“How do I add new products to my WooCommerce store?”
We have had quite a few clients ask us to walk them through the process. Instead of addressing each one individually, we decided to write a blog post outlining the necessary steps. We will be demonstrating the process on the Duluth based Home Staging and Decor company, Tidy Details.
If you are new to the e-commerce game, setting up and adding products to your shop can be very confusing. Have no fear, we are here to help! We have put together 6 straight forward steps to get you up to speed on adding products to your WooCommerce store. If you stay until the end, I will also teach you how to add drop down options to your WooCommerce products such as sizes and color variations.
Step 1: Getting Started
From the WordPress dashboard, click on “Products” and “Add New.” These options are listed in the menu on the left side.
Step 2: Name and Description
Chose a unique name for your new product and include a compelling description. Let you customers know exactly what your product is and why they need it today!
Step 3: Product Categories
Assigning relevant product categories allows WooCommerce to make product suggestions to your customers. This also lets you easily group and display product lines for easy viewing.
Step 4: Product Data
Now, the Product data portion is where things can get confusing. If you focus on and follow these sub-steps, you should have no problem adding a simple item to your WooCommerce store.
Select Product Type
For this example, we will be focusing on a simple product. If you want to add a variable product (products that come in multiple colors or sizes), check out the end of this article!
Set your Price
From the General tab in the above image, WooCommerce prompts you to add the price of your product. When setting your price, there are a few options to consider. Not only can you set a base price, you can also promote a sale price. What’s awesome is this sale price can be scheduled to start and end on certain days and times. This option makes setting up holiday sales a breeze!
Note: Depending on your state, please keep sales tax in mind for your physical products. WooCommerce offers easy integration of a sales tax schedule that populates values based on the state your customer is purchasing the product from.
Add In Store Marketing
Using the linked products option, you can set up options to encourage customers to spend more money per order. This is achieved through tactics referred to as upsells and cross-sells.
- Upsells: These are products you recommend instead of the currently selected ones. The point of this is to persuade a customer to purchase a different product. Usually this is done in favor of a more profitable, better quality, or more expensive product. Think of it as “Supersizing” a McDonald’s Big Mac order to add a larger drink and larger fry. This practice increases the overall order value and brings in more revenue to your store.
- Cross-sells: These are products that you promote inside the shopping cart based on products the customer has already added to their cart. The purpose of this option is also to increase the overall order value and works best when promoting accessories or compatible products. If someone is buying a new iPhone, you can almost guarantee they will be interested in buying a case as well as an additional charging cord.
Step 5: Short Descripion
The short product description shows up right away when a customer clicks on your product. It is important cut straight to the point in this description.
You want your customer to be able to understand the main points in a quick glance. This removes friction from the buying process and promotes impulse buys.
Step 6: Adding product images
Product images are one of the most important components of a successful e-commerce listing. In WooCommerce, there are two options for adding photos, “Product images “and Product gallery.”
- Product Image: Think of this as the profile picture for your product. It is the first image your customers will see and you want it to make a good impression.
- Product Gallery: The product gallery is where you can add additional photos to your listing. This is a good place to add photos of different product angles or visualize all of the product’s uses for your customer.
Publish your listing, and that's it! Check out the Finished WooCommerce Product Listing
The reason this product says “Private:” in front of the name is that I chose not to make this test product a live product in the Tidy Details store.
Here is an example of a cross-sell product. The left side of the cart displays the cross-sells that you have linked to certain products the customer has added to their cart. In this example, we chose to link a towel to our test product. WooCommerce carries out this linking by suggesting that the customer may also be interested in the towel during checkout.
Got the basics nailed down? More WooCommerce options to consider!
The above steps will get a static (simple) listing for a product live in your store. This type of listing is great for individual items like a book, but what if you are selling t-shirts and want to give your customers the option to select other colors or sizes? This is where “variable product” options for WooCommerce come into play!
Rather than adding individual listings for each variation of your product, you can set up drop down options inside of the product listing.
Configuring WooCommerce Attributes
From the WordPress dashboard, click on products, and then attributes. From here, we will be able to define what variations we want to add to our products.
In this example, I set up an attribute named “Test Options” and gave it the slug “Test”. Keep in mind that what you choose for the name of the attribute will be displayed to your customers on the front end. The slug is used for back end identification.
Once you name and identify your new attribute, click the “Add attribute” button at the bottom. Your new attribute will appear in a table to the right.
From here click on “configure terms” in the far right column corresponding to the attribute you want to edit. You will be prompted with the screen below for setting up your variations. In this example, I set up options for Blue, Red, and Green. Once all of the options are added to the table on the right, select all and hit the “Apply” button.
After configuring the attribute, refer back to Step 4 and select “Variable product.” from the “Attributes” tab. Then from the drop down, select the attribute you just set up and click “Add.”
The Attribute you added will appear below. Check both boxes and click in the “Value(s)” box. This will allow you to select each value you want to link to the product through attributes.When you are done, click “Save attributes.”
Assigning Vaiables to WooCommerce Products
After configuring the attributes, its time to link them to your product. To do this, we use the “Variables” tab. Select “Create variations from all of your attributes” from the drop down and click “Go,” and the options you set up will show below. These options can have specific photos, separate pricing, and stock levels assigned to them by clicking the down arrow. Don’t forget to hit “Save changes” when you are finished.
Note: Prices need to be set for individual options (even if they are the same) to work properly.
After all that work, go back to the top of the page and click "Publish"
Your listing should now have drop down options to select the variations you had set up.
Congratulations, you did it!
If your listing didn’t turn out quite like you had expected, we are always here to help! Reach out to us from the button below.
