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Hearth & Hollow: guide for store owners

Thank you for choosing Hearth & Hollow. This guide takes you from installing the theme to taking your first real order, without touching any code. The same guide is inside WordPress at Appearance > Hearth guide.

1. Install (5 minutes)

The download contains several files. The one you upload to WordPress is hearth.zip (not the whole download).

  1. In WordPress, go to Plugins > Add New, search for WooCommerce, then Install and Activate.
  2. Go to Appearance > Themes > Add New Theme > Upload Theme, choose hearth.zip, then Install Now and Activate.
  3. A notice at the top of the screen recommends Hearth Core, the theme’s companion plugin. Press Install and activate Hearth Core. It adds the slideshow, testimonials, working forms, offers, tracking settings and the one-click demo content. (It is also in the download as plugins/hearth-core.zip, for Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin.)
  4. Optional: to add your own code or CSS files that survive theme updates, also upload and activate hearth-child.zip (the child theme). Most shops do not need it.
  5. Optional but recommended: install Yoast SEO (Plugins > Add New) for search engine titles and Google Search Console.

If WordPress says “The package could not be installed. The theme is missing the style.css stylesheet”, you uploaded the whole download: unzip it first and upload hearth.zip.

2. Add the demo content (1 click)

Go to Appearance > Import demo content and press Import demo content.

You get a complete example shop: 39 products with photos, categories, sizes and colours, coupons, testimonials, the About, FAQ, Shipping, Contact, Sale and Wishlist pages, and 10 journal articles. It takes a few minutes.

Your own products and pages are never changed or deleted, and you can run it again any time to restore the demo. Skip this step if you want to start from an empty shop.

New WooCommerce stores start in “Coming soon” mode: while you are logged in you see the shop, but visitors see a placeholder. When you are ready, switch it to Live in WooCommerce > Settings > Site visibility.

3. Make it yours

What Where
Logo Upload: Appearance > Editor, click the header, then the logo, and Replace. Size and “logo only” (when your logo already shows the shop name): Appearance > Hearth settings > Logo
Shop name and tagline Settings > General
Colours Appearance > Editor > Styles: pick a ready-made style (Sage, Rose or Coast), or Colors to change the palette. The whole shop follows.
Fonts Appearance > Editor > Styles > Typography
Home slideshow (up to 5 slides) Appearance > Home slideshow: pick a design (Full photo, Text card, Side by side, Framed, Short banner), how dark the shade on the photo is and how often the slides change. Per slide: photo, text position (left, centre, right), headline, text and up to two buttons (leave a button’s text empty to leave it out). + Add a slide, Move up / Move down, Hide or Remove. The preview beside the form shows every change at once, on a computer or a phone; nothing changes on your site until you click Save changes.
Menu Appearance > Menus: one row per link (name, link, and “Show under” for dropdowns like Shop), arrows to reorder, Save menu. The link box suggests your pages and categories. “Advanced” opens WordPress’s own menu editor for anything more.
Header and footer layout Appearance > Hearth settings > Header and footer: 5 headers and 5 footers, each with a picture and a Preview link (only you see the preview). Content stays the same; only the arrangement changes.
Journal article layout Appearance > Hearth settings > Journal articles: Centred, Left-aligned, or Large photo (the featured image across the page with the title over it; articles without a featured image use Left-aligned). Each has a Preview link.
Home page story, three reasons, footer texts Appearance > Hearth settings > Home page and footer texts: the studio story (heading, text, three facts, button), the three reasons to buy, and the footer’s about text, contact, address and hours, payment methods and note. No Site Editor needed.
Footer links Appearance > Editor > the footer (the link lists)
Any page (About, FAQ, Shipping…) Pages, then edit like a document
Announcement bar, offers, product page texts Appearance > Hearth settings
Social links Appearance > Hearth settings > Social links (only filled-in links show)
Home page offer band Follows the Multi-buy offer in Hearth settings (“Any 2 candles, 15% off.”) and hides itself while the offer is off. Its small heading and the welcome coupon it names are set there too.
Custom CSS (for small style tweaks) Appearance > Editor > Styles > the ⋮ menu > Additional CSS

4. Products, prices and offers

All of this is standard WooCommerce, under Products and Marketing:

  • Add a product: Products > Add New. Add a main photo and 1 to 3 more under Product gallery (they appear in the zoom gallery). Fill in weight and dimensions under Shipping; they show in the Size and Weight boxes.
  • Sizes and colours: use Product type “Variable product” with the Size or Colour attribute. To give a colour its swatch, go to Products > Attributes > Colour > Configure terms, edit the colour and pick it under Swatch colour. Common colour names (Black, Navy, Sage, Rust…) get a swatch even without picking one.
  • Material: add the Material attribute; it shows on the product page and as a shop filter.
  • “Bestseller” and “New” labels: add the product tag bestseller or new.
  • Home page rows: “Our bestsellers” shows products marked as Featured (the star in the product list); “New this season” shows the newest products.
  • Sales with a countdown: set a sale price and a sale end date (“Schedule”). The countdown appears on its own. In Hearth settings you can let sale dates roll to next Sunday automatically.
  • Coupons: Marketing > Coupons. The demo includes WELCOME10, HOLLOW20 and FREESHIP40.
  • Buy-more discount: Hearth settings > Multi-buy offer (for example 15% off when buying 2 or more candles).
  • Free-shipping progress bar: appears automatically when your shipping zone has a “Free shipping” method with a minimum order amount (WooCommerce > Settings > Shipping).

Shop filters and sorting

  • Filters in the shop sidebar: Price, Category, Material, Colour, Size, Rating, Tags and Availability. A filter only appears when your products use it (no sizes, no Size filter). Filters find their attribute by name (Material, Colour or Color, Size), so they work with your own attributes.
  • Add or remove a filter: Appearance > Editor > Templates > Product Catalog, click the filters and add or delete a block (for example an attribute filter for Brand).
  • Sorting: Recommended (your own order: drag and drop in Products > Sorting), Bestselling, Top rated, Newest, price and name A to Z or Z to A.
  • Search: the shop search box also finds products by material, colour, category and tag.

Before you edit a template: once you change a template in the Site Editor (the shop, the home page, the header…), WordPress keeps your copy, and theme updates no longer change that template. To get the update, open the template and choose Reset in its ⋮ menu (your changes to it are then lost, so note them first).

Add a ready-made section

Hearth comes with 14 ready-made sections in its own style: a photo banner, a story with photo, three reasons to buy, product rows (newest, on sale, featured), category tiles, the offer band, testimonials, a newsletter sign-up, questions and answers, an image with text, two promo tiles and your latest journal posts.

  1. Open the page (Pages, then the page) or the home page (Appearance > Editor > Pages or Templates).
  2. Click + (top left), then Patterns, then Hearth & Hollow.
  3. Click a section to add it, then click its texts and photos to change them.

Product rows and journal posts fill themselves from your shop; you only change the heading.

5. Testimonials and journal

  • Testimonials: the Testimonials menu. Add the customer’s name, their words, the stars and the product. Mark made-up examples as “Sample” so they are labelled honestly; replace them with real customer words when you have them.
  • Journal: Posts > Add New. Add a featured image and a category (Care guides, Rituals…). Journal articles help your shop show up in Google.

6. Forms, newsletter and tracking

Appearance > Hearth settings:

  • Contact form: messages go to the address under Forms (or your admin email).
  • Newsletter: sign-ups are saved under Subscribers, where you can export them as a spreadsheet (CSV). Using Mailchimp? Paste your Mailchimp form URL under Forms and sign-ups go straight there.
  • Google Analytics 4 and Meta Pixel: paste your IDs under Tracking.
  • Other tools (Microsoft Clarity, Hotjar, TikTok Pixel): paste their code under Tracking and custom code.
  • Google Search Console: connect it in Yoast SEO > Settings > Site connections.

7. Before you take real orders

  • Remove the demo: Appearance > Import demo content > Remove demo content moves the demo products, pages, journal articles, sample testimonials and unused demo coupons to the Trash (restore anything for 30 days), and turns off the demo offers. Your own content is never touched. A second button deletes the demo photos.
  • Make the shop visible: WooCommerce > Settings > Site visibility > Live. New WooCommerce stores start in “Coming soon” mode, which shows visitors a placeholder instead of your shop (you still see it while logged in).
  • Set your shipping zones and rates: WooCommerce > Settings > Shipping.
  • Set up payments (Stripe, PayPal…): WooCommerce > Settings > Payments.
  • Update Shipping & returns, FAQ and Contact pages with your real details.
  • Turn off Demo mode in Appearance > Hearth settings. While it is on, no order emails are sent, stock does not change, test orders are deleted and the forms do not send.
  • Place one test order with your own card, then refund it.

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