How to create an online marketplace with Woocommerce?

By Ashutosh Jha → Last Updated on Saturday, August 4, 2018
In the last few years or so, developing online marketplace has become exceedingly prominent. It has become a highly effective way to sell products while enjoying stable productivity.

Creating online marketplace is something similar to that of creating a blog online. Just a few tricks to adapt and everything become as clear as chalk and cheese.

Create an Online Marketplace like WooCommerce

Here is the detailed guide to create an online marketplace like WooCommerce. here we have explained each and every module those you will be needing in the long run.

create an online marketplace with Woocommerce

Online business – the basic scenario

It could be really difficult to maintain a highly profitable and unique product line on a continuous basis. Be it the pricing part, managing the online store, or even dealing with all the necessary administrative tasks like website hosting and shipping of the items could be a serious burden for the entrepreneur. This is the reason behind growth of online marketplaces. In fact, this concept has become exceedingly popular.

An overview of the WooCommerce marketplace

If you are planning to develop a marketplace for selling shippable goods, WooCommerce would be the best option to avail. WooCommerce, when integrated with WooCommerce PV extension would provide amazing solutions for both vendors and owners.

Setting up of WooCommerce marketplace

It would not come for free; invest $79 to purchase PV extension to develop the marketplace using WooCommerce. However, for any other additional features, plugins need to be installed. These are optional but never come for free. Opting for these options will incur additional expenses.

PV would include tracking commissions as well vendor information. While you try to sell your products, you get to enjoy the option to display vendor products within the catalog. In fact, you can even hide the products from vendor and then get the display setup carried out manually.

You are also required to determine the basic commission rate applicable for the marketplace. However, this process could be somewhat overridden for any specific product or for some particular vendors.

Creating the vendor within WooCommerce marketplace

Once the basic configuration part is finalized, you can now include or add a vendor to the list. Through managers and shop administrators, it becomes easy enough to manage vendor products.

Once vendor gets well set, then it becomes easier for the user to access the site with admin privilege while managing their products. However, the user would never be allowed to make changes to other user products. In other cases, the products would be managed by the employees of the store.

It would definitely give some extra capabilities if the user is provided with vendor admin license. This would also allow the users to manage their personalized products and then submit for approval.

Assigning vendors to the WooCommerce marketplace

Once the vendors are created, they could be able to include their own products. In fact, there is also the option to manually assign vendors to certain particular products.

This could be done even while editing some particular product through checking a couple of vendors for a single product. In case of multiple vendor selections, there would be an even split of the commission's rate.

However, commission rate for products could be adjusted as per the requirement. The commission percentage for vendors could be modified as per the administrator.

Understanding the vendor abilities

In case the user is assigned the responsibility of vendor admin, it would become easier for them to manage the products. In fact, they would certainly start to edit the dashboard for inclusion of their own products.

Under strict scenarios, the vendor would require proper approval in order to publish their associated products. However, they could easily be able to submit the products for approval. Vendors are not eligible to assign any other vendor to the products. They are also not allowed to adjust the rates of commission for products. 

They would only have access to necessary information required to manage their products. This is only what they can do and nothing else. Remember, once a product is being submitted by the vendor, there would be PENDING status being highlighted. It all depends upon you to whether publish or edit the products as per the situation and requirement.

In case you don’t find it suitable to provide permission to the vendors for editing their products, you can even include a form to be duly filled up by them, seeking permission to submit the product.

Customer experience

You have the option to display products from the vendors along with every other one available in the catalog if planning to do so. Any of the products that come with direct vendor association would always display information in the product’s tab.

There would also be an option to include a widget for displaying the product information. This would look even more innovative. Customers would have the option to view any and every product being displayed by the vendor by getting redirected to the vendor page. In case there happens to be more than one vendor for a single product, then information about every associated vendor would be displayed on product page.

However, customers would never be able to view any other details other than vendor information. The commission procedure basically takes place at the back, beneath the actual scenes.

Managing vendors as well the commission

Vendors who sell their product would never be provided with the commission amount unless the order gets completed fully. Once the order status displays FULLY COMPLETED, the commission percentage being assigned would reach the vendor’s account.

In case the product rate has been already set, the vendor’s rate would get overridden by the product rate. Commissions would be visible in a separate tab, most notably by the name Payment or Commission.

This was all about how to create an online market place like WooCommerce. what do you think, is it a good option to create marketplace using plugins?
Ashutosh Jha

Ashutosh Jha is a professional blogger, Blog and IT Consultant. He writes about Blogging, SEO, Making Money, Internet Marketing and Web Design.
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Website: TricksRoad

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