At BlogVault, we’re always looking for ways to improve your conversion rates and make your website more reliable. Today, we’ve been testing the popular WooCommerce Product Table plugin, which claims to increase your sales by displaying e-commerce products in new and better ways.

What is WooCommerce Product Table?

WooCommerce Product Table is the bestselling plugin from UK WordPress agency Barn2 Media. Released just over a year ago, it’s popular with many types of the online store including takeaway restaurant order systems, WooCommerce wholesale stores, large product directories, electronics stores needing to display extra product data, and catalogue sites needing a quick order form. The plugin works by listing the products from any WooCommerce store in a table view. It creates the tables manually using the products already on your WordPress website – so there’s no manual data entry. Customers can search and filter to find products more easily, view extra product data, choose variations and quickly add to the cart directly from the product table. The promo video explains what the plugin does and who it’s for

But is it any good?

Who needs WooCommerce product tables?

When you first hear about WooCommerce Product Table, it’s easy to think of it as quite a niche plugin. However, when you read through all the tutorials, you find out that it’s used on a huge variety of WooCommerce sites. For example, it’s popular for creating a takeaway restaurant order form, as you can add a table for each section of your menu and allow one-page ordering. It’s one of the most popular WooCommerce wholesale plugins because it lists products in a quick bulk order form. Surprisingly, it’s even popular for creating a WooCommerce audio or video gallery, because you can embed music and video players directly in the product table. I suppose the main thing these websites have in common is that they need more control over how their products are presented, with more products on each page. So it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in – it’s all about what will best sell your products.

Range of features

A good WooCommerce table plugin needs to be flexible. The whole point is to list products in new ways that will increase your conversion rates, so it’s essential that you can control details such as which data to include in the table. Fortunately, WooCommerce Product Table comes with over 60 options. You can control everything from which columns to include and how many rows to show on each page, to whether or not to show the add to cart buttons and the quantity selector. You can also choose how customers can interact with the table and find products. For example, by showing and hiding the search box and filters.

Ease of use

With over 60 options, I was worried that there would be a steep learning curve. I soon learned that WooCommerce Product Table has been cleverly designed to allow you to create tables very easily. There’s a plugin settings page which lets you set defaults for the most popular settings (but not all 60 of them!). These defaults will automatically be used in all your product tables. There are also settings for styling the product table so you can make it match the rest of your site.

To add a product table, you just click the ‘Insert product table’ icon which the plugin adds to the WordPress toolbar. This will insert a simple shortcode to create a product table with all your defaults. If you want more fine-grained control, then you can edit the shortcode using any of the options. I tested this by creating tables that list products from a specific category only, although you can also show products based on details such as their date, tags, or even custom field values. This means that you can use the product tables to achieve quite complicated requirements, if this is what you want. But if you just want to create a simple table listing WooCommerce products, then this is very easy and just takes a couple of minutes.

Documentation and support

These days, nearly all premium plugins come with documentation and support – but some companies do this better than others! When you buy WooCommerce Product Table, you receive a helpful ‘Getting Started’ email. This contains step-by-step instructions and links to the documentation. The plugin has a very detailed knowledge base – probably the most in-depth I’ve seen. This covers everything from basic setup instructions to documentation on all the options and troubleshooting tips. There are lots of animations and video tutorials showing the plugin in use. The plugin comes with a year’s support from the team at Barn2 Media. This support is provided from within the UK – a refreshing change compared to some plugin companies! The plugin reviews are exceptionally positive. Nearly all of them mention the speed and quality of the support.

Like most plugin companies these days, your license is renewed annually. You need to pay each year to keep receiving plugin updates and support. Barn2 Media release regular updates, including major new features every few months. This means that it’s in your interest to renew each year. If you don’t renew, the plugin will keep working but you won’t get any more new versions or support.

Does it really increase conversion rates?

The company behind WooCommerce Product Table say that it helps to increase your sales. They’ve even published an article about how to use products tables to increase your conversion rates. I think there are a few reasons why WooCommerce tables can boost conversions in your store:

• Customers can see more products at once, so they don’t waste time scrolling through lots of pages.
• The search, sort and filters in WooCommerce Product Table help customers find your products more quickly. This means they won’t get fed up and look elsewhere.
• You can show more relevant information about your products, such as attributes, custom fields, custom taxonomies etc. This will help customers to see that the product meets their needs. They don’t have to spend time clicking through to the product detail page.
• Customers can select lots of products at once and use the ‘Add Selected to Cart’ button, instead of having to add each item individually.

These things will inevitably help to increase conversions by providing the better user experience. However, the plugin won’t help all types of store, so it’s worth thinking about whether product tables are a better way to display your products. If product tables are for you, then I’d recommend spending some time reading through the knowledgebase. This is the best way to figure out the best combination of options based on your specific needs. As with anything, the more time you spend setting up your products tables, the better the results will be.

Does it work with BlogVault?

Another important question to ask in a plugin review is whether it works with BlogVault. This is important because you need BlogVault for essential tasks such as backing up and restoring your website, creating staging sites, and website migrations. The good news is that like most plugins WooCommerce Product Table works perfectly with BlogVault. If you use the migration tool then your products and WooCommerce tables will migrate across nicely, with no extra work from you. It backs up your product tables along with the rest of your website. So no problems there!

Conclusion

There are a few other WooCommerce table plugins available, but none that offer the same combination of features, flexibility and support. WooCommerce Product Table is a quality plugin from a reputable UK-based WordPress company. You can buy it safely and feel confident that you can get all the information and support you need to create conversion-boosting product tables.