How to create a BigCommerce product table in WordPress

A lot goes into building and running a successful online store. Although hosted e-commerce platforms like BigCommerce take care of much of the heavy-lifting, they don’t always offer the best shopping experience to customers.

The good news is that you can use a BigCommerce product table to make your online store more effective and user-friendly. Essentially, you’d be listing BigCommerce products on a WordPress site in a searchable, sortable table layout with filters. This way, customers will be able to browse your store and make purchases directly from one convenient location.

Creating a BigCommerce product table using Posts Table Pro

With this in mind, in this article, we’ll explain what a BigCommerce product table is and how it can benefit your online store. We’ll also show you how to create a product table in WordPress using BigCommerce and Posts Table Pro.

What is a BigCommerce product table and who needs one?

BigCommerce is a hosted e-commerce platform. Out of the box, BigCommerce lets users display products in a standard format. Typically, products are displayed in a grid where each product takes up a considerable amount of screen real estate - like this:

BigCommerce product table WordPress

While this certainly adds to your store’s visual appeal, this simply isn’t the best solution for every online store. More specifically, online stores that sell more than a few products or products that aren’t image-centric need a more user-friendly way to showcase their offering.

Grid layouts make it difficult for customers to browse through products, find exactly what they’re looking for, and compare product details. In contrast, displaying your inventory in a product table allows you to showcase more products per page while making it easy for customers to search, sort, and filter through them:

Posts Table Pro product table with filters

Who needs a BigCommerce product table?

BigCommerce product table in WordPress

The short answer is that anyone who’s looking for an intuitive and user-friendly way to showcase lots of products in their online store can benefit from a BigCommerce product table. It allows you to display products in a neat table layout with important product details. This makes it easy for customers to be able to view more products (with product details) per page.

For example:

BigCommerce restaurant ordering system

With a BigCommerce product table plugin, you can create restaurant ordering systems that allow customers to place orders online (or at the table). It essentially doubles as a BigCommerce order form.

This resembles a real-world menu in that you simply list out the dishes you offer along with additional details such as ingredients and price. In addition to this, you can also display quantity selectors and add-to-cart buttons directly in the product table layout.

With a BigCommerce order form, you can also allow customers to customize their orders. For example, if you serve pizza at your restaurant, customers would be able to select their crust, sauce, and toppings directly from the product table.

BigCommerce wholesale stores

Generally speaking, people who shop at wholesale stores have a good idea about what they’d like to buy. For this reason, a BigCommerce product table is an ideal implementation for wholesale stores. Here’s why:

  • Customers are able to find exactly what they’re looking for by using the search, sort, and filter options.
  • A BigCommerce product list makes it easy for customers to make bulk purchases.
  • Since wholesale stores sell lots of products, store owners are able to display more products per page then they would be able to with BigCommerce’s default shop layout.

BigCommerce stores selling products that don’t require large images

BigCommerce store owners that sell products that don’t require big images can also benefit from a product table layout. Since the standard format for displaying products in BigCommerce is image-centric, it doesn’t suit products that don’t require big images. Stores like these would benefit more from a BigCommerce product list instead.

These include digital goods such as audio lectures, music sheets, and software. It can also include hardware products like bolts, screws, washers, and fasteners where it’s more important to display product information than it is to display a product image.

How a product table can benefit your BigCommerce-based online store

With BigCommerce, the standard way to display products in your online store is by showcasing them in a grid on your shop page while also giving each product its own individual page.

The problem with this implementation is that it makes it difficult for customers to browse products, compare them, or purchase a lot of different items at once. While this may not be an issue for large products (like furniture) or expensive products (like jewelry), this approach doesn’t offer the best shopping experience for many other types of products.

So, if you’re looking for a way to showcase products in an intuitive, user-friendly way then consider creating a product table. With a BigCommerce product table, you can display more products in an organized way in a neat table layout along with all important product details.

BigCommerce product tables are incredibly beneficial to e-commerce stores, because:

  • Customers are able to see everything your store offers at a glance.
  • They allow store owners to curate a selection of products to display on their site (e.g. all organic products).
  • They make it easy for customers to be able to compare products quickly and make a buying decision.
  • Product tables take up less screen real estate as compared to other methods of organizing products.
  • They simplify the purchasing process since customers are able to add multiple products to their cart from a single screen. In other words, they don’t have to visit individual product pages to view product details and add products to their cart.

Introducing Posts Table Pro: The e-commerce product table plugin for BigCommerce stores

Posts Table Pro is a BigCommerce product table plugin that lets you display items in a dynamic table layout with built-in options for searching, sorting, and filtering products.

As a WordPress plugin, Posts Table Pro lets you list BigCommerce products on any WordPress website. The products are still added and maintained via BigCommerce - and orders are still managed via BigCommerce. However, it's a fantastic opportunity to list your products in WordPress - ideal if your main company website uses WordPress, or you want to list products outside of BigCommerce instead.

With Posts Table Pro create customizable product tables easily that improve the customer’s shopping experience and simplify the purchasing process. Specifically, you can tweak:

  • How each table will appear on the front end.
  • What information (product details) will be presented and in what order?
  • Whether you want to display product variations, quantity selectors, and add to cart buttons.
  • How customers can filter through products e.g. by product category.

Using Posts Table Pro, you can improve the user experience your BigCommerce-based store delivers and potentially improve conversions and increase sales.

How to create a BigCommerce product table in WordPress

If you’ve connected your BigCommerce store to your WP website, you’ll need a way to display BigCommerce products in an intuitive and user-friendly way. With the Posts Table Pro plugin, you can easily list products in a neat table layout.

Assuming you have a BigCommerce store set up with some products and the BigCommerce for WordPress plugin installed on your WordPress website, here’s what you need to do to create a product table:

Step #1: Install and activate Posts Table Pro

To get started, purchase the Posts Table Pro plugin and install it on your WordPress website.

GET POSTS TABLE PRO

You will receive a zip folder containing all the necessary files upon purchase. Navigate to the WordPress dashboard, select Plugins → Add New, and click on the Upload Plugin button to proceed with the installation.

Go to the Plugins section in your WordPress dashboard and click on "Add New." Then, click on "Upload Plugin" and select the zip folder containing the plugin's contents. Click on "Install Now" to start the installation process, and once it's complete, activate the plugin. Upon activation, the setup wizard for Posts Table Pro will launch and guide you through entering your license key.

Step #2: Customize your table

Start by giving your table a name and select the post type BigCommerce has created for you. And then follow the steps below:

  1. Select the posts or pages you would like to include in the table. The available options will vary based on the post type you selected in the previous step. For instance, if you chose a post with custom taxonomy, the relevant taxonomies will be listed for you to select.
  2. Customize your table to suit your preferences. You can determine which columns to display and in what order. To add a new column, choose the column type from the dropdown menu and click "Add". You can also reorder columns by dragging and dropping the sort icon or column heading.
  3. Filters appear as dropdowns above the table, and you can add as many as you like. It is important to note that available filter options will vary depending on the post type selected on the first page.
  4. Enable lazy loading to improve the table's performance, even when containing hundreds or thousands of items.
  5. Choose how to sort the table. You can set the default sorting option and the sort direction.
  6. Finally, the wizard will confirm that you have finished creating your table and provide instructions for inserting it onto your site.

Step #3: Add the product table to your website

Once you've finished creating your table using the Post Table Pro plugin, the setup wizard will confirm that you're done and give you instructions for displaying the table on your WordPress site.

You have two options for displaying the table:

  1. Use the 'Post Table' block found in the Gutenberg editor.
  2. Copy the shortcode from the table builder and paste it anywhere on your site. This gives you the freedom to place the table on any page, no matter its content.

When you view it, it should look something like this on your site’s front end:

BigCommerce product table preview

Conclusion

You can use a BigCommerce product table plugin to list products in a neat table layout that’s searchable, sortable, and filterable.

This makes it easy for customers to browse products and see everything your store offers at a glance thereby improving their user experience. As a result, you’ll be able to increase product visibility and, ultimately, boost sales.

We showed you how to create a BigCommerce product table in WordPress using Posts Table Pro. Hopefully, you’re in a good position now to take the next steps.

What are some of the ways you improve your customers’ shopping experience on your BigCommerce website? Let us know in the comments section below.

2 Comments

    • Hi, David.

      Thanks for your interest in WooCommerce Product Table and for the link for reference. Looking at the product table on that page, yes you can achieve the same type using our plugin and we've had customers create similar product tables with diagrams/schematics on the same page. You can add/include a reference number column as a custom field column. For the "add to watch list" button, you could consider adding it using one of the Wishlist Plugins we've listed at: Which plugins are compatible with WooCommerce Product Table?

      Should you have any other questions, just let us know via our Support Center. Cheers!

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