Table of content

 

1. Product Type
2. Simple Product

❏      Adding product

❏      Product Data

❏      General Setting

❏      Inventory Setting

❏      Shipping Setting

❏      Product Description

3. Variable Product

❏      Adding product

❏      Set variable product

❏      Add Attributes

❏      Adding variation

❏      General Setting

❏      Inventory

4.     Product Categories, Tags and Attribute

❏      Add/ edit product categories

❏      Arrange product image

5. Related Product

❏      Upsell

❏      Cross Sell

❏      Related product

6. Import / Export Product
7. Managing Orders

❏      Order status

❏      Order Overview

❏      Order action

❏      View & Editing orders

❏      Custom Field

❏      Order Notes

8. Reports

❏      Orders

❏      Customers

❏      Stocks

❏      Export Reports

 

Product Types

With attributes and categories set up and stock management configured, we can begin adding products. When adding a product, the first thing to decide is what type of product it is.

●       Simple – covers the vast majority of any products you may sell. Simple products are shipped and have no options. For example, a book.

●       Grouped – a collection of related products that can be purchased individually and only consist of simple products. For example, a set of six drinking glasses.

●       Virtual – one that doesn’t require shipping. For example, a service. Enabling this, disables all shipping related fields such as shipping dimensions. A virtual product will also not trigger the shipping calculator in cart and checkout.

●       Downloadable – activates additional fields where you can provide a downloadable file. After a successful purchase, customers are given a downloadable file as a link in the order notification email. This is suitable, for example, for a digital album, PDF magazine, or photo.

●       External or Affiliate – one that you list and describe on your website but is sold elsewhere.

●       Variable – a product with variations, each of which may have a different SKU, price, stock option, etc. For example, a t-shirt available in different colors and/or sizes.

●       Other types are often added by extensions. For example, WooCommerce Subscriptions adds new product types as does WooCommerce Bookings.

 imple product

 

1.     Go to WooCommerce > Products > Add Product. You then have a familiar interface and should immediately feel at home.

2.     Enter a product Title and Description.

3.     Go to the Product Data panel, and select downloadable (digital) or virtual (service) if applicable.

Note: Virtual products don’t require shipping — an order with virtual products won’t calculate shipping costs.

 

 

Product data

The Product Data meta box is where the majority of important data is added for your products.

General section

●       Price

○       Regular Price – Item’s normal/regular price

○       Sale Price – Item’s discounted price that can then be scheduled for certain date ranges. The sale expires at 11:59pm of the specified end date

●       Tax

○       Tax status – Taxable / Shipping only / None

○       Tax class – Choose which tax class should be applied

 

Inventory section

The inventory section allows you to manage stock for the product individually and define whether to allow back orders and more. It enables you to sell products and allow customers to add them to the cart to buy.

Enable Stock Management must be selected in Products Inventory Settings; otherwise, only the ‘Stock status’ option is visible in the Product Data Inventory box.

Options when stock management at product level is disabled. You are responsible for updating the Stock Status.

Options when stock management at product level is enabled.

●       Enter the Stock Quantity, and WooCommerce auto-manages inventory and auto-updatesStock Status as Stock, Out of Stock or On Backorder.

●       Select whether to Allow Backorders.

●       Low stock threshold – Enter a number upon which you are notified.

●       Tick the Sold Individually box to limit the product to one per order.

Shipping section

●       Weight – Weight of the item.

●       Dimensions – Length, width and height for the item.

●       Shipping Class – Shipping classes are used by certain shipping methods to group similar products.

Linked Products section

Using up-sells and cross-sells, you can cross promote your products. They can be added by searching for a particular product and selecting the product from the dropdown list:

After adding, they are listed in the input field:

 

Product short description

Add an excerpt. This typically appears next to product imagery on the listing page, and the long description appears in the Product Description tab.

 

Adding a custom attributeAdding custom attribute values

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Managing Product Categories, Tags and Attributes

How to add/edit product categories

Categories are managed from the Products > Categories screen.

Similar to categories on your posts in WordPress, you can add, delete, and edit product categories.

●       Add a Name.

●       Add a Slug (optional); this is the URL-friendly version of the name.

●       Choose a Parent if this is a subcategory.

●       Enter a Description (optional); some themes display this.

●       Choose the Display type. Decide what is shown on the category’s landing page. “Standard” uses your theme’s default. “Subcategories” will display only the subcategories. “Products” only displays products. “Both” will display subcategories and products below that.

●       Upload/Add Image (optional);  Some themes have pages where product category images are displayed, so this is a good idea.

When you add a new product via Products > Add Product, you can select this new product category from the list.

Alternatively, you can go to Products > Add Product directly, and select Add New Product Category.

How to add/edit product attributes

Set global attributes

Go to Products > Attributes to add, edit, and remove attributes.

Here you can quickly and easily add attributes and their terms.

●       Add a Name.

●       Add a Slug; (optional); this is the URL-friendly version of the name.

●       Enable Archives if desired. If enabled, you can view a page with all products having this attribute. For example, if you have this enabled, and “black” is one of the options under “color”, you can add http://yourstore.com/pa_color/black/ to your menu to only display black clothing – pa stands for “product attribute.”

●       Select a Default sort order. Choose between “Name”, “Name (numeric)”, “Term ID” or “Custom ordering” where you decide by dragging and dropping the terms in the list when configuring the terms (see below). “Name (numeric)” is relevant if the values are numbers. If you select “Name”, it sorts alphabetically with 1 and 10 preceding 2. If you select “Name (numeric)” it sorts based on numerical value.

Select Add Attribute.

The attribute is added in the table on the right, but without values.

Select the “Configure terms” text to add attribute values.

Next Add New “Attribute name”, where “Attribute name” automatically takes the name you gave the attribute in the previous step.

Add as many values as you wish. If you selected “Custom ordering” for the attribute, reordering your values can be done here.

Add global attributes to product

Add the created attributes to your products.

1.     Go to: Products > Add Product (or edit an existing one).

2.     Select the Attributes tab in the Product Data. There you can choose any of the attributes that you’ve created in the dropdown menu.

3.     Select Add.

If you selected a global attribute that you previously created, you can select terms that you added previously.

Add custom attributes

Alternatively, add an attribute you only want to use for one product. This would only be ideal if you have a product with unique variations.

1.     Go to: Product > Add Product.

2.     Select the Attributes tab.

3.     Select Custom product attribute in the dropdown and follow the above steps.

 

Adding product images and galleries are options available on the right-hand side when adding or editing a product in your store from WooCommerce > Products.

 

Product image

The Product Image is the main image for your product and is reused in different sizes across your store.

Select Set Product Image.

Select an existing image in your Media Library or Upload a new one.

 

Remove and Edit the product image if you’d like to change it, as needed.

Adding, removing and editing a product image is done in the same way as featured images for posts and pages.

Product Galleries

Add images to the Product Gallery

Product galleries display all images attached to a product through the Product Gallery meta box.

Create a Product Gallery using the same method as adding a Product Image, but using the Product Gallery meta box.

Reorder images in the product gallery

Images in the product gallery can be re-ordered easily via drag and drop. Simply reorder your images by moving them around.

Remove images from the product gallery

To remove an image from the product gallery, hover over the image and click on the red “x.”

 

Set up Related Products, Up-Sells and Cross-Sells

Products can be Related to each other in three ways: Up-Sells, Cross-Sells or by having the same tags or categories.

To add an up-sell or cross-sell to a product:

1.     Go to WooCommerce > Products and select the product on which you’d like to show an up-sell or cross-sell.

2.     Scroll down to the Product Data panel.

3.     Select the Linked Products tab in the left menu.

4.     Add the product you wish to link to by searching for it.

5.     Update.

Note: related products, up-sells and cross-sells are all sorted randomly.

Up-Sells

Up-sells are products that you recommend instead of the currently viewed product.

They are typically products that are more profitable or better quality or more expensive. Depending on your theme template, these products display on the single product page underneath the product’s description.

●       Up-sells (user defined) show on the product page.

 

Product Up-Sells

Cross-sells are products that you promote in the cart, based on the current product.

They are typically complementary items. For example, if you are selling a laptop, cross-sells might be a protective case or stickers or a special adapter. Or if you’re selling a ninja t-shirt, they could be a ninja hoodie and ninja socks.

Depending on your theme template, they display on the cart page underneath the cart products table with a thumbnail image.

●       Cross-sells (user defined) show on the cart page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cross Sells

Related Products

Related Products is a section on some templates that pulls products from your store that share the same tags or categories as the current product.

These products cannot be specified in the admin, but can be influenced by grouping similar products in the same category or by using the same tags.

●       Related products (automatic) also show on the product page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Import

Adding New Products

First-time and existing store owners using WooCommerce can use the CSV to add new products with one upload.

1. Go to: WooCommerce > Products.

2. Select Import at the top. The Upload CSV File screen displays.

3. Select Choose File and the CSV you wish you use.

CSV delimiter (Advanced option): Generally CSV elements are separated by a comma. If you are using a different delimiter in your file, you can set it here.

4. Continue.

The Column Mapping screen displays, and WooCommerce automatically attempts to match or “map” the Column Name from your CSV to Fields.

5. Use dropdown menus on the right side to adjust fields or indicate ‘Do not import.’

*Any unrecognized columns will not be imported by default.

6. Select Run the Importer.

7. Wait until the Importer is finished. Do not refresh or touch the browser while in progress.

Update Existing Products

Store owners can use the CSV Importer tool to update existing products with new info, e.g., Adding a brand, changing a tax class, bulk-update for a special sale or event, etc.

1. Make a CSV file as indicated in Create Your CSV, using the IDs and/or SKUs of products you wish to update.

The importer uses the ID and/or SKU to auto-match and auto-update whatever info you enter on each line.

2. Go to: WooCommerce > Products.
3. Select Import at the top. The Upload CSV File screen displays.

4. Select Choose File and the CSV you wish you use.
5. Tick the checkbox for Update Existing Products.

6. Continue.

The Column Mapping screen displays, and WooCommerce automatically attempts to match or “map” the Column Name from your CSV to Fields.

7. Use dropdown menus on the right side to adjust fields or indicate ‘Do not import.’

*Any unrecognized columns will not be imported by default.

8. Select Run the Importer.

9. Wait until the Importer is finished. Do not refresh or touch the browser while in progress.

 

Converting existing simple product to variable product

Store owners can use the CSV Importer tool to convert the existing simple product to a variable. In order to do that, the following steps need to be taken:

1.Create a simple product that has a price and SKU.

2. Export product via built-in CSV Exporter on the All Products page.

3. Open CSV file and convert the simple product to a variable. Steps that need to be taken for it (for example to convert to a variable product with 1 attribute and 2 variations):

●       Add 2 new rows

●       Add 4 new columns after the last column:

●       Attribute 1 name

●       Attribute 1 value(s)

●       Attribute 1 visible

●       Attribute 1 global

In our case, we are adding Size variations so our new 4 columns look as follows:

●       Change the type of the product from simple to variable and add type variation to variation rows (2 new rows that you created). Add SKU to variation rows. Give it a name as well. It looks like this in our example:

●       Update the following columns as well (and any other columns if needed):

●       Very important – add SKU to all fields in the Parent column – this is to map parent product with its variations:

4. Save a new CSV file.

5. Import the updated CSV file back to the site using built-in CSV Importer on All Products view.

6. Select to update existing products before import since we want to update the

existing product on the site:

 

7. Proceed with import (nothing to be mapped).

8. You will see the following which is expected:

 

9. Navigate to the product. You will see that it is now variable and has 1 attribute added but no variations were created. Note that Used for variations checkbox is not selected. This is also expected:

10. Next, open the CSV file again (the one where you already created rows for variations) and delete the parent product row. Leave variations rows without changes:

11. Save the updated CSV file.

12. Next, import updated CSV file to the site but this time don’t select the box next to Update existing products:

13. Proceed with import (no fields need to be mapped). You should see that variations have been imported:

14. After completing the import, navigate to the product. It should now be a variable product with variations:

 

Export

Store owners wishing to export their current catalog of products for any reason can generate a CSV using the Product Importer/Exporter.

1. Go to: WooCommerce > Products.

2. Select Export at the top. The Export Products screen displays.

3. Select to Export All Columns. Or select which columns to export by using the dropdown menu.

4/ Select to Export All Products. Or select which product types to export by using the dropdown menu.

5/Select to Export All Categories. Or select which categories to export by using the dropdown menu.

6/ Tick the box to Export Custom Meta, if you need this info.

Meta data on your products is typically from other plugins. Meta data columns are exported following the meta:-prefix standard detailed above in the importer mapping section. By default, no additional meta data is exported.

7/ Select Generate CSV. Wait for the export to finish.

8/ Exit the exporter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Export

Store owners wishing to export their current catalog of products for any reason can generate a CSV using the Product Importer/Exporter.

1. Go to: WooCommerce > Products.

2. Select Export at the top. The Export Products screen displays.

3/ Select to Export All Columns. Or select which columns to export by using the dropdown menu.

 

4. Select to Export All Products. Or select which product types to export by using the dropdown menu.

5. Select to Export All Categories. Or select which categories to export by using the dropdown menu.

6. Tick the box to Export Custom Meta, if you need this info.

Meta data on your products is typically from other plugins. Meta data columns are exported following the meta:-prefix standard detailed above in the importer mapping section. By default, no additional meta data is exported.

7. Select Generate CSV. Wait for the export to finish.

8. Exit the exporter.

 

Managing Orders

 

Order Statuses

An order also has a Status. Order statuses let you know how far along the order is, starting with “Pending payment” and ending with “Completed.” The following order statuses are used:

●       Pending payment — Order received, no payment initiated. Awaiting payment (unpaid).

●       Failed — Payment failed or was declined (unpaid) or requires authentication (SCA). Note that this status may not show immediately and instead show as Pending until verified (e.g., PayPal).

●       Processing — Payment received (paid) and stock has been reduced; order is awaiting fulfillment. All product orders require processing, except those that only contain products which are both Virtual and Downloadable.

●       Completed — Order fulfilled and complete – requires no further action.

●       On hold — Awaiting payment – stock is reduced, but you need to confirm payment.

●       Canceled — Canceled by an admin or the customer – stock is increased, no further action required.

●       Refunded — Refunded by an admin – no further action required.

●       Authentication required — Awaiting action by the customer to authenticate the transaction and/or complete SCA requirements.

 

 

Viewing and Managing Multiple Orders

Orders Overview

When a shop starts taking orders, the Orders management page begins to fill up. Go to: WooCommerce > Orders.

Each row displays several details. Some are there by default, others can be added. These are the available options:

●       Order number and customer name,

●       Date of purchase,

●       Order status,

●       Billing address,

●       Shipping address,

●       Purchase total, and

●       Actions.

To change these columns:

●       Go to: WooCommerce > Orders.

●       Select Screen Options in the top right corner.

●       Select which Columns to show.

●       Select how many Items you want to be displayed on each page.

●       Then Apply.

Filter and Arrange Orders

Filter orders by Date (month/year) or by registered customer.

●       Select the month, or search for a customer.

●       Select Filter.

Arrange orders in ascending or descending order by Order number, Date or Total by select the heading.

Note that the “Total” column does not take the refunded amount into consideration.

Click the order number and customer name to see the Single Order page, where you can also Edit order details, Update Status, and Add Notes. More details on that in Viewing and Editing Single Orders.

Previewing Orders

Order rows have a Preview “eye.”

Clicking Preview opens a Modal, containing the order number, order status, billing details, payment method, shipping details, shipping method, items ordered, and the option to change the order status.

Order Statuses in the Overview

Order Statuses are color-coded and descriptive.

●       Canceled – Grey

●       Completed – Blue

●       Failed – Red

●       On Hold – Orange

●       Pending Payment – Grey

●       Processing – Green

●       Refunded – Grey

Order Actions

Hovering over an order Status displays Notes made on the order.

At the end of a row are shortcut buttons to quickly mark orders as Processing or Complete.

Viewing and Editing a Single Order

From the Single Order page not only can you view all order data, but also edit and update.

●       Change the order status.

●       Edit order items – modify the product, prices, and taxes.

●       Stock – Reduce and restore stock for an order

●       Order Actions – Email order details to customer (handy if manually creating an order for your customers) or Regenerate download permissions

●       Modify product Meta to edit product variations by removing and adding meta

●       Apply coupons. You will need to know the coupon code to apply to the order. Coupon usage counts are tracked, and coupons can also be removed from orders. Note: the order must be unpaid for coupons to have an affect

●       Add fee. You can enter an amount or percentage to add a fee to an order. Negative fees will apportion taxes between all other items, and will not make the cart total go below zero

Order Details

Viewing Order Details

The Order Details panel you can view:

●       Order number

●       Payment details

●       Order date and time

●       Order status

●       Customer details:

○       Username and email, together with a link to view their profile and other purchases the customer may have had in the past

○       Billing details

○       Shipping details

Editing Order Details

Most of the details in this section can be updated and/or changes.

●       To change the date and time, use the dropdown date selector and the quantity selectors for the time.

●       To change the status, choose the right status in the dropdown.

●       To change the customer, select the current customer and search for the new customer.

Under “Billing” and “Shipping”, several other details can be changed. In order to do so, select the pencil icon next to each of them.

●       Under “Billing”, the following things can be changed:

○       Billing address — this can also be loaded from the customer’s profile by selecting “Load billing address”

○       Email

○       Phone number

○       Payment method and details

●       Under “Shipping”, the following things can be changed:

○       Shipping address — this can also be loaded from the customer’s profile or copied from the billing address

○       Customer provided note

Once you’ve made the necessary changes, select Update to update the order.

Order Items and Totals

Viewing Order Items

The next panel on the order page is the Order Items panel. This contains the product items, the shipping details, and the order summary.

●       Each product item row lists:

○       Product image

○       Product name

○       Single product Cost

○       Quantity

○       Total (Cost x Quantity, with discounts taken into consideration)

○       Taxes

●       Below that, the shipping details are displayed. This will include:

○       Shipping method

○       Boxed items

○       Total cost

○       Taxes

●       The last section contains an overview of the order costs. This section will change if an order is refunded. By default, it will include:

○       Items subtotal — cost excluding tax

○       Coupon(s) — amount deducted based on the use of coupons; the coupons used are displayed left in this section

○       Shipping — the shipping cost for the order

○       Taxes — the amount of taxes for the whole order; this will be replaced by the tax code applied to the order

○       Order total — the total of the above costs

○       Finally, below the line, an overview of what is paid and the fees taken by payment gateways

Editing or Adding Order Items

Apart from refunding, order items can not be edited, unless the order status is “Pending payment”, or “On hold.”

Product items. Select the pencil icon next to a product line to edit.

The following product items can be edited:

●       Add Meta — Add and remove meta to change product variable options.

●       Quantity — Number of items the customer is purchasing.

●       Total — Line price and line tax before pre-tax discounts.

●       Tax — Tax cost. For example, if a customer is tax-exempt you may want to remove the taxes.

Other actions. Next, you can do four actions at the bottom of this window:

●       Add item(s) — this will show you six new options:

○       Add product(s) — Add additional products to the order.

○       Add fee — Add an additional fee, such as gift wrapping.

○       Add shipping — Add a shipping cost. When you’ve done this, select the pencil icon to update the name, the method, the cost, and the tax.

○       Add tax — Add an additional tax code to every section in the order.

○       Cancel — Cancel if you do not want to make any changes.

○       Save — Save once the changes are made.

●       Once you’ve done this, select Recalculate to make sure all the changes are reflected in the order totals.

●       Apply coupon — If your customer forgot to add the coupon could or you want to reward the customer before they pay, selecting this option will show a modal that allows you to apply a coupon code.

●       Refund — to refund the customer. For more information about Manual and Automatic Refunds, see WooCommerce Refunds.

Custom Fields

To add custom meta fields, use the Custom Fields metabox:

Order Notes

The Order Notes panel displays notes attached to the order and can be used for storing event details, such as payment results or reducing stock levels, or adding notes to the order for customers to view. Some payment gateways also add notes for debugging.

The following note types are possible:

●       Purple: System status notices, such as payment gateway details.

●       Grey: General status updates, such as status changes or private notes. Customers do not see these notes but may receive notification of them, e.g., when the status changes from processing to completed, an email may be sent (depending on your settings).

●       Blue: Notes to the customer. Customers receive notes via email but can view them by viewing an order, or using the WooCommerce order tracking page.

Notes can be a powerful tool for communicating with customers or other store managers. Need to add a tracking number for shipping? Is stock delayed? Add a customer note, and they are automatically notified.

To add a note,

●       Use the textarea to add the content of the note.

●       Select Private note or Note to customer in the dropdown.

●       Select Add.

 

 

 

 

 

Troubleshooting

Understanding Order Statuses in Relation to Payment Gateways

 

STATUS	DESCRIPTION	PAYMENT GATEWAY COMMENTS
ON HOLD	Awaiting payment – stock is reduced, but you need to confirm payment	Usually seen with payment methods when you need to manually confirm, such as BACS (bank transfer) or cheque.   You’ll also see this when the gateway is set to authorize instead of capture a charge: the shop owner will need to manually switch the status to processing.
PENDING	Order received (unpaid).	Most gateways will report back and set the order status to Processing (payment successful) or Failed (payment unsuccessful).  If the shop never receives either signal, it keeps the status on Pending.   This tends to be a misconfiguration of payment notification URLs or a plugin conflict.
PROCESSING	Payment received and stock has been reduced- the order is awaiting fulfillment. All product orders require processing, except those with only products that are both digital and downloadable.	If the payment has been successful and the order does not contain Digital or Downloadable products, the order will be set to Processing.   This is the shop owner or warehouse’s cue to ship the order and manually mark it as completed.
COMPLETED	Order fulfilled and complete – requires no further action	These generally aren’t interesting because everything has gone correctly.
FAILED	Payment failed or was declined (unpaid).	The order can be manually canceled, but this status can come up if the payment window has expired. It can happen for a few reasons: ●        order was abandoned  before payment was completeThe hold stock window expired without a response ●        Same reasons as Pending
AUTHENTICATION REQUIRED	Customer must complete requirements for SCA.	It can occur when: ●        a new customer makes a purchase ●        an existing subscription renews

 

 

WooCommerce Reports

To view them, go to: WooCommerce > Reports.

Orders

Orders allow you to view gross and net sales volume and totals, as well as top sellers, top freebies, top earners, and product downloads. Sub-sections are shown below.

Note: By default, orders marked Processing, On Hold and Completed are counted as sales.

Sales by date

The Orders tab starts with Sales by date. This gives you an idea of the current performance via a sales graph and a few way ways to drill down into data. By year, last month, this month, last 7 days, and a custom date range.

The sales graph itself shows the number of gross sales plotted on a light blue line, the net sales plotted in dark blue, the shipping amount plotted in green, refunds plotted in red, and coupon values redeemed in orange. Hovering over a point will give you the exact figure.

Sales by product

The sales per product section shows sales per day in a given range, similarly to the overview section:

You can select any product from your store to view sales data, and again drill down into by year, last month, this month, last 7 days, and custom.

Sales by category

You can also view sales numbers by category.

●       In the Categories widget, select the categories you want to review. (Or select “All”)

●       Then, select “Show”

You will now see the categories you’ve selected and their sales report.

Coupons by date

Similar to the previous sections, coupons by date shows discounts in total and number of coupons used, plus provides the ability to filter by coupon, view the most popular coupons, and coupons giving the most discounts.

Customer downloads

Downloads have unique IDs, enabling them to be tracked and logged, and making it possible to view when it was downloaded, which products and the file name, on what order (clickable link), and where the customer is located via IP address.

It’s also possible to filter downloads by hovering over Product, Order or IP address.

Customers

The Customers tab allows you to view reports for Customers vs. Guests and Customer List with options to further sort by year, last month, this month, last 7 days, and custom.

●       In Customers vs. Guests, customers are paying users who register on your website.

●       Customer List only shows registered users.

Stock

Stock lists your low in stock, out of stock items, and most stocked products.

Taxes

The reports for Taxes allows you to view Taxes by code (state) and Taxes by date. by year, last month, this month and custom dates you enter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Export CSV

All reports besides the stock one have the option to export to CSV.

●       Select Export CSV

●       Save or view the file