WC Vendors is a popular plugin for WooCommerce and WordPress platform. This plugin allows you to build an effective marketplace with high functionality. Moreover, it can be easily installed and configured through several simple steps below.
Step 1: Find a hosting and create a domain name
First thing first, your marketplace website—and basically any other websites—need a domain name. To create a domain name for your website, you have to find a hosting company.
For the sake of your website’s effective functionality, choose a hosting company that is reliable and values customers’ security. In addition, the hosting company you choose should be user-friendly and can be installed with ease, as well as highly support WordPress platform.
Step 2: Install both WooCommerce and WC Vendors
After WordPress is installed and you have chosen a domain name, the next thing to do is installing WooCommerce and setting up its configuration. WooCommerce is a basic requirement of WC Vendors installation.
Make sure you install the latest version of WooCommerce because WC Vendors will only work well with WooCommerce v3.0 or higher. WC Vendors itself can be installed in three different ways: activation from the WP Admin, installing from Zip file, and installation using FTP Upload.
Step 3: Choose the right theme for your marketplace
Now that the WooCommerce and WC Vendors have been activated, it’s time for you to choose the theme that is compatible with your marketplace. Select the marketplace theme by considering several factors such as easy customization, useful features, responsiveness, and compatibility. Some marketplace themes that support WC Vendors plugin are Lecraft and Baggies.
Step 4: Start general configuration of WC Vendors
After WC Vendor is successfully installed, you can see its option tab which is located underneath WooCommerce tab. There are five configuration sections in WC Vendors that need to be set up. The first section is general configuration tab that consists of four options: Default Commission, Registration, Taxes, and Shipping. Tick the options that you want to apply to your marketplace, and decide the commission rate in the next step.
Step 5: Adjust the commission rate
A marketplace should benefit both the vendors and you as the website owner for every product sold on your website. Therefore, before multiple vendors use your website to sell their products, the commission rate needs to be adjusted first.
To adjust the rate, enter the number in the box that represents the percentage of commission rate. For instance, simply enter 80 in the box if you want to give 80% commission for your vendors, while you will take 20% commission on every product sale.
Step 6: Configure products setting
The second tab to configure is the Product tab. In this section, you can decide what type of products that can be sold on your website and which fields that will be visible to your vendors.
Ticking the boxes of each option means that you will hide them from the vendors. If you want to include all features without hiding anything, leave all the boxes unchecked. The same rule also applies when you provide the service to sell both physical and digital products.
Step 7: Set general permission and capabilities for the vendors
The third tab, Capabilities tab, allows you to give certain permission and set the vendors’ capabilities whenever they perform retailing service and activity on your website. There are three parts in this section: Orders, Reports, and Products.
All options for Orders are usually checked to make your vendors easier in managing their customers’ orders. However, in the Product part, you may want to consider approval for products submission. This setting is useful if you raise a particular theme on your website. It also supports the quality control of the products sold on the website.
Step 8: Define the pages of the marketplace
The next tab to configure is Pages tab. It consists of several plugin configurations, including Vendors Dashboards, Shop Setting, Orders Page, and Vendor Terms. Those settings are usually organized by default and not necessary to be changed, especially when you install WC Vendors Pro. Nevertheless, you still need to understand how this tab works since it can be used when you want to add terms and conditions for every product submission.
Step 9: Set payment and pricing system
The fifth and the last tab of WC Vendors basic setting is Payments configuration. It is another essential part of your marketplace website because it can connect you to the internet paying system like PayPal, as well as provide the option of how often you will pay the vendors.
Check the box of Instant Pay setting that will allow you to automatically pay the vendors for every sale. Then, decide the Payment Schedule or when you want to pay them. The paying system can be done manually or automatically per week, every two weeks, or monthly.
If you have completed nine steps above, you are ready to launch your own marketplace that uses WC Vendors as the plugin. All you need to do is introducing the website to people around the net, and wait for the vendors to meet their customers on your website.