How to add products to your WooCommerce store

If you’re finding this article then you have probably already built your own online store using WooCommerce. You’ve designed a gorgeous homepage, added in vibrant images, and transferred all your businesses data to your new site. This is fantastic! However, the next step is to add products and put them up for sale, and from there you can watch the sales start to roll in! This article will look at the various products available in WooCommerce and how to add them to your online store.

Check out the video tutorial on how to add products in WooCommerce:

Identify your products

Before you get started with adding products to your online store, you need to know what kind of product you need to add. There are three main types of product, and you will need to work out which one your product falls into:

Simple Products

Simple products are singular products that are physical objects. This tends to be most products that you will ship out to your customer.

Digital Products

If your product is downloadable, an online service, or anything else that is delivered via the internet, then it is a digital product. This can include downloadable music, software, or even online services, such as a website builder.

Variable Products

Anything that has multiple options counts as a variable product. This involves one product that may have different sizes, colours, or any other distinguishing feature about it. Variable products tend to have one product page and then buttons that allow your customers to select which kind of product they want.

What is needed to add a product to your WooCommerce Store:

In order to add products to your WooCommerce store, you first need some key information about your product. These will be inserted as you go, but it will make your life a lot easier. Here is a list of the things you must have, there may be some that do not apply or even some extras you need to add in:

• Product name
• Product category
• Product price
• Short and long description. – The short description appears next to your product at the top of the page, whilst the long description is a more detailed at the bottom.
• SKU – The product code which allows products to be sorted
• Physical attributes – information regarding weight and dimensions can be useful for your customers
• Images – Your product should have a featured image, and gallery images if you like.

Now that you have all the information needed, let’s look at how you can add a product to your online store:

Adding a simple product to your WooCommerce store

1. Log into your WordPress dashboard.
2. On the left side of the screen, click the Products menu, this will open up to show more options.
3. In the expanded menu, click Add New to create a new product.
4. At the top of the page, enter the name of your product into the Product Name field.
5. Enter your product’s long description into the large text box beneath the title.
6. In the Product data section, enter the following:
   • On the General tab, enter a price for your product. Below it, you also have the option to enter a sale price if you ever reduce your product.
   • Beneath the prices, there are options to enter information about whether your product is taxable.
   • In the inventory tab, enter your product’s SKU. In this tab you can toggle whether or not your product is in stock, but by default the product will be listed as in stock.
   • In the Shipping tab, you can enter any physical attributes about your product, as well as state if the product has free shipping.
   • There are other tabs in this section, so feel free to explore and add in any other information you have!

7. Now, enter a Product short description, which tends to appear at the top of your page next to your product’s image.
8. Now move over to the right-hand side of the page. In the Product categories section, find the relevant category for your product and check the box. However, if you have not already created categories, you can do so by hitting Add a category.
9. Add in your main image in the Product image section. You can either upload an image or choose one from the media library.
10. Now, add in any further images you have in the Product gallery section.
11. Once you are ready, press Publish at the top right of the page. Alternatively, you can click Save Draft if you are not ready for people to start purchasing your products.

Congratulations, your product is now live! Now let’s add in a variable product to your WooCommerce site.

Adding a variable product to your WooCommerce Store

It’s worth noting that you when creating a variable product, you still need to carry out many of the steps in the above section, just with a few tweaks.

1. Start creating your product as normal until you reach the Product data section. Here, you need to select the dropdown that currently says Simple Product, and change it to Variable Product.
2. Now you need to add attributes for each variation. Under the Attributes tab, select which attributes will apply to your product, for example size. Then fill in the box the different names of the variations, such as 100G, 200G and 500G. Now, you need to tick the box that says Used for variations. Then press the save attributes button.

3. Now move to the Variations tab to add in your variations. Select Add variation from the dropdown menu then press Go.
4. Now select the attributes you have just created and add them as individual variations.
5. You now need to enter product information for each variation. The only one that is required is the price, but you can also include an image, SKU, and other information.
6. Now press Save changes, and carry on creating the product as usual.

Now you’re variable product should be live on your site. It is worth checking the information in a private browsing window though, just to make sure that all your variations look correct and are as you want.

Adding a downloadable product to your WooCommerce Store

If you want to add a digital product, then there are two different kinds of downloadable products. These are simple and variable downloadable products.

Add a simple downloadable product:

1. Start creating a simple product, when you get to the Product data section, you need to tick the downloadable button at the top of the section. Once you tick this box, more tabs will appear below which are specific to downloadable products such as Downloadable Files, Download Limit, and Download Expiry

2. Under downloadable files, select the Add files button and attach the appropriate file by either a URL, uploading a file, or choosing one from your media library. Then, give the file a name.
3. If you like, enter a limit for how many times the file can be downloaded by the user. You also have the option to add an expiry date for your file, giving your customers a certain amount of days to download it.
4. Now continue as normal with creating and publishing your product.

Add a downloadable variable product:

Downloadable variable products are exactly what they sound like, downloadable products that have different variations and attributes.

1. Create your variable product as usual until you get to adding variations.
2. Whilst adding in your variations, check the Downloadable box.
3. Now you can add a file to your variable product like when creating a standard downloadable product from either your media library, a URL, or from your media library.
4. Continue to create your product as usual and then press Publish, or Save Draft if you’re not ready for it to be live yet.

Congratulations! Your downloadable product is now live. Unlike other products, downloadable products are sent via an email once your customer has purchased one. With simple products or variable products, the order will be processing until you approve it.

Get your hands on WooCommerce Hosting today!

If you’re wanting to start selling your products on WooCommerce today, then you will want to download WooCommerce as soon as possible. However, there may be a small minority that don’t have a website in the first place. If this applies to you, then you need WooCommerce Hosting with The Elite Web Co. They are the best way to obtain WooCommerce and a website at the same time. WooCommerce Hosting is where your website’s hosting comes with premium WooCommerce, plus thousands of dollars worth of extensions for your e-Commerce website. WooCommerce Hosting is available from $24.99 today!

In summary…

Creating products in WooCommerce is not as hard as people believe it to be. Once you get the hang of it, creating products will come naturally to you, and you’ll be able to create them quickly and efficiently – thus allowing you to expand your WooCommerce Store and sell more to your customers.