There are lots of way to show product on your magento home page. But some methods are out of date and not work for update magento stores 1.4.0 or higher here I mention some code snippets hopefully its help someone because its work for me like charm.
DISPLAY ALL PRODUCT ON HOME PAGE
How to show all product on magento home page here is code put this code on your home page
{{block type="catalog/product_new" name="home.catalog.product.new" alias="product_homepage" template="catalog/product/new.phtml"}}
DISPLAY PRODUCT BY SPECIFIC CATEGORY
If you need a product from specific category on home page put the below code on home page.
{{block type="catalog/product_list" category_id="2" name="home.catalog.product.new" alias="product_homepage" template="catalog/product/featured.phtml"}}
DISPLAY FEATURED PRODUCT ON MAGENTO HOME PAGE
Displaying featured product on home page you have to follow some steps
1) Create a new category and call it featured product or whatever you like e.g “Featured”
2) Make sure set category property “Is Active” to “No” thats how it won’t show in top
navigation.
3) Note the category ID of Featured product Here i have Category ID=”10″ for featured product.
4) Show Featured product category on home page edit Homepage (Cms – manage page – homepage -content) and add the following code.
Assign some products under featured category and refresh your homepage you will see Featured category product there.