As an online vendor, one of the best ways to increase sales is to make it easy for your customers to find and purchase what they need. Building a catalog for your online store can help in that process. A catalog is a collection of items that are available for purchase and is usually organized by product type or category. In this article, we will discuss how to create a catalog with WooCommerce.
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What is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin that enables you to sell products and services on your website. It is one of the most popular e-commerce solutions in use today, with over 5 million active installations.
Getting Started With WooCommerce
Before we dive into creating a catalog, let’s address the basics of starting an online store with WooCommerce. Below are the steps to get started:
Step 1: Install WooCommerce
To use WooCommerce, you must first install it on your WordPress website. You can install WooCommerce from the WordPress plugin repository or directly from the WooCommerce website.
Step 2: Set up WooCommerce
Once the plugin is installed, you need to configure it according to your requirements. You can customize your store by going to the WooCommerce setting option. A few initial settings you will need to set up like the payment gateway, Shipping Methods, Taxation, and many more.
Step 3: Set up products
After setting up the initial configuration of WooCommerce, you can start adding products to your store. You can add products manually, import products, or integrate with popular e-commerce platforms such as Amazon or Etsy.
Creating A Catalog With WooCommerce
After setting up your WooCommerce store, you can start creating a catalog for your store. Here are the steps:
Step 1: Organize your products
Before creating a catalog, you need to categorize your products into specific groups. This classification will help keep your catalog organized and make it easy for customers to find what they need. You can assign products to categories or tags in WooCommerce.
Step 2: Set up Catalog Page
Now create a page on your website and name it "Catalog." You can add this page to your store’s main menu so that customers can easily find it. On this page, you will sort the products you want to showcase in your catalog.
Step 3: Display products on the catalog page
After creating your catalog page, you need to display your products on that page. WooCommerce offers some features and shortcode that lets us display the products on the page. [products] Shortcode can show a selected product, product category or all the products available on the store.
To display the products in a grid format, you should use [products class="columns-3"] shortcode. It’s showing each row with three columns.
Step 4: Enable catalog mode
Once you set up your catalog, you may want to enable catalog mode to restrict certain features for customer benefit. Catalog mode is the way you can show all the products in your store to customers but disable purchasing. This feature might be beneficial for you if you are still in the process of sourcing products or designing your pages.
To enable catalog mode, Go to your WooCommerce Settings panel > Products > and check the Catalog Only option.
Conclusion
Creating a catalog with WooCommerce can help you organize your products, make it easy for customers to find what they are looking for, and increase sales. With WooCommerce, creating a catalog for your online store is easy and straightforward, like adding a few settings and shortcodes here and there. Your catalog might become the centerpiece of your online store, so it’s worth investing time and energy to make sure it’s up to standards. Hopefully, this guide helped you set up your product catalog with ease.