General store settings

WooCommerce's general settings control the foundational behavior of your store: what currency you sell in, where you're based, and how customers can shop. This guide walks through the most important settings to know.

Where's the Tax tab?

The Tax tab only appears once you tick Enable tax rates and calculations on the General tab.

Getting to WooCommerce settings

Log in to WordPress.

Go to WooCommerce → Settings in the left-hand menu. The settings are organized into tabs across the top.

General tab: the most important settings

Store address

Enter your business's physical address: the location you're based as a seller. Many tax and shipping settings use this address to work out rates.

Selling location

Choose where you sell:

Sell to all countriesOpen to everyone.
Sell to all countries, except for…Exclude specific countries.
Sell to specific countriesRestrict to a list you define.

Also set your Shipping location(s): ship only to the countries you sell to, ship everywhere, ship to a specific list, or disable shipping altogether.

Default customer location

WooCommerce uses this to estimate shipping and taxes before a customer enters their address:

No location by defaultNothing is calculated until they enter an address.
Shop country/regionAssume customers are in the same place as your shop.
GeolocateUses MaxMind Geolocation to work out the customer's location.
Geolocate (with page caching support)The same, but built to work with page caching. You may see ?v=xxxxx added to your URLs; that's normal and stops prices being cached.

Currency settings

Set your store's Currency, Currency position (Left, Right, Left with space, or Right with space), the thousand and decimal separators, and the number of decimals. Only one currency can be selected.

Check your prices after changing currency

Switching your store currency changes how prices are displayed. WooCommerce's documentation doesn't say that it converts the numbers themselves, so check your product prices afterwards and update them if they need to reflect a different currency.

Accounts & Privacy tab

Key settings here:

Setting	What it does
Enable guest checkout	Lets customers check out without creating an account: recommended ON
Enable log-in during checkout	Shows a login prompt and form at checkout
Account creation	Whether customers can create an account after checkout, during checkout, or on the My account page
Privacy policy	Choose your privacy policy page and add privacy notices to registration and checkout
Personal data retention	How long to keep order and account data (for privacy compliance)

We strongly recommend keeping guest checkout enabled: WooCommerce labels the setting Enable guest checkout (recommended), and requiring an account puts some customers off.

Products tab

Key settings on Products → General:

Setting	What it does
Shop page	Which WordPress page is your main shop/product listing
Add to cart behaviour	Whether to redirect to the cart after adding, and whether to use AJAX add-to-cart buttons
Weight unit / Dimensions unit	The units used for product measurements
Enable product reviews	Turn product reviews on or off, in the Reviews section

Stock settings live on the Products → Inventory sub-section. That's where you'll find Enable stock management, the Low stock threshold, and the low stock, out of stock, and backorder notifications.

Some display settings live in the Customizer

Shop page display, default product sorting, and product image sizes aren't on this tab. They're under Appearance → Customize → WooCommerce.

Advanced tab: page assignments

This is where WooCommerce links its functions to your actual WordPress pages:

Setting	Page it references
Cart page	Your cart page
Checkout page	Your checkout page
My account page	Customer account area
Terms and conditions	Your T&C page (shown at checkout if set)

You must have a page assigned for Cart and Checkout, or customers can't buy and pay. See the guide on your store's key pages.

Common questions

I changed my currency but prices still show the old symbol. What happened?

Changing the currency setting changes how prices are displayed, not the numbers stored against each product. If you're switching from, say, USD to GBP and want the amounts to reflect an exchange rate, you need to update the product prices. A plugin can do this in bulk. Ask us for help.

Where do I set my store's contact email?

There isn't a single store email field in WooCommerce's General settings. Two places matter instead:

Who gets store notifications: each admin email (New order, Cancelled order, Failed order) has its own Recipient(s) field under WooCommerce → Settings → Emails. It defaults to the site administrator email set in Settings → General.
What customers see as the sender: the "From" name and "From" address fields, also on WooCommerce → Settings → Emails.

Can I have multiple currencies on my store?

Not with standard WooCommerce. Only one currency can be selected. Showing or charging in several currencies needs a multi-currency plugin. Ask us if you need this and we'll recommend one.