WooCommerce Wholesale Store: A Complete “How-to” Guide

Are you also one of the store owners, who want to try their hand at WooCommerce wholesale stores but isn’t sure where to begin?

If you work with wholesale consumers, you’ll notice that their interests vary from those of retail customers. They need not only wholesale prices and discounts, but also simpler and easier ways to buy.

That’s where our WooCommerce wholesale store setup “how-to” guide would assist you. Just follow the journey with us and foresee the transformation of your ordinary store to an outstanding one.

Don’t mark this statement as a fact, I can assure you that by the end of this guide you’ll learn almost everything required to successfully run a WooCommerce wholesale store.

Let’s dive in this vibe then, get-go.

Why do Wholesalers Need to be Online?

It’s a straightforward question that many of you want to ask but are hesitant to. Don’t worry, I’ll clear that up first.

Importance

What are wholesale stores actually? What is that picture you imagine when we talk about the wholesale store?  

No need for more clarification; what I conclude from the question is that wholesale stores are typically physical stores that are located within markets. Such stores sold products in bulk, but purchasing from them is challenging. As a matter of fact, such stores are limited and even hard to find.

So, if you’re also an owner of such a store, the biggest hurdle for your business expansion becomes the- outreach. Yes, you heard right. Although selling your goods at wholesale at a reduced bulk price to retailers can be a lucrative business strategy but it cannot drive your business to expand par boundaries.

Still, not clear. Let us consider this example.  

For instance– Suppose you have got a wholesale business located in the US but the majority of your retail customers and the suppliers you require are located in India, how are you going to access them? 

Switching to an online wholesale platform is, of course, the solution. If you believe this, you can easily contact thousands of distributors all over the world with just a few mouse clicks.

Why seek support with WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is a great choice for you if you’re looking for a fast and cost-effective way to set-up an online wholesale store, first and foremost because it’s free.

Yes, it’s absolutely free. According to BuiltWith, there were 4,414,537 active WooCommerce websites as of April 5, 2021, accounting of all active websites on the internet! This is an absurdity when you consider the overwhelming array of alternatives available.

You can set up your wholesale store while maintaining the smooth operation of your customer-focused online shop, all from a single dashboard. There are thousands of great templates you can choose from, but if you want to start from scratch, you can design and develop every element of your online store from the header to checkouts, product layout, and so on.

WooCommerce is a great platform for building a wholesale store if you have a team of designers and developers or if you are familiar with WordPress.

Insights

If we dive deep into the statistics related to online wholesale business growth in the past decade, you might be shocked. Yes, shocked. Do have a look on your own.

The above-mentioned screenshot depicts wholesale business monthly sales in the United States from January 2017 to January 2021 (in $USD) by Statista. 

You can have a look and get an idea that- How an online wholesale business can load you in profits (the drop you might notice in the graph defines COVID recession).

Now, as you’ve already gained insights about wholesaling online, you might think that- How it can benefit your business? Let me detail that. 

Benefits that an Online Wholesale Store can Offer

There are certain qualities that eCommerce platforms can offer and prove themselves to be the best option for wholesale businesses. Luckily, the evolution and uptake of eCommerce means platforms are getting better to use. Wholesalers and retailers expect the useability and access that consumer-facing businesses have.

Enhance Your Business Efficiency

Wholesale stores with online functionality on WooCommerce make things easier for both retailers and other wholesalers. There’s no secret that technology makes things easier.

An online platform can enhance your store’s efficiency, as being online creates a direct wholesale channel that makes it easier for both parties to get in touch throughout the buyer’s journey. The easier the process to move your prospects through the sales funnel to conversions, the more likely they are supposed to become your loyal customers.

Automate Your Manual Processes

Using an eCommerce platform to sell goods is a way to automate all your time-consuming manual processes efficiently. With the right platform, chores like checkout, billing, and inventory management are to be performed with applications instead of doing that manually. 

Your employees can also devote their resources to other parts of your business, like digital marketing or customer service. Additionally, your sales teams can also not spend time working with complex accounts and handling order processing for bulk purchases. All can be easily managed using a self-service automated model over your website only.

Reach More And More Customers

Wholesale online businesses cannot be bound within a physical location. They need exposure to reach customers all around the globe through their website, social media, and marketplaces. Due to such requirements underlying, omnichannel marketing is introduced. 

Selling your goods on wholesale, that too online; offers a great opportunity to create brand awareness to expand within new markets and connect to an unreachable customer base without even investing at a physical location only.

Track Insights Concerning Your Efforts

When you have an online wholesale store, you can have access to all granular levels of customer data as well as the insights, that include –

• Which pages and products are featured the most each day / week / month?
• The number of active visitors who used a specific coupon.
• The average time spent by visitors on a webpage.
• Percentage bounced back users from the site vs. those who moved throughout the site.

Such data can help you strategically plan your marketing campaigns, product offers, product pricing, product discounts, etc. You can also combine your feedback from your sales representatives and can offer outstanding customer service. 

Augment Your Customer Retention And Management Services

Not only does an online platform allow you to offer automated portals to your customers, but you can also offer personalization to improve your experience too. 

For example, you can easily create custom catalogs and price lists for your customers to log on to your site and choose from the products they require without any need to converse with a salesperson. 

“A really great way to exceed expectations and make your B2B differentiated is to take the learnings of B2C and bring them into your site. There are a few things you can do, but the most important thing, and the thing that I think is really cool, is showing an estimated delivery date.”

— Quentin Montalto, Chief Operating Officer at ShipperHQ

Additionally, you can also offer more convenience to your valued customers by providing them the estimated shipping costs, popular product recommendations, and advanced quotes that can help you easily stand out.

Offer Support 24*7

Integrating chatbots and the live chat software within your online wholesale store can do more wonders than you can’t even imagine. This can be a way more effective idea to offer 24*7 support for your valued users. 

You can also include a KB (knowledge base) to help your clients easily navigate through the ordering process.

Manage Your Inventory Better

Online wholesale is an easy way to increase your order rate and volume. You can also enhance that just by implementing a tier-ed pricing mechanism. No matter if you deal using an online platform or through an eCommerce portal either in-person using a native application, your inventory management needs to be prioritized. An online platform is all capable of offering you such a feature. It can help you easily-

• Track your products sold, manufactured, and restock them accordingly across multiple warehouse locations and channels.
• Make sure that you have synced your orders from multiple sales channels and update your inventory with respect to that.
• Maintain all your customer and supplier data at one place, helps you manage all purchase histories and the customer-specific insights accordingly.

Overtake With Native Application Support

Wholesale buyers online are all on the go. Most of them do not even spend time sitting in front of a desktop or a laptop. Rather, they tend to rely on their mobile devices to search for the exact information about the products. 

The latest technological advancement has molded the research options easily available over multiple devices. Therefore, if you are selling online, it’s a must to be on mobile devices and applications to help customers make purchases easily.

Increase Your Promotional Opportunities

Driving your wholesale business online will also help you develop and implement inbound marketing strategies.

Your customers are all actively searching for information from providers; and if you’re not able to reach them or provide them what they require from the start, you might lose your battle here.

Online engagement enables you to onboard customers more easily; just you need to be available and resourceful, that’s it. You can also employ few potential approaches from the list below-

• You can develop a series of blog posts to create awareness over a certain topic or an issue (that creates awareness of your brand).
• Publishing a white paper would also boost your consideration-stage prospects, as it can provide a more complete idea of your services and offers.
• You can also highlight your popular case studies and featured success stories from your current/past customer base among your prospective clients to drive intent.

Live Examples of Online Wholesale Business Stores

Alibaba.com

It’s a Chinese wholesale network with a broad range of consumers and the capacity to host a wide range of businesses. Alibaba is a business you’ve already heard of whether you work in retail or wholesale. Yes, this is a B2B wholesale juggernaut with a successful track record of expansion.

Jack Ma created this portal, which is an online wholesale trading website. It has grown into a pioneer in the online wholesale industry after years of growth. There are many brands and wholesalers to choose from; all you have to do is take your time and do your research.

Amazon Business

Amazon Business is a business-to-business (B2B) marketplace for wholesalers and retailers. You can quickly sign up for a free account and compare deals from various sellers to find exactly what you need. You can also create several user accounts and pay with a number of different payment methods.

How to Opt for a Wholesale Platform?

Initial Preparatory Analysis for Store Owners

Basic analysis on few aspects is recommended, before initiating the setup of your wholesale eCommerce store. Below, we have listed some of those points-

Analyze Your Requirements

• Competitors you wish to deck-out or analyze.
• Products you wished to sell.
• Payment options you are supposed to offer.

Identify Your Unrealized Stumbling Blocks

• Shipping and selling regulations either government or availability.
• Shipping cost estimation with respect to order and area.
• User registration and account handling features.

Platform Dependencies

• Make sure that your opted platform must cover your revenue model.
• Determine beforehand that your opted platform must be a good help to reach your goals easily.
• How your opted platform eases your sale process?
• In what ways does your opted platform enhances your work efficiency?
• How does your opted platform helps you in automating and integrating with advanced technology and extensions?

Customer Service

• What are your customer retention and engagement plans?
• How can you offer discounts and tax-redemption strategy?
• What would be your after sale service strategy?
• How do you plan to  assess your negative reviews and service calls?
• What are your offerings under loyalty programs?

What to Consider before Opting for an Online Wholesale Platform

Suits Your Budget

When you’re planning to make a move in the wholesale business, make sure you are very clear about your requirements beforehand. Make sure your opted platform also fits within your long-term strategy. Here are some potential questions to ask yourself:

• What’s the total cost of setting up the site? Are there any out-of-the-box integrations that will help you cut costs?
• What is the difficulty level of maintaining the site? What will be updated for you vs. what will you have to update manually?
• Are you responsible for managing security and upgrades?

While opting a platform for your wholesale store, do make sure it covers your revenue model well and your budget. Choose wisely.

Covers Your Target Region & Language

No matter how interactive and appealing your store is; it needs to cover your target region well and be capable of interacting with your local customers and vendors in the language which is familiar to them. 

For better practice, you can opt for local language support within your website as well as make sure that all your targeted regions-based delivery and shipping services are all available and working intact.

Alters Your Competitor’s Approach

While dealing with the competitors, the key to win is all about the level of easiness and differentiation you can offer. As you’re new to wholesaling online now, make sure that you’re still working for establishing your brand. You can make use of each opportunity you have to build your reputation for being the best at what you offer. 

Make sure whatever platform you’re opting for, it offers your brand a value and helps your customers to easily place orders. 

Rather than queuing your customers’ mail log with all bulky catalogs and order forms, opt for an eCommerce platform that easily streamlines the order process for your retailers and improves your operational efficiency.

Offers Versatile Payment Options

Reducing friction while purchasing is quite important for businesses dealing online. How a business accepts payments can create a profound impact on the success of your online channel. And the payment options you offer make all the difference. 

“Look for a payment gateway with advanced functionality that supports your business and its growth. Also, give your customers the ability to pay in the ways that work for them. By offering the ability for customers to pay electronically, with ACH or cards using a link from the invoice or even by phone via a virtual terminal, you make electronic payments easier for them and you no longer have to wait for checks to arrive in the mail.”

— Casey Griswold, GM Invoicing Solutions at BlueSnap

Before opting for a platform, must ensure that it offers multiple payment options that caters all customer needs efficiently. 

Provide Catalog Browsing and Search Capabilities

When you have an extensive catalog with numerous SKUs (Stock Keeping Unit), you need to make sure that customers can find the exact products that they need. One solution is to offer advanced or faceted search, which enables your shoppers to easily filter certain products based on their features e.g., size, weight, color, and therefore it narrows down your search processing.

“Shoppers using search are your highest intent buyers. They know exactly what they are looking for, and it’s important that they find just that. So using an NLP based, or natural language processing based search technology, will ensure relevant search results — no matter the complexity of the query.”

— Ford Crane, Strategic Partnerships Manager at Klevu

Manages Inventory

Inventory management is the rudimentary feature for a wholesale store. Of course when you’re dealing with multiple orders; that too in bulk, there should be a system to maintain inventory. This feature within a platform allows you to easily make purchase decisions as well as offer sound customer support without losing your precious prospects in time.

The platform you’re opting for must be capable of maintaining your inventory well; make sure you’ve analyzed almost all the options before proceeding.

Supports Extensive Integrations

As technology is evolving, so are the systems. Nowadays, your online wholesale platform must be capable of integrating well with other available software. Integrating with multiple extensive integrations would create a seamless purchasing experience for your customers as well as for your vendors. 

Make sure that whichever online platform you are going to choose supports versatile APIs within, just like WooCommerce. Your WooCommerce wholesale store allows you to easily integrate with different business systems like ERP, CRM, PIM, along with offering extensive plugin support too.

Yield SEO And Logistics Functionalities

Often wholesale buyers prefer the internet to search for products they require. That’s why to excel within the search capabilities your website needs to offer interactive content that is equally important yet appealing.  

“The B2B buyer is going to be looking for a volume pricing type of relationship and that changes the nuances of how you’re expressing the product.”

— Christian Hassold, Vice President for EMEA for Salsify

Just developing and designing an attractive store with features isn’t enough; you need to make sure before opting the platform that, Is it compatible with SEO optimizations or not like WooCommerce?

As your online wholesale store not just helps your shoppers to find your store but also makes them have a decision thereby. 

If you opt for WooCommerce, then your WooCommerce wholesale store would enable you to deliver all SEO-optimized content with ease.  Your WooCommerce wholesale store can answer all the precise questions concerning your buyers beforehand. 

You can offer a clear product page with content including descriptions to technical specifications that can help them be more confident while opting for the exact products they require.

5 Steps to Get-Set-Go with a WooCommerce Wholesale Store

Before Initiating; Create your Basic WooCommerce Product Store

If you’re a newbie for online business and require assistance for WooCommerce installation then kindly refer to our approach and follow three simple steps-

1. First, install the WooCommerce plugin on your WordPress website.
2. Add some products to get started.
3. Get-go with a WooCommerce store.

At this stage, all your products will be publicly available and presented in the default layout. 

If you’re already on WooCommerce with a store, then need not worry, just proceed with us. 

There are multiple ways in which you can set up your WooCommerce wholesale store easily. There are multiple plugins available on WordPress offering wholesale extensions for WooCommerce stores.

For instance, we are taking an example of Wholesale for WooCommerce here. To get started, do watch the video first.

Stepping further to explore the plugin, let’s start with the simple getting started steps, let’s go.

Step-1  Setup

In order to start converting your WooCommerce store within a wholesale one, do not jump panicky, just follow the steps to move smoothly.

Initially, you need to register yourself by entering the details within the Registration Form. You need to click on the Registration Page.

Now, proceed towards the My Account tab and log in with the respective details of the user whose role needs to be updated as a wholesaler.

Now, click on the Upgrade to Wholesaler option to upgrade your role. You can easily enter your role update information here in this form.

As you can see that, your role has now been modified from Seller to Wholesaler successfully.

Now, let’s traverse towards the Homepage > Shop Page. Here, you can easily access the wholesale prices concerning the products individually.

Step-2  Assign

In this step, you’ll have to assign multiple user roles for your customers and vendors as well as setup global pricing features and discounts respectively.

User Roles for Customers and Vendors

You can easily add multiple Wholesale users to their roles. Just by adding multiple wholesaler roles, you can offer different levels of discount to your customers lying on different user roles.

You can easily set up user roles just by following the steps listed below-

• Just navigate to the Wholesale drop-down and click on User Roles.
• Enter a name for your Wholesaler Role such as Standard, Premium & Platinum.
• Provide slug if preferred.
• Enter an appropriate Description for that particular role, if you feel like it.
• And hit Submit, there you go.

Setting up for user roles can offer you multiple options that can help you manage your customer offering. How? 

Do check out below-

Control their Tax Exempts / Impositions

Simply select the wholesale role and enable tax exemption. You’ll find these tax-exempt settings in Wholesale user role settings.

Settings:

• Navigate towards the Wholesale User Roles.
• Either Add a new role within or Edit an existing role.
• Lastly, Enable tax exemption.

You can either enable tax-exempt when adding a new wholesale role or edit and enable tax-exempt in the existing wholesale role.

If Tax exemption is enabled, orders will be placed excluding tax for those customers who are associated with these exempted roles.

Grant Coupon Offers accordingly

When coupon codes are disabled for the specific or all wholesale roles, then customers cannot utilize their coupon on the cart and checkout page. 

Settings:

• Navigate towards the Wholesale User Roles.
• Else Add a new role or Edit the existing role given.
• At last, Disable Coupon for specified roles.

As wholesale customers are already getting discounted prices, so store owners can cancel the use of coupon codes on wholesale roles. 

Allow Multiple Payment Options available

You can also restrict your wholesale customers to use particular payment gateways such as PayPal or Cash on Delivery method when ordering as per your ease.

Settings:

• Move towards the Wholesale User Roles.
• Either Add a new role or Edit existing role.
• Enter payment gateways you want to disable for this user role.

You can disable some payment gateway options for a specific wholesale role or all. This option is very useful if you are dealing in multiple locations where all the payment gateways are not applicable. 

Manage Shipping Options Availability

You can also restrict your wholesale users to use particular shipping methods. Different shipping methods can be set for different wholesale customers with different shipping rates.  

Settings:

• Navigate towards the Wholesale User Roles.
• Else Add a new role or Edit an existing role.
• Enter shipping methods you want to restrict for that role.

The shipping methods you restrict will not be visible to wholesale customers at the checkout. You can even update or delete the settings if required further.

Set Global Pricing and Discounts

Although you have to apply wholesale prices to all of your products along with the regular prices, Why not do that more effectively? 

To apply global settings for your product price and discount allocation, it would be more convenient for you as well for your customers to understand. We are detailing the individual product global pricing settings here. Do refer to the screenshots and settings description below for a more clear idea.

Enable Wholesale Prices

You can easily check the tick or not as per your preferences for enabling or disabling the wholesale pricing options for products.

Wholesale Discount Type

Here, you can choose discount types for your products concerning your user base, it has two options, access them through the drop-down there.

• Fixed Amount, is an allocated fixed wholesale amount for your users. No matter if they belong to a single or a wholesale role either multiple. A fixed price-based setting would apply to all products when enabled.
• Percentage Amount, this is a wholesale amount that is allotted on a percentage basis. This type of discount allocation is the most suitable way to offer discounts for your wholesale users when you have a lot of products in your store.

Enter Wholesale Amount

This is the option where you can enter the wholesale price that you want to offer your customers. It is a general option and will apply to all products. Do not confuse it with the discount amount, so enter the wholesale selling price here only. 

Minimum Quantity

Here, you can input the product minimum quantity for your wholesale users to offer a discount.

If you want a demo, “How does this setting work on the front end?”, then do refer to the screenshots given below.

Step-3  Design

Mapping your online wholesale store efficiently can do wonders. Yes, heard that right. Opting for a user-friendly layout for your online store can help your customers as well as your users efficiently make use of all the features available there, hassle-free. 

In this step too, we would learn how you can make your WooCommerce wholesale store design more effective and interactive. Let’s start.

Custom Display Settings for each User-Base

Pulling the strings of your products’ visibility within your store is important as you’ve stepped your feet to wholesaling. As you own a multi-user base now. 

It would be more convenient to incorporate product visibility settings within your WooCommerce Wholesale store core. We’ve explained the settings for the feature below in detail, do refer to the screenshots too for a more clear idea.

Restrict Product Visibility

Enable this option to control the visibility of your products. Hide non-wholesale products from wholesale customers. Retail price products will be hidden from wholesale customers when they are logged in as wholesalers.

Add to Cart Minimum Quantity

You can easily enforce the minimum quantity requirement on products by making use of this option. This option lets your wholesalers add to the cart minimum quantity as pre-defined by you. 

What you have to do is, just enable the wholesale prices that need to be applied when the minimum quantity is added to the cart. Provide minimum quantity value from wholesale pricing section, and hurray, all set to go.

If you require a frontend visibility demonstration, do check out the screenshots below.

Hide or Restrict Product Visibility for Guest Users and Non-Wholesalers

This feature allows you to easily hide or restrict all your wholesale products from your non-logged-in users. It would let your non-logged-in users search or even see those products over the shop page. 

As you assigned your products to the Hide Wholesale Products option, from Wholesale > Settings then it would automatically hide all your wholesale products.

You can also apply wholesale price using the Global setting option for your  Products and Categories as per your requirement. As well you can also enable the Hide Wholesale Products option from the Wholesale > Settings tab.

Steps:

• Navigate to Wholesale > Settings
• Enable Restrict wholesale products globally from non-wholesale customers option
• Click on Save changes
• You can also test the feature by logging in with non-wholesalers and visitors

The below screenshot depicts the frontend demonstration of the setting detailed above.

Add Filters for your User Base Orders

Using this feature, you can easily split your orders into two categories Wholesalers Orders and Non- Wholesaler Orders or more if available. This feature enables the admin users to categorize their orders using filters on a page to ease the confusion. 

This feature allows you to organize all your orders through filters, by default only the admin can edit and view both the Wholesaler and Non-Wholesaler orders using filters.

Steps:

• Traverse towards the WooCommerce tab, then to the Orders.
• Click there on the filters dropdown.
• Select an option preferred by you to filter orders.

And there you go.

Step-4  Test

Review your WooCommerce Wholesale Store for Efficiency and Accuracy

Now as you’ve successfully set up your WooCommerce wholesale store using the plugin, it would be way smarter to test your store functionality before making it available for your customers to use. In this way, you can easily gain a review of all your store functionality and features and can easily perform changes wherever required.

Do refer tips below to test your store more efficiently-

• Just log out as an admin and visit your store as a guest user. Now, you can easily review all product areas, can easily ensure the simple/variable pricing and checkout discount information based accuracy.
• You can also sign up as a retail or a wholesale vendor. Again, you visit your product catalogs and review your products and pricing accuracy, track your menu links, and can re-examine the wholesale order form layout.

While testing, If you observe any errors, rectify them directly. Go back again to the plugin settings and continue exploring your wholesale store until you find it to be perfect. You can also let people demo your site at the ‘beta’ version. This technique helps you monitor errors that you have probably missed before.

Step-5  Extend

Till here, as you’ve completed testing your WooCommerce wholesale store, now it is the time to extend capabilities of your store by employing advanced plugin support available. 

Data Management Capabilities

Data Management can become your biggest hurdle while you’re planning to manage your WooCommerce wholesale store.

If you require a PRO tip, I better suggest incorporating HubSpot for WooCommerce plugin within your wholesale ecosystem and make use of their outstanding CRM capabilities for free.

Coupon Allowances

Coupons are now becoming the new fads to drive sales, there’s no rocket science in that. If you also want to create your store-based personalized coupons then just add the HubSpot Dynamic Coupon Code Generation plugin. That’s it.

This plugin would allow you to create, offer, and grant personalized coupon codes for your privileged customers in an easy manner.

Offers Listings

You can easily create offers using the One Click Upsell Funnel for WooCommerce at crucial instances of a buyer’s journey i.e. checkout. Yes, you can easily provide multiple upsell and downsell offers to engage more sales swiftly.

You can easily loop different offer funnel and drive sales prospects even at the toughest instance that is over the page checkout. 

Offers create an irresistible appeal that can easily drive more conversions. If your WooCommerce wholesale store also requires such appeal, do incorporate MWB WooCommerce Post Checkout Offers within your store.

This plugin would thereby help you offer post-checkout offers to your customers and convert them to returning ones, that too with ease.

Loyalty Programs

If you want to make your customers your prospective ones, there’s a way, drive them to be your loyal ones. Yes, you can do that. For this, you need to engage the WooCommerce Points and Rewards plugin within your WooCommerce wholesale store core.

This plugin would allow you to offer multiple rewards and coupons to your customers respective of their activity on your store like a referral, registration, order, etc. This plugin would boom engagement in your store as well as help you convert guests into prospects with ease. 

Do you want to enhance the prospective consumer base within your store too with ease?

Just incorporate HubSpot Deals for WooCommerce Memberships within your WooCommerce wholesale store and start driving targeted and prospective customers to your website. 

Return, Refund, and Exchange Merchandising

When you’re planning to set up an outstanding WooCommerce wholesale store, then do not forget to introduce return and refund policies within your store features. Return, refund, and exchange capabilities are essential features while dealing with customer orders.

It can be way more advanced and appealing that your WooCommerce wholesale store offer return, refund, and exchange services. If you think this way too, then do incorporate Return, Refund, and Exchange for WooCommerce from MakeWebBetter.

This plugin helps you easily manage as well as maintain the refund, return, and exchange related queries.

After That

You’re ready to start adding wholesale users on your own once you’ve finished checking the Wholesale for WooCommerce. Vendors can register on their own at the Wholesale Login page if wholesale registration has been allowed. If not, you’ll have to manually add wholesale users.

You can do that in a variety of ways, including-

A. Manually Add Wholesale Users

Initially, just create a user account, traversing to Users > Add New on your  WordPress dashboard individually for every wholesale user. After that, assign them to one of your wholesale roles and there you go. You have now successfully assigned user roles manually.

B. Convert your Existing Customers to Wholesale ones

If you wish to update your existing customer role to a wholesale one, then just edit their account and opt for a wholesale role for them from the Roles drop-down listed there.

C. Bulk Import

If you are planning to migrate user data from any other eCommerce system and already have a lot of wholesale users to import, then bulk import them.

Whichever method you like, you can use to add your users. You can also log into their account and access their private WooCommerce wholesale area. It is rewarding that no guests or the other users would ever detect that it exists!

Remarkable Practices to Avoid Mishaps while Working with a WooCommerce Wholesale Store

5.1 Customer Specific Build

Store Area

Retail store owners usually design their store using a standard layout, but does the same go well with a wholesale one? Definitely, no. 

Your store design is something that is the first impression of the store for a visitor or a customer to develop purchase or abandon intent. Designing the best user interface with a responsive layout would help you stand out among your competitors. 

Always make sure your products are displayed in a tabular layout, with some extra product information, and some instant purchase options thereby. It would be quite handy if you display your store’s area for your customers respective of their roles. 

Pricing

Always implement the dynamic pricing mechanism within your wholesale store pricing motif. Such practice would allow you to-

• Set minimum purchase quantities required for the wholesale discounts or pricing
• Limit the checkout to minimum purchase quantities.
• Create minimum and maximum quantities allowed during the checkout
• Monitor and control orders placed below the allowed limit easily

For better understanding, we are taking an example of the pricing category from the plugin Wholesale for WooCommerce.

Product Category Visibility

If you want to set up a pricing-based product category within this plugin just follow the steps given below patiently, let’s begin.

• First, navigate to WooCommerce Products Categories
• Then switch to Add or Edit a Category
• There you have to choose the Discount Type which you are supposed to offer i.e. Fixed or Percentage from the dropdown.
• Then move towards the Wholesale Amount field and enter your specified Wholesale Price values for that category.
• After that, apply the Minimum Quantity rule.
• At last, just Add or Update the category, that’s it.

Product Catalog

Similar to your pricing option, your product-based catalog also needs to be designed specifically for both wholesale and retail customers. As your wholesale and retail prices, discounts, offers, etc. also differ, so it would be confusing accessing through a single catalog.

Wholesale for WooCommerce offers multiple options for designing conveniently your product visibility catalog individually without any hassle. Proceed with the steps to understand the process more clearly.

Individual Product Visibility

For this, you just need to traverse on the WooCommerce Products Add or Edit section for a specified product of which you want to edit the visibility. 

For Single User Role

• Select Simple or the Variable product from the product data drop-down given.
• Then move towards the Wholesale tab.
• Then enable the Product Visibility option in order to hide that particular product from the specified wholesaler role.
• You can find the Product Visibility Checkbox option for both simple and variable products will be found in the Wholesale tab.
• Lastly, Update the product.

You can also refer to the screen-cast below for the simple product settings page.

And for the variable product settings, do refer to the below screenshot.

For Multi-User Role

• Just navigate towards the Wholesale tab within your dashboard.
• Choose Simple or the Variable product option as per your preference.
• Then, select the Wholesale Role from the product visibility field in order to hide the particular product from that wholesale role.
• Lastly, Update that product.

Do refer to the screenshot below for the simple product settings page.

If you require more understanding of the variable product settings page, do refer to the below screenshot.

5.2 Management Ease

Extensions

Currency Conversions

If your wholesale store is online, then there might be a catch that your customer reach also expands accordingly. Then, Currency Switcher for WooCommerce is a plugin that might be a great help for you.

Do not indulge your customer’s precious time in currency hecks, just add a privileged service for their ease. This plugin allows visitors/customers to switch between multiple currencies according to their preferences. 

Incorporate the plugin and easily expand your business base to other countries without creating a separate store.

Multiple Suppliers

If you’re also one of those store owners who have multiple suppliers; wishing to specifically notify your drop shippers as soon as the order is placed?

No need to worry then, just incorporate WooCommerce Dropshipping and send automated order notifications or emails to your wholesale drop-shippers. Notification can also be scheduled as per the new orders that arrive over your WooCommerce store.

This plugin would surely ease your shipping process and possibly solve all your issues regarding shipping delays. 

Linguistic Support

Planning to expand your wholesale business to reach par with your native boundaries?

Not all visitors/customers are familiar with the language of your website. Do not worry or indulge in developing a brand new store, just incorporate Loco Translate  within your store.

This is a popular WordPress translation plugin that is more focused on localization. That’s so, it would be an excellent option for you if you want to translate your site into your native language rather than converting them to different languages.

Future Trends in Wholesale Business Distribution

Global Market Expansion with Ease

As the exposure and marketing expansion into global markets is growing; there is a need for the online eCommerce market to join the global league. Many businesses either wholesale or retail have already joined and we can surely expect to witness more and more online businesses expanding overseas in the years forth. 

Since shoppers want to buy things from all over the world, wholesalers must rely on digitalization as well. Businesses must update their purchasing and supply chain workflows, as well as ensure that their online and offline marketplaces keep up with the changing cross-border trade climate.

Store owners must incorporate integrated cross-channel marketing strategies and streamline their cross-border payment technologies in order to keep up with global demand growth. To remain competitive, online wholesale store owners will need to adapt quickly and learn new skills.

Automation and Tracking Innovation

Automation and the Tracking ability innovation led wholesalers to manage operations more effectively as well as make informed decisions about shipping, staffing, and warehousing with ease.

All thanks to the advancing technology, that the purchasing and shipping for the wholesalers residing online becomes more and more efficient. Similarly, increased growth in AI and machine learning will give online wholesalers the ability to easily manage and analyze data. This will allow for better planning and reduced operational costs. 

Looking further, more and more wholesale businesses would begin to utilize these automation techniques and access through mobile apps and other connected devices to make operations more swiftly.

Inventory and Order Management Transparency

Wholesaling and inventory/order management are the two faces of a coin. As the wholesale stores are increasingly implementing new inventory management technologies. Such technologies allow them to make data-driven business decisions and easily handle business operations that too centrally. 

To maintain a competitive edge, many online businesses have now started investing time and money in building integration-friendly solutions to manage inventory, supply chain, and enhancing customer purchase experiences. Hopefully, in the coming future, we’d witness more advanced and smart extensions.

Omnichannel Selling

Although omnichannel selling is not new to the eCommerce world, many businesses have already started to embrace its capabilities. Omnichannel selling is a much more consumer-centric concept that so many businesses are interested in that. 

It primarily focuses on improving the customer experience by providing more and more convenience to the customers by connecting them with products of their choice. Omnichannel selling is poised to take the multichannel selling model a step further in the coming years by providing customers with a seamless and integrated shopping experience across all channels.

WooCommerce Wholesale Store – A Quick Recap

We’ve covered almost all aspects of a legit WooCommerce wholesale store here. Starting from initiation, including almost all opportunities to possible future upgrades. Therefore, referring to our article you have thoroughly read already about-

• Why do you require an online wholesale store and that too on WooCommerce?
• How to set up a WooCommerce wholesale store and upgrade your existing retail role?
• What are the ways in which you can set user roles for your WooCommerce wholesale store-based customers and vendors?
• By what method you can set up single and variable pricing for your customers for retail and wholesale?
• From what source you can efficiently add wide range of features by incorporating plugins within your WooCoomererce wholesale store?
• What is the future foresight for the expansion of WooCommerce Wholesale stores?

I hope this “how-to” guide has helped you get an idea about setting up a WooCommerce wholesale store with all the necessary functionalities and pricing quite well. 

Last but not the least, do treat both your retail/wholesale customers and vendors equally as they count in your development. We wish you all success. 

Thanks for your time in reading this article. We would love to hear appreciation and doubts from you; do share in the comments below!

Happy Wholesaling Online!!!