What is WooCommerce Multi-Vendor Marketplace & how to create a Multi-Vendor Marketplace?

Have you ever imagined setting up a marketplace platform like Amazon or eBay where merchants may join your platform and then sell their products through your platform? 

Using Woocommerce and Woocommerce Multi-Vendor Marketplace, you can now build your platform without ever writing a single word of code. 

What is the WooCommerce multi-vendor marketplace?

A multi-vendor marketplace is a large-scale e-commerce website where several vendors offer their products and services. There’s no need to spend a lot of time converting your WooCommerce site into a marketplace like Amazon or Flipkart. All you need is an easy plugin that does most of the work for you and takes only a few minutes. 

The perks of setting up a WooCommerce multi-vendor marketplace

There is no doubt that this is a place for both buyers and sellers. And it has numerous advantages for both the parties involved. 

For website owners: 

• An additional source of income
• More customers
• Full administration of members
• Shared responsibilities 

For sellers:

• Sell anything
• Create separate sales reports
• Create notes for customers
• Completely develop and manage products and inventory 

Purchase a domain name and web hosting

The first step in creating a website is acquiring a domain name and web hosting. If you have a website, your domain name is the address people can use to get to it. Web hosting services that specialise in WooCommerce hosting can help you obtain a domain name. Hosting providers like Bluehost and GoDaddy are very well-known ones. An SSL certificate is usually included with most web domain names. An SSL certificate provides an additional layer of security for your website. 

Get WooCommerce and WordPress installed

Installing WordPress is as simple as downloading it from WordPress.org and running the setup wizard. Once you have installed WordPress, you may search for WooCommerce in the plugins section. You can install WooCommerce by downloading it. 

Once you’ve set up your WooCommerce store, you’ll need to start adding products and configuring things like shipping and payments. 

Select a Theme that best fits your Multi-vendor Marketplace

Creating a visually appealing site is essential to attracting visitors. Choosing a theme appropriate for a multi-vendor store is a crucial step in the process. WooCommerce offers both free and premium themes for your stores. 

An online marketplace for your WooCommerce website

You’ll need a multi-vendor plugin installed on your WooCommerce site to create a marketplace. With the help of plugins like Dokan, WCVendors, and so on, you can easily set up a WooCommerce multi-vendor marketplace without much effort. 

If you do this, you offer each seller complete access over the website, allowing them to sell and showcase their products. As the owner of a multi-vendor marketplace, you get to pick the revenue model, product categories, commissions, and payment methods, among other options. 

Learn how to set up a WooCommerce multi-vendor marketplace with Dokan, a multi-vendor plugin for the WordPress content manager:

After installing and configuring your WordPress site with the Woocommerce plugin, go to your WordPress admin panel and navigate to Dashboard→Plugins. 

You can look for the Dokan Plugin by typing it in the search box. Once it appears in the result, you can install and activate it. 

A setup wizard will show up to guide you on how to set up Dokan Multivendor Market. 

Creating Your Vendor Stores

For your sellers to sell their goods on your online marketplace, you will have to make necessary changes from your dashboard. 

Go to your – WP Admin Dashboard – Settings – General and change the Membership option to ‘anyone can register. 

Now that you’ve done this, your site is ready for sellers to sign up on your site. There are no restrictions on how many vendors you can have on your website. 

Establishing the Commission Rate

Dokan gives you the option of determining the commission you get upon each sale made by your sellers. 

You can set this by simply going to WP Admin Dashboard → Dokan → Settings → Selling Options → Admin Commission. Here you can set the rate. 

There are different commission rates for each vendor and each type of product they sell. All sellers and product categories are required to pay the flat commission rate. Individual commission rates can also be set for different sellers or certain categories of products. 

Dokan sellers have their own Dashboard and Store View

Each vendor on your multi-vendor marketplace will receive their own unique URL for their shop. Even in the free version, each has its own front-end dashboards. Other important extensions can be found in the pro version. 

A vendor’s dashboard includes data such as revenue, visits, product status, and sales, among other things. Products can be added and published by sellers directly from this dashboard. 

Conclusion

Multi-vendor marketplaces are a win-win situation for site owners and sellers alike. If you want to build a multi-vendor website, you’ll need to think about things that go beyond the typical issues of an eCommerce site. 

You must maintain a high level of customer service while also ensuring that your vendors have the resources they need to thrive in the marketplace.