How Do I Turn WooCommerce Into a Catalog?

WooCommerce is a powerful eCommerce platform that comes with a lot of features. One of the most powerful features is the ability to turn it into a catalog.

This can be useful for many reasons, such as when you want to showcase products without selling them, or when you want to sell products that are not yet available.

Here are some simple steps on how you can turn WooCommerce into a catalog:

Go to WooCommerce > Settings > General and uncheck the Enable Cart and Enable Checkout options. This will disable the shopping cart and checkout functionality, so customers will not be able to purchase products from your store. You can also optionally uncheck the Enable Customer Account Creation option if you do not want customers to create accounts on your site.
Next, go to WooCommerce > Settings > Products and uncheck the Enable Reviews option. This will disable product reviews from showing up on your product pages. You can also optionally uncheck the Enable SKU, Enable weighs, and other options if you do not want to show that information on your product pages.
(Optional) If you want to hide the prices of your products, go to WooCommerce > Settings > Catalog and check the Hide prices option.
(Optional) If you want to change the text that appears on the Add to Cart buttons, go to WooCommerce > Settings > Products and change the “Add to Cart” button text. You can also change the “Out of Stock” text that appears on products that are out of stock.
(Optional) If you want to remove the Add to Cart buttons from your product pages, you can do so by installing and activating the WooCommerce Remove Add to Cart Buttons plugin.
(Optional) If you want customers to be able to contact you about products they’re interested in, you can install and activate the WooCommerce Product Enquiry Form.
Once activated, customers will see a “Send Enquiry” button on your product pages instead of an “Add to Cart” button.

That’s it! Now you have a fully functioning catalog site using WooCommerce. Keep in mind that since there is no shopping cart or checkout functionality, you’ll need to add your own contact forms or other methods for customers to get in touch with you about purchasing products.

If you later decide that you want to enable shopping cart and checkout functionality again, simply go back to WooCommerce > Settings and check the options that you disabled earlier.

PRO TIP: If you are considering turning WooCommerce into a catalog, be aware that this may have negative consequences for your business. A catalog is essentially a static list of products, without any of the eCommerce functionality that makes WooCommerce so powerful. This means that customers will not be able to purchase items from your store, and you will not be able to take advantage of WooCommerce’s many features and plugins. In short, turning WooCommerce into a catalog is likely to harm your business more than it will help.

Kathy McFarland