• Let users customize products in various ways, including by letting them upload their own media, select colors using a color picker, add their own text, or customize the image position, size and opacity when customizing products.
• You can customize the “product designer” and showcase product extra options in multiple ways using pre-designed layouts or by creating one yourself from scratch.

4. Product Designer for WooCommerce WordPress

Product Designer is a WooCommerce custom designer plugin that makes it easy to create attractive-looking custom products on your online store.

Key features:

• The plugin comes with a great-looking WordPress theme, Lumise. This gives you more options when customizing the look and feel of your single product pages.
• You can let customers design products on your online store using an intuitive interface that’s easy to understand, even for non-tech-savvy users.
• The editor is fully responsive and lets you create custom layouts using pre-designed templates for products, including hoodies, sneakers, mugs, business cards, stickers, caps, and t-shirts.

5. Attribute Swatches for WooCommerce

Attribute Swatches by Iconic is a top-notch WooCommerce custom designer plugin. It offers an easy way to display product variations better.

Key features:

• Display extra product options or variation options in interactive images, colors, or button swatches.
• You have full control over how your swatches look, and you can display out-of-stock variation options on the front end of your online store.
• The plugin works seamlessly with popular page builders, such as the Elementor page builder, allowing you to create unique-looking product pages.

6. Product Designer

Product Designer is a full-fledged WooCommerce designer plugin that makes it easy to let customers design their custom products on your online store.

Key features:

• You can showcase a “customize” button on your product pages. This gives your customers an easy way to design and customize products before adding them to their cart and checking out from your online store.
• You can let customers upload their own clip art and images, add custom text using Google Fonts, or add custom shapes when customizing products.
• The plugin is perfect for selling custom products such as hoodies, t-shirts, mugs, caps, or custom business cards.

7. WooCommerce Online Designer Tool

WooCommerce Online Designer Tool is a simple yet powerful product designer tool. It comes with multiple features and options to help you make your store's custom product checkouts more efficient.

Key features:

• The plugin lets you sell any type of personalized products on your store. Such as apparel, paper, photo, image, merchandise, or packaging products.
• You can display a simple “customize” button on your product pages. This will help customers design their products before adding them to the shopping cart.
• A fully responsive layout helps keep up your site’s performance and ensures a great shopping experience for all users.

8. Ouidah – Custom Product Designer for WooCommerce

Ouidah – Custom Product Designer for WooCommerce offers a complete solution for offering web-to-print services on your WooCommerce site. This means you can let customers design and customize products that can be printed according to their own unique requirements.

Key features:

• The easy-to-use online product customizer lets your customers quickly make design changes when purchasing customizable products from your online store.
• You can let customers select the design of their product using preset templates. This ensures a smoother shopping experience and drives better conversions.
• The price is automatically calculated for the final printing according to the options the customer selects.

9. PH WooCommerce Product Addons

The PH WooCommerce Product Addons is a solid WooCommerce designer plugin that makes it easy to offer all types of customizable products on your WooCommerce site.

Key features:

• You can sell any type of customizable product that you can think of. For instance, you can sell shoes that let users customize the shoe color, design, or size accordingly. Similarly, you can also sell custom t-shirts that let customers choose their own unique size and color before adding the product to their cart.
• You also have full control over the pricing of extra product options. This way, you can charge extra to let users customize products when purchasing from your online store.

10. WooCommerce Product Configurator

WooCommerce Product Configurator makes it possible to display image layers for customizable products on your online store. This way, when customers make changes, all design customizations will be visually displayed to them in real time.

Key features:

• The product customization is very easy for your customers as each customization is visually represented in the product image. This helps create an enhanced shopping experience while also letting customers make informed purchase decisions quickly.
• You also have access to advanced product inventory management features that make it easy to edit stock levels for each product option easily.
• You can display the product customization changes across all devices as the plugin is fully responsive.

How to allow customers to design products using WooCommerce Product Options

All of the WooCommerce product designer plugins that I recommended above are designed for different purposes. WooCommerce Product Options has the widest application across multiple industries and use cases, so we'll use this in the tutorial section of this article. I'm going to assume that you are using it with the optional Live Preview add-on, so skip those steps if you're using WooCommerce Product Options on its own.

1. Install the plugin and add fields to the WooCommerce product designer

This is how to create a custom product designer with the WooCommerce Product Options plugin:

1. Install WooCommerce Product Options on your WordPress site.
2. Activate your license key in the setup wizard, which opens automatically. This will silently install the Live Preview add-on in the background.
3. Go to Products → Product Options.
4. Click 'Add New' to create a group of product options. You'll use these to add the customization fields to the product designer.
5. Select which products and/or categories you want the WooCommerce product designer fields to appear on.
6. Create as many product options as you like. I recommend creating a natural flow that will take customers through the journey of designing their product, step-by-step. For each option, think about the most visually appealing way to appeal it. For example, in the 'Personalized Bracelet' screenshot above, I used images to allow customers to choose a gemstone instead of just listing them as text. Customize each option as needed, for example by adding pricing and setting minimum or maximum quantities. Add file upload fields for the options that you wish to provide live image previews for.

2. Add printable areas to the product designer

If you're using the Live Preview add-on then you also need to set printable areas for the images that the customer's uploaded designs will be displayed on:

1. Go to the 'Media' section of the WordPress admin.
2. Click on one of the images that require an image preview.
3. Click the 'Set printable areas' button.
4. Add one or more printable areas to the image.

To save time, there are several ways to use the same printable area on multiple images in the WooCommerce product designer:

• For variable product designers, tick the 'Use for variable images' checkbox. This will re-use the same printable area across all variation images.
• For standalone products, close the Printable Areas window and click the 'Copy' button. (You'll find this next to 'Set printable areas'.) Next, go to a different image and click 'Paste'.

3. Bonus: Show lead times for custom-designed products

Custom orders can take a bit longer to manufacture and ship to customers as compared to simple products. This makes it a good idea to inform your customers about the lead time or the time it will take for their order to reach them. This helps set realistic expectations for customers who place orders with you and improves customer satisfaction.

This is why we recommend using the WooCommerce Lead Time plugin along with a product designer plugin to create the ultimate shopping experience on your online store.

This way, you don’t have to leave customers guessing about how long it will take for their custom product to arrive. The great thing about the plugin is that it can automatically calculate the lead time for custom products. So you don’t have to manually edit the code in the back-end or calculate the lead time.

For more information on how to set up lead times on your WooCommerce site, you can check out our guide on WooCommerce Lead Time so you can set realistic expectations for users who purchase custom-designed WooCommerce products from you.

Start selling custom-designed WooCommerce products

While several WooCommerce product designer plugins are available, Product Options is by far the most flexible. You can use it to create sophisticated product configurators, in which customers select a range of eye-catching options to design their ideal product:

• Huge range of option types and styles.
• Add various types of pricing to each field.
• Set minimum and maximum values that customers can select from.
• Use conditional logic to dynamically show fields in the product designer based on the customer's other selections.
• Full 30-day money back guarantee so you can try it on your site risk-free.

Looking for the perfect product designer plugin for your online store? Get WooCommerce Product Options today!

---

FAQ

What are the benefits of using product designer plugins?

Here, we’ll dive deeper into why you should consider using a WooCommerce designer plugin so it’s easier to understand how they can benefit your business.

Some key benefits of using WooCommerce product designer plugins include:

• Enhances shopping experienceCreating customizable products and giving customers an easy way to choose product options or view product details when shopping from your online store is a great way to offer a unique shopping experience. Customers will be easily able to select product options and view additional information about a product before they add it to their shopping carts. This helps enhance the shopping experience and cater to all types of users, even non-tech-savvy ones.
• Gives an interactive experience to potential customersYou can create a more interactive experience on your single product pages by displaying additional product fields or displaying products differently. This enhances the shopping experience while also making it easier for customers to shop from your online store.
• Allows you to target new markets, which isn’t possible with WooCommerce as it comes You can create and sell custom products on your online store. For instance, you can create a customizable product such as a hoodie or t-shirt and let customers design their own hoodie or t-shirt using extra product options before they add the product to their shopping cart.

WooCommerce product designer plugins transform your single product pages and give your online store a more professional look. Without them, you’ll be stuck with default-looking WooCommerce products that customers can find on most online stores elsewhere.

What are the use cases of selling customizable products?

There are many different types of product which you might want to let the customer design themselves. Here are some common use cases:

• Personalized gifts - Personalizable products like engraved jewelry, personalized mugs, and custom t-shirts make for unique and thoughtful gifts. Customers can add names, dates, or special messages, making these items perfect for birthdays, anniversaries, and other special occasions.
• Brand promotion - Businesses can design their own customizable products for promotional purposes. Custom t-shirts, hats, and bags with company logos or slogans are excellent for giveaways or selling as merchandise, helping to increase brand visibility and loyalty.
• Event memorabilia - If you sell items for events such as weddings, corporate events, and sports tournaments, then you might need a WooCommerce product designer to allow customers to order items like engraved glassware or personalized keychains.
• Fashion and self-expression - "Design your own" clothing and accessories allow customers to express their personal style. Brands like Nike and Ralph Lauren offer options to design custom shoes and polo shirts, giving customers the freedom to create unique fashion statements.
• Home decor - Customizable home decor items, such as personalized wall art, custom cushions, and engraved photo frames, allow customers to add a personal touch to their living spaces. These products can be tailored to match specific themes or preferences.
• Pet accessories - Pet owners love to spoil their pets with personalized items. They can have great fun using a WooCommerce custom designer website to order bespoke pet collars, engraved tags, and personalized pet beds.
• Tech accessories - Custom tech accessories, such as phone cases, laptop sleeves, and smartwatch bands, are in high demand. Customers can design custom products with colors, patterns, and even add personalized text or images.

Whatever you need a WooCommerce product designer for, I hope that some of the plugins recommended in this article are useful for you.

There are lots of ways to add WooCommerce product filtering to your store. You can do it very effectively, or very badly! Discover our top tips on the best way to provide filtering options for your customers.

While designing our WooCommerce Product Filters plugin, we did a lot of research and analysis into what makes effective product filtering. Today I'm going to share my top tips on how to use WooCommerce product filtering in a way that will delight your customers and maximize your sales.

We'll cover various areas of filtering products, including subtle but important details that people normally overlook.

Tip 1: Choose WooCommerce product filtering styles that suit your product data

If you look at the basic filter widgets that come with WooCommerce yourself, you'll see that they're very limited. Compare them with the world's top e-commerce stores (many of which don't use WordPress) and you'll see a huge difference. The best stores have a much more creative approach to WooCommerce product filtering, with a huge range of filter styles.

But don't go crazy! Think carefully about the types of product data that your customers will be filtering by. Choose a filter style that suits each type of data and will create a logical experience for customers.

Filtering types and style options

The WooCommerce Product Filters plugin comes with a big choice of filter styles. This includes checkboxes, dropdown lists, radio buttons, text labels, images (with or without text), and color filters. Which one you choose for each type of product data can make a big difference to your customers' experience.

Here's a summary of the different filtering styles that you can choose from:

Dropdown filters

• What is a dropdown filter?: A dropdown list, which customers click to open the list of options.
• Hierarchical?: Yes - sub-categories are indented under their parent categories.
• Selection method: Single choice.
• Recommended for: Product filtering where there is lots of options. That's because a dropdown doesn't take up much space on the page. Only use dropdowns where the customer only needs to choose one option at a time.

Checkbox filters

• What is a checkbox filter?: A list of tick boxes.
• Hierarchical?: Yes - sub-categories are indented under their parent categories.
• Selection method: Multiple choice.
• Recommended for: Non-visual types of product data where customers need to select more than one WooCommerce product filtering option at a time.

Radio buttons

• What is a radio button filter?: A list of options, each with a circle that customers can click on.
• Hierarchical?: Yes - sub-categories are indented under their parent categories.
• Selection method: Single choice.
• Recommended for: Filters where customers must make an either-or choice to select one option at a time.

Text labels

• What are label filters?: A cluster of small boxes, each containing the name of the option - similar to a tag cloud.
• Hierarchical?: No - only top level options are included (e.g. parent categories).
• Selection method: Multiple choice.
• Recommended for: Types of product data which don't have images, but where customers will benefit from a more visual way to display the options. For example, size options (e.g. Small, Medium and Large) look good displayed as text labels. This is a particular good way to display WooCommerce tag filters.

Images

• What are image filters?: A grid of images, each representing one of the filter options (e.g. a category or an attribute). You can choose whether to show the image on its own, or to add a dark overlay with the option name over the image.
• Hierarchical?: No - only top level options are included (e.g. parent categories).
• Selection method: Multiple choice.
• Recommended for: Visual types of product data where customers will appreciate being able to click on an image of what they are looking for, instead of having to read through a list of text options. For example, categories often work well when displayed as image filters.

Color swatches

• What are color swatch filters?: A grid of coloured squares, each representing a color attribute option. Customers click on a color to filter for products of that color. You can display the colors on their own, or with the name of each color alongside.
• Hierarchical?: N/A
• Selection method: Multiple choice.
• Recommended for: Color attributes.

Choosing the right product filtering styles

Think about whether you're using the most appropriate style for each filter on your site. If not, then head over to Products → Filters and change it - it only takes a second!

Tip 2: Show WooCommerce product filtering in the right parts of your store

Did you know that there are 3 different ways that you can add filters to different parts of your store?

Method 1: Above your shop

The most obvious way to show filters on your site is by displaying a filter group above your shop. You can enable this in the setup wizard, or on the plugin settings page at Products → Filters → Settings.

This method displays the filters as dropdowns above your default store pages (shop, category pages, etc.). But what if you want to add filters to the sidebar, or to pages other than your default store pages? That's when you need Methods 2 and 3.

Method 2: As sidebar widgets

Lots of e-commerce stores display filters in the left or right sidebar of their shop pages. That's a great option because the customer can see all the options at once.

To add a filter group to the sidebar, go to Appearance → Widgets and use the 'Product Filters' widget. To show the widget on some pages but others, you can use a free plugin like Widget Options.

Method 3: As a shortcode

The final way to insert filters is a bit more technical than the others, but also the most flexible. You'll need this if you're creating custom pages to list products and want to display filters above - for example, if you're using a page builder plugin or our WooCommerce Product Table plugin.

To find the shortcode, go to Products → Filters and copy the shortcode for the relevant group. Paste it wherever you want the filters to appear - for example, above a product table shortcode, in a Gutenberg text or shortcode block, in an Elementor or Divi block, or anywhere else.

You can either use the shortcode as it comes, or configure it using the shortcode options.

Choose the right location for your WooCommerce product filtering

Armed with this information, think about whether you have added filters to all the locations where they would be helpful to your customers.

Tip 3: Choose between horizontal, vertical and hidden filters

Amazingly, the WooCommerce Product Filters plugin provides three layout options for your filters.

That's right - you can choose between:

• Horizontal layout - This normally appears horizontally above the list of products, with each filter hidden within a dropdown.
• Vertical layout - This is normally use for sidebar widget filters.
• Hidden filters - You can also display a 'Show filters' button above the list of products, which opens the filters in a slide-out panel.

So, how can you choose which layout(s) to use in your store? Here are my top tips to help you decide:

• Do your shop pages have a sidebar? If not, then you should definitely use the horizontal or hidden layout!
• Do you want customers to be able to see all the filter options all the time? If so, then the vertical layout is best.
• Do you have large numbers of filters? Consider using a combination of both layouts, as in the above screenshot.
• Are you worried about cluttering up the page? Hide the filters so that customers must click a button to view them.

What about mobile?

So far, we've only considered desktop users. Most mobile sites don't have a sidebar so even if you add filter widgets on desktop, WooCommerce Product Filters will automatically hide these and display a 'Show filters' button on mobile instead.

This means that for mobile users, your only choices are to either show the 'Show filters' button, or to show the horizontal filters above the list of products. I recommend using the 'Show filters' button if you have lots of filters, and making them visible above the list of products if you just have a few.

Use these options to plan the best possible locations for the filters in your store - whatever devices your customers are using.

Tip 4: List products in a structured order form with filtering

If you use product filters on your e-commerce site, chances are that you have lots of products. After all, that's why you need filters!

And when you have lots of products, the default store layout often isn't good enough. Each product takes up a lot of space, and even after using the filters, it's still difficult for customers to compare products and make quick buying decisions. It's also a pain for customers to have to visit a separate page for each product in order to choose quantities and variations, and add to the cart.

You can solve all these problems by using WooCommerce Product Filters with our other plugin, WooCommerce Product Table:

WooCommerce Product Table lists your products in a conversion-optimized one-page order form. Customers can view more products per page, and choose quantities and variations without leaving the page.

It's a much faster way to buy. And as everyone knows, faster shopping means more sales for you!

Tip 5: Decide whether to hide the product filtering

Next, let's look at whether your store will be better if you show or hide your product filters.

Most WooCommerce stores show the filters all the time. However, if you look at some of the world's leading e-commerce sites outside of WordPress - particularly clothes stores - then you'll see that this isn't always the best option. Depending on the layout of your store and the type of products, it's often better to hide the filters so that customers can choose whether to see them.

The WooCommerce Product Filters plugin provides several ways to do this:

Slide-out panel

You can hide filters from the page on mobile and/or desktop. When you do this, customers can click a button to view the filters in a user-friendly slide-out panel.  That way, customers can still filter your products - but you keep the page clean and clutter-free.

Add open/close toggles

Maybe you don't want to hide the filters all the time, but you want them to take up less space on the page.

You can achieve this by enabling the Toggle option in WooCommerce Product Filters. Either show the toggles as open or closed by default, and customers can click on a filter heading to show and hide the options within:

Take a look at your store and think about whether you're using the visibility options in the best possible way for your customers. It can make a big difference!

Tip 6: Should you use AJAX filtering?

When people first install the WooCommerce Product Filters plugin, they tend to select the "Instant" filtering option without really thinking about it. But is it definitely best option for your store?

Now I'm going to tell you a bit about the "Button click" option and help you think about which filter mode you should be using.

WooCommerce Product Filters comes with a choice of 2 filter modes:

• Instant - This uses AJAX to filter the list of products as soon as the customer clicks on an option.
• Button click - Customers can select as many options as they like from the filters, and then click an 'Apply' button to view the results.

Most of the world's top e-commerce stores use AJAX filtering. That's because it reduces the number of clicks for the customer, and shows results without reloading the page.

However, AJAX filtering can sometimes create a worse user experience. This can happen when you sell the sort of products where customers want to make all their choices in one go, and only view the results at the end of the process. ]

Some examples

To illustrate this, let's look at two possible use cases:

• Clothes websiteI'd generally recommend AJAX filtering for this because the customer wants to see some products after selecting some initial filters, and then might select additional options to fine-tune the results. When they start shopping, they don't know the exact combination they're looking for. They'll keep selecting filters one at a time until they find items they like.
• Car parts websiteWith this type of product, customers know exactly what they need. They want to select all the criteria from faceted search filters and then view the results all at once. As a result, I'd recommend the button click method for this type of store.

Based on the above, which filter mode do you think is best for your store? It's easy to change - just head to Products → Filters → Settings.

Tip 7: Check the order of your filtering options

And finally - another thing to check is the order of your filters. There are two things to check here:

Are your filters in the right order?

When you created your WooCommerce product filtering options you might have added them to the end of the group without considering the order. Edit the filter group and drag and drop the sort icons to put them in the best possible order.

I recommend putting the most high level filters first to create a logical journey for your customers. For example, it would make sense to put the category filter first. Next, you can have the most important attribute filters, and then general data such as price filter and average  rating.

Are the options within each filter ordered correctly?

It's also worth checking the order of the options within each individual filter. For example, if you have created a filter using the 'Size' attribute then you may want to order the attributes in size order instead of alphabetically.

Category, Attribute, Color and Taxonomy filters are ordered via the term_order option that is built into WordPress. While WordPress doesn't have a built-in way to re-order taxonomy terms, you can change the order using free plugins such as Category Order and Taxonomy Terms Order.

Once your filters are up to date and ordered logically, it will be easier then ever for customers to find what they're looking for.

Where to get the plugin

We built the Product Filters plugin to allow any store owner to add professional-quality product filtering to WooCommerce.

There's no one-size-fits-all approach, and different stores work best with different types and configurations of filtering.

As a result, use the above tips when adding WooCommerce product filtering to your store. Think about the types of products you sell, and what will create the best possible experience for your customers. Create logical filtering options that suit your products and guide customers to the products they're looking for. As a result, they're much more likely to find what they're looking for - resulting in more sales for you!

If you run a WooCommerce store with lots of categories, then it's essential for customers to have a quick way to find products by category. Discover the easy way to add a WooCommerce category filter to your store, and watch your sales grow!

Product filters add value to online stores and help customers to find products quickly and easily. It’s no surprise that more and more store owners are adding product filters to their online stores.

However, the filters that come with the WooCommerce plugin are pretty basic and don’t include a category filter. There's a basic categories widget that simply lists the categories in your store with links to each one, but no actual category filter widget.

When your customers shop in popular non-WordPress online stores, they're used to being able to filter by category. So why is this so difficult in WordPress and WooCommerce?!

Fortunately, there's an easy solution. Keep reading to learn how to add a category filter in WooCommerce. You'll discover how to add WooCommerce filter by category using checkboxes, just like in the example above. And for even more flexibility, you'll learn how to create other types of category filter. This might include clickable images, radio buttons, dropdown lists, text labels, and more.

Why do you need product filters and how does filtering by category help?

WooCommerce is the best e-commerce platform to sell online with ease. It’s also the most popular.

However, the built-in widgets for filters are pretty limited. You can only filter products by basic information such as attribute, price or rating. The page refreshes every time a customer chooses an option from a filter. And even worse - there's no built-in WooCommerce category filter. As a result, there’s no way for customers to refine their search by category and see more specific types of products.

By adding WooCommerce category filters to your store, you make it easy for customers to narrow down their search and find the products they want to buy faster. The faster they find the products, the faster they’ll move to checkout.

Let’s step through some of the main benefits of filtering by category in WooCommerce:

And the best thing about filtering by category?

The best part is that WooCommerce category filters are even more useful when used alongside other types of filters. For example, if you set up a category filter with a price filter, attribute filter, and in-stock status filter, customers will be able to refine their search even more.

Picture this: a customer is looking to buy a red t-shirt and has a $40 budget.

Scenario 1: You’re not using category filters – The customer will use the category widget to see all T-shirt products. They’ll see a product catalog of dozens of t-shirts to browse through to find a red one that’s under $40.

Scenario 2: You’re using category filters – The customer will use category filters to make the following selections and refine their search:

• Category: T-shirt
• Color: Red
• Price range: $20 to $40

And the result? They’ll only see red t-shirts that are within their budget.

Introducing WooCommerce Product Filters

The WooCommerce Product Filters plugin makes it easy for store owners to set up AJAX product filters, including by category, product attributes, or taxonomies. It lets you create different types of filters and display multiple filters on your WooCommerce shop pages and category pages at a time.

The WooCommerce Product Filters plugin was built out of a necessity for a high-quality AJAX product filter plugin for WooCommerce that’s easy for non-coders to use. Store owners can use it to add a customized product category filter to their WooCommerce store in a few steps.

The product filters can be based on categories, attributes, custom taxonomies, product tags, colors, price sliders, and more. You can also display the total product count next to each filter option. It's perfect for anyone looking for a WooCommerce category filter plugin.

Different options for adding a category filter to WooCommerce

Using the WooCommerce Product Filters plugin, you can add a category filter to your store in a variety of different ways:

Dropdowns

The dropdowns option lets you display the different categories in a hierarchical list view. Customers can select a single category at a time to filter their search results. This is useful for stores that sell lots of different products organized into a few different categories and sub-categories. The parent-child category relationships are visible at a glance.

A huge benefit of creating category filter dropdowns is that you can make them dependent on each other. This means that only one dropdown appears when the page first loads, and then additional dropdowns appear as the customer makes their selections. Linked filters like this are popular for websites that structure products in a hierarchical way, for example when selling car parts online:

Checkboxes

The checkboxes WooCommerce category filter lets you display categories with a checkbox next to each one. This way, customers can select multiple categories. This is useful for stores that sell lots of similar types of products such as clothing. Customers can tick the checkboxes next to Blouses, T-shirts, Tunics, and Dress shirts to find a suitable top.

Category checkbox filters are probably the most popular way of filtering by category. That's because it's so easy for customers to select multiple categories at a time.

Radio buttons

The radio buttons category filter lets you display categories with radio buttons next to each one. This way, customers can filter by category to see the available categories at a glance and select the one they want to filter by.

With radio button filters, you can only select one category at a time.

Text labels

The labels option lets you display WooCommerce categories like a tag cloud. Customers can quickly click on a label to view products from that category only.

Like the category checkbox filtering, you can filter by multiple text labels at a time.

Images

The images option lets you display category image thumbnails, with or without the category name over it. This way, customers can click on the category image to refine their search. It's a much more visual way to filter by category in WooCommerce.

As with WooCommerce category checkbox and label filters, image filters support multiple selections.

Add a category filter the list of products

All of the screenshots above show WooCommerce category filters as sidebar widgets. However, that's not the only option. You can also show each type of category filter at the top of your shop.

With this option, the filters appear as dropdowns at the top of the main Shop page, category pages, and so on. You can display any of the category filter styles (checkboxes, radio buttons, images etc.) within the dropdown. For example, the screenshot above shows how a category checkbox filter looks at the top of the shop.

Mobile category filters

Finally, let's not forget mobile filtering. The majority of e-commerce purchases now take place on mobile devices. However, filtering requires careful thought on mobiles because of the small screen size. You don't want the filters to take up the whole page!

Fortunately, the WooCommerce Product Filters plugin handles this perfectly in its category filters. You can either show the mobile filters as dropdowns above the shop, or in a mobile-friendly slide-out panel:

Organizing WooCommerce category filters

One of the standout features of this WooCommerce category filter plugin is that it lets you create individual filters and then structure them into groups. The groups can then be added anywhere on your WordPress website or automatically be enabled on store pages.

The plugin lets you customize filters to offer dependent items, hide invalid filters, and hide products that are uncategorized. It also enhances the customer experience by offering the option to clear filters and scroll to the top of the page at the click of a button.

Finally, WooCommerce Product Filters lets you display the product count against each filter option. This means that you can show the number of products in each category next to the category name in the filter.

How to add WooCommerce category filters using the Product Filters plugin

Here’s what you need to do to add WooCommerce category filters to your online store:

Step #1: Install and activate the WooCommerce Product Filters plugin

Get the WooCommerce Product Filters plugin if you haven’t done so already. Install and activate it on your WordPress site.

The filter plugin setup wizard will now open. Use it to activate your license key and choose other options to configure your filters. For example, you can:

• Choose whether to use instant AJAX category filters or whether to apply filters when the customer clicks a button.
• Configure filter visibility to deliver a good user experience to your customers. You can show or hide filters by default, either on mobile or desktop.
• Customize the text - you can change the text that appears on your filters to make it more relevant to your store, and in your language.
• Hide filters within space-saving toggles like this:

Step #2: Create filters and group filters together

The WooCommerce Product Filters plugin makes it easy to create a category filter:

1. Navigate to Products → Filters in the WordPress panel.
2. Either open the default filter group or create a new one.
3. On the 'Edit filter group', page, click the 'Add new filter' button.
4. Fill in the details to add a new filter. You can set the name, filter by, filter type, and assign to group options. Set the filter data option to Categories to create a category filter.
5. When you select a category filter, an option appears letting you choose the style of the WooCommerce category filter. This is where you choose whether you want checkboxes, a dropdown, images, etc.
6. Repeat this step to create more filters. For example, you might want to create an attributes filter and price filter to go with the categories filter. This way, customers will be able to narrow down their search even further.

Tip: If you're creating category dropdown filters, then you can choose whether they will always be visible, or whether additional dropdowns will appear as the customer makes their selections. (Like in a car parts shop.) To do this, select the "Display categories and sub-categories as separate dropdowns" option.

Step #3: Add filters to shop pages

It's easy to display a group of filters anywhere on your WooCommerce site.

You can configure the WooCommerce Product Filters plugin’s settings to enable filters on the shop page and archive pages. The filter group you select will appear on the product list pages that WooCommerce creates – including the shop pages, categories page, and product tag archives.

By default, the category filter will appear in a horizontal layout above the list of products. Optionally, you can choose to display the filters in a sidebar or on specific pages using shortcodes. Simply go to Appearance → Widgets, add a 'Product Filters' widget to the sidebar, and select the group containing your category filter:

Alternatively, the category filter plugin comes with a shortcode which you can use to display filters anywhere. This is useful if you're listing your products in custom ways, for example using Gutenberg, Elementor, Divi Builder, or the [products] shortcode that comes with WooCommerce. Just copy the shortcode from the main list of filter groups in the admin, and add it where you want the filters to appear. (See the plugin documentation for a list of shortcode options.)

This method is also useful when you're using WooCommerce Product Filters with third party plugins. For example, it integrates with the WooCommerce Product Table plugin so that you can create one page order forms with category filters:

Add category filters to WooCommerce today

Adding WooCommerce category filters to your online store makes it easy for customers to narrow down their product search and quickly find the product they’re looking for. The easiest way to do this is by using the WooCommerce Product Filters plugin.

This well-designed plugin makes it incredibly easy for non-coders and developers to add product category filters. It can save you valuable time and effort, while also enabling you to have a professional and organized store. And the end result? More sales for you.

Ready to set up a category filter in WooCommerce? Get the WooCommerce Product Filters plugin today!

WooCommerce Product Table is our bestselling plugin of all time. We've been working hard to make it even better. Keep reading to learn what's new.

We've just released version 3.0 of our WooCommerce Product Table plugin. Here's a summary of the new features and improvements.

Show hidden products

The top item on our feature request list is an option to display hidden products in the table.

Until now, WooCommerce Product Table always respected the WooCommerce visibility settings for each product. These are:

• Shop and search results
• Shop only
• Search results only
• Hidden

Lots of our customers have asked for a way to display hidden products in the product table. For example, you might need this if you use product tables to sell specific products which aren't available in your main shop.

In version 3.0, we've added a new option to the plugin settings page which lets you show hidden products in the table.

Variation name options for variable products

When you use the 'separate variations' option to list each variation on its own row in the table, until now the name of each variation would include both the product name and its attributes. For example, "Organic T-Shirt - Small, White".

Some of our customers want the flexibility to only show the product name or attributes, but not both. This is useful if a table already includes separate columns for the attributes; or if you're listing variations on the single product page and don't need to repeat the product name in every row.

You can now choose the variation name format on the plugin settings page.

New 'Date modified' column

We've also had requests for a 'Date modified' column which shows when the product was last updated. Previously, our knowledge base contained a code snippet on how to do this. We have now added it as a column, so you can add a date_modified column without needing to edit any code.

No more empty short descriptions

If you've included the product short description in the table, then it's a shame when this appears empty for products that don't have a short description. To stop this from happening, the main product description will now appear if no short description is available. This matches the logic in our other plugins, such as WooCommerce Restaurant Ordering.

As well as these new features, you'll benefit from many other fixes and improvements - check out the full list in the WooCommerce Product Table changelog.

Where to get WooCommerce Product Table version 3.0

If you're already using WooCommerce Product Table then you can update to version 3.0 via the WordPress dashboard. Otherwise, get the plugin and transform the way you display your products today!