The shop and category pages WooCommerce produces are the least designed pages on most stores, and they are where shoppers arriving from search actually land.
A Product Listing block in archive mode lets you build those pages yourself, laid out like the rest of the site.
Before You Start
- Edition: Pro — the Product Listing block needs Nexter Blocks Pro.
- Block to enable: Product Listing, switched on under Nexter > Blocks in your WordPress dashboard.
- WooCommerce active, with published products. The block reads your real catalogue, so an empty store renders an empty listing.
- A template for the product archive, created in your theme’s template editor.
Steps
- Create or edit your product archive template.
- Add a Product Listing block to it.
- Set the listing type to archive, so it follows the page rather than running its own query.
- Set the layout, columns and what each card shows.
- Add pagination, then save and open a real category URL.
How It Behaves
In archive mode the block reads the page it is on instead of choosing products itself.
- Archive mode follows the current query. The block reads the category, tag or search term of the page being viewed, so one template serves the shop page and every category.
- That is the difference from a restricted listing, which always shows the same products — see display products by category.
- It only makes sense inside a template. On an ordinary page there is no archive query to read.
- Pagination matters more here than anywhere, because this is the page that has to expose your whole catalogue — see add pagination.
- Measured with Nexter Blocks Pro deactivated: the block renders nothing at all — no wrapper, no products, no prices. This is a Pro-only block.
Limitations
- Pro only — measured with Nexter Blocks Pro deactivated, nothing renders.
- You are replacing pages that carry real traffic and revenue. Test on a staging copy before shipping, and check the shop page, a category and a search result.
- One template covers every category, so a different layout per category needs separate templates.
- WooCommerce features that hang off the archive, such as sorting and result counts, are not part of this block and need adding separately if you want them.
- The editor cannot preview it properly, since there is no archive query there.
Troubleshooting
Every category shows the same products
The block is running its own query rather than following the archive. Set the listing type to archive.
It looks empty in the editor
Expected. There is no archive query in the editor. Open a real category URL.
My sorting dropdown has gone
WooCommerce’s own archive controls are separate from this block. Add them to the template if you need them.
The default WooCommerce shop page still shows
The template is not assigned to that archive. Check the assignment in the site editor.
