Building a WooCommerce store with Visual Composer often reveals a frustrating gap: the page builder handles layout beautifully, but native WooCommerce elements like product grids, carts, and checkout forms don’t always drop neatly into your designs. Woocommerce shortcodes for Visual Composer by Anps solves that exact problem. This lightweight plugin adds the missing WooCommerce shortcode elements directly into the Visual Composer interface, letting store owners design product pages, category showcases, and shopping flows without touching a line of code. For anyone who has ever tried to blend e-commerce functionality with a drag-and-drop layout system, this small utility closes a very real workflow gap.
Key Features
- WooCommerce shortcodes inside Visual Composer — the plugin’s core purpose is to surface the shortcodes WooCommerce lacks in the Visual Composer element library, so you can add e-commerce components through the same drag-and-drop interface you already use for the rest of your site.
- Native Visual Composer integration — elements appear as standard Visual Composer modules with their own icons, meaning the experience feels built-in rather than bolted on.
- Select-field shortcode options — configuration uses dropdown select fields rather than free-text inputs, reducing typos and making settings faster and more reliable to configure.
- Orderby parameter with menu_order support — shortcodes include an ordering option that lets you sort displayed products by menu order, giving you manual control over how products appear in grids and lists.
- Visual Composer 5.2.0 compatibility — the most recent update (v1.7.2, July 2017) specifically added support for Visual Composer 5.2.0, keeping the plugin aligned with the builder’s evolution.
- Documentation with FAQ — the plugin ships with documentation that includes a dedicated FAQ section, so common setup questions are answered without a support ticket.
- Lightweight footprint — this is a focused utility plugin, not a bloated suite. It does one job: bridging WooCommerce shortcodes into Visual Composer.
Who Is This For? Use Cases
WooCommerce Store Owners Using Visual Composer
If your WordPress site runs both WooCommerce and Visual Composer, this plugin is the missing link. You can place product-related shortcodes into any row, column, or section you design, which means promotional landing pages, seasonal sale pages, and custom homepage layouts can include real e-commerce components instead of static images or manual HTML.
Freelancers and Agencies
Agencies building client stores frequently inherit sites where Visual Composer is already installed. Rather than rebuilding pages in Gutenberg or hand-coding shortcodes into text blocks, developers can deliver polished, builder-native e-commerce layouts quickly. At $18, it’s an easy line item to justify on a client project and saves hours of workaround effort.
Developers Customizing WooCommerce Templates
Developers who want to expose WooCommerce functionality to non-technical clients benefit from the select-field configuration. Clients can rearrange products and adjust ordering through Visual Composer’s interface without editing PHP templates or remembering shortcode syntax. The menu_order ordering option is particularly useful for curated product displays where manual sequencing matters.
Bloggers and Content Creators Monetizing with WooCommerce
Content sites that sell products, digital downloads, or memberships can embed WooCommerce elements inside long-form articles and landing pages built with Visual Composer. This keeps the reading experience cohesive while still surfacing purchasable items inline.
Technical Details & Compatibility
Woocommerce shortcodes for Visual Composer is a WordPress plugin built specifically for sites running both WooCommerce and Visual Composer. Its compatibility history is documented through a detailed changelog:
- Visual Composer 5.2.0 — supported as of version 1.7.2 (July 2017).
- Visual Composer 4.3 — icon fixes were applied for this version in v1.4, showing the developer actively maintained compatibility across major builder releases.
- Plugin initialization — the plugin action was moved to wp_loaded in v1.7, a change that improves reliability by ensuring WordPress and dependent plugins are fully loaded before the shortcodes register.
- Global variable fix — v1.2 resolved a global variable issue, indicating attention to code hygiene and conflicts.
The plugin’s update history spans 2014 through 2017, with seven documented releases. That cadence reflects a developer who responded to Visual Composer’s version changes rather than abandoning the product. Because the plugin is a bridge utility, it has no front-end design of its own — visual output inherits your theme’s WooCommerce styling, which keeps your site’s design language consistent. Mobile responsiveness and browser compatibility follow your existing theme and WooCommerce setup, so there are no additional rendering layers to worry about. As with any shortcode-based plugin, performance impact is minimal since the plugin only registers and renders shortcodes when they’re actually used on a page.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Fills a genuine gap — WooCommerce shortcodes that Visual Composer doesn’t natively offer become available as drag-and-drop elements.
- Extremely affordable — at $18, it costs less than an hour of developer time and eliminates manual shortcode workarounds.
- Proven track record — 1,427 sales on CodeCanyon demonstrate sustained demand and buyer confidence.
- Actively maintained history — seven documented updates addressing compatibility, icons, naming, and code fixes.
- User-friendly configuration — select fields replace text inputs, reducing configuration errors for non-technical users.
- Menu order control — manual product sequencing gives you precise control over curated displays.
- Clean, focused scope — does one thing well without adding unnecessary bloat to your site.
Cons
- Requires both WooCommerce and Visual Composer — the plugin is useless without both parent plugins, so it’s not a standalone solution.
- Last update in 2017 — the changelog ends at v1.7.2, so buyers using much newer Visual Composer versions should verify compatibility before purchase.
- No rating data available — the listing doesn’t display a rating, so buyers rely on sales volume and changelog history as trust signals.
- Narrow purpose — it won’t add new WooCommerce features; it only exposes existing shortcodes to the builder.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Woocommerce shortcodes for Visual Composer work with the latest version of Visual Composer?
The most recent documented compatibility update targets Visual Composer 5.2.0 (v1.7.2, July 2017). If you’re running a significantly newer version of Visual Composer, check with the author, Anps, before purchasing to confirm current compatibility. The plugin’s update history shows the developer has previously responded to major builder changes, including the 4.3 icon overhaul.
Do I need to know shortcode syntax to use this plugin?
No. The entire point of the plugin is to make WooCommerce shortcodes available as Visual Composer elements with select-field options. You add them through the builder interface and configure settings via dropdowns, so no manual shortcode coding is required. The included documentation also features an FAQ section covering common setup questions.
Can I control the order in which products appear in my layouts?
Yes. Version 1.6 added a menu_order option to the orderby parameter, allowing you to sort displayed products by menu order. This is useful for manually curating product grids, featured collections, or promotional sections where you want specific items to appear first rather than relying on date or title sorting.
Final Verdict
Woocommerce shortcodes for Visual Composer is a narrowly scoped utility that earns its place through precision rather than feature count. With 1,427 sales on CodeCanyon, it has clearly resonated with a specific audience: WordPress users who run both WooCommerce and Visual Composer and need the two to cooperate inside the page builder. Developer Anps maintained the plugin across seven releases between 2014 and 2017, addressing Visual Composer version changes, icon updates, shortcode naming, and a global variable fix — a maintenance record that signals genuine stewardship of the product. At $18, the value proposition is straightforward: it replaces hours of manual shortcode embedding and template hacking with a clean, builder-native workflow. The main caveat is the 2017 update ceiling, so buyers on very recent Visual Composer builds should confirm compatibility first. For everyone else running established setups, this plugin removes a persistent friction point for the price of a takeaway lunch.
If your store’s design workflow keeps hitting the same wall — WooCommerce components that won’t drop into Visual Composer layouts — stop working around it. Purchase Woocommerce shortcodes for Visual Composer today, install it in minutes, and start building product pages the way you actually designed them to look.