Do you want to showcase your products in a digital catalogue on your WordPress website?

The great news is that everything is possible when it comes to WordPress. There are many awesome solutions that will allow you to do this – starting from a simple gallery plugin, passing through some catalogue WordPress themes and finally – the dozens of plugins. And speaking of plugins I would like to present to you one of them that might just be the solution for your digital catalogue needs.

Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado I’d like you to meet WP Catalogue.

The name of this plugin speaks for its purposes. However there is much to benefit from by using WP Catalogue. This is an excellent way to display each of your products by creating stylish and professional looking catalogues. But despite of its great functionality this plugin (like many others) is extremely easy to setup and use. And if you don’t like its default view, then you can easily customize it as well. This plugin is available in multiple languages and can be easily translated if needed which makes it perfect for all markets.

WP Catalogue can be integrated at a page of your choice by simply placing the shortcode in the WordPress editor. This means that you need to create a new page, and then add WP Catalogue to it.

But before any of your products are displayed, you need to adjust some settings. So let’s focus on this, shall we?

After installing WP Catalogue a new section appears in your WordPress dashboard with the same name. It has several sub-sections: WP Catalogue, Categories, Order and Settings. In the latter you need to make the basic configuration of the plugin by choosing:

• The number of products that need to be displayed per row;
• The theme colour – this is extremely useful as it allows you to choose the same colour as your theme so that the plugin will match your overall design. This is done by using a picker to select the desired colour;
• The number of products that you will display on each page of the catalogue;
• Turning the breadcrumb URL structure for the catalogue on and off;
• The settings for the catalogue images – here you can set the desired height and width of both the thumbnail images and the main gallery images. You can also select how they should be displayed – for example you can scale & crop the images;
• The availability of ‘next’ and ‘previous’ links on each of the product pages in your catalogue;

At the end of the Settings page you are going to find two text boxes that will allow you to insert and close your theme divs if there is a problem regarding the integration of WP Catalogue and the theme’s design. A special HOWTO is available within the plugin’s documentation on achieving this and the creators of the plugin are providing excellent support if you are having problems with these settings. However there might not be a need to add anything there as WP Catalogue should work flawlessly with most of the themes.

So after you are done with the Settings you need to save them (please do not forget to do this) and enter the Categories sub-section. There you need to define your product’s categories – it is the same as if you are adding a default WordPress category so you shouldn’t have any problems there.

Then enter the WP Catalogue sub-section and start adding your products. Again this will be as if you are writing your next blog post i.e. this is extremely easy. Assign each product to its respective category and add images and description. If your theme provides customization to your posts by utilizing some sort of page builder, then you can use it on your product pages as well. Also you can add the price of the product here, but bear in mind that WP Catalogue is not meant to be used for eCommerce purposes. It is created just to display your products but you can add links to your eCommerce solution if needed. What I’d recommend you to do is to place a link for a inquiry about each product. Then the customer can contact you personally for more information and you can make the sell directly (and much easier).

But let’s return to the plugin’s functionality. So by now you should have made the necessary settings, integrated WP Catalogue in your theme’s design. added product categories and respectively your products with images and detailed descriptions. Now you need to change the order in which the categories will be displayed. This is done by clicking on the Order sub-section and using drag&drop.

With this your digital catalogue is fully operational and you can start showcasing your products. WP Catalogue also has a pro version that provides additional functionalities such as fully responsive design so that your clients can browse your products by using their mobile devices.

You can check some demo catalogues on the WP Catalogue page at wordpress.org. You can also see some reviews and get further information about the plugin.

What is your favorite solution for catalogues in WordPress? Share this in the comments below.

See you again friends!