Hi there,
Apologies for the confusion.
Since we can’t view the site it is very difficult for us to suggest a fix as we can’t see the issue.
products are displayed at the bottom of my page.
How can I determine the exact position on the page to display?
It sounds like an issue with your theme. To test this please change the theme to a default such as TwentyNineteen or [Storefront](https://woocommerce.com/storefront/) (which is a free theme from WooCommerce.com) and test to see if that solves the issue.
it seems that this Woocommerce shop page function displays all items in random order. How an I at least determine which products to display and in what order?
There are some basic settings under Appearance ? Customize ? WooCommerce ? Product Catalogue relating to what to display on the products page in terms of categories etc.
The order of the display can be defined setting the Default product sorting
to Custom ordering and Name
and then dragging and dropping the products into the required order under Products ? All Products ? Sorting:
Link to image: https://d.pr/i/6U2oSn
If you want to display a specified group of products, you might simply add them to a specific category and then use the category page as your product page.
For a more refined approach you might consider using product shortcodes in the page editor to define which products are displayed.
You can read more about this here:
https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/woocommerce-shortcodes/
It is important to remember that if you define a products page under WooCommerce ? Settings ? Products, WooCommerce will display all products on that page below any content you have added. You can leave the products page undefined in this setting and simply link to the page containing the shortcode in your navigation.
I hope that helps you to figure it out.
Feel free to get back to us if you have further questions.