WooCommerce User Manual

WooCommerce User Manual

By
Design”N”Buy

Introduction

The world's favorite eCommerce solution that gives you completes control to sell anything.
WooCommerce is built to integrate seamlessly with WordPress, which is the world's most
popular and powerful method for creating a website.

Transform your WordPress website into a thorough-bred eCommerce store. Delivering

enterprise-level quality and features whilst backed by a name you can trust.

This user guide will help you familiarize yourself with all of WooCommerce features. You will
also be able to efficiently manage your WooCommerce site.

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Table of Contents

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 1
About WooCommerce ............................................................................................................................ 4
Getting Started........................................................................................................................................ 5
WooCommerce Installation ................................................................................................................ 5
Automatic installation ..................................................................................................................... 5

Manual Installation ......................................................................................................................... 6

The final step................................................................................................................................... 6

Updating WooCommerce ................................................................................................................... 7

Automatic Update ........................................................................................................................... 7

Manual Update ............................................................................................................................... 7

The final step................................................................................................................................... 7

Uninstall WooCommerce .................................................................................................................... 8

Dashboard Widgets................................................................................................................................. 9
Configuration ........................................................................................................................................ 10
General .............................................................................................................................................. 10
General Options ............................................................................................................................ 10

Currency Options .......................................................................................................................... 12

Products ............................................................................................................................................ 13
General .......................................................................................................................................... 13

Display ........................................................................................................................................... 14

Inventory Options ......................................................................................................................... 16

Downloadable Products ................................................................................................................ 17

Tax ..................................................................................................................................................... 18
Checkout ........................................................................................................................................... 18
Checkout Process .......................................................................................................................... 19

Checkout Pages ............................................................................................................................. 19

Checkout Endpoints ...................................................................................................................... 20

Payment Gateways ....................................................................................................................... 20

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Shipping............................................................................................................................................. 21
Shipping Options ........................................................................................................................... 21

Shipping Methods ......................................................................................................................... 22

Accounts ............................................................................................................................................ 22
Account Pages ............................................................................................................................... 22

My Account Endpoints .................................................................................................................. 23

Registration Options ..................................................................................................................... 23

Emails ................................................................................................................................................ 24
Email Sender Options .................................................................................................................... 24

Email Templates ............................................................................................................................ 24

Webhooks ......................................................................................................................................... 26
Managing Product Categories, Tags and Attributes ............................................................................. 27
Product Categories ............................................................................................................................ 27
Product Tags...................................................................................................................................... 27
Product Attributes............................................................................................................................. 27
Adding and Managing Products ............................................................................................................ 30
Product Types ................................................................................................................................... 30
Adding a simple product ................................................................................................................... 31
Adding a grouped product ................................................................................................................ 39
Adding a virtual product ................................................................................................................... 40
Adding a downloadable product ....................................................................................................... 40
Adding an external product .............................................................................................................. 40
Adding a variable product ................................................................................................................. 40
Managing Orders .................................................................................................................................. 50
Viewing orders .................................................................................................................................. 50
Adding an order manually ................................................................................................................. 54
Order/Customer Notes ..................................................................................................................... 54
Refunding Orders .............................................................................................................................. 56
Automatic Refunds........................................................................................................................ 56

Manual Refunds ............................................................................................................................ 58

Products Stock .............................................................................................................................. 60

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About WooCommerce
WooCommerce is built to integrate seamlessly with WordPress, making it the obvious
eCommerce choice for existing WordPress users, and connecting you to the fast-growing
WordPress ecosystem.

From real products and digital downloads to subscriptions, content and even your time,
you’ll be able to set up a WooCommerce store to sell worldwide (or by country, as you
wish).

WooCommerce is designed to ensure your store and products look as good on a desktop
computer as they do on your customers’ mobile phones. You can even turn your existing
WooCommerce store into a mobile app with no custom coding by using a few third party
tools/services.

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Getting Started
The first step in setting up your WooCommerce powered online store is to install the plugin
itself. But before doing so, check the minimum server requirements:
 PHP 5.2.4 or greater
 MySQL 5.0 or greater
 The mod_rewrite Apache module (for permalinks)
 fsockopen support (for payment gateway IPN access)
 (optional) An SSL certificate if you wish to install direct payment gateways
 (optional) Some plugins for WooCommerce require cURL
 (optional) Some plugins for WooCommerce require SOAP
You should also check WordPress minimum requirements.
https://wordpress.org/about/requirements/

WooCommerce Installation
There is two way of WooCommerce installation; Automatic installation or Manual
installation.

Automatic installation
If you have web hosting already and would like to install WooCommerce using the
WordPress Admin to install the plugin is the most straightforward option, as it handles the
file transfer without you needing to leave the Web browser.
To install WooCommerce:
1. Log in to your WordPress Admin panel
2. Go to: Plugins > Add New
3. Type ‘WooCommerce’ into the Search Plugins field and hit Enter. Once found, you
can view details such as the the point release, rating and description.
4. Click Install Now. After clicking the link, you’ll be asked if you’re sure you want to
install the plugin.
5. Click Yes, and WordPress completes the installation.

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After clicking that link you will be asked if you’re sure you want to install the plugin. Click yes
and WordPress will automatically complete the installation process.
FTP Setup

It’s possible at this stage that you’ll be taken to a page requesting FTP details of your
webserver. This happens if you’ve not installed a plugin on this particular installation of
WordPress. If that’s the case, fill in your details to complete installation.

Manual Installation
The manual installation process involves downloading the plug-in and uploading it to your
webserver via your FTP application.
1. Download the WooCommerce plug-in file to your computer and unzip it.
2. Using an FTP program, or your hosting control panel, upload the unzipped plugin
folder to your WordPress installation’s in wp-content/plugins/ directory.
3. Activate the plugin from the Plugins menu within the WordPress admin.
Upon activation, WooCommerce will install several things that it requires to function
correctly:
 Several new pages (My Account > Edit my address, View Order, Cart, Checkout > Pay,
Thank you, Track your order)
 Custom post types and taxonomies for orders and products
 Several new widgets and shortcodes
 A ‘shop manager’ user role for giving shop admin access to users
Do not delete the installed pages unless you know what you are doing – WooCommerce
requires these to show elements such as the cart and the checkout process.

The final step

Once you’ve finished installation go to the Reading > Permalinks settings in WordPress and
resave your permalinks. This will clear up any issues relating to the new Custom Post Types
the plugin created during installation process.

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Updating WooCommerce

As with installation you can choose to update WooCommerce automatically or manually.

Important: before you update it is recommended that you backup your current installation
of WooCommerce as well as your WordPress database.

Automatic Update

After you backup your site go to Plugins > Installed Plugins within WordPress to view a list
of Plugins you’ve previously installed. If an update to WooCommerce is available you will
see a notice beneath the plugin listing which states the point release which is now available
as well as links to view the details of that version and to update automatically.

To update simply click the ‘Update Automatically’ link. You may be asked for your
webservers FTP details, if that’s the case fill them in to complete the update.

Manual Update

To manually update WooCommerce: First, backup your site then download the latest
version of the plugin (https://wordpress.org/plugins/woocommerce/) from our WordPress
plugin page and upload it to the
wp-content/plugins directory on your web server overwriting the old files.

Important: After updating to WC 2.3 go to: Setting > Permalinks after updating and Save
changes.

The final step

It is recommended that after the upgrade process is complete that you simply de and re-
activate WooCommerce

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Uninstall WooCommerce

There are two things to understand when uninstalling WooCommerce.

If you deactivate and delete the plugin from the WordPress Admin, you are deleting
WooCommerce settings and database tables, and trashing the pages created when first
installed.
If you need to remove ALL WooCommerce data, including products, order data, etc., go
to: WooCommerce > System Status > Tools and enable the Remove post types on uninstall.
Doing this deletes all WooCommerce data when you deactivate and delete the plugin from
the WordPress Admin.

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Dashboard Widgets

Upon activation WooCommerce will install several widgets detailing different aspects of
your store. Just like any other dashboard widget, they can all be viewed and arranged
on your WordPress dashboard.

First of all you will notice that the Right Now widget has been enhanced to contain a
statistical overview of your WooCommerce store. You can now see product and order
totals, as well as stock notifications.

There is also a handy monthly sales graph so that you can monitor your stores
performance at a glance.

Finally, you will also find your stores most recent orders and product reviews.

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Configuration

On this page we’re going to walk through all the settings available to you in WooCommerce.
You’ll find information about General WooCommerce settings as well as Product, Tax,
Checkout, Shipping, Accounts, Email, and Webhooks settings. Please note this doc is
relevant for WooCommerce 2.3 and newer.
To configuring your shop go to WooCommerce > Settings. Then walk through the
documentation below in each section to get information on every setting.

Welcome to the WooCommerce command center. Inside this panel you’ll find all the core
WooCommerce settings.

General

General Options
Here is where we have some simple and basic settings for every store.

Base Location
This defines your shops base country and state (i.e. where you are based as a seller). It
determines default tax rates and customer locations.

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Selling Location(s)
Select if you would like to sell to all countries or to specific countries. You can choose
multiple specific countries or states.

Default Customer Address

When a guest initially visits your store we don’t know their location when calculating taxes
and shipping; this setting lets you choose the location we assume they are in, before they
enter it.
 Shop base address will let the system assume they are in the same location as your
shop.
 No address will give them no location – taxes won’t be calculated.
 Geolocate address will verify where they are currently located and calculate taxes
accordingly. (New in WC 2.3+)

Store Notice
Enable site-wide store notice text by selecting the checkbox then editing your message
below. This message will show up across the top of your site and can be stylized with CSS to
fit your theme. For example, adding the following to your custom CSS will make the
background of the Store Notice white:
p.demo_store {background: white;}

API
Chose to enable the REST API. This API is aimed at developers to use. You can enable it to
access your store data from outside of WordPress, for example from our iOS app or other
external apps. More details on the REST API can be found here.

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Currency Options
The following options affect how prices are displayed on the front-end.

Currency
Choose the default currency of the store. Only one default currency may be selected.

Currency Position
Choose the default currency position for your prices: Left, Right, Left/Right with space

Thousand Separators
choose the symbol to use for the thousand separators: ex. 1,000

Decimal Separator
Choose the symbol to use for the decimal separator: ex. 100.00

Number of Decimals
Choose how many numbers to display to the right of the decimal when displaying prices. ex.
2 = 100.00
Note: The Style & Scripts settings are now in their own plugin called WooCommerce Colors,
which integrates with the WordPress customizer. Most themes provide their own styling,
but if you’d like those settings back use our FREE WooCommerce Colors plugin.

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Products
Here you will find the settings for your products and how they are displayed, including
product image sizes, inventory, and downloadable product settings.

General
In the general sub navigation section we have our Measurements and Reviews
options. Select the weight and dimensions units for your products, as well as enable or
disable ratings on your product reviews.

Product Ratings
Options include:
 Enable ratings on reviews.
 Ratings are required to leave a review.
 Show “verified owner” label for customer reviews. If a customer is logged in with
their account and have purchased this product on their account they will be labeled
as a ‘verified owner’.
 Only allow reviews from “verified owners”. Only customers that are logged in with
the account they used to purchase the product can leave a product review.

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Display

Shop Page / Product Archive

select what page you would like to be the default shop page.

Shop Page Display

Select to show products, subcategories or both.

Default Category Display

Select to show products, subcategories or both.

Default Product Sorting

Select the default product sorting, options include:
 Default product sorting (custom ordering + name)
 Popularity (sales)
 Average rating
 Sort by most recent
 Sort by price (asc/dec)

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Add to cart behavior

Options include:
 Redirect to the cart page after successful addition – this will automatically take your
customer to the cart page upon adding a product.
 Enable AJAX add to cart buttons on archives – this will add the ‘Add to Cart’ option
to your shop archive pages.

Product Image Sizes

These settings effect the actual dimensions of images saved in your catalog once you upload
an image – the display on the front-end will be overridden by CSS styles if applied. If you
were to change these settings you would need to regenerate your thumbnails if you had
previously uploaded images, in order for the new image size settings to be applied.
Image size options include:
 Catalog Images
 Single Product Image
 Product Thumbnails
Learn more about how to add WooCommerce product images and galleries.
If you are having trouble with blurry product images, please review Using the Appropriate
Product Image Dimensions.

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Inventory Options
To edit your shop’s inventory options go to: WooCommerce > Settings > Product >
Inventory.

Here you can chose whether you want to enable stock management or not. If selected you
have the following options available:
 Hold Stock (minutes) – Hold stock (for unpaid orders) for x minutes. When this limit
is reached, the pending order will be cancelled. Leave blank to disable.
 Enable low stock notifications
 Enable out of stock notifications
 Notification Recipient – set the email for low and out of stock notifications.
 Low Stock Threshold – set the number of products to trigger the low stock
notification.
 Out Of Stock Threshold – set the number of products to trigger out of stock status.
 Out Of Stock Visibility – Chose to hide out of stock items from the catalog.
 Stock Display Format – Options include:
o Always show stock – eg. “12 in stock”
o Only show stock when low – eg. “Only 2 left in stock” vs. “In stock”
o Never show stock amount

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Downloadable Products

File Download Method

This option controls how your store will serve downloadable files to purchasers. Options
include:
 Force Downloads – Files are ‘forced’ to download via a PHP script. The files shouldn’t
be accessible to anyone but purchasers and direct links are hidden.
 X-Accel-Redirect/X-Sendfile – This is similar to ‘forced’ above, however it has much
better performance and can support larger files. This option requires that your
hosting provider supports either X-Sendfile or X-Accel-Redirect so you will need to
check with them first.
 Redirect only – Download links simply link the user to the file. Files are not protected
from outside access.
Most stores will want to use one of the top 2 methods as these keep your files safe from
outside access. Redirect should only be used if you encounter problems or don’t mind
downloads being insecure.

Access Restriction
Options include:
 Select if downloads require login – This setting does not apply to guest purchases.
 Grant access to downloadable products after payment – Enable this option to grant
access to download when orders are “processing”, rather than “completed”.

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Tax

Taxes are complex enough to warrant their own separate section explaining how to set
them up and how they work.
Learn more about WooCommerce Tax Settings here.
https://docs.woothemes.com/document/setting-up-taxes-in-woocommerce/

Checkout
Here you can control settings for your checkout pages and coupon usage as well as your
payment gateway settings.
Checkout Options

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Under the Checkout Options sub navigation section there are options for the general
checkout process of your store.

Checkout Process
Coupons
select to enable the use of coupons – Coupons can be applied from the cart and checkout
pages.
Checkout
Options include:
 Enable guest checkout – Allows customers to checkout without creating an account.
 Force secure checkout – Force SSL (HTTPS) on the checkout pages (an SSL Certificate
is required).
 Force HTTP when leaving the checkout – Forces pages to load over HTTP instead of
(SSL) HTTPS like the checkout pages. Useful for certain gateways that may require
this.

Checkout Pages

These pages need to be set so that WooCommerce knows where to send users to checkout:
Cart Page, Checkout Page, and Terms and Conditions
The cart and checkout pages will automatically be installed with WooCommerce. If you want
a Terms and Conditions page you will need to create your own custom page, then select the
page in the settings as shown above.

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Checkout Endpoints

Endpoints are appended to your page URLs to handle specific actions during the checkout
process. They should be unique.
Learn more about endpoints in WooCommerce here.
https://docs.woothemes.com/document/woocommerce-endpoints-2-1/

Payment Gateways
Installed gateways are listed here. You can drag and drop the gateways to control the order
they display in on the front end.

Learn more about Premium Payment Gateway options here.

https://docs.woothemes.com/document/premium-payment-gateway-extensions/

Learn more about the core payment options included in WooCommerce for free here.
https://docs.woothemes.com/documentation/plugins/woocommerce/getting-started/sell-
products/core-payment-options/

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Shipping

Shipping Options

Shipping Calculations

 Enable shipping
 Enable the shipping calculator on the cart page
 Hide shipping costs until an address is entered

Shipping Display Mode

Display shipping methods with “radio” buttons or in a dropdown.

Shipping Destination
Ship to billing address by default or only ship to the users billing address.

Restrict shipping to Location(s)

Ship to all countries you sell to to specify certain countries you will not ship to.

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Shipping Methods

Here you can choose which shipping option is default or enabled and you can drag and drop
to reorder these in whatever order you prefer.

To learn more about the core shipping settings see our documentation here:
WooCommerce Shipping Documentation

https://docs.woothemes.com/documentation/plugins/woocommerce/getting-
started/shipping/

Accounts

Account Pages

These pages need to be set so that WooCommerce knows where to send users to access
account related functionality.

My Account Page
Select the page from the dropdown that you want to use for the My Account page.

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My Account Endpoints

Endpoints are appended to your page URLs to handle specific actions on the accounts pages.
They should be unique. Options include:

 View Order
 Edit Account
 Edit Address
 Lost Password
 Logout

Learn more about endpoints in WooCommerce here.

https://docs.woothemes.com/document/woocommerce-endpoints-2-1/

Registration Options

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Enable Registration

 Enable registration on the “Checkout” page

 Enable registration on the “My Account” page
 Display returning customer login reminder on the “Checkout” page

Account Creation
Options include:

 Automatically generate username from customer email

 Automatically generate customer password

Emails

Here you can find the email settings and templates to edit.

Email Sender Options

Set the ‘From’ name and email for the sender used in WooCommerce emails.

Email Templates

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This section lets you customize the WooCommerce emails. For more advanced control copy
the woocommerce/templates/emails/ folder to yourchildtheme/woocommerce/emails/.

It is best if you keep this customization in a child theme so your changes are not overwritten
when you update your theme.

Header Image
Enter a URL to an image you want to show in the email’s header. You can upload your image
using the media uploader.

Email Footer Text

the text to appear in the footer of WooCommerce emails.

 Base Colour – The base colour for WooCommerce email templates.

 Background Colour – The background colour for WooCommerce email templates.
 Email Body Background Colour – The main body background colour.
 Email Body Text Colour – The main body text colour.

Editing Individual Email Templates

Just beneath the Email tab you will see options for the following email templates:

New order | Processing order | Completed order | Customer invoice | Customer note |
Reset password | New account

Each email template will have the following options that you can edit:

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Enable/Disable
Enable this email notification.

Recipient(s)
Enter recipients (comma separated) for this email. Defaults to [email protected].

Subject
this controls the email subject line. Leave blank to use the default subject:

[{site_title}] New customer order ({order_number}) - {order_date}

Email Heading
this controls the main heading contained within the email notification. Leave blank to use
the default heading.

Email type
Choose which format of email to send. Options include:

 Plain Text
 HTML
 Multipart

If using Plain Text emails, please keep in mind that text fields are limited to 155 characters.
If your products have long names and/or numerous variations/add-ons, the field may be
truncated.

HTML template
to override and edit this email template copy woocommerce/templates/emails/admin-
new-order.php to your theme folder: yourchildtheme/woocommerce/emails/admin-new-
order.php. You also have the option to copy the template file or view on this setting screen.

Webhooks

Webhooks in WooCommerce now have a nice UI to help manage them. We have a separate
doc on using those now, head there to learn more about Webhooks.

https://docs.woothemes.com/document/webhooks/

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Managing Product Categories, Tags and Attributes

Product Categories
Similar to categories on your posts in WordPress, you can add, delete, and edit your product
categories here. There are some added options on top of the normal category fields, you
can also upload an image to be associated with the category:
Categories are managed from the Products > Categories screen.

Categories can also be reordered by dragging and dropping – this order will be used by
default on the front end whenever the categories are listed. This includes both widgets and
the subcategory view on product pages.
The taxonomy is ‘product_cat’.

Product Tags
Product tags work in exactly the same way as post tags. See
http://codex.wordpress.org/Posts_Tags_Screen
The taxonomy is ‘product_tag’.

Product Attributes
Attributes are pieces of data that can add more technical information to a product and help
users refine your catalog while browsing/searching.

Creating an attribute set is done in a similar way to a category (explained later). For now
we’ll describe attributes and their primary benefit with a hypothetical example.
Additionally, attributes are a key component of authoring variable products
https://docs.woothemes.com/document/variable-product/

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Usage scenario

Say you’re opening a clothing store, selling all the latest fashions. In this case, a top level
product category will most likely be Clothing, inside of which, the majority of your catalog
will reside.

Now, you could very easily create subcategories for different sizes, colors and so on, but this
information is better suited as attributes. Why? Because a user can select concurrent
attributes while refining their search.

Layered navigation for the “Color” attribute

Example: A customer is looking for all black clothing. This is as simple as selecting the
“Black” attribute from a sidebar widget. As you’d expect, this will refresh the page so that it
only displays clothing that’s been linked to the black attribute.

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Adding attributes to your store

Setting up attributes themselves uses an interface you are familiar with. It’s recommended
that you set up any attributes you will use over and over in this way. Navigate to Products >
Attributes where you’ll find the following screen:

Here you can quickly and easily add attributes and their terms.
You also have the option to create attributes on a per product basis. This is useful should
you want to display extra information about a product that is unlikely to apply to another.
For example, you may sell a one-off Japanese game to an English audience. You could make
a ‘Language’ attribute for that one product and display in the product data section on the
front end.
Sorting Attributes

Attribute terms can be ordered by Name, Name (Numeric), Term ID or based on a custom
order you decide (by dragging and dropping the terms in the list when configuring the
terms).

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Adding and Managing Products

Now for the fun stuff, adding your products! But before diving into your first product, you
should familiarize yourself with how product categories, tags and attributes work.

Taxonomies

Categories and tags work in much the same way as any other post type categories and tags.
They can be applied before or during the creation of a product.
Attributes, on the other hand, are different – they can be added per product, or you can set
up global attributes for the entire store to use (for example, in layered navigation).
To learn more, see: Managing Product Categories, Tags and Attributes

Product Types
With attributes and categories set up and stock management configured, we can begin
adding products. When adding your product, the first thing to decide is what type of
product it is.
 The Simple product type covers the vast majority of any products you may sell.
Simple products are shipped and have no options. For example, a can of drink.
 A Grouped product is a collection of related products which can be purchased
individually and can only consist of simple products. For example, a PS3 could be a
grouped product as there are 80GB, 120GB and 200GB variations of that same
parent product.
 An External or Affiliate product is one that you list and describe on your website, but
is sold elsewhere.
 A Variable product is a product that has different variations, each of which may have
a different SKU, price, stock options etc. For example, a t-shirt available in several
different colours and/or sizes.

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Adding a simple product

Adding a simple product is a straightforward process and similar to authoring a standard
WordPress post. In the Products menu, click Add Product. You will be presented with a
familiar interface and should immediately see where to type the product title and full
description.

A familiar interface for adding product information

Under the main dialog box is the Product Type panel. Here you define the product type (as
outlined above) and whether it is a downloadable (digital) or virtual (service) product.
Virtual products don’t require shipping – an order containing virtual products won’t calculate a
shipping cost

Product data

Next is the Product Data tab set. This is where the majority of the product data is input.

Product data is added from this panel

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General tab

 SKU – stock keep unit, used to track products. Must be unique, and should be named so it
does not clash with post IDs.
 Price:
o Regular Price – Item’s main price.
o Sale Price – Item’s sale price.

Inventory tab

The inventory tab allows you to manage stock for the product individually and define
whether to allow back orders. If stock management is disabled from the settings page, only
the ‘stock status’ option will be visible.

Checking the Sold Individually box limits the product to 1 per order.

Shipping tab

 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 tab

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

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After adding them, they will be listed in the input field:

Up-sells are displayed on the product details page. These are products that you may wish to
encourage users to upgrade; based on the product they are currently viewing. For example,
if the user is viewing the coffee product listing page, you may want to display tea kettles on
that same page as an up-sell.

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Cross-sells are products that are displayed with the cart and related to the user’s cart
contents. As an example, if the user adds a Nintendo DS to their cart, you may want to
suggest they purchase spare Styluses when the arrive at the cart page.
Grouping – Set this option to make a product part of a grouped product.

Attributes tab

On the attributes tab, you can assign attributes to a product. You will see a select box
containing global attribute sets you created (e.g., platform). See Managing Product
Categories, Tags and Attributes for help on setting these up.
Once you have chosen an attribute from the select box, click add and you can apply the
terms attached to that attribute (e.g., Nintendo DS) to the product. You can hide the
attribute on the frontend by leaving the visible checkbox unticked.
Custom attributes can also be applied by choosing ‘Custom product attribute’ from the
select box. These are added at the product level and won’t be available in the layered
navigation.

Advanced tab

 Purchase note – Enter an optional note to send the customer after purchase.
 Menu order – Custom ordering position for this item.
 Enable Reviews – Enable/Disable customers reviews for this item

Excerpt

Finally, you can add an excerpt that should be a short product description. Typically this
appears next to the product imagery on the listing page, and the long description appears in
the Product Description tab.

Taxonomies

On the right hand side of the Add New Product panel, there are product categories in which
you can place your product, similar to a standard WordPress post. You can also assign
product tags in the same manner.

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Product images

You can add both a main image and a gallery of images

The featured image

The featured post image is the main image for your product. It is the image which will be
displayed within your product loops (IE on product categories, up sells, related products etc)
and the initial focus of the image gallery on your product details page.

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Adding product galleries

Product galleries simply display all images attached to a product, with the Featured Image
being the primary image.
You can create a product gallery using the same method as adding a featured image, rather
using the Product Gallery Meta box instead.

Re-order and removing images from product galleries

Images in the product gallery can be re-ordered easily via drag and drop. Simply re-order
your images by moving them around.
To remove an image from the product gallery, hover over the image and click on the red “x”.

Image dimension settings

On the catalog tab, WP Dashboard > WooCommerce > Settings > Products > Display >
Product Images, of the WooCommerce settings you’ll see three image dimension inputs.

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 Catalog Images appear on your shop loops. Product categories, up sells / cross sells
etc
 Single Product Image is the main image on your product details page
 Product thumbnails are the gallery thumbnails on your product details page (if you
have a gallery)

The images you upload will be resized to match the values your input here accurately as
possible. IE if your settings are 100×100 and you upload a 300×600 image it will be resized
to 100×200. You can also choose to ‘hard crop’ your images which will force them to be the
size specified in these settings, regardless of the raw image you upload, but will be cropped
rather than distorted in scale.
Remember if you change these settings after uploading product imagery you will need to
regenerate your thumbnails within WordPress for the changes to be applied to your current
imagery. To do this we recommend using the Regenerate Thumbnails plugin.
To learn more about using the proper image dimensions please read further documentation here:
Using the Appropriate Product Image Dimensions

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Setting catalog visibility and feature status

In the publish panel, you can set catalog visibility for your product.

Visibility can be set to:

 Catalog and search – visible everywhere
 Catalog – visible in catalog loops, but not search
 Search – visible in search results, but not in the catalog (categories/shop page)
 Hidden – only visible on the single product page – not in any product loops

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Adding a grouped product

A grouped product is created in much the same way as a simple product. The only
difference is you will select Grouped from the Product Type dropdown in the General
product tab details, as shown below:

To create your parent product select ‘Grouped’ from the Product Type Dropdown.
Upon setting the parent product as Grouped, the price and several other fields will
disappear. This is fine because you’ll be adding this information to individual child products.
Once you’re finished with the parent product, publish it and come back to the Add New
Product page.

Create a Child Product inside a group

To create a child product, go to: Products > Add New to add a new product. The only
information you’re required to enter is:
 Title
 Product Type = Simple
You can also add your price and other product details, as needed. Now go to Linked
Products to select the parent product from the Grouping dropdown, as shown below:

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If you wish to control the order in which products are shown within a group, edit the Menu
Order option under the advanced section in product data.

Adding a virtual product

When adding a simple product, you can check the virtual box in the product type panel. This
will remove unnecessary fields, such as dimensions.

Adding a downloadable product

When adding a simple product, you can check the downloadable box in the product type
panel. This will add two new fields:
1. File path – path or url to your downloadable file.
2. Download limit – a limit for the number of times the customer can download the file.
Left blank for unlimited downloads.
For maximum flexibility, downloadable products also incur a shipping cost (if, for example,
you were offering both a packaged and a downloadable version of a product, this would be
ideal). You can also check the Virtual box if the downloadable product is not shippable.

Adding an external product

Choose ‘External/Affiliate’ from the product type dropdown. This removes unnecessary
tabs, such as tax and inventory, and inserts a new product URL field. This is the destination
where users can purchase the product. Rather than Add to Cart buttons, they see a Read
More button directing them to this URL.

Adding a variable product

Variable products are arguably the most complex of product types. They let you define
variations of a single product where each variation may have a different SKU, price or stock
level.
Variable products are a product type in WooCommerce that lets you offer a set of
variations on a product with control over prices, stock, image, and more for each variation.
They can be used for a product like a shirt where you can offer a large t-shirt vs a small t-
shirt.

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Adding attributes for variations

To add a variable product, either edit an existing product or create a new one by going to:
Products > Products. You can select the Add Product button or edit an existing product from
there. Once in a product select the Variable product from the Product Data dropdown.

In the attributes section, you’ll need to add attributes first before we can create variations –
you can use global attributes or define custom ones specific to each product. To use a global
attribute select it from the dropdown and then select Add. Make sure to select the Select all
button to add all of the attribute to the variable product, and select the Used for variations
checkbox to tell WooCommerce it’s for your variations:

Adding Global Attributes to a Product

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Setting up Global Attributes

If you are adding new attributes select Custom product attribute then select add.

Adding Custom Attributes to a Product

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You’ll then need to name the attribute, for example Size. Set the values separated by a
vertical pipe, in this instance small | medium | large. Finally select the Used for variations
checkbox to use these in the Variations section. Select Save attributes!

Be sure you selected the Save attributes button once you’ve created your custom attributes

Add variations

After saving your variations, you can begin applying them a product.
To add a variation, go to the Variation section in the Product Data Meta box.

Manually Adding a Variation

Select Add variation from the dropdown menu and click Go

Select attributes for your variation. To change additional data, click the triangle icon to
expand the variation.

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Edit any of the available data. The only required field is Regular Price

Editing Many Variations

If you have more than 10 variations, you must use the buttons to navigate forwards and
backwards through the list of variations. Every time you navigate to a new set of variations
the previous set are saved. This ensures that all data is saved.

Setting Defaults

We recommend setting defaults you prefer on the variations. In our example, we don’t have
any defaults set, so users can pick any color and size right away from the product page.

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If you want a certain variation already selected when a user visits the product page, you can
set those here. This also enables the Add to Cart button to appear automatically on variable
product pages.
You can only set defaults after at least one variation has been created.

Variation Data

Each variation may be assigned the following data:

 An image – Select the placeholder icon to see the image uploader. After you choose
an image, select Set Variation Image.
 SKU – If you use SKUs, set the SKU for the variation, or leave blank to use the
variable product’s SKU.
 Enabled – Enable or disable the variation.
 Downloadable – If this a downloadable variation.
 Virtual – If this product isn’t shipped, shipping settings for the variation are
removed.
 Manage Stock – Manage stock on the variation level.
 Stock quantity – Stock for the particular variation, or left blank to use the variable
product’s stock settings.
 Regular Price – Set the price for this variation. Required
 Sale Price – Set a price for this variation when on sale. Optional
 Stock Qty – Shows if Manage Stock is selected. Input the quantity you have.
 Allow Backorders – Choose how to handle backorders.
 Stock Status – Set the status of your variations stock.
 Weight – Weight for the variation, or left blank to use the variable product’s weight.
 Dimensions – Height, width and length for the variation, or left blank to use the
variable product’s dimensions.
 Shipping class – Shipping class can affect shipping. Set this if it differs from the
variable product.
 Tax class – A tax class for this variation. Useful if you are offering variations spanning
different tax bands.

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 Downloadable Files – Shows if Downloadable is selected. Add file(s) for this

variation for customers to download
 Download Limit – Shows if Downloadable is selected. Set how many times a
customer can download the file(s). Leave blank for unlimited.
 Download Expiry – Shows if Downloadable is selected. Set the number of days for
the download to expire after purchase.
If the SKU, weight, dimensions and stock fields are not set, then it inherits values assigned to
the variable product. Price fields must be set per variation.

Bulk editing

You can bulk edit variations by selecting the specific piece of data you want from the
dropdown. In this case I want to edit prices for all variations.

Linking possible variations

You can select Create variations from all attributes to have WooCommerce create every possible
combination of variations.

If your example had 2 attributes – color (with values blue and green) and size (with values
large and small), it creates the following variations:
 Large Blue
 Large Green
 Small Blue
 Small Green

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Frontend

On the frontend, when viewing a variable product, the user will be presented with
dropdown boxes to select the variation options; selecting options will reveal the stock, price
and add to cart button for the variation so the user can purchase the product.

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Mark a Product as Featured

To mark a product as featured, go to: Products > Products and select the Star in the
featured column. You can alternatively select the Quick Edit option to select the Featured
option.

Setting a Featured Product

Backorders Out of Stock

If you are managing stock on an order and allow backorders in your product
inventory settings, most all payment gateway options will charge immediately. You can use
the Advanced Notifications extension to help notify someone other than the shop admin of
backorders.

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If you want to wait to charge customers for an item until the item is back in stock, you can
use the Waitlist extension https://www.woothemes.com/products/woocommerce-waitlist/
that emails all users, notifying them that the item is back in stock and includes a link to to
purchase it.

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Managing Orders
Orders are created when a customer completes the checkout process and are visible by
Admin and Shop Manager Users only. Each order is given a unique Order ID.
An order also has a status. The order statuses let you know how far along the order is,
starting from pending and ending with complete. The following order statuses are used:
 Pending payment – Order received (unpaid)
 Failed – Payment failed or was declined (unpaid). Note that this status may not show
immediately and instead show as pending until verified (i.e., PayPal).
 Processing – Payment received and stock has been reduced- the order is awaiting
fulfillment
 Completed – Order fulfilled and complete – requires no further action
 On-Hold – Awaiting payment – stock is reduced, but you need to confirm payment
 Cancelled – Cancelled by an admin or the customer – no further action required
 Refunded – Refunded by an admin – no further action required

Viewing orders

When you start taking orders the order management page will begin to fill up. You can view
these orders by going to WooCommerce > Orders in the left hand admin menu.
Each order row displays useful details, such as the customer’s address, email, telephone
number, and the order status. You can click the order number or the ‘view order’ button to
see the single order page (this is also where you can edit the order details and update the
status).

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Order rows also have some handy shortcut buttons to quickly mark orders complete and
processing.

You can filter the list of displayed orders by date, status and customer by using the form at
the top of the screen.

Editing/viewing single orders

From the single order page not only can you view all order data, you can edit and update it.
You can:
 Change the order status
 Edit order items – modify the product, prices, and taxes
 Stock – Reduce and restore stock for an order
 Order Actions – Resend order emails to the customer using the drop down menu
above the Save Order button. Send New Order, Processing Order, Completed Order
or Customer Invoice emails – very handy if manually creating an order for your
customers
 Modify product Meta to edit product variations by removing and adding meta.

Order Data

The order data panel lets you modify the order status, view (or change) the customer’s
order note, and change which user the order is assigned to.
You’ll also find the customers billing and shipping addresses, along with a link to view other
purchases the customer may have had in the past. To edit addresses, click ‘edit’ and a form
will appear. Once saved, the new address will be displayed in a localized format.

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Order Items

Please note: To edit the order, the status must be set to On Hold or Processing Payment.

The next panel on the order page is the order items panel. This panel lists items which are in the
order, as well as quantities and prices.

The editable parts of line items include:

1. Tax Class – Tax class for the line. This may be adjusted if, for example, the customer
is tax exempt.
2. Quantity – The quantity of the item the user is purchasing
3. Line Subtotal – Line price and line tax before pre-tax discounts
4. Line Total – Line price and line tax after pre-tax discounts

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5. Add Meta – Add and remove meta to change product variable options.
6. Sorting – Sort by Item, Cost, Quantity, and Total by clicking on the respective listed
items.
Here you can also add additional fees for items. Click “Add fee” and fill out the fee name, tax
status and amount:

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

Order Totals

The Order Totals panel stores totals and tax for the order. You can enter these values
yourself or have them part calculated for you using the ‘calc totals’ button. The totals
comprise of the following:
 Cart Discount – pre-tax discounts. Can be auto-calculated.
 Order Discount – post-tax discounts. Need to be input manually.

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 Shipping cost – cost excluding tax.

 Shipping method – name of the method.
 Cart tax – cart tax total.
 Shipping tax – shipping tax total.
 Order total
 Payment method – name of the payment method used.
There are two buttons available on this panel – calc taxes and calc totals. Calculating taxes
will use your prices, and calculate the tax based on the customers shipping address. If the
customer’s address has not been input, it will default to the stores base location.
There is also a section called tax rows. This is where you can define (and name) multiple tax
rows. This is useful if, for example, you take multiple taxes or use compound taxes. These
values are displayed on the customer invoice.

Adding an order manually

Add an order using the ‘Add New’ link at the top of the orders page. Once added you can
input the customer details, add line items, and calculate the totals. You should set a
relevant status for the new order – if it needs to be paid use ‘pending’.
After saving, you can use the Order Actions dropdown to email the Customer Invoice with
payment instructions. To send, be sure to select Save Order.

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

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The notes panel – for internal use, or notifying customers

The notes feature can be a very powerful tool for communicating with customers. Need to
add a tracking number for shipping? Some stock is delayed? Add a customer note and they
will be automatically notified.
When added, customer notes are highlighted in purple. Customers receive notes via email,
but can view them by viewing an order, or using the WooCommerce order tracking page.

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Refunding Orders
Starting with WooCommerce 2.2+, it is now possible to do refunds directly from
WooCommerce if your payment gateway allows it.

Automatic Refunds
If your payment gateway supports automatic refunds, there will be new settings in
your gateway’s settings to fill in. Make sure those are setup correctly or refunds won’t work
as they should. Refunds extend to products, taxes, and shipping fees and can be processed
through your order page.

Here is an example of the settings you would see when you go to WooCommerce > Settings
> Checkout > Your Payment Gateway if your Payment Gateway supports automatic refunds.
Adding the API keys in your Payment Gateway settings will allow for quick, automatic
refunds through the WooCommerce admin interface. Next see the steps below on how to
process a refund on an order.
Video Player
1. Go to: WooCommerce > Orders
2. Select the order you wish to refund.
3. Click the grey Refund button to start.
4. Specify the quantity of the product(s) to be refunded in the text box(es) that appear
for each line item. The refund amount will automatically adjust based on the
products refunded. If inventory levels are not managed, you can also simply enter
the Refund amount, without adjusting the product quantity. If the quantities of

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items are not set when issuing a refund then the order is not marked as refunded
and the email that is sent will say “partial refund.”
5. Add refund notes, if desired.
6. Click Refund $X via [Your Gateway]

In the Order Items there will be a note that has been added to let you that a refund has
been processed. If a refund had been completed for the entire order, the order status will
be automatically changed to refunded. If a partial refund was awarded, the status will not
change.

When using automatic refunds thru the WooCommerce interface you will not need to log
into your payment gateway’s dashboard to process the refund as this provides a seamless

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Manual Refunds
Refunding manually allows you to utilize any WooCommerce payment gateway, regardless
of automatic refund support. This will not automatically send the refund to your payment
gateway, but allow you to mark the order as refunded on the order. Refunds extend to
products, taxes, and shipping fees and must be processed directly with your Payment
Gateway.

To manually refund an order:

1. Go to: WooCommerce > Orders
2. Select the order you wish to refund.
3. Select the Refund button.
4. Enter amount to refund.
5. Add refund notes.
6. Click Refund Manually

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The items selected for the refund will be noted as refunded. You will need to manually
change the Order Status accordingly if you wish to see the order status changed
to “Refunded”.

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Once the refund has been applied to the order it will look like this:

Please note: This does not refund the customer via the payment gateway. Continue on to your
payment gateway’s dashboard to start the refund process there as well.

Products Stock
Please note that when processing a refund you have the choice to restock products by
checking the following option:

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