Enabling Brands: Update for WooCommerce 9.6

In October 2024, we announced the introduction of the Brands plugin migrating into WooCommerce Core as a beta feature that required manual enabling. Since then, we’ve listened to your feedback, and refined the feature. We are now excited to share that starting with WooCommerce 9.6, scheduled for Monday, January 20th, Brands will move out of beta and be automatically enabled for everyone.

This update simplifies your experience and ensures that brand management becomes a seamless part of WooCommerce stores. Here’s what you need to know:

Enabling and disabling Brands

As of WooCommerce 9.6:

  • Automatically enabled: Brands is now fully integrated into WooCommerce core and turned on by default for all users.
  • Disabling Brands: If you prefer not to use this feature, you can disable it with the following code snippet:
add_action( 'init', function() {
    update_option( 'wc_feature_woocommerce_brands_enabled', 'no' );
} );

This is a one-off snippet. Once you install it, visit any page in your store to disable Brands. Then, remove this snippet.

Alternatively, you can disable it via WP CLI:

wp option update wc_feature_woocommerce_brands_enabled 'no'

For existing plugin users

If you previously used the WooCommerce Brands plugin, the following changes apply:

  • The plugin will be automatically disabled upon updating to WooCommerce 9.6.
  • Users will see a prompt to delete the plugin, as its functionality is now included in WooCommerce core. Removing the plugin is recommended, as it won’t receive any further updates and won’t be possible to activate it with WooCommerce 9.6+.

Documentation

You can learn more about Brands and how to implement in a store here.

Additional notes for developers

  • The feature flag wc_feature_woocommerce_brands_enabled can be safely removed from your code if you were manually enabling Brands during the beta period.
  • The woocommerce_remote_variant_assignment option, previously part of the beta configuration, is no longer necessary in WooCommerce 9.6+.

Known compatibility issues

If you are using a separate Brands plugin, then there is a chance that it uses the same slug for displaying Brands pages as WooCommerce Core.

In case you would like to disable WooCommerce Core Brands functionality and continue using a separate Brands plugin, then you might need to regenerate permalinks in your store for Brands archive pages to continue working as expected. The best way to do this is to go to the Settings > Permalinks tab and click on ‘Save changes’, without changing anything.

What’s next for Brands?

The transition of Brands to WooCommerce core ensures it will continue to evolve alongside the platform. We’re working to integrate and improve its documentation and user experience. In the meantime, your feedback in our GitHub Discussion for this topic, as we look forward to learning about your experience with this feature.

We’re thrilled to see how you use Brands to enhance your stores and look forward to seeing your creativity in action!


22 responses to “Enabling Brands: Update for WooCommerce 9.6”

  1. Hi, I am using the Perfect Brands for WooCommerce plugin, but it has stopped working due to a conflict with the default WooCommerce Brands feature. I tried resolving this conflict by adding the following code:

    add_action( ‘init’, function() {
    update_option( ‘wc_feature_woocommerce_brands_enabled’, ‘no’ );
    } );

    However, this has caused the Perfect Brands plugin to stop functioning entirely. Could you please guide me on how to resolve this issue while keeping the Perfect Brands plugin working?

    1. Hey Ashish! 👋

      Perfect Brands for WooCommerce is one of the plugins that we tested for conflicts with the new WooCommerce Brands feature and we didn’t identify any issues.

      I did another test now and confirmed that after disabling core’s Brands feature, the brands created by Perfect Brands for WooCommerce were still working. For example, when I viewed a product belonging to a brand created by Perfect Brands for WooCommerce, this brand was listed in the single product page, as expected.

      Looking at the code of Perfect Brands for WooCommerce, I confirmed that the plugin uses a custom taxonomy to represent brands that is different from the one WooCommerce uses, so there shouldn’t be any conflicts with how brands data are saved.

      It is possible, however, that both WooCommerce and Perfect Brands for WooCommerce use the same permalinks for displaying Brands archive pages. In that case, you might need to regenerate permalinks in your store after you disable WooCommerce’s Brands functionality. The best way to do this is to go to the Settings > Permalinks tab and click on ‘Save changes’, without changing anything.

      If you have any additional questions, feel free to post them here or at the GitHub discussion at: https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/discussions/54720.

      1. Thanks.. After posting the issue, I realized that disabling the WooCommerce Brands feature might have caused the registered terms to expire. To resolve this, I simply deactivated the “Perfect Brands for WooCommerce” plugin and reactivated it. This immediately restored all functionality, and everything is now working perfectly.

        Thank you once again for your support!

  2. What a weird feature to add. This would only benefit those sites that sell numerous brands and not owned by stores. Correct?

    1. Brent MacKinnon Avatar
      Brent MacKinnon

      Hi Stef! Brands can be valuable for organizing any product catalog – whether you’re selling multiple brands or want to segment your own product lines. You can always disable it if it doesn’t fit your needs.

  3. Hi,

    Great intergration! I have added the following code as suggested to display the brand logo images on their respective product pages…

    add_action( ‘woocommerce_single_product_summary’, ‘wc_ninja_add_brand_to_product_page’, 19 );
    function wc_ninja_add_brand_to_product_page() {
    echo do_shortcode(‘[product_brand width=”100px” height=”100px” class=”alignright”]’);
    }

    with a code snippets plugin but the text shows underneath when it was expected to show on the left hand side beside the image. Is there a solution or does something need adding to the code?

    I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

    Kind Regards,
    Max

    1. Hey Max,

      Excited to hear that you are enjoying the new Brands feature and you are testing some of the advanced customization options!

      I installed the snippet you mentioned in a local WooCommerce site, using the WooCommerce-compatible Storefront theme, and I confirmed that the brand image showed next to the product’s short description, as described in the documentation: https://d.pr/i/Dwi4Vv.

      Could you please temporarily switch your active theme to Storefront and check if the snippet works correctly there? I recommend that you perform this test on a staging site.

      If the snippet works as expected there, then it is highly possible that some further customization is needed in order for this snippet to work as expected with your current theme.

      1. Hi Jaskyt,

        I did as you said and all displayed as it should on a different site.

        Could you point me in the right direction for getting some support for this?

        Kind Regards,
        Max

        1. Hey Max,

          Thanks for trying that!

          Since this seems to be a compatibility issue with your active theme, then I encourage you to get in touch with your theme author and share this with them — there is a chance that a CSS snippet is needed to correctly align the Brand image.

          Otherwise, you could join the WooCommerce community Slack channel: https://woocommerce.com/community-slack/ and share some more details there (active theme, link to an affected product) in case a community developer can help you out!

  4. The new brands “section” appears on my homepage -underneath new, featured sakes etc
    Can subtext be edited or added like the other sections?

    On each brand page -the image is a thumbnail -can I change this size

    Thanks

  5. Also .. can I move the Brands “ section to display at the top of my homepage?
    Thanks

  6. How can the information in the current brands be copied over? This update messed up my site because the brands was not copied over after the update, now I have to spend hours linking all products to the correct brand

    1. Brent MacKinnon Avatar
      Brent MacKinnon

      Hi Nemo — can you tell us more about what solution you’re copying information over from? Were you using the WooCommerce Brands extension?

  7. Hi!
    Is there any documentation or what are the parameters to create a brand from php?
    Currently the brands come to me in an external API and I want to create them.

    1. Brent MacKinnon Avatar
      Brent MacKinnon

      Hey Ben, here’s the documentation on how to create Brands via the REST API:

      https://woocommerce.com/document/woocommerce-brands/#rest-api-support

      If you want to do this programmatically using PHP, you could do it similarly to any other WooCommerce taxonomy, like product categories, but using the slug product_brand.

      1. Thank you!

  8. Thanks for sharing the info about disabling this taxonomy. I just already had this set via ACF product taxonomy and there were two “Brands” tabs in the Product tabs and several other disorders in my site. Last year I was asking a lot about adding this taxonomy, but I couldn’t wait for it long, so I found the solution via ACF plugin. Anyway thanks a lot for this little snippet that disables the Woocommerce’s own Brands taxonomy

    add_action( ‘init’, function() {
    update_option( ‘wc_feature_woocommerce_brands_enabled’, ‘no’ );
    } );

    I have added it via Code Snippets plugin. Now this Snippet is active on my site and everything is working just fine.

    You said “Once you install it, visit any page in your store to disable Brands. Then, remove this snippet.” Do I need to deactivate this Snippet now?

    1. Hi Ylyas, once you have successfully run the snippet and disabled Brands, you can remove the snippet, as the setting is now stored.

  9. Hi is there any way to move the brands from “perfect brands for woocommerce” into this new brand tap?

  10. What are the advantages of using this versus using product attributes for brands? It seems like this could be a redundant feature, but maybe I’m not understanding?

    1. Brent MacKinnon Avatar
      Brent MacKinnon

      The core Brands feature actually replaces our previous WooCommerce Brands extension, incorporating this functionality directly into WooCommerce for free.

      While Product Attributes can be used to manage brands (and there are several great extensions that enhance this), having Brands as a core feature means store owners get this capability built-in without needing to purchase and maintain a separate extension.

      You can choose whichever approach works best for your store’s needs.

      1. Adding to this, the core Brands feature comes packed with a lot of useful functionality apart from using brands to organize products. For example, it includes some options to help you display brands-related information in product pages or make it easier for shoppers to navigate your store by viewing only products from specific brands.

        You may have a look at this page: https://woocommerce.com/document/managing-product-taxonomies/product-brands/ for a detailed overview of all the available Brands functionality.

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