WooCommerce 11.0 has launched with speed updates to the product page and order screen, changes to how certain metrics are counted, checkout recovery tests, and more. Read on to see what’s included.
Performance was a top priority for release 11.0 and we’ve made a few important changes that you and your customers will see.
- Large stores will benefit from an optimization of the Orders screen that will allow you to retrieve your orders faster without timeouts or empty searches.
- We’re running a product object caching experiment, which is available by default for new stores. It ensures that variable products load on product pages approximately 9-12% faster, and bundle products are processed 6-12% faster during checkout.
With 11.0 you can see the status of your historical data imports and redo those that did not complete. When you first set up analytics, WooCommerce imports your previous orders so your reports cover your entire history. That import can now be checked and redone directly from your dashboard. If you’re about to prepare a report for a board meeting or a season review, take a moment to confirm that your imported history has been successfully imported.
Refunds now count for the period in which they occurred. When you look at net sales for July, you will see all July refunds, making month-to-month comparisons more reliable. If your developer has developed custom reporting for you, please mention this change. This applies to the latest version of the sales report and they will know if your installation uses it.
Session counts represent real visitors. Analytics is stricter about what counts as a visitor, so bots and fleeting connections won’t impact your traffic numbers. You will see that sessions decrease slightly after updating – that is to be expected. But you will start to see more accurate conversion rates.
When someone buys from you as a guest and later creates an account, they will see previous orders in their order history. They simply confirm ownership of their email address and their history is linked to their account.
If you have significant guest checkout volume, this translates into fewer support tickets and gives returning customers a reason to create an account.
In 11.0, you can join our Checkout Recovery beta to test your recovery messages and see what customers respond to before mass updating your emails. It works from order to certain states, and your dev team can expand or narrow which ones are eligible to match the way your store uses them. It comes with one-click unsubscribe and built-in privacy handling, so the emails you send meet the standards customers expect.
You can enable it below WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced > Features.
- The block email editor adds Vimeo, TikTok and Dailymotion embeds. Videos are displayed as clickable thumbnails with play buttons instead of regular links, so your emails look the way you want them to.
- If you sell internationally and your cash register phone field has rejected formats that are perfectly valid in other countries, 11.0 gives your developer the right tools to solve this for the markets you sell in.
- Inventory held for an incomplete checkout is now reserved for 60 minutes by default. If you’re running flash sales or drops where reserved inventory is important, it’s worth discussing with your developer whether 60 minutes is right for your store; the retention length can be set to whatever you want.
WooCommerce 11.0 discontinues the experimental Product Editor that some stores have been testing in beta. Your products and product data stay exactly where they are. But if anyone on your team was using the beta editor, you’ll return to the standard product editor experience.
Use custom extensions? Ask whoever maintains them on your team to check if anything has been built on the beta editor.
WooCommerce 11.0 is now available and ready for download. Check out our update guide for tips on the best way to install it.
Buy WooCommerce 11.0 | View the change log
Brent MacKinnon is director of product marketing and developer advocacy at WooCommerce, helping make the platform better for both developers and sellers. With over a decade of experience in product marketing and strategy, Brent is passionate about supporting the WooCommerce community and helping entrepreneurs of all types succeed with Woo.
