How to Add WooCommerce Featured Products in 2026

To add a WooCommerce featured product, go to Products > All Products, click the star icon next to any product, or open Quick Edit and check “Featured.” That single flag controls how the product appears across shortcodes, widgets, blocks, and most featured-product plugins.

This guide covers all three ways to mark a product as featured, four ways to display them, how to make featured products show first in your existing shop loop, and how to query them programmatically if you’re building a custom template.

Why Feature Products

Featured products let you spotlight bestsellers, new arrivals, seasonal items, or products you want to move, on your homepage, blog posts, widgets, or shop pages, without changing your store’s structure. It’s a fast way to direct attention toward specific items rather than relying on customers to browse your full catalog.

How to Set Featured Products in WooCommerce

There are three ways to mark a product as featured.

1. From the Edit Product Page

Go to Products > All Products and edit the product, or Products > Add New if it’s a new product. In the right sidebar, open Catalog visibility and check “This is a featured product.”

2. From the All Products Page

Go to Products > All Products and click the star icon next to the product you want to feature. The star highlights when the product is featured; click it again to remove featured status. If you don’t see the star column, enable it under Screen Options in the top-right corner.

3. Using Quick Edit

Go to Products > All Products, click Quick Edit on the product, check Featured, and click Update.

How to Display WooCommerce Featured Products

1. WooCommerce Featured Products Widget

Go to Appearance > Widgets, drag the WooCommerce Featured Products widget into a sidebar or footer area, give it a title, and set the number of products to show.

2. Shortcode

WooCommerce’s built-in shortcode displays your featured products directly on any page or post:

[featured_products]
[featured_products columns="2" per_page="4"]
[featured_products columns="3" per_page="6"]

3. Featured Product Block

In the block editor, add the Featured Product block, then search for and select the product. This method only displays one product at a time, but has one advantage: the product doesn’t need to already be marked as featured. Selecting it here automatically sets that flag.

4. Plugins

If the built-in options are too limited for your layout needs, several current plugins add more display flexibility.

How to Show Featured Products First in Your Shop Loop

The methods above display featured products in a dedicated section. If you instead want your existing shop, category, or search results pages to show featured products first while keeping your normal product grid, that’s a separate setting. Featured Products First for WooCommerce is a free plugin built specifically for this: it reorders your default shop, archive, category, and search pages so featured items appear first, without changing your layout or requiring a shortcode.

The free version covers default sorting; the Pro version extends this to custom sort orders.

How to Query Featured Products Programmatically

If you’re building a custom template or need featured products in a custom loop, WooCommerce stores featured status in the product_visibility taxonomy under the featured term, not as post meta. Query it like this:

$args = array(
    'post_type'   => 'product',
    'post_status' => 'publish',
    'tax_query'   => array(
        array(
            'taxonomy' => 'product_visibility',
            'field'    => 'name',
            'terms'    => 'featured',
            'operator' => 'IN',
        ),
    ),
);
$featured_products = new WP_Query( $args );

Place this in your theme template where you want featured products to appear, then loop through $featured_products as you would any WordPress query.

Best WooCommerce Featured Products Plugins

WooCommerce Blocks

WooCommerce’s own block library includes the Featured Product block covered above, plus related blocks like Best Selling Products, Newest Products, and Hand-Picked Products. It’s free, built in, and requires no additional plugin.

WooCommerce Product Table (Barn2)

Displays your featured products in a searchable, filterable, sortable table rather than a grid, useful if customers need to compare specs or you sell products with many variations. Use the shortcode [products_table term=”product_visibility:featured”] to pull only featured items into the table.

Featured Products First for WooCommerce

Covered above for sorting; also provides a dedicated featured-products sidebar widget as part of its free tier.

Ultimate Store Kit

An Elementor-based store builder toolkit with a Feature Box widget for displaying featured products with custom headings, badges, and CTA buttons, without writing code. Useful if you want more visual control than the native block gives you.

WowStore (formerly ProductX)

An Elementor-compatible plugin for building WooCommerce layouts, including featured-product grids with sort-by-featured-status controls built into its Product Grid block. If you’ve used ProductX previously, WowStore is the same plugin under its current name.

Frequently Asked Questions

Key Takeaways

• Featured status lives in the product_visibility taxonomy under the featured term, useful to know if you’re customizing display via code rather than shortcodes or widgets.
• The built-in shortcode, widget, and block cover most display needs without a plugin; add a plugin only for table layouts, sort-order changes, or page-builder-specific widgets.
• Showing featured products first in your existing shop loop is a different need than displaying them in a dedicated section, and requires a plugin built for that specific purpose.
• Featured status and sale pricing are independent, and featuring a product has no effect on SEO.
• Keep your featured selection small and rotate it regularly rather than leaving the same products featured indefinitely.