2.5 Product Settings

So we're now gonna look at setting up our products. And here we're not going to add any products because that'll take some time and that's a whole other kettle of fish. But I'm gonna show you some of the product settings that you can be working with. So you've got All Products here, which we're already looking at, and Add New, which is all fairly straightforward and just like a post. The thing about categories, now these categories are not the same as post categories. It's a brand new taxonomy that WooCommerce has registered on your site that is specifically for products. They are the categories that your products come under and I see these as like departments in a bricks and mortar store. So say, for example, you were running a clothes store, you might have a men's clothing and a women's clothing and a children clothing section. So those might be your top level categories, your departments. And then underneath those you might have formal wear and leisure wear, if you wanted to be a bit old fashioned. Or you might just have like they've got here, things like hoodies and t-shirts. So you can add your own categories here, you can get rid of any that have already been set up. And you can add subcategories. So this works in a similar way to post categories in it's a hierarchical taxonomy. So here's where we add those images. So I'm gonna add an image for my clothing category. And I go down here to upload add image. And I'm gonna select something from the Media library. Now, I'll select a nice pink hoodie because that goes with my branding. I click on Use Image and then I Update. I could also add a description if I wanted to, and that would show up on my store. So let's go back to the Categories page and add for Music, which is another top level category. I'll edit that, add an image from the Media library. And let's find an image of some music. That record with a sleeve looks good. I'll update that. And then go back to Product categories again and then do the final top level category. Obviously you'll want to do all of them, but I'm just doing the top level ones for now because we haven't got that much time. What am I doing now? I'm doing Posters, so let's have this ninja poster. Use Image, Update, and then that's that done. So now lets take a look at the front page of our website. So there you can see those nice big category images. So if I click on Music there, it'll take me through to the music category. And I get to see all of the records, nice and old school, that we're selling through this store. Okay, let's go back to those product settings. So back in Products. And the other thing you have, as well as categories, are tags and attributes. Tags are very much like post-tags, not the same taxonomy. It's separate, but works in a similar way. So you wouldn't use them to structure your store, but you'd use it to add more granular information. So I'm gonna create a tag of ninja, cuz there's lots of ninja products here. So you can create as many tags as you want and it'll help you find things and give people another way of navigating and finding things in your stall. And then finally, we have a taxonomy called Attributes. And you use attributes for ways of classifying your products that's not about the category they come into, but about the way that people buy them. So really, more easily explained by giving you examples. You've got color, and, for example, you could have size. So I'm gonna add size as another attribute. I can specify that as a select box or a text box, so when somebody's setting up the size of a product, they can either type it in a text box or they select existing values. And then we can order, I'm gonna order it by Term ID. Because size, in alphabetical order, is not the same as the way you'd actually go up in sizes. So you can see here, I can edit this and change the settings. So I go back a screen, and here, which is the really important bit, I get to configure some terms. So, for example, I can add small, Medium, And large. And I might add the foreword in the description, and maybe spend a little bit more time describing those. So when I'm editing a product, I can then add these attributes to them. So let's take a look at a product I might do that to. So that would apply to something like a hoodie. So here's a patient ninja hoodie. Now, to edit the attributes, you go into this product data box. And here I click on Attributes. I select Size, click on Add, and then I can select the term. So this one comes in all the available sizes. I'll save those attributes. And that means that people can then buy that, they can see that they can buy it in small, medium, or large. Now, they can't actually specify that when they're ordering it using the attributes. What you would need to do is use something called variables, which you add with an extension. But let me take a look at the product, hang on a moment, let me go back and update it first. Then I'll take a look at the product. You can see here's my product, patient ninja, and then I can see the attributes via additional information. If I add it to my cart, I don't actually get the option here to specify what size I want it in. You would have to do that via an add on. But that's how you set up your product settings. So before you launch your store, it's a good idea to take a look at your product categories, your tags and your attributes. And in particular the categories, because those will define how you structure your store and what's displayed on the front page, if you're displaying those categories, and also what you use in the navigation menu. So that's the product categories, and we've now gone through all of our sections. So we've installed and activated WooCommerce and we've used that wizard to set things up. We've looked at the settings screens in more detail. We've activated the Storefront theme and we've customized that as well and made it look consistent with our brand. And finally, we set up some product settings. You see it's been nearly an hour I've been talking, it's obviously taking its toll. So lets take a look and see if there are any more questions.