On September 14, the WooCommerce team released version 6.9 to the world, followed shortly thereafter with version 6.9.1 after discovering a bug that caused issues on some sites due to their PHP versions.
One of the biggest new features is that you’ll now get access to the Cart and Checkout blocks in the core WooCommerce software (whereas previously these blocks were relegated to the experimental WooCommerce Blocks plugin).
These core blocks are important to helping WooCommerce’s block-based approach keep up with visual builders like Elementor, given that Elementor has already had flexible cart and checkout widgets for several months now.
Beyond the new blocks, WooCommerce 6.9 comes with improved product filtering.
The filter will now update the URL without reloading the page. This makes it easy for shoppers to share and access direct links to filters.
Users can also set multiple selections for attribute filters when using dropdowns and the AND query type.
There are plenty of other changes, too, as WooCommerce 6.9 includes 90+ smaller fixes and tweaks.
Here are some relevant links if you want to learn more:
One thing that 6.9 did not include, though, is the custom database table for orders that we mentioned a few news roundups back.
This feature, which has been renamed to High-Performance Order Storage (HPOS), is currently targeted for release in WooCommerce 7.1, which is itself currently slated for release around November.
When it first launches, HPOS will be opt-in for stores. However, the eventual aim is that core is able to turn it on by default (I presume only for new stores). If things go well, this could happen in around a year’s time (August 2023).
Beyond the update to the core software, the WooCommerce team also released WooCommerce Blocks 8.6.0 later in September, which includes a new cross-sells block that should be making its way to the core WooCommerce software at some point.
