What’s new in WooCommerce 3.3: Revamped Orders screen, shop display improvements, and stock management improvements.

Since our last minor release in October, we’ve been working on a variety of improvements to WooCommerce:

  • Redesigned Orders screen for easier order management.
  • Simpler and more intuitive stock management.
  • Image sizing and theme compatibility improvements.
  • Shop customization features.

To ensure this update is stable, we’ve been doing plenty of testing and QA on our side with an extended beta period, increased unit and integration test coverage, compatibility testing with our extensions, working with customers to do managed updates, and running 3.3 on WooCommerce.com.

WooCommerce 3.3 is a minor release, meaning it should be fully backwards compatible with all WooCommerce releases since 3.0. However, it’s still considered best practice, and recommended, to backup before updating.

We recommend viewing our documentation on how to update, making a backup, updating extensions, and finally updating WooCommerce via WP Admin.

Here are some more details about what’s new in 3.3

Revamped Orders screen

↑ Volver al principio

The revamped Orders screen in WooCommerce 3.3

The design of the Orders screen has been overhauled to make it easier to view and manage orders. Small, confusing icons are replaced with large, clear buttons, and we’ve added the ability to view order items and details right from the Orders screen. You can get all the add-a-glance information needed to deal with new orders without needing to edit the order!

Read more about this at our development blog.

Improved and automated backorders handling for products with managed stock

↑ Volver al principio

WooCommerce 3.3 features improved and automated backorders handling for products with managed stock

We’ve added a new stock status for products on backorder. When a product has stock management enabled it will gracefully transition from «In stock» to «On backorder» or «Out of stock» as the inventory decreases. When more inventory is added the product will automatically go back to «In stock». There are also improvements on the Products screen aimed at making it quick and easy for store owners to find and identify out of stock or backordered inventory.

Read more about this at our development blog.

Better support for non-WooCommerce themes and the ability to set the number of rows and columns for your shop.

↑ Volver al principio

Previously if you wanted to use WooCommerce you had to find a theme that declared WooCommerce support for the best results. We’ve improved the way WooCommerce renders on themes that don’t formally declare WooCommerce support, so now you should be able to use WooCommerce with almost any theme from WordPress.org.

Comparison of WooCommerce store running Bassist theme and WC 3.2 (left) and WC 3.3 (right)
Comparison of WooCommerce store running Bassist theme and WC 3.2 (left) and WC 3.3 (right)

We’ve also added the ability to set the number of shop columns and rows with a live preview in the Customizer. The columns will gracefully resize to fill the whole width of the area, and this feature is available on all themes.

Set the number of shop columns and rows with a live preview in the Customizer

Read more about these at our development blog.

Choose the aspect ratio of store images and automatic thumbnail regeneration

↑ Volver al principio

Choose the aspect ratio of store images, with automatic thumbnail regeneration

We’ve added the ability to customize the aspect ratio of product images in your shop. You can have classic square images, custom cropped images, or even uncropped images.

To go along with this feature, we’ve automated thumbnail regeneration. In the past when you changed a product image WordPress would not actually resize the image and you had to install a plugin like Regenerate Thumbnails in order to have WordPress resize the images for you. In WooCommerce 3.3 we have now added on-the-fly thumbnail resizing as well as background thumbnail resizing.

Read more about this at our development blog.

Product downloads are logged and can be viewed and analyzed

↑ Volver al principio

Product downloads are logged and can be viewed and analyzed

We’ve added logging features for product downloads. When customers download products from your store, you can view and analyze the download logs with a variety of built-in filters, including by order, by customer, by product, and by file.

Read more about this at our development blog.

But wait there’s more!

  • Live preview of site display settings in the Customizer.
  • Search for extensions right on the admin Extensions screen.
  • Improved setup wizard featuring new gateways to get new stores started quickly and professionally.
  • If you’re using the database logger, we’ve added the ability to search the logs.
  • We’ve added the ability to add pagination for the products shortcode and also added support for product tags.

Features for developers

↑ Volver al principio

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 WooCommerce 3.3.

Ready to update?

↑ Volver al principio

Ready to give WooCommerce 3.3 a shot? Review our documentation about how to update, make sure backups are in place, and then grab the update in WP Admin.

We’re here if you need us:

Please note that we are not able to diagnose or solve potential issues via blog comments. The fastest way to get in touch with us is one of the methods listed above.

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!

Visit the extensions marketplace to customize your store
Claudiu Lodromanean Avatar

About

60 comments

  1. A really good article, this is so helpful and I am looking forward to seeing it became the more stable version of WooCommerce.

    Megri
    enero 31, 2018
  2. Since the update, I no longer have the option showing for storewide site notice showing in my Woocommerce settings, however, I now have a storewide site notice stuck to the top of my site because woocommerce updated before I could remove it. Help?

    Shelley
    enero 31, 2018
    • Shelley, the ‘missing’ settings have been moved to the customizer under the Appearance menu.

      Dwight
      enero 31, 2018
      • Dwight. YOU ROCK! Thank you!

        Shelley
        enero 31, 2018
      • Thanks for helping out, Dwight 🙂

        Marina Pape
        febrero 5, 2018
  3. This has happened on more than one site

    Why are my product lists on page now also showing the categories ?

    How do I remove these ?

    Brett
    enero 31, 2018
    • Try going to Appearance > Customizer > WooCommerce > Product catalog
      These settings have also been moved and appear to have been reset to default. (I’m also having issues with Shop page not displaying. Luckily, I only updated the development version.)

      Dwight
      enero 31, 2018
  4. My site is now showing categories on all shop category pages even though it is set to only show product in the product display customiser ? I’ve tried all settings and resetting but nothing changes. Is this a glitch?

    Nicky
    enero 31, 2018
    • still showing categories then products

      Scott
      enero 31, 2018
    • Re-doing those settings which were reset worked for me. Perhaps you could check if your category pages are cached at some level and need to be flushed. Caching could be by a plugin you are using for that purpose, your web host, (depending on the host and plan you are using) or even a CDN.

      Dwight
      enero 31, 2018
      • No didn’t work for me will have to wait for the update. Theme developers fobbing me off too – even though getting the templates outdated message.

        Another issue though is on order emails to admins and customer the word «Test» appears in the emails – right under Order number and before the table holding product info. Any idea why this would be? Only appeared after updates.

        Nicky
        febrero 1, 2018
        • The «Test» message was a bug. Will be fixed in 3.3.1. We’ve also added some backwards-compatibility handling for outdated theme files in 3.3.1 to prevent the categories always showing.

          Pre-release version of 3.3.1 is available at https://woocommerce.wordpress.com/2018/02/01/woocommerce-3-3-1-status-update/ if you’d like to test and 3.3.1 will be released this week.

          Claudiu Lodromanean
          febrero 5, 2018
  5. This update broke my display. My site I had set to show only products. This was set in Woocommerce–settings–products. This update some how reverted my display back to the old way. Now in the new display settings it won’t change to the way I had it. My site now shows products stacked on top of categories and its ugly. Looks like my 6 year old built it. Any help would be appreciated. https://getitunlocked.com if you want to see how it looks.

    Nevell Holmes
    enero 31, 2018
  6. There is definitely an issue with categories and the developers are aware.
    Go here for more:
    https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wc-3-3-issues-with-categories-displaying-in-shop/
    An update in WC 3.3.1 is coming out and a patch is also available.

    Dwight
    enero 31, 2018
  7. I call this the worst update as far as the orders page is concerned. Here is why:

    1) There is an awful gap generated between the Order and Preview columns (when both billing and shipping address columns enabled) causing the Action column to get pushed off to the far right side. This is awfully frustrating because now you have to drag the screen to right to see the actions column, or you need a 27 inch monitor.

    2) Also, what was wrong with the user’s link on the orders page? Say I view the order and notice I need to update the customer’s account (ex. shipping address, phone number etc). I used to be able to go directly to their account from the orders page. Now with that link gone, I have to go USERS menu, search their name. EXTRA unnecessary steps.

    This link was also particularly helpful in taking phone orders. First you view customer’s order history, then from there you go directly to their account, switch, and complete the order for them. Now you have to do a bunch of extra steps, go to USERS menu, search etc….

    Please bring the user link back. It makes all the sense in the world. Just think about it, the imperative connection between order(s) and user account is awfully long now.

    Lauren Mirabdollah
    febrero 1, 2018
    • Yep have the same problem.

      1) There is an awful gap generated between the Order and Preview columns (when both billing and shipping address columns enabled) causing the Action column to get pushed off to the far right side. This is awfully frustrating because now you have to drag the screen to right to see the actions column, or you need a 27 inch monitor.

      stuartacey
      febrero 7, 2018
  8. Great to see all the improvements here. The new templates and way of delivering the categories and products in the template were interesting. I wasn’t sure what was behind that?

    It seemed to me that the removal of categories as a specific hook in the default layout and migrating the options to the Theme Customizer was not really necessary.

    Matt Knighton
    febrero 2, 2018
  9. Images in our opinion have a huge impact on buyers and search engines. This should be a concern

    Katanesia
    febrero 2, 2018
  10. Worst update ever. the orders screen is not intuitive at all and i cant see any content in my products screen, no description, its all gone.

    every day im discovering other parts taht are broken,, my site ofers finance options and all csn files installed by finance provider are gone.

    total mess

    mike
    febrero 3, 2018
    • Try out the pre-release version of 3.3.1. It should solve these issues. If it doesn’t please let me know what theme you’re using and I’ll see what the issue is. Most likely the theme you’re using declares WooCommerce support on the ‘init’ hook instead of the ‘after_setup_theme’ hook (https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/add_theme_support/).

      Pre-release version of 3.3.1 is available at https://woocommerce.wordpress.com/2018/02/01/woocommerce-3-3-1-status-update/ and 3.3.1 will be released this week.

      Claudiu Lodromanean
      febrero 5, 2018
      • While we’re waiting for the 3.3.27465 fixes to the fixes to the fixes, maybe oy guys should wrap your brains around this –

        Quality Control
        noun
        1.
        a system for verifying and maintaining a desired level of quality in an existing product or service by careful planning, use of proper equipment, continued inspection, and corrective action as required.

        manhattanfarmers
        febrero 17, 2018
  11. My status column doesn’t display anything. i have to use a mouse over to find out the order status, I would like the little status boxes in your print screen above with «processing» in green rectangle, etc.

    And i thought previously i had a shipping column, now the shipping is appended to the ship to address so i see ……..Melbourne, Australia, 3000 via free shipping. Makes it really hard to skim down and see the different orders with various shipping methods.

    Craig
    febrero 5, 2018
  12. woocommerce does not support multi-currency display, many people need this feature, I know a lot of plug-ins can be done, but this very basic function, almost all other shopping cart systems are integrated, the development of this function is not complicated, hope you guys can integrate it. It’s not worth the extra plug-in for this little feature.

    maoxx62
    febrero 6, 2018
  13. Stock status appears to be missing. Really dislike the orders screen! Both categories and products display in a right mess.

    Bew
    febrero 6, 2018
  14. New orders dashboard in 3.3.1 does display correctly. Missing order update label. Name alignment is to the right. Cannot see the prodcut

    stuartacey
    febrero 6, 2018
  15. I would like to see responsive grid options for tablets AND phones. That would really help speed up creating WooCommerce stores.

    Sian Richards
    febrero 6, 2018
    • Not grid options, product display options! Like I may want 5 in a row on desktop but only two on mobile.

      Sian Richards
      febrero 6, 2018
  16. Since the update, when I choose ‘show categories’ in ‘shop page display’ customisation I get the message «No products were found matching your selection.»
    When I choose ‘show categories & products’ both categories and products show up as they should (which I don’t want).
    I’m using the Mystile template.

    H is for Home
    febrero 7, 2018
  17. I like this new designing

    deb giri3
    febrero 7, 2018
  18. Hi,
    after the update I saw the new product category «uncategorized» that is displayed on the top of product list in shop page even if it’s empty: how can I delete it? Or hide in shop page?

    ateacme
    febrero 8, 2018
  19. The latest update of WooCommerce has removed the quick reference icon on the orders page in admin panel. We used to be able to scroll over an icon and view customer notes on the fly without having to click on anything. Looking for a solution, because this new system has dramatically slowed down order processing time.

    A
    febrero 9, 2018
    • Agree! That was really helpful!

      emmatheblushingfox
      febrero 16, 2018
  20. On nn iPad (or indeed any tablet) one cannot click a menu item with subitems, it just loads the main page for that item. I have 3.3.1 installed. A top-level menu should show the sub-menus as a drop-down. This seems like a basic mobile UX mistake?

    slimeshopper
    febrero 9, 2018
  21. PLEASE bring back the «customers note» icon!! this was such a critical feature for my store!! I need to be able to see AT A GLANCE as I scroll through my orders if a customer has made a note with their order.

    Alex
    febrero 11, 2018
  22. This update is working fine in our online store gadget-group.com.

    Online Store in Bangladesh
    febrero 12, 2018
  23. Hi
    since the latest update my products images are over-size and product page layout is messed up – can this be fixed please?

    Thanks

    Dave Kearley
    febrero 12, 2018
    • same here my image are over-sized to on the product. also the pages shop form woocommerce can’t be load as well. i used theme form elegentTheme still can’t be fixed.

      mz itech
      febrero 12, 2018
  24. Is there a problem with variation images showing in 3.3.1? I have just tested and when selected the single product doesn’t change to match the variation selection.

    milkyteeuk
    febrero 12, 2018
  25. Hola buen por la dia, Estoy usando la plantilla no quiero fotografía si deseo propuesta Estadio futbol visita con necesitado invitación si puede mas fotografía tomar buena enviar wordpress mas puede fotos visitante me manda ?

    danielalexissanchezuribe1981
    febrero 14, 2018
  26. I am unable to ‘add products’ when i add a manual order…. anyone else have this issue?

    emmatheblushingfox
    febrero 16, 2018
  27. The new order screen… looks and sucks like JIRA

    – How can I see now if the client left an important note (hovering on every order is idiotic and doesn’t event display the special note from checkout) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    – How can I see how he payed? (yeah right, fuckin hovering)
    – Fuck your «30min ago» – this isn’t Facebook, display the exact fuckin hour for all dates if you want an improvement

    It will probably take years for you to put some very small thumbnails with the products ordered somewhere, oh wait we now have a preview modal, fantastic.. just fuckin copy a torrent tracker interface and use hover the smart way to display names and images of the PRODUCTS ORDERED.

    Sorin Nedelcu
    febrero 16, 2018
  28. Why did they remove Category on Single Product in the new updates? This is a pain in the back! Please bring it back.

    Brooksfire
    febrero 16, 2018
  29. THANKS FOR BREAKING MY WEBSITE.

    Is it possible to roll back this P.O.S. «iimprovement?»

    manhattanfarmers
    febrero 17, 2018
  30. I don’t understand why you can’t just offer more options for features instead of just outright removing them. For example, my client loved the colored order status icons. Those are gone. Customer order notes. Gone. The change status buttons on the far right are not intuitive. It would be nice to have the option of keeping those features instead of losing them.
    My client called and screamed at me for changing things when all I did was just update WC. Seriously, this update really sucks and you should be ashamed. Maybe I should let you talk to him. You guys are totally out of touch with your customer base.

    Keith D Pickett
    febrero 19, 2018
    • Totally agree 1 People get used of using Woo and then it is changed for no smart reason. This is VERY BORING.

      AdvisorExpertWordpress
      febrero 22, 2018
    • I agree. This thread is certainly illuminating. I am a freelance editor which means I take part payments a lot of the time. If I don’t want to have to raise a separate PayPal invoice and annoy my clients with endless admin, I have to pay £179 for use of a plugin (Yeah, I know) which does allow me to make part payments and deposits. Suffice to say, I am sticking with Paypal and until they sort that out, stop ripping people off, and fix the stuff they broke I am not upgrading.

      Anna Johnstone
      febrero 23, 2018
  31. Really frustrated. I have quite a few categories, sub categories and many many products. I simply want to show the categories alone on the shop page with a click through to sub-categories and then another to products. Not a chance in hell of achieving this and it looks messy with the subcategories showing up as well and hard to negotiate. It really should be a no brainer as a requirement for people with huge inventories to deal with.

    Dale
    febrero 20, 2018
  32. Gone are the abilities to print an order from the order page…….

    David
    febrero 20, 2018
  33. Although it took a little while to iron out a few issues I’m really happy with the changes made. Love the revamped orders section. Keep up the great work!

    Gaz Hall
    febrero 20, 2018
  34. Since the update, clicking «add to cart» does not take people to the shopping cart. Yes, I’ve checked the box in settings that makes this happen (it was always like that). In fact, random pages in the dashboard will not load upon clicking the first time. Is anyone else seeing this? Site worked fine yesterday.

    Chris Denny
    febrero 21, 2018
  35. Orders screen should display email address as before.

    If you had ever worked on a real shop, you would know that we sometimes need to find previous orders of a customer and that it is a lot faster to use Chrome CONTROL + F to search for this customer email than do an order search by using the search field.

    I am still wondering why people modify so useless things and still do not care to make Woocommerce really faster..

    So many things are changed and should not be changed, everytime I update woocommerce I fear the troubles that you are causing on things that were perfectly fine.

    AdvisorExpertWordpress
    febrero 22, 2018
    • Hi there,
      a customer of mine also wanted the mail addresses back on the admin orders screen.

      Its actually pretty simple to add/show the mail address, additionally.
      I made a quick Gist: https://gist.github.com/LWS-Web/869e41c543ae91ead550828929578c7e

      Have a nice day!

      LWS-Werbung
      febrero 23, 2018
      • Thank you!!!
        If you know how to add the order notes icon back in also that would be amazing…

        valerie Robinson
        febrero 26, 2018
  36. Terrible stupid updates..!!!
    Instead of doing important things they do usless design changes… soooooo disappointing.!!!
    1. Make ‘save and close ‘ button like magento
    2. Built in invoices
    3. Improve the terrible ‘search’ engine
    4. A built in ‘backhand charging payments’
    5. Better analysis on returning customers

    I have soooo many

    Mike
    febrero 22, 2018
  37. Bonjour,
    Notre site a le backup de sauvegarde tout les jours. Comment savoir si ont peux mettre à jour la base de données de la dernier version woocommerce sans avoir des problèmes futures?
    Pouvez vous nous aider?
    Merci d’avance et cordiales salutations

    CRISTIANE LINS-KURY
    febrero 23, 2018
  38. Since going from v 3.2.6 to 3.3.1 my shop images now look a total mess! Previously we had the option to set height x width and to hard crop or not. All my images looked perfect.

    Now they look massive and as the only option is now setting the width, the heights are all out!!! Now I have to go through and edit and re-uplaod every single image (of which there is a lot) to make sure they are exactly the same size. Yes, maybe they should have been to start with but at least v3.2.6 handle this correctly.

    This new update is terrible. Can you please bring back the missing features/options. I don’t understand why you would remove perfectly fine (and working) features.

    Liam
    febrero 28, 2018
  39. It’s now not possible to integrate Email subscription services? Only mail chimp?

    thehappyjournals
    marzo 1, 2018

Stay up to date with WooCommerce emails

View our privacy policy. You can unsubscribe anytime.

Subscribing...

There was an error subscribing; please try again later.

Thanks for subscribing!
Emails will be sent to

You're already subscribed!
Emails are sent to

Usar sus datos personales
We and our partners process your personal data (such as browsing data, IP Addresses, cookie information, and other unique identifiers) based on your consent and/or our legitimate interest to optimize our website, marketing activities, and your user experience.