Managing Your Orders on WooCommerce

What is WooCommerce

So what is WooCommerce? WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin that adds e-commerce functionality to your WordPress website so you can have an online store. It is one of the most popular ways to create an eCommerce store. It has been the platform of choice at Wibble and we have helped many of our clients design, develop and host their online stores.

In this blog we’re going to show you the WooCommerce order management system and the steps you can take to get the most out of running your business with WooCommerce and to manage your orders.

Managing Orders

WooCommerce order management is the process of tracking orders from when the customer creates the order to getting it out of your business’s door. Orders are made when a customer finishes the checkout procedure and is visible to users with Admin and Shop Manager roles only. Every order is processed with a unique Order ID.

Viewing and Managing Orders

To access orders, log in to your WordPress admin panel and click WooCommerce and go to orders.

Viewing Your Orders

On the orders page, all orders and their information is displayed in each row. Here are some of the details that are displayed in each row:

• Order number and customer name,
• Date of purchase,
• Order status,
• Billing address,
• Shipping address,
• Purchase total, and
• Actions.

If you hover over an order status it will display the notes on that particular order.

At the end of a row are shortcut buttons to quickly mark orders as Processing or Complete.

If you want more information about your orders, you can click on screen options at the top right corner of the screen. A panel opens, and you can choose which items you want to be displayed.

Filter and Arrange Orders

In this area, you can also filter the list of displayed orders by date, status and also search the customer name while using search for a customer tab.

Previewing Orders

To preview your customer’s orders there is an eye icon that you can click on.

When you click on the preview it pops up the customer’s details containing:

• The order number,
• Order status,
• Billing details,
• Payment method,
• Shipping details,
• Shipping method,
• Items ordered, and
• The option to change the order status.

Order Statuses

The order status allows you to keep track record from beginning to end of your product sales process. All the order statuses have different meanings and are colour coded so that it is easier to tell them apart when quickly looking through your orders. Here are the following order statuses with their colour codes and what they mean:

• Pending payment — Order received but not paid for and is coloured grey.
• Failed — Payment failed or was declined. This status may not display straightway but rather appear as pending until the confirmed for example Paypal and is coloured red.
• Processing — The payment has been received and the amount of stock reduced. The order status for this will change to pending and the colour for this is green.
• Completed — Order has been completed and the colour for this is blue.
• On hold — Awaiting payment with the amount of stock reduced, but you need to confirm payment and is coloured orange.
• Cancelled — If the customer or admin decides to cancel an order and is coloured grey
• Refunded — Refunded by the admin– no further action required and is coloured grey.
• Authentication required — Awaiting action by the customer to authenticate the transaction and/or complete SCA requirements.

Editing and Viewing Single orders

From a single order you can view all the order data but you can edit and update it.

• If you want to change the order status, you can quickly change it.
• For an order you can reduce and restore stock .
• You can adjust the product, taxes, and prices.
• You can change product meta to edit product variations by adding and removing meta.

Order Data

You can modify your orders status while using the order data panel, as well as you can view and change the customer’s order note. You can also change which user the order is assigned to.

You’ll also discover the customer’s shipping and billing addresses, alongside a link to see different purchases that the customer may have had previously. To edit addresses, click “edit” and a form will show up. Once saved, the new address will be displayed in a localized format.

Order Items

Also, as we proceed further, you can see the next panel on the order page is the order items panel. This panel lets you know the list of items which is in the order alongside their respective prices and quantities.

You can edit the following details:

• Quantity – You can see the number of items a user is purchasing.
• Line Total – Line tax and line cost after pre-tax discounts.
• Line Subtotal – Line tax and line cost before pre-tax discounts.
• Include Meta – Add and evacuate meta to change variable item options.
• Sorting – You can sort by Cost, Item, Quantity and Total by clicking on the respectively listed items.

Order Totals

You can check this panel for order total and tax applied on the order. Also, you can enter these values yourself or have them part calculated for you utilizing the ‘calc totals’ button.

You can see the following options:

• Cart Discount – Pre-tax discounts. It can be auto-figured.
• Shipping cost – Cost excluding tax.
• Order Discount – post-tax discounts. Should be input manually.
• Shipping method – The name of the technique.
• Shipping tax – Total tax shipping.
• Cart tax – Total tax cart.
• Order Total – Total cost order.
• Payment method – The name of the payment strategy utilized.

You can see the two buttons on this panel:

• Calculate Taxes – Calculate taxes with your price including tax based on the customer shipping address.
• Calculate Total – Calculate your total cost including discount, shipping.

Adding an order manually

You can also add your orders manually, on the top of the page you can see the ‘Add Order’ button just click on it and add your product manually.

Order Notes

You must use this feature because this feature is a very powerful tool for creating effective communication with your customers. In order to track a specific customer, you need to have access to their tracking number for shipping. Is some stock getting delayed? Add a customer note and they will be automatically notified.

How this will help you?

By being able to manage your orders on WooCommerce will greatly benefit your business as all your products are in one place, where you can see what is selling and what is not selling. It will also improve the efficiency of your online store and help better organise your orders.