One-Click Demo Import [Pro]

The Best Classifieds WOW Feeder is a separate plugin (included with Pro) that populates a fresh install with 48 realistic listings, 8 categories, 5 standard pages, navigation menus, and a 4-column footer. It’s designed to make the demo site look like a real, established marketplace — not an empty shell.

Use only on fresh/demo sites. The feeder doesn’t touch existing posts, but on a production site with real content the navigation menu and footer widgets it creates may collide with what you have.

What gets imported

Volume: 48 listings = 6 per category × 8 categories. Of those, 21 are flagged Featured and 27 are flagged Verified — sprinkled across all categories so the homepage shows a realistic mix.

Installation

Download best-classifieds-wow-feeder.zip (from your account, alongside the Pro plugin).
Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin → Install → Activate.
Tools → BC WOW Feeder appears in the admin menu.

The plugin requires the Best Classifieds theme to be active. It works with or without Best Classifieds Pro:

Setup	What you get
Free theme only	48 listings as standard `post`, mapped to “Listings” parent category + sub-categories
Free theme + Pro	Same 48 listings, but using the Pro `listing` CPT, with custom fields + dashboard support

Pexels API setup (for real photos)

Without a Pexels key, the importer creates 48 simple gradient placeholders. With a key, it pulls real photos matched to each listing’s category and content.

Get a free key

Go to pexels.com/api → Get Started.
Sign up with email (no credit card required).
After verification, your key appears in your account dashboard. It looks like 563492ad6f917000010cabcdef....

The free tier allows 200 requests per hour and 20,000 per month. Importing 48 listings × 3 photos each = 144 requests, well within the limit.

Configure in WordPress

Tools → BC WOW Feeder.
Paste the key into the Pexels API key field.
Choose how many photos per listing (1–6, default 3).
Click Save.
Click Test connection — you should see “✓ Pexels API key works”.

Running the import

Click Start one-click import. The 8 steps run sequentially via AJAX with a per-step progress indicator.

Step	Time	What it does
1. Customizer	<1 s	Sets hero copy, color palette, font combo
2. Taxonomy	<1 s	Creates “Listings” parent category + 8 sub-categories with descriptions and icons
3. Pages	1 s	Creates Browse Listings, Post a Listing, My Account, About, Contact
4. Media	5–10 s	Imports the 48 bundled placeholder images (used as fallback if Pexels fails)
5. Listings	60–180 s	Creates 48 listings; if Pexels is configured, fetches 3 real photos for each
6. Menus	<1 s	Creates Primary + Footer nav menus, assigns them
7. Widgets	<1 s	Configures 4-column footer (About, Categories, Quick Links, Stay in touch)
8. Finish	<1 s	Flushes rewrite rules, marks import complete

Total time: ~3 minutes with Pexels, ~15 seconds without.

After import

Click View site → to confirm everything looks right. You should see:

A polished homepage with hero, category cards, recent listings, “How it works”, testimonial, CTA
Category archive pages showing relevant listings as cards
Single listing pages with gallery, description, OSM map, sidebar with price + contact reveal buttons
A 4-column footer with content in every column

If the homepage looks plain or images are broken, see Troubleshooting below.

Re-running and refreshing

The import is idempotent — running it twice won’t duplicate listings. The plugin matches by listing slug.

Refresh images only

If your first import ran without a Pexels key (or your photos came out wrong), you don’t need to wipe everything:

Add/correct the Pexels API key.
Click 🔄 Refresh images only.
Wait ~2 minutes — only the photo-fetching step runs.

This deletes the imported attachments tagged _bcwow_imported and re-fetches fresh photos.

Full reset

If you want a completely clean slate:

Click Reset all demo data.
Confirm the modal warning.
Everything imported by the WOW Feeder is moved to trash (listings, pages, attachments).

The reset only touches items the plugin created (tagged _bcwow_imported = 1). Your real content is untouched.

Troubleshooting

“Test connection” returns “Invalid API key”

You probably copied an extra space or the wrong field. Open the Pexels dashboard, copy just the key string, paste, save, retest.

Listings get gradient placeholders even with a valid key

Your first import must have run before you saved the key. Click 🔄 Refresh images only to re-pull with the key now active.

“Unexpected token ‘<'" error mid-import

A PHP fatal occurred during the listings step. Common cause: PHP memory_limit is too low for processing 144 image downloads.

Fix in wp-config.php:

define( 'WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M' );
@ini_set( 'max_execution_time', 300 );

Then re-run.

Homepage still shows the default “Hello world!” post

Settings → Reading must be set to “Latest posts” (default) and the front page should not be set to a static page. The WOW Feeder doesn’t change this on purpose — some people prefer their own homepage.

Pexels rate limit hit

You’ve made 200+ requests in the last hour. Wait an hour, then click Clear Pexels cache and re-run. The cache normally prevents duplicate calls but if you’ve been testing repeatedly, it can fill the budget.

Footer columns are empty

Customizer → Widgets shows widgets in footer-1 through footer-4. If any column is empty, the WOW Feeder’s widget step failed (usually a permissions issue). Re-run the import or manually add widgets.

What the WOW Feeder does NOT do

Doesn’t configure payments — set Stripe/Razorpay keys in Classifieds Pro → Settings → Payments.
Doesn’t activate licenses — that’s a separate one-time step at Appearance → BC Pro License.
Doesn’t create user accounts — all 48 listings are owned by the importing admin.
Doesn’t generate SEO metadata — install Yoast or Rank Math for that.