Create and Update Products with WooCommerce API

Recently, I was publishing and updating the tutorials about WordPress REST API, how to create a post, how to add a featured image and so on. But did you know that WooCommerce has its own API, which is built on the base of a regular WordPress REST API but allows you to do many more things and also simplifies the work with the other ones?

In this tutorial, we are going to dive into actual examples of working with WooCommerce API. I will show examples of creating and updating products, and also we will try to search them by SKU and delete them.

In this tutorial specifically, I am going to use two methods of interaction with the WooCommerce API – using WordPress HTTP functions like wp_remote_get() and wp_remote_request() and also using an official WooCommerce REST API PHP library.

Consumer Key and Consumer Secret

In order to authenticate with the WooCommerce API you need to provide:

• A username and application password – in case you’re about to use WordPress HTTP API functions, it could be useful in cases when your plugin works not only with WooCommerce products but also, for example, with regular WordPress posts, that’s exactly what my plugin, Simple WP Crossposting, does.
• A consumer key and secret – will work in both cases whether you’re using the WooCommerce REST API PHP Library or not.

In order to generate a consumer key and a consumer secret in WooCommerce settings, please go to the “Advanced” tab and then to the “REST API” tab.

Just click that big button.

The settings above are pretty straightforward:

• “Description” is the description of this specific pair of keys,
• “User” – is a store user under whose permissions all the changes are going to be made,
• “Permissions” – if you set just “Read” there, you will be able only to get the data using these API credentials but not allowed to update anything on the store. For example, you’d get a rest API error woocommerce_rest_cannot_create, if you try to create a product with “Read” permissions. So let’s set it to “Read/Write”.

Finally, we got our keys:

One more thing to notion, please make sure that your REST API isn’t disabled on the WordPress level, for example, with this code. Also, there are plugins for that.

So for all the examples below, we assume that we have the following variables declared:

• $key and $secret in case we decide to use the consumer key and secret,
• $username and $pwd – in cases when we decided to use application passwords.

Now, let’s dive into the examples.

Create Product with WooCommerce API

Guys, a small disclaimer – it is just examples, not the complete API docs. So, obviously there are a lot of more arguments available, which you can find in the official docs.

Creating products is very similar to creating posts with WordPress REST API.

$product_data = array(
	'name' => 'My test product', // product title
	'status' => 'draft', // product status, default: publish
	'categories' => array( // product categories
		array(
			'id' => 5 // each category in a separate array
		),
		array(
			'id' => 10
		)
	),
	'regular_price' => '9.99' // product price
);
	
$response = wp_remote_post( 
	"{$url}/wp-json/wc/v3/products", 
	array(
	 	'headers' => array(
			'Authorization' => 'Basic ' . base64_encode( "{$username}:{$pwd}" )
		),
		'body' => $product_data
	)
);

if( 'Created' === wp_remote_retrieve_response_message( $response ) ) {
	$body = json_decode( wp_remote_retrieve_body( $response ) );
	echo "The product {$body->name} has been created.";
}

You can always print_r( $body ) or print_r( $response ) to view what is returned.

If you’re going to create products with attributes using WooCommerce API, I recommend you check my other tutorial with the appropriate examples there.

Now, let’s try to do the same but using the WooCommerce REST API PHP library:

$woocommerce = new Client( $url, $key, $secret, array( 'version' => 'wc/v3' ) );

try {
	$new_product = $woocommerce->post( 'products', $product_data );
	echo "The product {$new_product->name} has been created.";
} catch( Exception $error ) {
	$error = $error->getMessage();
}

Update Product with WooCommerce API

In the piece of code below, you have to replace the $product_id variable with the actual product ID you would like to update.

$response = wp_remote_request( 
	"{$url}/wp-json/wc/v3/products/{$product_id}",
	array(
		'method' => 'PUT',
 		'headers' => array(
			'Authorization' => 'Basic ' . base64_encode( "{$username}:{$pwd}" )
		),
		'body' => array(
			'regular_price' => '100.30', // just update the product price
			// but we can update several parameters at the same time, of course
		)
	)
);

if( 'OK' === wp_remote_retrieve_response_message( $response ) ) {
	$body = json_decode( wp_remote_retrieve_body( $response ) );
	echo "The product {$body->name} has been updated.";
}

The same with the PHP library:

try {
	$updated_product = $woocommerce->put( 
		"products/{$product_id}", 
		array(
			'regular_price' => '100.30',
		)
	);
	echo "The product {$updated_product->name} has been updated.";
} catch( Exception $error ) {
	echo $error->getMessage();
}

Search Products

Another cool thing is that WooCommerce REST API allows you to search products, let’s say, by their SKU or product categories.

Let me show you an example of how you can get products or even product variation by SKU.

$response = wp_remote_get(
	add_query_arg( 
		array( 'sku' => $sku ), 
		'https://your-website/wp-json/wc/v3/products'
	),
	array(
		'headers' => array(
			'Authorization' => 'Basic ' . base64_encode( "{$username}:{$pwd}" )
		)
	)
);

if( 'OK' === wp_remote_retrieve_response_message( $response ) ) {
	// now we have an array of products found
	$products = json_decode( wp_remote_retrieve_body( $response ) );
	// but probably it is the only product because we are searching by SKU
	$product = reset( $products );
	if( 'variation' === $product->type ) {
		echo 'Variation found with ID: ' . $product->id;
	} else {
		echo 'Product found with ID: ' . $product->id;
	}
}

Delete a Product

Do not forget to replace $product_id with the actual product ID. ?force=true at the end of the endpoint URL means to remove a product completely without moving it to the trash.

$response = wp_remote_request( 
	'https://your-website/wp-json/wc/v3/products/{PRODUCT ID}', // ?force=true
	array( 
		'method' => 'DELETE',
 		'headers' => array(
			'Authorization' => 'Basic ' . base64_encode( "{$username}:{$pwd}" )
		)
	)
);

if( 'OK' === wp_remote_retrieve_response_message( $response ) ) {
	$body = json_decode( wp_remote_retrieve_body( $response ) );
	echo "The product {$body->name} has been removed.";
}

# WooCommerce, REST API

Misha Rudrastyh

Hey guys and welcome to my website. For more than 15 years I've been doing my best to share with you some superb WordPress guides and tips for free.

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