Custom Tables and the Checkout Bottleneck

Each time an order is made on a WooCommerce store, dozens of entries are added to the WordPress post-meta database table. In smaller stores, these [expensive] writes are at most a minor nuisance, but in stores with large volumes of orders, these writes become a critical performance bottleneck.

This session is a case study of the WooCommerce Custom Orders Table plugin, a collaboration between Liquid Web and Mindsize. We’ll explore what it is, how it works, and the impact it’s already had on both the stores running it and WooCommerce as a platform. Finally, we’ll discuss the future of the plugin, including further enhancements and a possible path towards inclusion in WooCommerce core.