Show Products by Category ID in WooCommerce

This snippet lists all WooCommerce products from one product category, with the category ID taken from an Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) field on the current page. That way an editor can choose which category a page shows without touching the template. It needs both WooCommerce and ACF.

Put the code in the page template that should display the products.

<?php
   $cat_id = get_field('category_id'); //USING ACF
   $args = array(
   	'post_type' => 'product',
   	'post_status' => 'publish',
   	'ignore_sticky_posts' => 1,
   	'posts_per_page' => - 1,
   	'tax_query' => array(
   		array(
   			'taxonomy' => 'product_cat',
   			'field' => 'term_id', //This is optional, as it defaults to 'term_id'
   			'terms' => $cat_id,
   			'operator' => 'IN'
   
   			// Possible values are 'IN', 'NOT IN', 'AND'.
   
   		)
   	)
   );
   $loop = new WP_Query($args);
   ?>
<?php
   if ($loop->have_posts()): ?>
<?php
   while ($loop->have_posts()):
   	$loop->the_post(); ?>
<!-- Item  Start -->
<div class="single-submission-item product-listing-carousel-item">
   <div class="submission-item-action-btn">
      <a href="<?php
         the_permalink(); ?>" class="submission-item-view-details-btn"><?php
         the_title(); ?></a>
   </div>
</div>
<!-- Item  End -->
<?php
   endwhile;
   endif; ?>
<?php
   wp_reset_postdata(); ?>

How it works

• get_field( 'category_id' ) reads the ID from an ACF field named category_id on the current page. A Number field works, or a Taxonomy field set to return the term ID.
• The tax_query selects products in that product_cat term. With the IN operator you can also pass an array of IDs to show products from several categories; the comment in the code lists the other operators.
• 'posts_per_page' => -1 loads every matching product. Set a number instead if the category is large.
• Each product is printed as a link with its title. Replace the div markup and CSS classes with your own layout, for example to add the price or image, or load WooCommerce’s own product card as in the featured products loop.
• wp_reset_postdata() restores the page’s own post data after the loop, so ACF fields and template tags further down still refer to the page.

Finding the category ID

Go to Products > Categories and click the category to edit it. The number after tag_ID= in your browser’s address bar is its ID. Enter that number in the page’s ACF field.

Pages that use this template without a category in the field won’t have anything to filter by, so it’s a good idea to check that $cat_id has a value before you run the query.

Related articles

• querying custom post types by taxonomy term ID: the same tax_query for other post types
• why ACF is still my choice for custom WordPress sites: the approach behind editor-controlled fields like this one