WooCommerce: Alter Product Search @ Manual Admin Orders

Ok, we’re in a niche of a niche this time – manual orders (orders created by the WooCommerce administrator). If you’re familiar with that, the admin would click on “Add order“, fill out the billing & shipping information, and then move to the order items section, where they can add products to the order.

As soon as they click on “Add items” > “Add products“, a table displays with a product search and quantity input. That’s exactly where we’re working today: what if you have 10,000 products in your store, but only create manual invoices with the same 2-3 products? In this case scenario, it makes no sense to search for the whole 10,000 product list and wait for WooCommerce to return a result (slowly) – it’s much more efficient to reduce that list to a specific category or a list of IDs so that the search operations can be faster.

Here’s how it’s done. Enjoy!

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WooCommerce: Shoptimizer Theme Review

When building a WooCommerce store, one important factor to keep in mind is offering your customers seamless page navigation and design experience while ensuring faster page speed and performance. It helps boost customer satisfaction and improve business sales. 

According to Akamai’s research, even a 1-second delay affects the websites’ conversion rates by 7%, as your store’s page loading speed is one of the important determining Google’s SEO factors. 

Thus, to avoid delays and create a beautiful and appealing website, you must choose an excellent WooCommerce theme for your store. 

However, considering the wide range of options – selecting a multipurpose, user-friendly, and attractive WooCommerce theme can get challenging and overwhelming. Hence, today, in this article, we review one of the fastest WooCommerce themes – Shoptimizer

In this article, we’ll review the theme’s overview, interface, important features, and pricing to see if it’s the right fit for your WooCommerce store. Let’s begin! 

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WooCommerce: Populate Checkout Fields From URL

On top of adding products to cart via URL and redirect to checkout, there is a way to also fill out the Checkout page input fields within the same link.

This could be super handy when you know the billing/shipping details of a registered or guest customer and want to speed up the order process.

It’s important to note that the URL will need to contain personal data e.g. email address, billing address, phone number, and so on; you need to make sure the URL is only shared with the specific customer (in an email, for example, as content is tailored to the subscriber; or only when the WooCommerce customer is logged in if you’re using the URL behind a website button).

Once that’s clear, let’s go ahead, and let’s see how my WooCommerce snippet works. Enjoy!

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WooCommerce: How to Set Up a Multi Vendor / Marketplace Website

Are you looking to build a marketplace where multiple vendors advertise and sell their own products?

Would you like to build the next eBay, or perhaps Etsy, while earning commissions or fees for each vendor or marketplace transaction?

In this article we’ll take a look at the main features, challenges and advantages of building a multivendor platform based on WooCommerce. 

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WooCommerce: Change Product Quantity @ Checkout Page

We covered a lot of WooCommerce Checkout customization in the past – it’s evident that the Checkout is the most important page of any WooCommerce website!

Today we’ll code a nice UX add-on: how do we show product quantity inputs beside each product in the Checkout order table? This is great if people need to adjust their quantities on the checkout before completing their order; also, it’s helpful when you have no Cart page and want to send people straight to Checkout and skip yet another click.

In this post, we’ll see how to add a quantity input beside each product on the Checkout page, and then we’ll code a “listener” to make sure we actually refresh the Checkout and update totals after a quantity change. Enjoy!

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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!

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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. 

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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!

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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!

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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. 

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WooCommerce: Retain Field Values @ Checkout Reload

Go to WooCommerce Checkout as a logged out user. Fill out billing name, surname, address, email and phone. Change your mind and go back to Cart. Return to Checkout. Billing name, surname, email and phone (basically everything but the address) are gone!

But hey, this annoying WooCommerce flaw is about to go away with a few lines of code. Either reload the Checkout page or go back to it later – your info will still be there (as long as you haven’t cleared your cache/cookies and the WooCommerce session hasn’t expired of course).

Enhoy!

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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

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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.

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WooCommerce: Display Customer Address @ Order Pay

The WooCommerce Order Pay page URL is generated by the store admin while creating a manual order from the backend. This URL is then forwarded onto the client, where they can pay for the order and complete their purchase.

The other annoying thing about the order pay page, together with strict page permissions, is the fact that the Order Pay page shows no customer billing/shipping address whatsoever. The customer needs to trust in you 100000%, because they’re about to submit a payment without knowing whether they’re paying for the right thing.

Let’s see how we can add the billing/shipping customer address at the top of the Order Pay page. Please note that printing personal data on a public URL is dangerous, so you need to make sure you don’t share the Order Pay URL with anyone but the customer in such case.

So, here’s a quick fix for you. Enjoy!

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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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WooCommerce: How to Sell Craft Beer Online

If you sell craft beer, one of the things you can do to increase your sales is setting up an online store where you can sell your beers. Through an online store, you can easily meet the demands of your customers and even deliver the beer to their doorsteps.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, many businesses including craft beer businesses could not meet their targets with regards to sales. Their selling activities were affected because they could not deliver beers to restaurants and pubs (they closed down), could not sell to their customers directly, and most shops and stores were closed down.

Selling online and making sure that customers get their beers was the only way left for them. Even though the world has opened up, online shops have picked up and every business needs them for success. So, how do you get started?

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WooCommerce: How To Migrate From Shopify

WooCommerce and Shopify are two of the greatest and most popular eCommerce platforms that allow you to create your online store and generate significant income. 

However, as businesses grow – the need for a customizable, flexible, and feature-packed eCommerce platform that offers better control arises. And this is why some entrepreneurs migrate their online store from Shopify to WooCommerce. 

Approximately 29% of all online stores use WooCommerce, signifying the sheer popularity of WooCommerce. However, there are still many merchants out there who are not using WooCommerce but have every reason to. The only problem is that switching eCommerce platforms and migrating your store’s products, orders, and customers requires the utmost care and precision to prevent data losses and ensure a smooth migrating process. 

So, if you wish to switch your eCommerce platform and sell your products through WooCommerce – this article is for you. In this article, we share some plugins you can use to migrate your store from Shopify to WooCommerce with ease. 

But first, let’s look at some reasons and benefits behind considering Shopify to WooCommerce migration. 

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