Every WooCommerce order is more than just a record in your database; it’s an object moving through a defined state machine. Understanding this lifecycle—from the moment a customer clicks “Place Order” to the final “Completed” status—is fundamental to architecting a reliable and trustworthy e-commerce system. For many store owners and developers, the order lifecycle only…

A block of cryptic code in functions.php, commented only with a terse // Handles virtual orders, represents a classic example of technical debt. It’s a scenario every developer has faced: a solution, often written with skill and the best of intentions, that solves an immediate problem but creates an implied future cost of maintenance, confusion,…

It’s a familiar, sinking feeling. A customer emails your support desk, angry that the e-book they bought 20 minutes ago still hasn’t arrived. You check their order in WooCommerce, and sure enough, the payment went through, but the order is still stuck on “Processing.” You manually change the status to “Completed,” trigger the download email,…