- Guest customers can now link previous orders to new accounts
- More accurate sales reports
- Easier to fix failed data imports
- Improved performance in admin and on product pages
- Video imbeds in emails
- What to consider before updating
WooCommerce 11.0 is here
The launch of WooCommerce 11.0 was delayed during the final round of testing, but it’s now available. Some of what’s new is under-the-hood work rather than flashy, visible features. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing here that makes a difference if you run an online store, though!
Here are five such features we’ve chosen to highlight. If you’d rather read the full changelog yourself, you’ll find it here.
1. Guest customers can now link previous orders to new accounts
This is a nice touch for first-time customers who make a purchase before creating an account. If a customer has previously checked out as a guest, they can now link that earlier order to a newly created account, simply by verifying their email address.
That means fewer tickets for support (“Where is my previous order?”) and better visibility of their full order history for the customer. A small but welcome improvement.
2. More accurate sales reports
Refunds are now counted per period in the sales report, so you see actual net sales instead of gross figures that include returns. Among other things, that makes month-to-month comparisons more reliable.
Visitor statistics are also more stable thanks to a more reliable visitor ID, making it easier to filter out bot traffic and temporary sessions.
3. Easier to fix failed data imports
WooCommerce imports your past order history the first time you set up analytics, so your reports don’t just show what’s happened since after the installation.
Now you can check the status of that import and rerun it directly from the admin screen if something goes wrong, instead of guessing whether your history was actually transferred correctly.
Handy if you’re wondering why the numbers for a given year look incomplete, or if you’ve restructured your store or switched hosting and want to confirm that your entire order history made it into the import.
4. Improved performance in admin and on product pages
Woo themselves have said improved performance was a top priority for this release. If you run a store with a large product catalog or a long order history, searching and filtering orders on the admin screen is now faster, without timeouts or empty search results.
An ongoing caching experiment also makes variable product pages load 9–12% faster, and bundled products move through checkout 6–12% faster. Note that this is enabled by default for new stores!
5. Video embeds in emails
Sure, a smaller thing compared to some of the other features, but a nice one nonetheless.
Video embeds from services like Vimeo, TikTok, or Dailymotion used to just show up as plain links in emails. Now they appear as clickable thumbnails instead, a clear visual improvement.
Things to consider before updating to the latest version
If you want access to the new features, make sure to carry out the update properly. Take a backup, test your site thoroughly, and check that you’re running the correct PHP version.
WooCommerce 11.0 requires WordPress 6.9 or later and this version also includes a database update. Make sure your site meets the requirements before you start, especially if you’re running other plugins that could be affected.
If you’ve been testing the experimental product editor beta, it’s being retired with 11.0. Your products and all product data are unaffected, but if you or your team have built something that depends on the beta editor, it’s worth checking before you update.
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