# How to Edit Your WooCommerce Shopping Cart: A Beginner’s Guide
So, you’ve built a beautiful WooCommerce store, but the shopping cart isn’t quite right? Don’t worry, customizing your WooCommerce shopping cart is easier than you think! This guide will walk you through various methods, from simple tweaks to more advanced customizations, all explained in a way that’s easy for beginners to understand. We’ll even avoid scary-looking code where possible!
Understanding the WooCommerce Shopping Cart
Before diving into edits, let’s understand what makes up your WooCommerce shopping cart. Think of it as a mini-website within your website. It displays the products added by customers, calculates totals (including taxes and shipping), and provides a checkout button. The appearance and functionality are controlled by a combination of:
- Theme files: Your website’s theme dictates the *visual* presentation of the cart.
- WooCommerce plugins: Specific plugins can add features or modify the cart’s behavior.
- WooCommerce core files: The underlying WooCommerce code manages the cart’s core functionality.
- Cart page layout: Adjust the position of elements like product details, totals, and buttons.
- Cart page colors and fonts: Match the cart’s style to your overall website design.
- Cart icon and display: Modify how the cart icon appears (e.g., number of items in the cart).
- Enable/disable cross-sells: Show related products to encourage additional purchases. Imagine a customer adding a t-shirt; you could suggest matching pants.
- Enable/disable shipping calculations: Control whether shipping costs are calculated in the cart.
- Cart page display options: You can choose whether to display prices including or excluding tax.
- Plugins that add extra cart fields: Allow customers to provide additional information during checkout, like preferred delivery time.
- Plugins that modify the checkout process: Streamline the checkout process or add extra security measures.
- Plugins for cart abandonment recovery: Recover potential sales by automatically sending emails to customers who have left items in their cart.
Simple Edits: No Coding Required!
For many customizations, you don’t need to touch any code! Here are some common edits achievable via the WooCommerce settings or your theme’s customizer:
Changing the Cart’s Appearance
Many themes offer options to customize your shopping cart’s appearance directly within the theme’s customizer (usually accessible via Appearance > Customize in your WordPress dashboard). Look for settings related to:
Modifying Cart Settings (WooCommerce Settings)
Within your WooCommerce settings (WooCommerce > Settings), you can control several aspects of the cart’s behavior:
Medium Edits: Using WooCommerce Plugins
Sometimes, simple theme customizations aren’t enough. This is where WooCommerce plugins come in handy. Plugins offer pre-built solutions for common cart enhancements. Examples include:
Advanced Edits: Code (PHP) Modifications (Proceed with Caution!)
For truly custom changes, you might need to edit the code. This should only be done if you are comfortable with PHP and have backed up your website. Modifying core files can break your site if done incorrectly.
Example: Adding a Custom Message to the Cart
Let’s say you want to add a friendly message to the cart page. You would need to modify the `woocommerce_after_cart_table` hook. This hook is triggered after the main cart table is displayed.
add_action( 'woocommerce_after_cart_table', 'add_custom_cart_message' );
function add_custom_cart_message() {
echo 'Thank you for your order! We appreciate your business.
';
}
Explanation:
- `add_action` adds our custom function to the `woocommerce_after_cart_table` hook.
- `add_custom_cart_message` is the function that displays our message.
- `echo` displays the HTML for our message. We use a class (`custom-cart-message`) for easy styling via CSS.
Where to place this code: You’d typically add this code to your theme’s `functions.php` file or a custom plugin. Remember to always backup your website before making code changes.
Conclusion
Editing your WooCommerce shopping cart can range from simple adjustments in the theme customizer to more complex code modifications. Start with the easy methods first, and only resort to code changes if absolutely necessary. Remember to always back up your site before making any significant changes. Happy selling!
