Boost Your WooCommerce Sales: Automatically Categorize On-Sale Products with ‘Promo’ Category

As an online store owner, you want to make it easy for your customers to find and purchase products that are on sale. One way to do this is by categorizing your on-sale products under a special category, such as “promo.” With this category, customers can quickly browse through your sale items and make purchase decisions faster. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to automatically categorize on-sale products in WooCommerce using PHP. Specifically, we’ll be adding the “promo” category to on-sale products using a custom function. Whether you’re a seasoned WordPress developer or just getting started, this tutorial will guide you through the process step-by-step, so you can improve your store’s sales performance and enhance your customers’ shopping experience.

Step 1: Access your theme’s functions.php file

To add the “promo” category to on-sale products, we’ll need to add some custom PHP code to our WordPress site. The best place to add this code is in your theme’s functions.php file, which is where you can define custom functions and modify existing ones.

To access your theme’s functions.php file, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
2. Go to Appearance > Theme Editor.
3. Select your theme from the drop-down menu at the top of the page.
4. Click on the functions.php file in the list of theme files on the right-hand side.

Note: If you’re not comfortable editing PHP files, it’s always a good idea to create a backup before making any changes.

Step 2: Add the custom function

Once you’ve accessed your theme’s functions.php file, you can add the custom function that will add the “promo” category to on-sale products. Here’s the code you’ll need:

function update_product_set_sale_cat( $product_id, $product ) {
    if ( $product->is_on_sale() ) {
        wp_add_object_terms($product_id, "promo", 'product_cat');
    } else {
        wp_remove_object_terms($product_id, "promo", 'product_cat');
    }
}

This function checks if a product is on sale using the is_on_sale() method of the $product object. If the product is on sale, the function adds the “promo” category to the product using the wp_add_object_terms() function. If the product is no longer on sale, the function removes the “promo” category from the product using the wp_remove_object_terms() function.

To add this function to your site, simply copy and paste it into the bottom of your theme’s functions.php file.

Step 3: Save your changes and test

Once you’ve added the custom function to your theme’s functions.php file, save your changes and test it out. To do this:

1. Go to the Products section of your WooCommerce dashboard.
2. Click on an on-sale product.
3. Check if the “promo” category has been added to the product’s category list.
4. Disable the on-sale status of the product and check if the “promo” category has been removed from the product’s category list.

If everything works as expected, congratulations! You’ve successfully added the “promo” category to on-sale products in WooCommerce using PHP.

Conclusion

Categorizing your on-sale products can be a great way to boost sales and improve your customers’ shopping experience. With this custom function, you can automatically add the “promo” category to on-sale products in WooCommerce, making it easy for customers to find and purchase sale items. With a little bit of PHP code and some testing, you can enhance your store’s functionality and drive more sales.