WooCommerce – Different Product Types

You can start adding products to the store, after configuring the Product Settings of your store. WooCommerce helps you with product management by providing a number of product types. A good way to manage products in your store is by classifying them under different product types. Let’s go through each of the product types available in WooCommerce to understand them better.

Simple Product

 Simple product is the most basic and widely used product type in WooCommerce. It has a single SKU, price and can be shipped. Even though Simple products can have attributes, they do not allow creating variations like color, size and so on. There is only one version of the product. In short, they are a unique and independent product type.

Adding a Simple product in WooCommerce

On the WordPress admin panel, go to Products → Add Product. Click on Add New to get started.

WooCommerce Add New Product
Add New WooCommerce Product

A new interface opens, where you can add Product name, description, product image and so on. Also, select appropriate product category, tags, and attributes.

A sample screenshot is shown below.

Adding WooCommerce Simple Product
Adding a new Simple product

Product Data settings

The addition of Product Data section in the lower part of the page sets WooCommerce Product page interface apart, from the default WordPress post or page interface. This section allows you to select the product type and configure its settings. Each product type has a different set of settings.

Choose Simple product option from the dropdown list as shown in the screenshot below.

Selecting WooCommerce Simple Product
Selecting Simple product

The Simple product data settings include:

  • General settings – For configuring regular and sale price of the product.
  • Inventory – Adding SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) and managing stocks.
  • Shipping – Configuring product weights & dimensions, and selecting Shipping class.
  • Linked Products – Selecting products for upsells and cross-sells.
  • Attributes – Allows you to add product attribute for a better description of the product.
  • Advanced settings – Adding purchase notes, menu orders and enabling reviews.

Once all settings are configured, click the Publish button to publish your WooCommerce Simple Product.

Grouped Product

A grouped product is a cluster of simple products clubbed together to form a single entity. The grouped product won’t have a price or a unique identifier of its own. The identity of the grouped product is created by a number of child products that have unique features of their own. As soon as you create a grouped product, you can add at least one child product to the grouped product. Your customers can purchase any of the child product from the grouped product individually as well. eg: A set of six glasses.

Adding a grouped product is not complicated and is more or less to similar to the process of adding a simple product, except for a few steps. Let’s find out how to add a grouped product.

On the admin panel, go to Products → Add Product

Adding a grouped product
Adding a grouped product

On the product page, add the Name and Category of your grouped product.

Adding name and category
Adding name and category

Next, on the Product Data metabox, select Grouped product option from the drop-down.

Selecting the product type
Selecting the product type

Product Data Settings

Once you select Grouped product option, the Product Data metabox changes to display only relevant fields required for a grouped product. All the other fields that you see on a simple product page disappears.

Product data metabox of a grouped product
Product data metabox of a grouped product

After configuring these fields, you can publish your grouped product. Click the Publish button.

Adding child products to the grouped product

Once the grouped product is published, an Add Product button will be displayed on the product page. You can use this button to add child products to your grouped product.

Adding child products
Adding child products

The settings for a child product is the same as any other simple product. You have to add a name, category, price, dimensions and any other relevant information that you want to add to the product.

The setting that separates a child product from a simple product is the Linked product information.

To set this, go to Product Data → Linked Products

On the Grouping field, search for the grouped product that you want to link your child product with.

Linking child product to the grouped product
Linking child product to the grouped product

Your grouped product is almost ready now.

Hide child product from individual searches

One additional setting you can do now is to hide the child product from catalog searches. By doing this, you are making the child product visible in searches only as part of the group product, not separately.

To set up this go to the Publish box on the top right corner and change Catalog visibility to ‘Hidden’.

Setting catalog visibility
Setting catalog visibility

Once the settings are done, you can publish the child product and add more child products if required.

Once you complete creating your grouped product with its set of child products, you can see them on the product page.

Displaying grouped product
Displaying grouped product

If you want to change the order of display of the child products, you can go to the Advanced settings on the Product Data metabox of the grouped product.

 

Changing the display order of child products
Changing the display order of child products

Virtual Product

A virtual product is simply defined as a product that is not a physical entity. For this reason, there is no need to ship such a product. Therefore defining and configuring a virtual product is a simple and straightforward process. You don’t have to bother about details such as product dimensions and weight, which are generally part of any other product settings. eg: You list a service (rendered in person) as a product on your store.

Adding a virtual product

The initial process of creating a virtual product is the same as any simple product. You can go to Products → Add Product

Enter the required information such as name, description, categories etc.

To make the product virtual, tick the ‘Virtual’ checkbox on the product type panel. Once you mark a product as virtual, the shipping section disappears from the Product Data metabox.

Adding a virtual product
Adding a virtual product

Downloadable Product

Similar to virtual products, downloadable products also don’t require shipping. They are available as a downloadable file with a specified path or URL. In most cases, there will be a limit on the number of downloads of such products. In a seemingly ironic way, WooCommerce allows setting shipping options for downloadable products. This is in fact to include the scenario where you want to send a packaged version (like a CD) of the product to the customer. If your product is only downloadable and has no physical version, you can mark it as a virtual product.

Adding downloadable products

Firstly, go to Products → Add Product

Similar to how you add virtual products, tick the downloadable product checkbox to make a product downloadable. When you tick the checkbox, the General section of the Product Data metabox displays a few extra fields to add information specific to the downloadable product type. These fields are as follows:

  • Name and File URL – Click the Add file button to enter the name and URL of the downloadable product. Alternatively, you can provide the path for the file by clicking the Choose file button.
  • Download limit – You can specify how many times your customer can re-download the product. To give unlimited re-download option for your customers, keep this field blank.
  • Download expiry – Specify the number of days the download link stays active. After the specified number of days, the link expires.
  • Download type – Choose from three options to specify what kind of downloadable product you are selling. The three available options are:
    • Standard Product
    • Application/Software
    • Music
Adding a downloadable product
Adding a downloadable product

If there is a physical version of your downloadable product, you can set a shipping cost for that. And if no Physical version is available that needs shipping, you can tick the virtual product checkbox as well.

External Product

There are cases where you list a product in your store, but you are not the actual seller of the product. Your customers who wish to purchase such products will be redirected to the URL that you specify in the product settings. There is no need for you to add any product-specific data on your store.

Adding affiliate or external products

The process of creating an affiliate product is same as creating any other product. Go to: Product → Add Products.

Enter name, description and other required fields. In the product metabox, choose External/Affiliate product.

When you select this option, two additional fields will be added in the General section. These are:

  • Product URL – Here you can enter the URL of the external seller who is selling this product.
  • Button text – Display a text of your choice on the button linking your store to the external product. For a product that is directly sold in your store, this button shows ‘Add to Cart’.

Some fields that are not needed for an external product (inventory, shipping, tax, etc.) will disappear as well.

 

Adding an external product
Adding an external product

Variable Product

This product type lets you add variations to the same product to create a complex, variable product. Each variation of the product has its own price, SKU, available stock etc. eg: A shirt or t-shirt with different sizes and different colors.

A variable product in WooCommerce helps you manage different variations of a single product. You can use this product type to create multiple variations of a single product and save the time and effort of creating each variation from scratch. Let’s look into the process in more detail.

Product attributes are key factors in setting up variations

You can use global attributes to create a variable product if that attribute is applied. Additionally, you can create custom attributes for each of the variable products that you create. First, let’s see how to add a variable product.

To create a variable product, you need to go to Products → Add Product

Add product name, description, categories, etc. as you would do for adding any other product.

Creating a variable product
Creating a variable product

Adding a variable product

The most important step in defining a variable product is in the Product Data metabox. Select ‘Variable product’ from the ‘Product Type’ drop-down.

Selecting product type
Selecting product type

When you select a variable product, you can see the Product Data metabox has more options. These are specific to this product type, such as ‘Attributes’ and ‘Variations’.

Product Data metabox
Product Data metabox

To start with, we will go to the Attributes section. Use the ‘Custom product attribute’ drop-down, where you can select the desired attribute for your new variable product. Simply select and click add to apply the attribute. For example, let’s add the global attribute ‘Size’ to this product.

Select ‘Size’ and click the Add button.

Selecting custom product attribute
Selecting custom product attribute

Once you add the attribute, the screen expands as seen in the below screenshot.

Selecting terms for the attribute
Selecting terms for the attribute

There are two checkboxes. The first is to make the attribute visible on the product page. The second makes the attribute available to be used for variations.

You can select the terms for the attribute from the ‘Value(s)’ field. There are multiple ways to do this. If you want to apply all the pre-defined global terms to this product attribute, click the Select all button. Click the ‘Select terms’ text box to get a drop-down with all the global terms, if you prefer to selectively apply. Use the Add new button to add an additional custom term.

Adding terms for the attribute
Adding terms for the attribute

Repeat the steps if you want to apply another attribute to this product. For example, let’s add the attribute ‘Color’.

Adding additional attributes
Adding additional attributes

Once all the applicable attributes are added to the variable product, click the Save attributes button.

Creating variations of the product manually

Next, we will create variations of the product.

When you go to the variations screen, two options are available. One to manually add variations based on the attributes we have created. If you wish to choose this, select ‘Add variations’ and click Go button.

Adding variations
Adding variations

This will take you to a screen where you can manually create variations using the available attributes. You can also set a default display term for any particular attribute.

Creating a variation manually
Creating a variation manually

In addition, now you can see a lot more options in the drop-down to bulk edit.

Bulk editing a variable product
Bulk editing variations

Creating all possible variations of the product

An easier way to approach this is to let WooCommerce create all the possible variations at one go.

Select ‘Create variations from all attributes’ and click Go button directly when you go to the Variations screen…

Directly creating all the possible variations
Directly creating all the possible variations

Or select from the drop-down that has the bulk-edit options.

Creating variations
Creating variations from the bulk edit drop-down

In this example, we will create all the possible variations.

You can see all the possible variations (according to the pre-defined attributes) in the screenshot below.

Displaying possible variations
Displaying possible variations

Next, you need to add more information to each of the variations that you created.

Hover the cursor around one variation to display a few icons. Click the arrow icon to expand the screen. Here you can add all the required information for the product like price, SKU, shipping information, tax details, etc.

  • product, product types, simple, grouped, virtual, downloadable, affiliate, variable
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