When to Use a Plugin for WooCommerce Product Options

Some customers will want to personalize a product before buying. The simple things might include picking a color, choosing a size, or selecting from other off-the-shelf elements. However, not all options will fit neatly into WooCommerce’s default abilities. Plus none of it is usually that intuitive to set up.

WooCommerce “variations” work well for simple cases. But they have real limits, and pushing past them can take more than just clicking through a couple of panels in the dashboard.

In this post, I go through common solutions to add product options to your WooCommerce store, how to set them up, how it all works, and also how to make your life easier by using more specialized tools.

WooCommerce variations, product options, and their pros and cons

Out of the box, WooCommerce doesn’t really support product options too well. If you want this feature in your store, you’ll need a plugin.

For that reason, you’ll want to carefully consider whether you even need product options in the first place. To that end, let’s consider the pros and cons of both “variations” (native in WooCommerce) and custom product options.

🎛️ Variations

Variations are a core WooCommerce feature that let you create distinct versions of a product using product attributes.

This feature enables you to create different versions of the same item. For instance, if you manage a clothing store, you can offer multiple sizes of the same product.

In short, the way you use this is by changing your product type to a Variable product (1), and then adding attributes for things that you want to turn into an option (2).

The most common application of this is in apparel stores. Imagine selling t-shirts in different sizes. You can see an example of that below.

Then, when the customer sees the product page, it will have a new block like this:

WooCommerce actually allows you to add more variations to your products – not just one. For example, for t-shirts, something like this would make sense:

Then, in the panel, you can even set different prices and SKUs for those variable options:

The options are quite versatile, but they do have their pros and cons:

Pros 👍

Doesn’t require an additional plugin (it’s included in WooCommerce)
Automatically synchronizes the stock of a product, hiding variable items that are sold out
You can create an SKU for each variable product and also assign different prices

Cons 👎

Setup process not intuitive – you need to first switch to a variable product, then add attributes, finally generate product options based on this (guide)
Relies on a manual process, so setting up each individual variation can be time-consuming
The user can only select a variation from a drop-down – not always the most optimal option
Lots of variations can clog up your database

🛍️ Product options, customizations, and add-ons

Offering a couple of sizes of the same product is step 1. However, if you want to do more, have better UI for the customer, create add-ons, upgrades and personalized customizations, then you will need to get yourself an extra plugin for that.

Just to give you a couple of examples of what this sort of setup makes possible:

You could add a food ordering module to a restaurant website. In that model, customers get to pick from a range of add-ons and extras on top of any food item. Example:

A t-shirt store could offer custom prints on the shirts. The customer can add their name, number, or whatever other element. Example:

A jewelry store can offer custom engravings in a very similar way.

All that and more can be achieved with a relatively simple WooCommerce setup where we only have one additional plugin installed.

Pros 👍

Allows you to add multiple custom field options for variable items
Lets you modify the product’s price based on customer input, including using calculation fields (such as charging by the number of extras)
Gives you more options to customize the interface
Won’t occupy as much database space as variations

Cons 👎

The need to install another tool on top of WooCommerce adds a tiny bit of complexity

When it comes to plugins for WooCommerce product options, there are tons of options available. These can provide you with more advanced features and will enable you to optimize and streamline your product management process.

When to use a plugin for product options

In general, you’ll want to use core product variations and attributes when you need only basic options added to products – usually things like sizes or colors for standard merchandise.

On the other hand, custom product options are generally better for more complex product configurations, especially customizable products, add-ons, extras, and so on.

👍 While attributes and variations might work for very simple product configurations, product options will give you a lot more flexibility.

This is especially true for any store that provides on-demand personalization, as that will normally require more than the simple dropdown menu that variations allow.

If you choose to use a WooCommerce product options plugin, you’ll be able to manage large amounts of variable items more efficiently. Most tools enable you to save your preferred settings and offer more advanced bulk actions.

Plus, the majority of plugins for product options will offer additional choices when it comes to customizing your product pages.

How to set up custom product options in WooCommerce

The easiest method to get this going is to use the Personalized Product Fields Manager (PPOM) plugin. The basic version is free and will give you all the main features without any hidden paywalls. Then, if you ever need more of those custom option types, you can upgrade to the pro version of the plugin, which gives you more than 30 product customization fields.

This plugin lets you add custom fields and add-ons to your product pages. Plus, it comes with a drag-and-drop form builder, which makes it super easy to customize your product options.

Step 0: Install the plugin

This is basic, just go to Plugins → Add new in your WordPress dashboard and look for “PPOM”. Install and activate.

Step 1: Set up your meta group

The PPOM plugin allows you to create “meta groups” which you can then apply to a single item. This way, you’ll be able to create product options faster.

The idea of a meta group is very useful if you are selling different types of products on your site and some of them will need different options than others. That way, you can create a group of t-shirt customizations and another one for hats, for example.

To do this, go to WooCommerce → PPOM Fields and click on Add Group. You’ll see some stock options there to get you started:

If you happen to be selling any of the types of products highlighted there, go ahead and give those a try. If not, you can always “start from scratch,” which is what I’m going to do.

You’ll see this:

First, name your group somehow. Maybe “Hoodies“.

Then, add your first customization – let’s start with “Color“, pick Radio as the field type:

Then, let’s add the options that the customer can pick from:

Once we save everything, the screen is going to look something like this:

Let’s add one more – call it “Add zipper” and make it a Checkbox. Then inside, let’s set it like so:

As you can see, we have only one option there – “Yes” with an added price of $5. In other words, when the customer selects it, an additional $5 is going to be added onto their total.

Let’s now go to our products and enable these customizations.

Step 2: Add fields to product

On the product setup screen, you’re going to see this new section:

Let’s select “Hoodies” there and save the product.

Here’s what the customer will see now:

Cool, right?

We are basically done here!

That way, you can add as many customizations as you want and give your customers full control of the purchases they’re making and how they want to configure them.

This is what the product looks like in the cart for your customers:

Very clean and very basic.

As you can see, the PPOM plugin is highly intuitive and straightforward. Further, you can unlock tons of added customization options (for both fields and appearance) with the pro plan. Here are all the added fields available there:

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🧐 Conclusion

Deciding whether or not your online store may benefit from advanced WooCommerce product options can be tricky. In the end, it really depends on how you manage your products and what choices you want to offer to customers.

When to use a #plugin for #WooCommerce product options 🔌

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Basic product catalogs can probably stick with WooCommerce’s native variations feature, especially if you want the ability to separately manage stock for each variation.

However, shops selling more customizable items will likely need to use a plugin to enable product options. Product options can also just generally be more convenient to use even for basic product selection – like sizes and colors.

👉 Check out how Product Addons & Custom Fields for WooCommerce (PPOM) can help you with all that.

Do you have any questions about using product options in WooCommerce? Let us know in the comments section below!