Since our last minor release back in June, we’ve been working on a multitude of improvements to improve the WooCommerce admin experience:

• Apply discounts to orders using coupons, without the chore of doing manual calculations.
• See which versions of extensions are tested with new WooCommerce updates, before updating.
• Improved management features for WooCommerce.com extensions.
• A simpler, unified shortcode for listing multiple products on pages.

To ensure this update is indeed stable, we’ve been doing plenty of testing on our side; releasing beta versions, testing our own library of extensions and themes, working with customers to do managed updates, and running 3.2 on WooCommerce.com. 👏

WooCommerce 3.2 is also a minor release, meaning it should be fully backwards compatible with 3.1 and 3.0. However, it’s still considered best practice, and recommended, to backup before updating.

Here are some more details on what’s new in 3.2!

Applying discounts to orders using coupons 🎉

Being able to apply coupons to orders was a popular request on our ideas board, and a common annoyance for store owners. In 3.2 we’ve made lots of improvements to our cart and coupons system to make this possible!

To use this new feature, simply edit an order, click the “apply coupon” button and enter a coupon code. The re-calculations will be done automatically.

You can also remove coupons from orders and have them re-calculate the totals for you!

Read more about this in our development blog.

Heads up! WooCommerce updates will warn you about outdated extensions ⚠︎

We’ve introduced some additional checks before updates run on the plugins screen in your admin dashboard. If an extension is detected as not being tested with the next version, a warning will be displayed. From that point you can either seek an update for the extension, disable it, or test it for compatibility.

Our hope is that this will improve general compatibility and incentivise plugin authors to keep things up to date with new releases.

You can read more about this feature here.

New WooCommerce.com extension management features 🔌

We’ve introduced an additional filter that allows you to easily filter your extensions by ‘Active’ to see those that are active on your site.

Once you’ve connected your site to your WooCommerce.com account you will also now see a new notification icon in the sidebar to inform you of any updates that may be available for your extensions.

Additionally, for both agencies and developers, we have implemented a new feature on WooCommerce.com which allows you to share your subscriptions with your clients (great for multi-site subscriptions) removing the need to connect your clients site to your personal WooCommerce.com account.

An improved “products” shortcode

We’ve unified the product shortcodes into one single, consolidated products shortcode which supports the options of all legacy product shortcodes. https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/wiki/Shortcodes-changes-in-3.2.0

…and more!

• There are now more accessible enhanced select boxes on the checkout and in admin with improved keyboard and screen-reader support.
• There is a new option to resend order details to customers on the edit order page.
• The wizard has been revamped to help with shipping, payment gateways, and opt-in to services like automatic taxes and shipping labels. You’ll notice this if you setup a new store on WooCommerce in the future!
• We added drag and drop sorting on the grouped product field to control display order of products on the frontend.
• Search results in your store can now be sorted.
• We added a new option to control the maximum depth of categories shown in the product category widget.

Features for developers ❤️

Developers can look forward to search helpers for products which use our CRUD system and avoid the need for direct queries.

We’re also included a few more helpful debugging tools, for example fatal errors will now be logged and can be viewed in System Status > Logs.

For a more complete list of new things, see the changelog.

You should also read the development blog to see what templates and functions have changed in 3.2.

Ready to update?

Ready to give WooCommerce 3.2 a shot? Review our documentation about how to update, make sure backups are in place, and then grab the update in WP Admin.

If you’re craving more technical details about this update, you can read our post on the develop blog!

What do you think of our latest release? Let us know in the comments!

Business ownership is a steady stream of satisfying milestones and ever-expanding to-do lists. Whether a budding WooCommerce entrepreneur or a seasoned store owner, you’re likely on the lookout for ways to cut a few corners and knock off tasks from your list.

Automation is one surefire way to boost efficiency. Read on for tips on automating WooCommerce with help from Zapier.

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Running a successful business is tough. There are transactions to track, products to update and restock, new customers to onboard, support tickets to manage—and the list goes on. Plus, with your store open for business 24/7, the pressure is on to deliver a top-notch experience for customers around the clock.

Luckily there’s a way for you to take some of that pressure off. With WooCommerce’s Zapier plugin, you can create Zaps – Zapier lingo for automations – that direct routine tasks to automatically run in the background.

You’ll spend less time entering new customer data, sending personalized emails, and managing tasks, and more time on important projects that matter to you and your customers.

Need ideas on how to get started? Below are three popular ways that business owners are using Zaps to change the way they send emails, interact with customers, and organize data.

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“What got us here won’t get us there… I want to have design leading the way. A lot more user research. A lot more mockups.”
– Matt Mullenweg

At WordCamp US 2016, Matt Mullenweg’s State of the Word outlined a vision for WordPress being design-led. Since then, WooCommerce has doubled down on our efforts to follow suit.

From growing our one-person design team to five (and still hiring!) to talking more to our customers — hearing what’s most important to them, and how eCommerce fits into their lives – we’re just getting started on our journey to make this transition, and we’re learning a lot!

Our hope is that you can take some of the lessons we’re learning and apply them to your business, no matter how big or small.

It’s never too soon or too late to start talking to your customers, understanding who they are, and how they made their way to you today.

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Conferences have a few important features, two of them being content and people. Yes, a great venue, beautiful city, and awesome swag all add to it, but at the end of the day it needs to count to invest time and money in going somewhere.

We get this. Excellence has consistently been top priority at WooConfs over the years, and 2017 will be no different.

Our schedule puts the spotlight on the best content delivered by people you’ll be glad you got to spend time with.

Here’s what you can expect at WooConf 2017.

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Sometimes we’re under the impression that finishing a WooCommerce development project is the end of the road, but that’s really just the beginning. When you hand over a site it’s the start of that store’s life cycle and, as a developer, you likely will not be the most important person on the store anymore. The store owner and their customers will be.

At least, they should be.

Upon chatting to a lot of developers, it becomes clear quite fast that it can be challenging to transfer a project successfully. What does that even mean in the first place?

Read on for tips on handing over a store successfully to your customers.

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Until yesterday if you needed to transfer a WooCommerce.com subscription to a client or another WooCommerce.com user you had to submit a ticket and one of our Happiness Engineers would transfer it on your behalf.

But no longer! You can now self-initiate a WooCommerce.com subscription transfer which can then be accepted or rejected by the user you nominate. Read on to learn more.

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Part of the celebrations around our ninth birthday have taken stock of how Woo has evolved and grown over the years.

Because support is a foundational part of our business and service, what better way to pause and review than through the voices of three of our longest serving happiness engineers.

Stuart Duff, Sven Hutchinson, and Daniel Dudzic are out on the front lines of  Woo support each day, helping to solve a wide range of requests and queries for our customers.

All three joined a budding WooThemes at similar times back in 2011, when theming was still the main source of revenue and eCommerce was just a glint in our eye, and had a lot to say about their journey so far, as well as what they feel is essential for someone wanting to take up the task of helping their customers in support.

Read on for what they had to share.

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WooCommerce is used by store owners from all over the world – store owners such as Tshegofatso Tlhong. Tshego is a young woman from Botswana with a strong entrepreneurial spirit, and is also the managing director and founder of Ziigie.com.

We sat down with Tshego to find out more about how WooCommerce is helping her to ship ideas, along with the unique challenges she faces as an eCommerce entrepreneur in southern Africa.

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Imagine you live in a major city but WordPress is virtually unknown. Websites with presence are run by the government, there’s no WordCamp or meetup or startup culture, and people think you make keyboards when you say you’re a computer engineer.

Now imagine that same city five years later. A multitude of diversified voices can be heard via blogs and websites, the most recent WordCamp attracts 300+ attendees, its online WordPress community has 5000+ registered members, at least 10 new WordPress business are born each year, and WooCommerce helps dozens of businesses start in living rooms and garages. And the shift began when everyone said a task was impossible.

This is the story of Kathmandu and Sakin Shrestha.

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Since our 3.0 release in April, we’ve been working on a slew of improvements to make it faster and simpler to get up and running with WooCommerce:

• Save time with the new, built-in import/export feature to add and update product information
• Manage WooCommerce.com subscriptions directly in WooCommerce
• Ship products more easily in the US and Canada by setting up WooCommerce Shipping

Existing stores also have new features to enhance their online storefronts — inline ‘Terms and Conditions’ in checkout, embedded videos and more in short descriptions — and improve their workflow — assigning an order to a customer for payment, updating stock status for all variations at once. And we added search helpers for developers.

That’s a lot!l Let’s dig into details.

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Our annual Golden Ticket Competition picks one lucky person for a trip to WooConf, on us! This year the WooCommerce Developers Conference is in Seattle, and we’re pleased to announce our winner is Kevin Eulenberg. Woo!

Kevin  is a  frontend developer , UX interface designer , co-founder of Froux.co, passionate musician and vinyl lover and, of course, fan of open eCommerce. His story of relaunching Canvasco.de on WooCommerce stood out, and we can’t wait for you to meet him at WooConf in October.

Read on for more about Kevin, his WooCommerce story and why he landed the golden ticket.

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Owning a Cinnabon at the mall means you’re only competing against the cookie store that’s also in that same mall. People who like cinnamon will stop by your store, and people who like oatmeal will probably visit the cookie store. You need not do much marketing because you’re only competing against one or two stores.

It’s very different online — you’re competing against the world. There isn’t just one store that sells a competing product. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, and some have big wallets, such as Amazon and Walmart.

So if you launch your online store and neglect to do any marketing, you lose your customers to established competitors.

Read on for why you need to pick a marketing channel.

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The Gold Coast of Australia is a highly sought-after tourist destination with its sunny sub-tropical climate, perfect beaches, surf culture, and buzzing nightlife.

Tourism aside, it’s a major film production hub and – the home of Thrive, a digital agency integrating WooCommerce beautifully into their clients’ stores.

Read on for our Q&A interview with Thrive’s founder, including why they chose WordPress, some projects they’ve taken on and their advice for people new to WooCommerce.

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WooCommerce Bookings can help you do amazing things, whether your goal is to sell time, accept appointments online, or rent products.

Today we’re shining a light on some creative, fun businesses that are using Bookings to power stores and bring their unique ideas to life — ice cream on demand, yes, please! We’re also excited to announce our new WooBookings Bundle!

Read on to learn four ways this extension is being used out in the wild.

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One of our longtime favorite extensions for WooCommerce is WooCommerce Bookings. It’s packed with functionality that helps businesses of all types function, from agencies to boutiques to restaurants.

But if you’ve never taken a good look at Bookings, you might not realize everything it’s capable of. This powerful extension can do much more than reserve hotel rooms or book appointments for their next haircut. Even better – if you’re setting up a new store it’s available in one of our potent bundles – check out the WooBookings Bundle.

Let’s look at how you can use WooCommerce Bookings to sell your time, organize events, and even rent products — and how these amazing options might translate into more money for your (yes, your) business.

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