WooCommerce Tutorials Archives

WooCommerce: The Need For Custom Order Tables

Scaling WooCommerce stores while ensuring optimum performance and pushing a store live from staging while keeping all the orders and customers intact are significant problems stores face, even today.

Each time a consumer places an order on a WooCommerce store, it adds dozens of order data and entries to the WordPress postmeta database table – which creates a major problem for stores that handle huge volumes of orders and eventually results in performance degradation.

Hence, WooCommerce received several requests over the years to resolve this issue and make separate and custom tables for each WooCommerce entity – without affecting the site and existing extensions.

And finally, WooCommerce is now working on the custom order tables implementation to solve the bottleneck issues and ensure more store stability.

In this article, we introduce you to the WooCommerce custom order tables – what is it, the new tables added to the structure, and how they can benefit your WooCommerce store. Let’s begin!

WooCommerce: How To Enable Stripe Payments

Providing payment options on your WooCommerce store that your customers trust and meet their needs is the key to ensuring a satisfied customer journey and eliminating cart abandonments.

According to the Baymard Institute’s research, the average cart abandonment rate amongst buyers is 69.8%, and 6 out of 10 times, it’s because of issues related to payments.

While some shoppers abandon carts because of long checkout processes and the lack of simple payment options, others don’t find the payment site legitimate enough to provide their credit card information. Thus, the payment method plays a huge role in customers’ buying decisions.

Stripe is a great option. It’s simple-to-use, flexible, and one of the most popular payment solutions for WooCommerce. It makes accepting and processing credit card payments a breeze and leaves your customers with a fast checkout process.

This article takes you through some of the best free and premium WooCommerce Stripe plugins for your store. But first, let’s learn more about the advantages of using Stripe as a payment option for WooCommerce.

WooCommerce: 10 Crucial Issues That Should Be Fixed Right Now

I just spent the last 3 days in Porto with another 2,300 WordPressers at the first in-person WordCamp Europe since Berlin 2019. I had a blast, held a nice (yet long) workshop, spoke to many, but got tired too soon.

Later on, I realized that that tiredness was something more serious – in fact I tested positive against COVID for the first time in my life, and I’m now in self-isolation hoping it won’t last long… Another 7 days without my kid – send help!

Anyhow, what really struck me at WCEU 2022, and based on various chats and some data that I’ll share below, is that the WooCommerce ecosystem is in trouble.

A nicer way to put that? WooCommerce is not moving forward as fast as it should, and unless some key issues are addressed right now, in a few years time we all may pay the consequences.

Please note, this is not a rant. It’s a proper analysis, full of actionable information.

@ WooCommerce team - if you're reading this - my plan is to give you constructive feedback and tell you what the community (really) thinks, needs and wants, so that you can get a better picture of the current situation. I know you've already started working on this, so this is just a recap/reminder and a way to get the whole community realigned.

In this post, I will share my worries, my fears, the current WooCommerce issues, some data I collected at WCEU 2022 and then a list of actionable solutions that may be implemented in order to clear the backlog and get back on track – asap. Enjoy!

WooCommerce: 10 Most Popular Free Plugins

WooCommerce is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms that allows you to launch your online business, build high-functionality online stores for your clients, or take your brick-and-mortar store online.

Powering over 28.19% of all online stores, WooCommerce’s versatility and open-source nature allow businesses to build their dream store, add unlimited products and consumers, take orders, and increase sales.

The core WooCommerce plugin holds 68% of the usage distribution – the highest on the internet. However, despite its popularity, the official WooCommerce plugin lacks several features you might need for your eCommerce store. But to make up for that, it offers several plugins that allow you to enhance your store’s functionality and improve customer experience.

But choosing from over 4228 WooCommerce plugins from WordPress.org can get overwhelming. So, to make your job easier, we’ve hand-picked the best free WooCommerce plugins you can use on your store to take it to the next level. Let’s dive in!

WooCommerce: How to Enable WooCommerce Payments

Payments on your eCommerce store are the most important touchpoint between your customers and business sales. Hence, an optimum payment solution that’s seamless, quick, and secure plays a critical role in ensuring a quality customer experience.

Over 17% of customers abandon their carts because of concerns with payment security, and 13% abandon them because the price is in a foreign currency. Thus, it’s vital to choose a payment method that accepts global currencies and ensures a secure checkout – while making the checkout process easy for your customers.

However, from including digital wallets to third-party payment solutions and managing transactions – choosing a suitable payment solution that facilitates this process for your WooCommerce store can get challenging. This is where WooCommerce Payments comes into the picture.

In early May 2020, WooCommerce released its new version WooCommerce 4.1, with two new features – including WooCommerce Payments, which provides a simplified way to accept and manage payments in your store.

This article shares more about WooCommerce Payments, their pros and cons, and an easy way to enable them on your WooCommerce store.

WooCommerce: How to Split Variable Products Into Simple Products

If you sell simple products with no variations like books or software – the standard WooCommerce product page is enough and an ideal solution for your WooCommerce store. However, it isn’t the best solution for stores that sell variable products with multiple product variations.

A variable product comes in different variations. A simple example is clothing items, including a shirt – with multiple variation attributes like size, color, and pattern. So, if a shirt is a variable product – a medium-sized shirt, small-sized yellow shirt, or large-sized printed shirt are its product variations.

Thus, a product variation is the final product choice of the customer once they select multiple attributes belonging to a variable product.

By default, WooCommerce displays all your variable products as just that – products with multiple different variations on its shop page. However, you might need a way to display each product variation as an individual product on your WooCommerce shop page to improve customer experience, search functionality and increase overall sales.

So, in this article, we’ll see different ways through which you can split your variable products to show them as a single variation product on your WooCommerce store. But first, let’s see how this process can help your store’s bottom line.

WooCommerce: Why Use A Product Configurator Instead of Variations

One of the biggest marketing trends in recent years is the increasing shift towards delivering customized and personalized product experiences to customers.

Customers are increasingly looking for online and eCommerce stores that provide order customization options for gifting purposes and the ability to add their personal and unique touch to their orders. While 90% of the U.S. customers find the idea of personalization appealing – impersonal shopping experiences frustrate 71% of customers.

Thus, as a WooCommerce store owner – it’s important to strive and meet the increasing consumer demands to prevent dissatisfaction, improve their shopping experiences and increase the overall sales.

This article will see some easy yet impactful ways to deliver a personalized customer experience and order customization. But first, let’s see how it can benefit your WooCommerce store.

WooCommerce: Enable Advanced Coupon Features

While as a WooCommerce store owner, you keep looking for ways to increase your store’s sales and revenue – the same way, your customers also consistently look for opportunities to save money when purchasing online.

And in this situation, offering coupons and discounts acts as a win-win for your business and customers.

Statistics suggest that 51% of U.S. buyers search for coupons online before making an online purchase, and over 80% of millennials use coupon codes when shopping online.

Every online shopper loves a good deal. You can tap into this consumer behavior to attract buyers and increase sales through coupons on your WooCommerce store.

So, in this article, we see the top WooCommerce coupon plugins you can use. But first, let’s learn more about the benefits of offering coupons to your customers.

WooCommerce: Top Product Filter Plugins For Your Store

As your WooCommerce store grows – so do its product variants. On average, a WooCommerce store owns hundreds of inventory items and product variants for sale.

While your goal might be to offer maximum product options to your visitors, with such a wide range of product variations – it can get challenging for your customers to find the exact product they’re looking for.

This is where product filters come into play. Statista suggests that 61% of buyers consider the ease of finding products the most important aspect of an online shopping experience.

No one has time to browse through the long product listings as it’s easier for customers to switch to another store that facilitates product discovery. Thus, product filter options enable your customers to browse through products of their preferences – positively impacting the user experience and increasing the chances of sales.

This article shares the top product filter solutions for your WooCommerce store. But first, let’s learn more about their benefits and how this simple option can affect your store’s bottom line.

WooCommerce: How to Enable Apple Pay and Google Pay

Not offering different payment options for your customers on your WooCommerce store is a call for a high cart abandonment rate and lost sales and customers.

Your store’s payment gateway has a direct impact on the customers’ buying decisions. Don’t take our word for it – statistics suggest missing payment methods is the reason for 7% of cart abandonments in eCommerce stores.

As a result, the more payment options you offer to your customers – the more sales you can win for your store.

Besides PayPal and credit cards – digital and UPI mobile payment options like Apple Pay and Google Pay are amongst the most popular and widely adopted payment methods by customers. Statistics anticipate that from 2021 to 2025 – the number of mobile proximity payment users in the United States to grow from 100 million to a whopping 125 million.

Thus, as customers become increasingly reliant on mobile payment solutions like Apple Pay and Google Pay – it’s important to integrate these payment options in your WooCommerce store to ensure high customer satisfaction.

So, in this article, we share the top ways to configure Google Pay and Apple Pay in WooCommerce. But first, let’s learn more about the benefits of this configuration for your store.

WooCommerce: A Guide to Selling LearnDash Courses

It’s no secret that selling online courses is a lucrative business. According to Forbes, the online course industry’s revenue in 2018 alone reached a staggering $46 billion dollars.

So, how can you take advantage of this growing market?

With the wide range of easy-to-use learning management systems and e-commerce solutions available, it is easy for any educator or knowledgeable expert to start monetizing content.

Using WordPress as a starting point, LearnDash and WooCommerce make a powerful duo for running an e-learning business.

In this guide, we’ll take a brief look at how you can use LearnDash to sell online courses and walk you through the steps you need to follow to set up LearnDash with WooCommerce.

WooCommerce: How To Set Up Complex Shipping Rules

WooCommerce inbuilt shipping settings are quite simple – too simple, sometimes.

WooCommerce merchant often require a complex shipping setup, depending on the industry or the (very expensive) courier fees.

But shipping is much more: conditional logic, marketing, user experience.

Setting shipping costs with a handy “table rate” plugin, combining them with cart-based marketing actions and guiding your customers through the buying process can help you sell more and reduce your return rate.

Explaining to your customers why they can’t buy a certain product, or encouraging them to add another one to the cart to get a discount, or blocking certain shipping rates so that your courier doesn’t overcharge you… there are so many needs for a more advanced shipping setup.

In this article, we’ll tale a look at the importance of shipping costs, why conditional logic is a game changer and why customers love to get free shipping. Enjoy!

WooCommerce: How to Add Custom Fields to Variations

When selling products on your WooCommerce store – you want to provide as much product information as possible to your customers. This is especially because, unlike a physical shop or a brick and mortar store – your online customers cannot physically touch or experience the products before buying them.

Hence, providing additional information and keeping customers informed about the multiple facets of your products is essential. And an effective way to enhance customer experience is by adding custom fields for product variations.

Product variations are product attributes – including the product’s size, color, pattern, texture, and style. On the other hand, WooCommerce custom fields allow you to add additional data for individual products – to display on a single product page.

Custom field variations let you add data unique to an individual product – which can include anything from the product’s ISBN, additional product specifications, radio buttons, and checkboxes. Thus, custom fields for product variations could either mean:

Fields to display additional product variation’s information, or
Fields to accept customer input to customize the product variation through dropdowns or radio buttons.

So, in this article, we share simple yet efficient ways to add custom fields to product variations. But, first – let’s see how adding fields for product variations help your WooCommerce store.

WooCommerce: How To Enable “Buy Now Pay Later”

Several eCommerce businesses are increasingly adopting flexible payment solutions – understanding customer needs and demands. Because in today’s digital world of Apple Pay and UPI solutions – a rigid approach toward payment solutions costs businesses a huge deal of sales, customers, and lost revenue.

48% of customers prefer online stores that accept multiple payment methods. In addition, Sezzle’s report suggests that the product’s over-cost is the primary reason behind 55% of abandoned carts. Hence, a flexible payment solution can help reduce cart abandonment and improve your store’s sales in these situations.

And one such highly flexible and customer-friendly payment solution that allows your customers on a tight budget to buy the products they want is – Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL).

BNPL is a perfect payment solution that seamlessly integrates with WooCommerce and doesn’t require customers to pass a credit check or pay interest.

So, in this article, we share the top BNPL solutions to integrate with your WooCommerce store. A growing number of BNPL options, including some of those appearing in this list, can easily be configured through PeachPay, a one-stop-shop checkout & payment solution for WooCommerce stores.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s learn more about this type of payment option and its benefits for your store’s sales and overall growth.

WooCommerce Fastest Themes in 2022

Speed is an essential factor that directly impacts the conversion rates, business revenue, sales, and customer experience.

Akamai’s research suggests that even a 100-millisecond delay in the page speed impacts conversion rates by 7%, while a 2-second delay increases bounce rates by 103%. Thus, even a few milliseconds of delay can cost your store thousands of dollars – let alone dissatisfied customers, poor SEO ranking, and bad online reputation.

Hence, page loading speed is the essence of an excellent customer experience and building a successful online presence.

Where possible, you want to eliminate unnecessary page loads, especially when it comes to the checkout process. Otherwise, you risk cart abandonment. That is the main reason you should use a checkout window, accessible straight from product and cart pages.

While the speed of your WooCommerce store depends on multiple facets – such as your web host, image, media files, and the code of your store, the theme you choose also plays a significant role in ensuring faster store speed.

Calculating your store’s page speed and making sure you choose the right WooCommerce theme that checks all the boxes can get frustrating and overwhelming considering the plethora of options you can choose from – especially 1300 WooCommerce themes on ThemeForest.

So, in this article, we share the top WooCommerce themes you can use, along with a few factors to look for when picking a suitable theme for your store. But first, let’s understand what makes a WooCommerce theme slow or fast and how to calculate the speed.

WooCommerce: How to Set Up Order Delivery Slots

If you run an eCommerce store, one of the most crucial factors to provide a great customer experience and minimum cart abandonment is adding delivery order date and time slot options for your customers.

According to a UPS Survey, 12-28% of customers abandon their shopping carts because of the absence of estimated delivery dates before checking out. Your customers want to know when they can expect their orders or select a suitable date and time of order delivery per their convenience.

In fact, even eCommerce marketplaces like Walmart and Amazon display anticipated delivery dates and the calendar slots on checkout and product pages based on the customer’s location.

Hence, displaying delivery days and slots are essential features to ensure customer retention and sales – as they’re determining factors in customers’ purchasing decisions.

One of the most seamless ways to add the date and time slots before the checkout is through WooCommerce order delivery date plugins. But first, let’s see the different ways these plugins can benefit your online store, and your customers’ shopping experience

WooCommerce: Which PayPal Gateway Plugin is Better?

As a WooCommerce store owner, providing multiple payment gateway options to your customers is more than necessary to ensure high customer satisfaction. And one of the most widely accepted payment systems is PayPal.

You don’t have to take our word for it – research suggests customers are 54% more likely to purchase your products and services if you accept PayPal payments in your store. So, the potential loss of customers and sales is significant if you don’t accept PayPal payments in your online store.

PayPal lets you accept debit cards, credit cards, and even money through the wallet. Many businesses rely on it as customers have a lot of trust in the PayPal brand.

However, despite being an excellent payment gateway, enabling PayPal on your WooCommerce store and making it work as intended isn’t always easy, considering frequent PayPal checkout errors and the fact that the most popular WooCommerce PayPal plugin is no longer supported.

To tackle these issues, we share the top WooCommerce PayPal plugins you can use in this article. These plugins will eliminate checkout errors and ensure high customer satisfaction. But first, let’s understand why using the official WooCommerce PayPal plugin is no longer the right choice.

WooCommerce: How to Enhance the Product Gallery

Product featured and gallery images are important components of your online WooCommerce store – because most online shoppers base their product purchase decisions on product images.

Don’t take our word for it. According to Etsy, 90% of online customers say the product image quality is a decisive factor in an online sale. Thus, it becomes imperative to improve your product images and the visual appearance of your online store to boost clicks, maximize conversions, and increase sales.

Unfortunately, the standard WooCommerce product gallery provides a basic interface – making it difficult to boost your product images. So, if you want to turn your simple WooCommerce product gallery into a responsive and stunning carousel slider – this article is for you.

We share the top plugins you can use to customize your WooCommerce product gallery and create appealing product images that drive sales. But first, let’s see how improving gallery images can help your online store.

WooCommerce vs. Shopify: Which Ecommerce Platform is Better?

Shopify and WooCommerce are top of mind for any business owner considering ecommerce for the first time. These ecommerce platforms are convenient and easy to use; however, each comes with its own pros and cons.

While Shopify offers ecommerce infrastructure as a service, powering 1% of all websites, WooCommerce is open-source and grants users more flexibility, powering 4.9% of all websites.

So, while each platform comes with its own strengths and limitations, choosing the one that suits your needs and provides the features you require is important. Here are some of the key factors you need to consider when determining the right platform for your business:

Ease of use
Budget
Payment methods & checkout experience
Scalability
Integration options

In this article, we’ll cover the essential factors mentioned above to help you determine which ecommerce solution is best suited for your business requirements. But first, let’s begin with a quick overview of both ecommerce platforms.

WooCommerce: How to Enable Distraction-free Checkout

It’s always a sign of success when customers show interest in your products, add them to their carts, and proceed to checkout. But what’s the point if they drop off and leave your site in the middle of the checkout process? Unfortunately, cart abandonment is common, and one of the major reasons behind incomplete purchases is a complicated and distractive checkout procedure.

According to the Baymard Institute research, 26% of online shoppers abandon the carts because of too complicated or too long of a checkout process, significantly impacting the eCommerce sales and revenue – losing $18 billion annually, to be precise.

Losing valuable customers and such a tremendous amount of revenue is no joke – and one of the best ways to prevent this situation is by redesigning the WooCommerce checkout.

The idea is to remove as much clutter and distractions through the checkout procedure – so customers can focus on completing the checkout entirely and end up buying your products.

But first, let’s understand the use of these plugins and how they help your WooCommerce store and eCommerce business.

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