How to display products by category in your WooCommerce store

Do you want to display products by category in your WooCommerce store?

Product categories are the main way of grouping similar products together in WooCommerce. By displaying your products by category in WooCommerce, you make it easy for shoppers to navigate your online store and quickly find the items they want to purchase. In other words, it’s a great way to improve conversions in your store!

With this in mind, in this article, we’ll show you the best way to display products by category in your WooCommerce store.

Why should you display products by category in WooCommerce?

If your products are properly sorted and grouped into a WooCommerce category, customers will have an easier time navigating your store. This can help improve the user experience, encourage more purchases, and boost conversions for your business.

Let’s talk about some other reasons why it’s a great idea to display products by category in WooCommerce:

Improve your store’s navigation

One of the major benefits of using WooCommerce product categories is that they make it easier for customers to browse through your store and find the products they want. For instance, if you run an apparel store, you’ll want to create product categories such as “Hats”, “Shirts”, and “Trousers”.

Similarly, if you sell electronics or appliances, you can group products by type. For example, you could have category names like “Kitchen Appliances”, “Refrigerators”, and “Air Conditioners”. Categorising WooCommerce products gives your customers an intuitive way to search through your product catalogue and quickly find the product they’re looking for.

Let customers add multiple products to the cart

When you give customers the option to view all products from a single category in a list or grid on the same page, you can let them add multiple products to the cart at once.

All you have to do is add an “Add to Cart” button for every product listing on the WooCommerce category page. This way, all customers can add products to their shopping cart without having to navigate to the single product page. As a result, it makes the shopping experience convenient and fast.

Display product details

Depending on how you choose to display products on WooCommerce category pages, you can add extra information about products that lets customers compare products better.

For example, if you display products in a table-style layout, you can add a short description or list of attributes for each item.

The best way to display products by category in WooCommerce

There are two main ways to display products by category in your online store:

Displaying products by category with code

WooCommerce, by default, lets you display products by category using WooCommerce Blocks. All you need to do is add the [products] shortcode to a Gutenberg block and use the Category attributes to display specific product categories on a single page.

However, there are a few downsides to this:

For starters, depending on the theme you’re using, you might not be able to display products exactly how you want to. For instance, you might not be able to use a product table with the theme if it doesn’t support it.

Although WooCommerce shortcodes aren’t very difficult, you will still need to know how to use these shortcodes well if you want to create a dynamic WooCommerce site with lots of filtering options. If you just list lots of products on a single page without offering any sorting or filtering options, customers will have a hard time finding the products they’re looking for.

Technically, WooCommerce lets you use these shortcodes anywhere on your online store. However, your WordPress theme might struggle if it doesn’t support the right templates to display products neatly. If your WooCommerce site has a theme you’re happy with, buying a new theme that supports product tables might not be the best idea as it can drastically change the look and feel of your site.

You can buy custom layouts that let you neatly display products by category using WooCommerce Blocks on your site. The only problem is finding the right layout. It can take a lot of time and be quite expensive for your business as an annual expense.

As a workaround to this, it’s possible to edit the theme functions file by going to Appearance → Theme Editor from the default WordPress admin panel. However, it’s highly risky and isn’t recommended unless you have prior coding experience.

Displaying products by category with a plugin

For most people, the best (and easiest) way of displaying products by category is by using a WooCommerce plugin. This way, you’ll instantly have all the features you need to display products exactly the way you want, without having to worry about breaking your site.

Introducing WooCommerce Product Table Ultimate

WooCommerce Product Table Ultimate is a plugin that lets you display your products in a table-style layout.

Fully customise your product tables

This plugin gives you full control over how products are displayed within the table. While you can display products by product category, the plugin also lets you add thumbnails, product titles, SKUs, product descriptions, attributes, tags, quantity, and add-to-cart buttons. This helps you create a better shopping experience for customers on your online store and makes it easier for them to find the products they need quickly.

You can also display a checkbox in front of each product row in your tables. This way, customers can add multiple items to their shopping cart at once by clicking a single button. This gives the customer an incentive to increase their order size since they can purchase more items but reduce the time it takes to get to checkout.

Create multiple tables and display them anywhere

Using WooCommerce Product Table Ultimate, you can create as many product tables as you want on your online store. This is ideal in many scenarios, such as a restaurant with online ordering. To organize your menu better, you could have a separate product table for appetizers, mains, and desserts.

WooCommerce Product Table Ultimate gives you full control over where product tables will be displayed on your online store. You can display product tables anywhere on your WooCommerce site where Gutenberg is enabled using a shortcode or WooCommerce block. This way, you can add only relevant product tables to certain pages of your online store. For example, if you sell vinyl, you can have subpages for each music genre and display the product table that pertains to that category.

Override pages

You’re also able to override pages using the plugin, which essentially means you can replace the default WooCommerce category and shop pages with custom product tables. If you want to completely revamp these pages and only display product tables to your customers, then this is the easiest way to do it. Otherwise, you will need to create separate pages to replace the default pages, which is more time-consuming.

How to display products by category with WooCommerce Product Table Ultimate

Here, we’ll go over how you can display products by category using the WooCommerce Product Table Ultimate plugin. For this, you will need a WordPress site with WooCommerce installed.

Step #1: Install the WooCommerce Product Table Ultimate plugin

Start off by getting the WooCommerce Product Table Ultimate plugin and installing it on your WooCommerce site. Once you get the plugin’s ZIP file, navigate to Plugins → Add New and upload the plugin to your site. After the plugin is installed, make sure to activate it on your WooCommerce site.

Next, navigate to WooCommerce → Settings → Product Table Ultimate and click on the Licence tab from the top.

Enter the license key given to you at the time of purchase and click on the Activate this license button to continue.

Step #2: Create categories for products

The next step is to start creating WooCommerce categories for your products, if you haven’t done so already. To do this, navigate to Products → Categories to create categories for your WooCommerce products.

After giving your WooCommerce category a new name and description, you can also upload a category image to visually represent the product category on your online store. Once you’re ready, click on the Add new category button at the bottom.

Now, navigate to your product’s edit page and scroll down to the Product categories meta box.

Select the category you just created to group the product under that category. Click on the Update button once you’re done.

Step #3: Override your store and category pages

Let’s start creating product tables. The easiest way to do this is by using the Override Pages option. This way you can replace your entire store or category pages, rather than using shortcodes to add your table to an existing page.

Open the Product Table Ultimate tab in WooCommerce, and enter which pages you want to override. For the purposes of this topic, we’ll assume you want to display product tables in all your category pages, so select Category Pages using the Override Pages dropdown field to enable product tables on the default WooCommerce category pages.

You can then customise your product tables. Enter all the information you want to display in your table columns, such as the thumbnail, product name, categories you want to include, product price, and whether you want to include an add-to-cart button.

Step #4: Add product tables using blocks and shortcodes

If you’d like to add product tables to existing pages rather than overriding them, you can add blocks and shortcodes to selected pages. Here’s how:

Navigate to Pages → Add New to create a new page and set basic page details.

Click on the “+” button to add a new WooCommerce block and select Product Table Ultimate from the list.

Using the Block settings tab, you can set the Product Source dropdown menu to Categories and specify the WooCommerce category’s ID using the text field below. This will display all products within a specific WooCommerce category on the product page, even if you have hundreds of products within a single category. You can also select how variations are displayed in the product table using the Variations Display dropdown menu and set order and sorting options for your product table.

In addition to this, you can also specify which fields are sortable and which ones are filterable to make it easier for your customers to find the products they need quickly. For instance, you can let users sort all products within a category by price. Similarly, you can also let users filter specific products from the table by category or by product tags.

Once you’re ready, click on the Publish button to continue.

Step #5: Display product tables on your site

Product tables make a huge difference to the overall shopping experience of your online store.

Customers can view all products within a WooCommerce category on a single page and add them to their cart easily. Users can sort all products within a category by clicking on the columns within the product table and selecting multiple products to purchase.

Once customers are done selecting multiple products, they can add them to their shopping cart all at once using the Add all to cart button at the bottom. This helps speed up the buying process on your WooCommerce category pages and encourages more purchases.

Bonus: Add extra options to your product tables

The WooCommerce Product Table Ultimate also integrates seamlessly with the WooCommerce Product Add-Ons Ultimate plugin. This lets you include add-ons to the products in your table which is highly useful when displaying products by category. 

WooCommerce Product Add-Ons Ultimate lets you add extra options such as checkbox fields, dropdown fields, image swatches, color swatches, upload fields, and date picker fields to your WooCommerce products.

By integrating WooCommerce Product Table Ultimate with WooCommerce Product Add-Ons Ultimate, you can let customers choose product variations directly from the table. This eliminates the need for them to navigate to a different page before they can add the product to their shopping cart. The plugin also lets you showcase subcategory items for customers to add to their shopping cart. For instance, if customers add a shaving kit to their shopping cart, you can display additional items that they might be interested in as cross-sell products, like aftershave.

Improve your store by displaying products by category

Displaying your WooCommerce products in categories is essential if you want to offer easy navigation on your online store. It helps your customers find what they’re looking for quickly when shopping from your WooCommerce site. As a result, this helps boost conversions and makes your online store user-friendly.

The best way to achieve this in WooCommerce is by using the WooCommerce Product Table Ultimate plugin. It’s the perfect solution if you want to group and showcase multiple products from your store’s catalogue in a central place using a product table. The product table not only makes it easier to list multiple products from a WooCommerce category on one page but is great for offering shoppers the ability to add multiple products to their cart using one button.

Ready to display products by category on your WooCommerce site? Get WooCommerce Product Table Ultimate today!