WooCommerce is one of the finest and leading eCommerce platforms in the world and contributes to about 34%of all eCommerce market share. Very recently, WooCommerce 3.8 has been released, which is, tough a minor release, robust and caters to newer requirements. This version has been in development since August 2019.
What’s New in WooCommerce 3.8!
WooCommerce Blocks 2.4
The new version of WooCommerce consists of a new set of product blocks:
- Reviews by Product
- Reviews by Category
- All Reviews
- Product Search
All these blocks are added to the WordPress Block Editor aka Gutenberg. All these blocks allow a user to customize how, what, and where to display reviews – social reviews of products can be obtained by placing All Reviews on the landing page, users can drop Reviews by Product on the product page itself, and use Reviews by Category to show how previous customers loved the products.
Product Search Block
This new block gives your customers the ability to search for your products from any page. This block can be inserted in any page template and will facilitate the increased discoverability of your products. To use the WooCommerce blocks, you need to have WordPress 5.1+ or the latest version of the Gutenberg plugin.
Performance
There is no change in the PHP or the WordPress requirements for WooCommerce 3.8 – it still supports sites working with PHP 5.6.20 and WordPress 4.9. However, it is in the roadmap of WooCommerce 3.9 (set to release on 7th January 2020) to set the minimum requirements of PHP to 7 and WordPress to 5 or above.
Enhancements
The platform has seen a lot of changes and here are some of them:
- “Available on backorder” messages for products are now available on backorder.
- Opt-out of usage tracking by default in the Setup Wizard.
- Better wording for subtotal and downloads enabled.
- Full support for PHP 7.4!
For developers, WooCommerce 3.8 includes:
- A new template –
content-widget-price-filter.php– for displaying a product price filter widget. Previously this was embedded in a core file. - Several new hooks and filters
- Localization tweaks for Japan, Namibia, Zambia, and US Minor Outlying Islands
All dev fixes and tweaks are detailed in the Changelog. And more technical notes can be found on the WooCommerce Developer blog.
Now, let’s wait for WooCommerce 3.9 to roll in early next year with many more changes and enhancements, catering to a wider and more subtle range of users.
Get started with your WooCommerce B2B eCommerce store and gain a competitive edge in the market!
