Beginner’s Guide to Changing Product Prices in WooCommerce

To develop a successful online business strategy, you have to strike the right balance between perceived value, profit margins, and market competitiveness. One key element that significantly shapes this balance is product pricing. 

Your pricing approach does more than just define your profit margins: it drives sales, influences consumer decisions, and crafts your brand image.

One of the most popular e-commerce platforms for online businesses is WooCommerce, and for good reason, as it offers deep customization capabilities thanks to its open-source nature. However, this itself can become an issue when adjusting or customizing product prices, which can be an unnecessarily complex task for beginners. 

In this article, we’ll unravel the complexities of WooCommerce pricing. We’ll also navigate the process of altering individual prices, bulk editing, implementing dynamic pricing, and using plugins like Advanced Product Fields to customize pricing structures. 

Understanding WooCommerce’s product pricing structure

WooCommerce’s default functionality allows you to set product prices individually. However, prices are not static and can often be influenced by certain factors, such as sales promotions and variations in product specifications. 

Despite its seemingly straightforward nature, managing prices can sometimes be challenging, particularly if you are not really familiar with the mechanics of the platform. 

To gain more advanced control over your pricing strategy, you may want to use a plugin. Advanced Product Fields for WooCommerce (APF), while not a dedicated pricing plugin, can greatly assist with product pricing management. 

It enables the addition of custom fields that influence the final product price, allowing for easy pricing customization. This is particularly useful when you have many different product variables or add-ons, or sell bespoke or made-to-measure products.

Advanced Product Fields is an add-on plugin, which means you can easily subtract or add extra charges for customizations or personalized features. However, you can also use it to completely replace the main WooCommerce product pricing section on the product page, which can be particularly useful if your business model calls for a more flexible pricing structure.

If you’re after a plugin focused solely on pricing modifications, rest assured there are various different tools available. We’ll look at and recommend some great options throughout this article!

Why should I use a plugin for WooCommerce pricing?

There are several reasons why e-commerce business owners often turn to plugins instead of using WooCommerce’s native pricing: 

• Difficult interface: For new users trying to master product pricing in WooCommerce, its interface can be time-consuming and slightly daunting to learn.
• Limited pricing features: No option to place dynamic pricing structures like calculators for products. 
• Hard to adjust pricing based on location: Many online store owners struggle with setting and managing different prices based on specific user roles or geographical locations. 

Equipped with the right toolkit of plugins and resources, these tasks can be streamlined significantly, enabling you to focus on what matters most: the growth of your online business. 

How to update individual product prices 

Adjusting individual product prices is an important skill to learn, especially for smaller businesses with a limited product range or those that maintain stable pricing. 

Maintaining control over product prices enables you to quickly respond to market fluctuations, adjust pricing in response to stock levels, and easily implement promotional strategies.

Here is how you can do this in WooCommerce: 

1. Log into your WooCommerce admin dashboard and click on the Products tab.
2. Select the product you wish to update.
3. Scroll down to the General tab and adjust the prices.
4. After making the changes, remember to click Update.

Efficiently bulk editing multiple product prices

The above steps are fine if you have a few products, but if you need to update a large database, changing the price manually is very impractical. The WooCommerce bulk edit feature is therefore essential for larger stores or those with frequent price changes. 

1. Go back to your Products tab and select the items you want to bulk edit.
2. From the dropdown menu on the top left, click Edit and then Apply.
3. The main bulk editing dashboard will now open, and one of the options is to adjust the price.
4. You have 3 options:
   • Change to a specific price that will apply to all products. 
   • Increase the original price by a certain percentage. 
   • Decrease the prices by a certain percentage. 
5. When you are done, just click Update.

This tool is beneficial for large-scale price revisions, like applying a store-wide sale or making adjustments across a product category. However, it’s important to note that the built-in bulk editing feature is best suited for simple products. If your store offers variable, grouped, or complex products, you may need a dedicated bulk editing plugin for price changes. 

You can also use plugins such as WooCommerce Quantity Discounts, Rules & Swatches (WQDRS) to handle complex tasks like bulk quantity discounts or tiered pricing. 

Applying dynamic pricing rules in WooCommerce and customizing price display with plugins

With dynamic pricing, you can tailor the price of a product based on certain factors, including the customer’s location, their role on your site, or the number of items they’re purchasing.

When implementing dynamic pricing on your WordPress site, plugins like WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing and Discounts or Advanced Product Fields can be a game-changer. These tools provide solid functionality for handling more advanced pricing options.

Here are different types of dynamic pricing that you might wish to implement in your store:

• User-based pricing: Customize pricing strategies according to how users interact with your store, offering personalized deals to first-time visitors or rewarding loyal customers.
• Role-based pricing: Offer unique prices based on the user’s role on your site, for example, a VIP customer, retailer, or wholesaler. 
• Group-based pricing: Create customer groups and assign specific pricing models to them. For instance, you could present a special discount to your newsletter subscribers as a token of appreciation.
• BOGO deals: Promote Buy One Get One offers to encourage bulk purchases. The chance of receiving a free product often convinces customers to buy more, thus increasing your overall revenue. You can also offer discounts on the second item instead of offering it for free. 
• Bulk pricing: Provide special rates to customers buying in large quantities. This type of pricing can appeal to wholesalers or any customer planning to make a significant purchase.

Leveling up your pricing with Advanced Product Fields

Advanced Product Fields for WooCommerce is equipped with features that can help you level up your pricing strategy, such as formula-based pricing and highly customizable fields.

APF is a great solution for companies looking to advance how their prices are calculated and displayed at the front end. Some examples include: 

• Companies that sell bespoke or made-to-measure products where prices depend on selected dimensions or options. 
• E-commerce stores that offer products with multiple add-ons that affect the price in various ways, for example, additional customization options or gift-wrapping services.

The extended version of the APF plugin also allows you to create complex product price calculators using formulas. Here’s how this can look on the front end:

The customer can input the exact measurements of the product, and the price will be calculated accordingly. This is very useful for stores that want to offer their clients more intricate or customizable products.This price can be calculated in real time, but you can also use look-up table pricing. This feature is particularly useful for products with additional options that require a more complicated pricing structure. It uses a sheet, similar to an Excel table, that looks like this:

In this example, you have a set price for each size variation, and when a customer chooses any of these variations, they will get the price that matches. If they input a width and height not in the table, the system will round this up to the closest pair and give their pricing instead. 

APF takes away the need for extensive coding knowledge, letting business owners implement more complex pricing rules. 

Setting different prices for different countries

Any global e-commerce store owner will need to think about offering unique pricing strategies for different countries. Some factors that come into play include currency valuation disparities, market conditions, and varying tax and duty considerations on pricing. 

Take an example where your online store prices products in US dollars. There are a few possible complicated scenarios:

• For potential customers in a country with a weaker currency, the exchange rates may render your products excessively expensive compared to local options. 
• Distinct customs duties or taxes in some areas might influence your pricing decisions. 
• Differences in the pricing strategies of local competitors in foreign markets can affect your competitiveness. 

Now, it’s not completely impossible to do this in WooCommerce without additional tools, but you’ll need some coding knowledge as it’s a rather complicated process. That’s why most business owners opt for using a dedicated plugin instead. We’d recommend a plugin like  WooCommerce Currency Switcher for a smoother experience, free of coding complexities or constant manual updates. 

One of the key things to keep in mind is that you’ll need to test, review, and update your multi-currency settings in response to market fluctuations, ensuring they remain efficient and precise. A great tactic is using a Virtual Private Network (VPN), where legally acceptable, to mask your IP address, allowing you to browse your online store as if you were from a different country. 

Boost sales with effective pricing strategies

The relationship between pricing strategies and sales is a critical one. The price tag attached to a product often acts as the decisive factor in a customer’s purchasing decision, and to know where to start, you need to understand your target market and your competitors. 

One of the most important pricing strategies is dynamic pricing. To put it simply, dynamic pricing allows you to adjust the prices based on real-time supply and demand, unlocking extra revenue opportunities you might have otherwise missed.

This is especially useful in industries where prices change frequently, such as hospitality and travel. 

Other effective pricing strategies include: 

• Bulk purchase discounts: Offer a discounted price for purchasing a larger quantity, leading to an increased average order value and more efficient movement of your inventory. 
• Seasonal pricing: Adjust prices according to the time of year, catering to the ever-changing customer demands influenced by seasonal factors and holidays.

With APF, you can set different prices influenced by customers’ selections. It simplifies the application of bulk discounts by allowing you to offer special prices for larger orders through customizable fields. 

As for seasonal pricing, APF provides the functionality to adjust prices quickly and effortlessly across your store, facilitating streamlined management of seasonal sales or holiday discounts. 

It allows you to specify date ranges for your prices, meaning you can schedule your seasonal pricing in advance and let the plugin automatically update your product prices during your specified date ranges.

Implement effective pricing strategies today

Strategic product pricing is vital for maintaining a competitive edge, and as the most used e-commerce platform, WooCommerce is a tool every business owner needs to learn inside and out. 

You also need to understand WooCommerce’s limitations and areas where using plugins can be very beneficial, such as advanced pricing adjustments. 

The Advanced Product Fields plugin is one of those extra tools that can significantly reduce overhead when dealing with intricate variable products or any pricing adjustments, making your e-commerce journey a smoother ride.

Take the leap today and explore the capabilities of Advanced Product Fields, paving the way for a more streamlined and efficient e-commerce experience!