Launched on September 27, 2011, Woocommerce is an open-source plugin for e-commerce for WordPress. It became very popular because of its simplicity to install and use.
Woocommerce was first developed by Mike Jolley and James Koster at Woothemes (A WordPress Theme Developer). In 2020, it became Woocommerce. In 2015 Woothemes and Woocommerce were acquired by Automattic.
From there on Woocommerce has become a major shareholder of the eCommerce industry with a whopping 22% of the business being done through them. As per the statistics, approximately 3.9 Million Websites all over the world use the Woocommerce plugin.
Due to the increase in E-Commerce usage, Woocommerce has observed more than 40 Million Downloads from Plugin. Statistics show that Woocommerce accounts for approximately 10 Billion Dollar Sales worldwide in 2017 alone.
Woocommerce has a few Extensions which are popular like Woocommerce Bookings (Through this Extension people can book appointments) or Woocommerce Memberships (With this extension, you can restrict certain parts of a website to general users and can sell access to those parts at a certain price).
Woocommerce is one of the most trusted E-Commerce sites for its state-of-the-art security measures in place despite being a Free Plugin.
When it comes to adding a product for listing in Woocommerce it could be a simple upload for a Single Product or it could upload multiple Variants of the same product as well.
In case there are different versions of the same product based on Colours, Sizes, etc. Variations if that product needs to be added in Woocommerce to accommodate all possible combinations to the Customers.
To create a Variation in the Product Page first the Factors for those Variations need to be created. These Factors are called Attributes. It defines the Characteristics that divide the Variations.
Steps to Add an Attribute
To Create an Attribute in Woocommerce below Steps need to be followed;
- Go to the Woocommerce Website
- Select Products Tab
- Select Product Data as Variable Product
- Go to the Attributes Section
- To create a Global Attribute select the available Attributes available from the Dropdown menu on the top left side.
- Attributes such as Colour, Size, Material could be selected from the Dropdown and Global Attributes could be created.
- In case all of the available Attributes are required to be added, the same can be done in one go by clicking on Select All.
- In case a Customized Attribute is required, go to the dropdown menu on the left top and select Custom Product Attribute.
- Click on Add to enable the Custom Product Attribute.
- Next Give a name of the Attribute such as Design.
- Besides Name, Value field is available for you to add the different values of the said Attribute separated by the “|” sign. You can mention the Different Designs available for that product.
- Check the box “Visible on the Product Page”
- Check the box “Used for Variations”. This is mandatory in both Global and Customized Attributes.
- Once the Attributes are created, click on the Save Attributes button
Once the Attributes are created, next is the Variants. You can create a single variant at a time or you can select “Create Variations from all Attributes” to create all Variants in one go.
In case you need detailed Variants, the best option would be to manually create all the Required Variations one by one. In case details are not that important, the second option can opt.
It totally depends on what you are selling and how meticulous you are. Again you can set a Default Variation for Public Viewing of the Product.
That Variant will be shown in the Product Page, Product Listing, and when a Customer opens the Product. It helps increase the visual appeal of the Product in the eyes of the customers.
Why Use Attributes?
Attributes always help the Customers to filter the Products based on their Preferences or search for the products they want specifically. Customers often filter using the available Woocommerce Widgets.
Woocommerce is accepted & preferred worldwide over other eCommerce solutions because of its simplicity and ease of use. Anyone can list their products here. No Technical Knowledge is required.