Product Availability Slots for WooCommerce

Product Availability Slots for WooCommerce can help you Sell Products on Fixed Time Slots in your WooCommerce Shop.

Installation

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1. Download the .zip file from your WooCommerce account.
2. Go to: WordPress Admin > Plugins > Add New and Upload Plugin with the file you downloaded with Choose File.
3. Install Now and Activate the extension.

More information at: Install and Activate Plugins/Extensions.

Setup and Configuration

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To set up the extension, go to WordPress Admin > Product Availability Slots

General

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General Settings

• If you wish to display the countdown timer for product availability on shop page, then enable the “Display Countdown Timer for Product Availability on the Shop Page” option.
• If you wish to display the countdown timer for product availability on the product page, then enable the “Display Countdown Timer for Product Availability on the Product Page” option.
• If you wish to hide Expired products from the shop page, enable the “Hide Expired products” option. When enabled, Expired Simple Products will be moved to draft. The expired variant of a Variable Product will be hidden from the variation selection. If all the variations of the product are expire, the entire product will be moved to draft.
• By default, timezone details will be displayed to the user in the product page. If you want to hide the timezone details to the user, enable the “Hide Timezone details in Product Page” option.
• By default, the date will be displayed in the Y-M-D format. If you want the date to be displayed as per the format set in WordPress date settings, choose “WordPress Format” in “Date Format” option.
• Using the “Display Plugin Menu for” option, you can choose who can access the Product Availability Slots settings menu. When “Administrator Only” (default) is selected, the menu is displayed only to Administrators. When “Administrator & Shop Manager” is selected, users with the Shop Manager role can also access the plugin menu and its settings.

Time Settings

• Using the “Time Interval between each Slot” option, you can set the time to display between each slot at the product configuration .
• You can set the buffer time for your users when they didn’t complete the purchase before the slot time.

For Example

• You have configured the slot between 6 pm – 8 pm so that users can purchase the product up to 8 pm.
• If a user didn’t complete the purchase before 8 pm, then the product added won’t be removed from the cart. It stays for the time configured in Buffer Time settings and helps them to complete the purchase.
• In case, if they failed to complete the purchase during the buffer time, then the product will be automatically removed from the cart.
• If you wish to display the scheduled products for specific users/user roles, then make use of the options given in the “Restriction Settings”.

Countdown Timer Styles

• Using the “Countdown Timer Styles” option, you can choose the design in which the countdown timer and its availability message are displayed on the shop and product pages. Four styles are available (Style 1, Style 2, Style 3 and Style 4), with Style 1 as the default. A preview image of the selected style is displayed below the option so you can see how the timer will look before saving.

Restriction Settings

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• By default, the product availability slots will be applicable for all users. If you want the product availability slots to be applied to specific users/user roles, you can do so by customizing the “Show Product Availability Slots for” option.
• By default, when a user is restricted, they will not be allowed to purchase the product even when the product is available for purchase. If you want the restricted users to purchase the products anytime they want, select “can purchase the product(s) anytime” in the Restricted Users/User Role(s) option.

Shop Level Settings

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• If you wish to close product purchase on your shop, you can do so enabling the “Close your Shop” option. When this option is enabled, your users will not be able to purchase from your shop.
• A notice will be displayed to the user across the site. The content of notice, display position, notice Background color and Font Color can be customized.
  • Shop Page Message – The message displayed in the notice banner when the shop is closed. Default: “Currently shop is closed.”
  • Notice Background Color – Sets the background color of the shop closed notice banner. Default: #9b5c8f.
  • Notice Font Color – Sets the text color of the shop closed notice banner. Default: #ffffff.
  • Message to display on – Choose the pages on which the shop closed notice banner should be displayed. You can select any WordPress page (including the Shop page), “Single product page” and “Product category page“. By default, the notice is displayed on the Shop page, Single product page and Product category page.
• The above notice fields are displayed only when the “Close your Shop” option is enabled. When the shop is closed, the Add to cart button is removed from the product page, the add to cart buttons on the shop and category pages are replaced with a “Read more” button linking to the product, and the Place order button is removed from the checkout page.

Custom CSS

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• Using the “Custom CSS” option, you can add your own CSS rules to customize the appearance of the plugin’s front-end elements such as the availability messages and the countdown timer. The CSS entered here is added to the front end of your site as an inline style.

Troubleshoot Settings

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These options help you resolve display or purchase conflicts with your theme or other plugins by changing the position and priority at which the plugin hooks into WooCommerce.

• Using the “Position to display the Availability Details in the Shop and Category Pages” option, you can choose where the availability details (message and countdown timer) are displayed for each product on the shop and category pages, and set the hook priority in the number field next to it. The available positions are Before Shop Loop Item, Before Shop Loop Item Title, Shop Loop Item, After Shop Loop Item Title (default) and After Shop Loop Item. The default priority is 10.
• Using the “Hook Priority for Purchase (woocommerce_is_purchasable)” option, you can set the priority at which the plugin decides whether a product is purchasable. The default value is 10. If another plugin or your theme overrides the purchasable status of the product, adjust this value so that the plugin’s availability rules take effect.
• Using the “Hook Priority to display the Availability Details(woocommerce_single_product_summary)” option, you can set the position of the availability details on the single product page. The default value is 25. For reference, the default WooCommerce priorities are: 5 – Product Title, 10 – Product rating, 10 – Product price, 20 – Product excerpt, 30 – Product add to cart, 40 – Product meta, 50 – Product sharing. For example, a value between 10 and 20 displays the availability details after the price and before the product excerpt.

Bulk Actions

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If you want to configure Product Availability Slots for multiple products at once, you can do so by using the Bulk Update settings. To configure go to WordPress Admin > Product Availability Slots > Bulk Actions.

• In “Product Availability Slots Products/Categories” option, choose the products/categories you want to update.
• All Product(s) – The configuration will be applied to all the products in your shop.
• Select Product(s) to Include / Select Product(s) to Exclude – Search and select the specific products to which the configuration should be applied or from which it should be excluded.
• Select Categories to Include / Select Categories to Exclude – Select the product categories whose products should be included in or excluded from the update.
• Select Product Tag(s) to Include / Select Product Tag(s) to Exclude – Select the product tags whose products should be included in or excluded from the update.
• Select Product Brand(s) to Include / Select Product Brand(s) to Exclude – Select the product brands whose products should be included in or excluded from the update.
• Enable the Product Availability Slots checkbox.
• If you want to restrict the product purchase only to days of the week, then in Availability Type option, set the value as “Unlimited Days”.
• If you want to restrict the product purchase to a specific date range, then in Availability Type option, set the value as “Limited Days”.
• When “Limited Days” is selected, the “Date Ranges” fields will be displayed. Set the From date and the To date between which the product can be purchased. When “Without Slots” is selected in the Days option, a time field is also displayed next to each date so that you can set the exact start time and end time of the date range.
• Set the Start and End Time for the days in which you want to sell the product.
• If you wish to configure the slots for each day/specific day, then select With Slots in Days option & add the slots based on your needs.
• You can go with Multiple Time Slots/Single Time Slot when choosing With Slots option.
• When “With Slots” is selected in the Days option, choose how the slots should be configured using the “Configuration Mode” option:
  • Advanced Setup – Configure the time slots separately for each day of the week. Each day has its own Add Slot button, so you can add one or more slots with different timings for different days.
  • Quick Setup – Configure one common set of slots for multiple days. Select the days on which the product should be available in the “Available Days” checkboxes, add the slots under “Quick Setup Slots“, and choose the days to which these slots should be applied in the “Time slot applies to” field. Available days that are not selected in the “Time slot applies to” field will be available for the whole day.
• For each slot, you can set the Start time, the End time and the Stock Qty. The Stock Qty limits the number of units of the product that can be purchased within that slot across all orders. Once the stock for the slot is sold out, users cannot purchase the product until the next slot and the “Purchase Limit Reached” message will be displayed. Leave the field empty if you do not want to limit the quantity for the slot.
• Use the “×” button to remove a single slot, or the “Remove All” button to remove all the slots configured for the day.
• If you wish to configure the availability of the products for the whole day, then select the Without Slots in Days option & enable the checkbox for the day(s) you wish to configure.
• You can select whether the User(s)/User Role Restriction should apply from either Global Level/Product Level.
• When “Global Level” is selected, the restriction configured in General > Restriction Settings will be applied to the selected products.
• When “Product Level” is selected, the “Show Product Availability Slots for“, “Select User(s) to Include“, “Select User(s) to Exclude“, “Select User role(s) to Include“, “Select User role(s) to Exclude” and “Restricted User(s)/User Role(s)” options will be displayed so that you can configure a separate restriction for the selected products. These options work the same as in the Restriction Settings.
• You can setup Days Off by in the Days Off section.
• Click the “+ Add Days Off” button and set the Start Date and End Date of the period during which the product should not be available for purchase. Both dates are mandatory.
• Enable the “Repeat Every year” checkbox if the days off should be applied every year on the same dates (for example, annual holidays).
• Use the “×” button to remove a days off row.
• When “Without Slots” is selected in the Days option, only the Days Off tab will be displayed.
• Click the “Save & Update” Button.
• Once you click the “Save & Update” button, the configuration is applied to the selected products in the background and a progress bar is displayed. When the update is complete, the message “Bulk Action Data Save Completed Successfully.” is displayed and you can return to the Bulk Actions settings using the “Go to Settings” button.

Messages

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In this section, the messages displayed while interacting with availability of the products can be customized.

Analytics

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The Analytics tab provides insights into how your time slot products sell across days, hours and slot windows. To view it, go to the Analytics tab in the Product Availability Slots settings. This tab is read-only and has no settings to save.

• Date range – Choose the period for the report: Last 7 days, Last 30 days (default), Last 90 days or Last 12 months. The dashboard updates without reloading the page.
• Summary – Displays the key figures for the selected period: Units sold in slots, Slot revenue, Avg. revenue / unit, Slot windows sold, Products with sales and Order count.
• Units by purchase hour – A chart showing the number of units sold by the hour of the day in which the orders were placed (site time).
• Units by weekday – A chart showing the busiest days of the week based on the units sold.
• Peak demand heatmap – A heatmap of units sold by day of the week and hour in which the order was placed, helping you identify the peak demand periods.
• Top products – Lists the best-selling slot products by units sold.
• Expired / unavailable – Lists the slot-enabled products which no longer have any upcoming availability.
• Sales by slot window – A detailed list of the orders placed for slot-enabled products, showing the order, product, slot from, slot to, units and revenue.
• Sales without a slot configuration – A list of orders for products without a slot configuration, showing the order, product, order date, units and revenue.
• Export CSV – Downloads the sales by slot window data for the selected period as a CSV file containing the Product ID, Product, Slot From, Slot To, Units and Revenue.
• Only orders with the Completed, Processing and On hold statuses are counted in the analytics. The purchased slot details are saved with each order line item at checkout, so the reports reflect the slot that was actually purchased.

Product Configuration

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Simple Product

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For Simple Products, the settings will be available in the Product Availability Slots section on the Product Configuration page.

• The product-level settings contain the same options as the Bulk Actions settings: Enable Product Availability Slots, Availability Type, Days, Date Ranges, Configuration Mode, Available Days, User(s)/User Role Restriction apply from (with the product-level restriction options), and the Days and Days Off tabs for configuring the slots and days off. Settings configured at the product level apply only to that product.

Variable Product

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For Variable Products, the settings will be available inside each variation on the Product Configuration page.

Each variation can be configured with its own availability type, slots, slot stock, restrictions and days off. The slot stock configured for a variation is tracked separately for that variation.

Translation

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Product Availability Slots for WooCommerce Plugin is translation ready meaning you can edit the po files by which you can translate the text to any language.

The steps to do the translation are as follows. For eg let us consider translation to French.

• Download and install Poedit.
• Open the file product-availability-slots-for-woocommerce > languages folder > product-availability-slots-for-woocommerce.pot using Poedit.
• Create a new translation file by clicking Create new translation button.
• Choose the Source text and set its corresponding French text in Translation Text Area.
• Save the changes.
• Save the file name as product-availability-slots-for-woocommerce-fr_FR.po.
• If you are using WordPress Version 3.9.13 or below, then in wp-config.php define the WPLANG as French. Syntax is define(‘WPLANG’, ‘fr_FR’);
• If you are using WordPress Version 4.0 or above, then go to WordPress dashboard > Settings > General and select the Site Language as French.

FAQ

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Q: Is it possible to sell the products that can be purchased on specific days of the week with time slots?
Example: Monday (09 am – 11.30 pm), Wednesday (09 am – 11.30 pm) & Friday (09 am – 11.30 pm).

Yes, it is possible. Please check by following the below steps,

• Create a New Product/Edit the Existing Product
• Enable the Product Availability Slots checkbox
• Select “Unlimited Days” in the Availability Type option & select With Time Slots in the Days option.
• Select “Multiple Time Slots” in Days with option.
• Set the Start Time as 09 am & End Time as 11.30 pm for Monday, Wednesday & Friday.

– Save the settings so that users can purchase the products only within the specified time. Outside the specified time, a Notice & Countdown Timer will be displayed about the next Available Date & Time.

Q: Is it possible to sell some of the products only from Wednesday to Saturday every week?

Yes, it is possible. Please check by following the below steps,

• Create a New Product/Edit the Existing Product
• Enable the Product Availability Slots checkbox
• Select “Unlimited Days” in the Availability Type option.
• Select Without Slots in the Days option.
• Enable the following checkboxes
  • Wednesday
  • Thursday
  • Friday
  • Saturday

• Save the settings

Q: Is it possible to sell the products that can be purchased only during the Specific Date Range[i.e. AUG 01, 2023 to AUG 31, 2023]?

• Create a New Product/Edit the Existing Product
• Enable Product Availability Slots checkbox
• Select “Limited Days” in the Availability Type option.
• Select Without Slots in the Days option.
• Set the From Date as AUG 01, 2023 & To Date as AUG 31, 2023.
• If you don’t want to sell on some days[i.e. Saturday & Sunday] in between the above date range, then disable the checkboxes for those 2 days.
• Save the settings

Note: Once the To Date has been reached, then the product will not be purchasable anymore on the site.

Q: Why the products are not moving to draft/not hidden when the product becomes unavailable even though I enabled this checkbox[Hide Expired Products]?

Please check the below details about the flow of the Hide Expired Products option,

We have given “Availability Type” as “Unlimited Days” & “Limited Days”.

i) If you choose “Unlimited Days”, then the configured product will be available for purchase based on the slots configured on your site & it will continue.

• If the user comes to your site on the unavailable slot, a message will be displayed with the date & time so that they can come to know when this product will be again available for purchase. In this case, the product will not be hidden in this scenario.

ii) If you choose “Limited Days”, then you need to set the “From & To Date Range” so that the product will be purchasable only in between the From & To Date & users can purchase the product only in the configured slots[ex. every Wednesday from 10:00 a.m. to 06:00 p.m. from June 01 to June 30].

• Once the To Date[June 30] has been reached, then the corresponding product will be expired & from then onward the product is no longer purchasable anymore on your site.
• At this moment, this product will be visible on your site but users can’t purchase & the below message will be displayed on the shop & product page.

“Currently, this product is Unavailable”.

• In this case, if you wish to hide this product automatically from your site, then you can make use of this option[Hide Expired Products].

iv) Similarly, it follows the same behavior for the Variable Products.

For example:

Product A contains two variations[V1 & V2].
V1 – Availability Date Range[10th June – 20th June]
V2 – Availability Date Range[15th June – 28th June]

• In this case, if you view the product between 10th June to 20th June, then you can see the availability information when selecting both variations.
• Variation V1 will be hidden from the selection after 20th June & the whole variable product will be moved to draft after 28th June. This is how this option will work.