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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.

3. Make it yours

What Where
Logo Appearance > Editor, click the header, then the logo, and Replace
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 3 slides) Appearance > Home slideshow: photo, headline, text and two buttons per slide
Menu Appearance > Editor > the header, then the menu
Footer texts and links Appearance > Editor > the footer
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)
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. Colours named Oat, Stone, Moss, Grey or Plum show as round swatches.
  • 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).

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

  • Replace the demo products, photos, pages and testimonials with your own (or delete them).
  • Set your shipping zones and rates: WooCommerce > Settings > Shipping.
  • Set up payments (Stripe, PayPal…): WooCommerce > Settings > Payments.
  • Remove the “Demo payment” method if you imported the demo.
  • 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.

Want us to set it up for you?

We made Hearth & Hollow, and we also build WooCommerce shops for clients. If you would rather not do the setup yourself, we can install the theme, import the demo, add your logo, colours and products, and set up shipping and payments. Send a short brief at https://ymanuehllabs.com/contact/ and we reply with a written price before anything starts.

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