Introduction
In cases where you wish to advertise products that are not directly for sale through the website, or setup a catalog but not the online ordering aspect, it is still best to use WooCommerce and your Product post type to take advantage of the functionality WooCommerce provides such as order tracking, views, and future pricing or inventory for the product. You can easily create products that display images and info only, have a contact button instead of a buy now button, or avoid showing prices or stock by using the External / Affiliate Product option.
The Solution
Create a Virtual Product
- Click on >
- Add your Title
- Add a brief description or instructions to the post editor area
- Select External/Affiliate Product from the Product Data panel
- Optional: If you want to display a Contact or Inquiry button:
- Enter the full URL to your contact page or page in the Product URL field
- Enter the text you want to display on the button in the Button Text field, ie “Inquire” or “Request More Info”
- Optional: If you want to display a price:
- Enter the Regular Price
- Optional: If you want to display attributes such as Color, Available sizes, etc, you may add them under the Attributes tab as normal.
- Click on
- To add additional images, click on
to upload and set your product featured image.
- Select your Product Category
- Click Publish
Convert Your Display-Only Product
If your display-only products will be available for purchase through your website at any point, you can easily convert themto a normal product by editing the post:
- Click on and locate the product entry, then click it to edit it
- Select the new product type in the Product Data panel (ie Simple Product or Variable Product)
- Enter the new price and stock information, and any variations etc
- Add or edit images by clicking on Add Media, then selecting “Uploaded to this post” from the Images drop-down
- Click Update.
- The product will now display a price and buy now button as normal.