Chapter 3•WooCommerce Store Setup Guide for Beginners

Chapter 3: WooCommerce Settings and Configuration

After installing WooCommerce and running the Setup Wizard, the next crucial step is to fine-tune your store's settings. WooCommerce provides a comprehensive set of options to control various aspects of your online store, from general store details to product, tax, shipping, and payment configurations. You can access these settings by navigating to WooCommerce > Settings in your WordPress dashboard.

General settings

The General settings tab allows you to define fundamental information about your store:

  • Store Address: Set your business address, which is used for tax calculations and shipping origins. This is important for accurate tax and shipping rates.
  • Selling Locations: Define the countries or regions where you plan to sell your products. You can choose to sell to all countries, specific countries, or exclude certain countries.
  • Shipping Locations: Similar to selling locations, this defines where you will ship your products.
  • Default Customer Location: This setting helps WooCommerce calculate taxes and shipping costs before a customer enters their address. You can set it to 'Shop base address', 'No location by default', 'Geolocate', or 'Geolocate (with page caching support)'.
  • Enable Taxes: Check this box if you plan to charge taxes on your products. This will enable the 'Tax' tab for further configuration.
  • Enable Coupons: Allow customers to use coupons in your store. If enabled, a 'Coupons' section will appear in your WooCommerce menu.
  • Currency Options: Select your store's default currency, currency position, thousand separator, decimal separator, and number of decimal places.

Product settings

The Products tab controls how your products are displayed, measured, inventoried, and downloaded:

  • Shop Page: Choose which page will serve as your main shop page. By default, WooCommerce creates a 'Shop' page during the setup wizard.
  • Add to cart behavior: Configure whether to redirect to the cart page after successful addition and whether to enable AJAX add to cart buttons on archives.
  • Placeholder image: Set a default image for products that don't have one.
  • Measurements: Define the unit of weight (kg, g, lbs, oz) and dimensions (m, cm, mm, in, yd) for your products. This is crucial for accurate shipping calculations.
  • Reviews: Enable or disable product reviews, star ratings, and whether only verified owners can leave reviews.
  • Inventory: Manage stock, hold stock for unpaid orders, set notifications for low stock and out of stock, and define low stock thresholds.

Tax settings

If you enabled taxes in the General settings, the Tax tab will appear. This is where you configure how taxes are calculated and displayed:

  • Tax Options:

    • Prices entered with tax: Choose whether you will enter product prices inclusive or exclusive of tax.
    • Calculate tax based on: Determine whether tax is calculated based on the customer's shipping address, billing address, or store base address.
    • Shipping tax class: Define the tax class for shipping costs.
    • Rounding: Decide if tax should be rounded at subtotal level, instead of per line item.
    • Additional tax classes: Create custom tax classes if needed (e.g., Zero Rate, Reduced Rate).
    • Display prices in the shop/cart/checkout: Configure how prices are displayed to customers (inclusive or exclusive of tax).
    • Display tax totals: Choose whether to display itemized tax totals or a single total.

  • Standard Rates: This section allows you to add and manage your tax rates. You can add rows for different countries, states, postcodes, and cities, along with the tax rate percentage.

Shipping settings

The Shipping tab allows you to configure shipping zones, methods, and classes:

  • Shipping Zones: Create shipping zones for different geographical regions. For each zone, you can define specific shipping methods and rates. For example, you might have a shipping zone for your local area with free shipping, and another for international shipping with a flat rate.
  • Shipping Methods: Within each shipping zone, you can add different shipping methods:
    • Flat Rate: A fixed price for shipping, regardless of the order content.
    • Free Shipping: Allows free shipping based on various criteria (e.g., a valid free shipping coupon, a minimum order amount, or a combination).
    • Local Pickup: Customers can pick up their orders directly from your store location.
  • Shipping Options: Configure general shipping options, such as enabling the shipping calculator on the cart page and setting the default shipping destination.
  • Shipping Classes: Group products of similar type for shipping purposes (e.g., bulky items, fragile items). This allows you to apply different shipping rates based on product type.

Payment settings

The Payments tab is where you configure the payment gateways your store will accept:

  • Direct Bank Transfer (BACS): Allows customers to pay directly into your bank account. You provide your bank details, and customers manually transfer the funds.
  • Check Payments: Customers pay by sending a check. This is typically used for local businesses or specific arrangements.
  • Cash on Delivery (COD): Customers pay when they receive their order. This is common for local deliveries or when trust is being built with new customers.
  • PayPal Standard: A popular online payment gateway that redirects customers to PayPal to complete their purchase. You will need a PayPal Business account.
  • Stripe: A widely used payment gateway that allows customers to pay directly on your website using credit cards. It supports various payment methods and currencies.
  • WooPayments: WooCommerce's own payment solution, offering integrated payment processing directly within your store, including credit card payments, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and more. (Availability may vary by region).

For each payment gateway, you can enable/disable it, set its title and description, and configure specific settings like API keys for online gateways.

Accounts & Privacy settings

This tab controls customer accounts, privacy policies, and data retention:

  • Guest checkout: Allow customers to place orders without creating an account.
  • Account creation: Enable customers to create an account during checkout or on the My Account page.
  • Account erasure requests: Handle requests for personal data erasure.
  • Personal data retention: Define how long personal data is retained for orders, abandoned carts, etc.
  • Privacy Policy page: Link to your privacy policy page.

Email settings

WooCommerce sends various transactional emails to customers and store administrators. The Email settings allow you to customize these emails:

  • Email notifications: Enable or disable specific emails (e.g., New Order, Order On-Hold, Customer Invoice).
  • Email sender options: Set the "From" name and email address for all WooCommerce emails.
  • Email template: Customize the appearance of your emails, including header image, footer text, base color, background color, body background color, and body text color.

Advanced settings

The Advanced settings tab contains more technical configurations:

  • Page setup: Define the pages for Cart, Checkout, My Account, and Terms and Conditions. These pages are usually created automatically by the Setup Wizard.
  • REST API: Manage API keys for integrating your store with external applications. This is primarily for developers or third-party services.
  • Webhooks: Set up webhooks to send real-time data to external services when specific events occur in your store (e.g., new order, product update).
  • Legacy API: Enable the legacy REST API if needed for older integrations.
  • WooCommerce.com: Connect or disconnect your store from WooCommerce.com, which can provide access to extensions and support.
  • Features: Enable or disable experimental features or new functionalities.

Carefully configuring these settings ensures your WooCommerce store operates smoothly, complies with regulations, and provides a seamless experience for your customers.