Are you a WooCommerce user? If you are, here is what is new at WooCommerce!
WooCommerce is evolving.
The developers are adding many features to the plugin to help you run a perfect digital or physical store. Currently, the WooCommerce plugin already comes with excellent features.
However, this blog post will list the most requested features that WooCommerce has added to its plugin.
What is New at WooCommerce
The features that are added in the latest version of WooCommerce are:
- Developer newsletter
- Better experience for shoppers
- More admin customizations
- Improving REST API
- Block-based environment
- Better onboarding process
- Updating documentation
- Coming soon page
Below, we will explain what these features are and how they are going to help you.
1. Developer Newsletter
Developers are the backbone of WooCommerce. To help them learn more about this platform and discuss potential feature enhancements, the official WooCommerce development team created a dedicated newsletter.
The newsletter will keep you updated about the new features available in WooCommerce, practical tips, and the roadmap.
2. Better Shopper Experience
The block-based checkout process is improving.
A high-converting checkout page is not just a luxury but a necessity for several reasons.
Firstly, it significantly impacts the conversion rate optimization (CRO) of your WooCommerce store.
By streamlining the checkout process, you ensure that a higher percentage of visitors who add items to their cart complete the purchase.
This is vital because, on average, only about 2.77% of eCommerce visitors convert, and optimizing this process can dramatically improve these numbers.
3. More Admin Customizations
The latest version of the WooCommerce plugin comes with more customization features. The plugin uses drag-and-drop editing capabilities to ensure hassle-free store development.
You can tweak the store’s colors, layouts, and so on from the customizer. Besides that, WooCommerce will be compatible with all FSE (Full Site Editing) WordPress themes.
This way, you can ensure there won’t be any compatibility issues on the website. Similarly, they improved the product editor, which will help you easily create new products for your store.
Another notable feature is the analytics tool. You will see every data on the orders, how much revenue you will generate, and so on.
4. Improving WooCommerce REST API
The WooCommerce REST API leverages WordPress’s REST API infrastructure, making it easier for developers to integrate WooCommerce functionalities with other WordPress features. This is handy for building custom applications or headless eCommerce solutions.
The REST API experience WooCommerce has right now is okay. But it could be better. Now, the backlog you’ll get from WooCommerce API will be reduced.
The API has been tested for compatibility with various themes, plugins, and extensions, ensuring that it remains functional across different setups as the API evolves.
The community and WooCommerce team continuously work on ensuring that API changes do not break existing functionality unless necessary for significant improvements.
Besides this, they will also be updating the REST API documentation.
5. Block-Based Environment
Gutenberg was released after WordPress 5.0. It is a block-based editor that will help websites improve their website-building experience. WooCommerce will also follow the same structure.
WooCommerce will also transition into a block-based ecosystem, a game changer for most online store owners and merchants.
In the early days, when we needed to display the cart or checkout page, we wanted to use a custom shortcode on the page. Currently, WooCommerce uses Gutenberg blocks to display the cart and checkout pages.
You can also edit the elements in the cart pages to personalize the content.
If you check the Gutenberg editor, you will see several WooCommerce-based blocks, too.
All the blocks are customizable and can be used in your store. The cart, product, and checkout page would be based on blocks in the new WooComemrce version.
6. Better Onboarding Process
The onboarding process for the new WooCommerce releases would be better. The development simplified the onboarding process and saw a whopping 60% improvement in new store builders.
It is so much better than the previous process.
7. Updating the Documentation
To help developers understand the topic more efficiently, WooCommerce will upgrade its documentation archive and tweak the navigation, which will help users find the right post quickly.
They will also update the individual documentation articles so that the post contains information regarding the latest version of WooCommerce.
8. Coming Soon Page for Website
By default, you must use a coming soon plugin to display an under-construction page on your website or online store. Several plugins are available for that. However, the recent version of the WooCommerce plugin comes with an in-built, coming-soon mode.
Under the Site Visibility settings, you can see this option.
Once you have enabled this setting, the store archive page will show a page for coming soon.
An option that bypasses the coming soon page with a unique private link is also available. This function can be used if you need to give limited access to people to your store archive.
Check out this page for more information.
Conclusion
This is what is new at WooCommerce.
Have you started using any of these features? How do you like them so far? Would you like to see more features in the upcoming updates?
Let the WooCommerce community know about it.
We will share another blog post by the end of this year about everything WooCommerce added in 2024.
So, if you’re curious, please wait for that article.
Also, feel free to check out our YouTube playlist if you want to learn more about WordPress themes, how-to guides, and more.
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