A Beginner’s Guide to Using WooCommerce Attributes

| 5 minutes read

WooCommerce is one of the most powerful e-commerce hosting platforms. It is no wonder that nearly 94% of all WordPress shopping sites use the WooCommerce plugin to operate their online stores. It has tons of features that support an exceptional customer experience – including the unique WooCommerce Attributes for product pages.

WooCommerce Attributes allows you to add additional data to all of your products to make them easily searchable. This is especially useful for e-commerce stores that carry a wide selection of products or have variations on the same design.

A. Why Do I Need to Add WooCommerce Attributes?

When customers aren’t able to narrow down their selection easily with search or filter options, they often leave without purchasing anything. According to a recent survey by Bayard, you could lose out on up to 31% of potential purchases if customers aren’t able to search easily on your website!

Adding in WooCommerce Attributes to your e-commerce products solves a common UX issue that often bothers consumers. For instance, say that you run a funky design sock store. You carry a ton of colors, patterns, styles, and designs of the same product – so it can be overwhelming to customers to find what they want.

Adding in the product’s attributes to your WooCommerce store allows visitors to instantly filter down your inventory with just a few keywords.

Now, it is important to clarify the difference between WooCommerce Attributes and Variations. The Variations feature is simply designed to provide different options for the same product, such as different sizes. Attributes describe different products based on features like color, shape, or design.

Thankfully, adding in WooCommerce Attributes is fairly simple. Here are some helpful tips for integrating product attributes onto your WooCommerce site.

B. How to Create/Add Product Attribute

You will need to add attributes to each product individually. First, sign into the Admin login for your WooCommerce store and select Products, then Attributes. You will then be prompted to add in the attributes you want, such as the material, color, or other descriptions.

You can add in several product attributes at once. Start by creating the name, which is the overarching category such as color. You can also enter in a Slug, which is a URL-friendly version for the attribute (this is recommended for attribute names that are more than 20 characters long).

There are two options for category name sorting: type and default. If you choose type, then your customers will be able to enter in attributes manually or select from pre-configured terms. The default sort order will automatically sort your products based on category for customers to choose from.

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Both of these sorting options are great for different types of online stores. If you carry a wide variety of items such as clothes and shoes and jewelry, you may want to use default displays. If you carry just shoes, then type sorting may be better so customers can narrow down their selection based on attributes like color or style instead.

The next step is to add terms to the attribute by selecting “Configure terms” in the Terms column. These will be more specific features that narrow down the selection, such as the colors blue, white, and green.

C. How to Add Attribute to a Product

Your next step is to show the attributes on specific product pages. Start by going to the Products tab and selecting an existing product or creating a new one. On the left-hand side, you will see an Attributes tab under the Product Data section.

On the dropdown menu, select Custom product attribute and click on the attribute you would like to apply to that product page. Then just press Save attributes or Publish and it will be instantly updated to your website.

You must check the box so the product’s attributes are visible on the page. You also need to make sure the attributes display in a dropdown menu for them to select. This supports a much more user-friendly experience, particularly for mobile shoppers.

To do this, you need to change the Product data from “Simple product” to “Variable product.” Show the step-by-step process of how to add/create a new product attribute. Next, open up the Attributes section and make sure “Used for variations” is checked for each attribute. Hit save and you are all done.

D. Types of Product Attributes

You can create an attribute for virtually any factor that differentiates your products from each other. Of course, the most common product attribute types are:

  • Color
  • Material
  • Size
  • Gender
  • Weight

However, you can create even more specific attributes depending on the unique features of your products. Say that you sell t-shirts for instance and have different types. Different styles like V-neck, crew neck, or button up could be additional attributes in this case.

E. WooCommerce Product Attributes Plugins

Although you do not need to add any additional plugins to your site, some great ones will elevate the look and operation of this feature. These can also greatly improve the customer experience and make it even easier for visitors to filter your selection based on the attributes you offer.

A good one to add is the YITH WooCommerce Color and Label Variations plugin. WooCommerce doesn’t show any images for attributes on their site. This plugin adds in a thumbnail to add in images, such as a color swatch.

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If you sell items in bulk, a great plugin to consider is the WooCommerce Bulk Variations Matrix. This lets customers enter in the number of each style they need through a grid format rather than adding in items one-by-one.

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You can also get rid of the dropdown attributes menu altogether and provide buttons instead with the WooCombinator plugin or the WooCommerce Attribute Swatches plugin. This feature is ideal for products that have several attribute categories or lots of options. It allows customers to see all of the variations at once and toggle between options until they find the one they want.

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Conclusion

Building a great e-commerce store through WooCommerce requires a lot of planning and strategy. Your website needs to not only look impressive but also be highly functional. If your customers aren’t able to see all of the product variations you carry or narrow down products based on certain features, their chances of converting are slim.

WooCommerce Attributes solve this issue by displaying any kind of product options you want, all in just a few clicks. Plus, there are lots of additional WooCommerce attributes plugins available to improve this feature even more.

However, the real secret to building a successful WooCommerce and WordPress site is to start with a solid foundation of good design and structure. AnnexCore will help you with that. We specialize in WordPress and WooCommerce development and have helped many businesses create impressive and user-friendly designs to support their company.

We can work with your e-commerce business to create a WooCommerce site that represents your brand and supports an exceptional customer experience. We can help you no matter how far along you are in your online business journey – from theme development to custom plugin designs.

If you would like to learn more about AnnexCore’s development services, get in contact with our team and tell us about your project today!

 

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