Our WooCommerce Wholesale Pro plugin has become hugely popular since it launched a couple of months ago. Today we've released version 1.3, which has lots of exciting new features that our customers have asked for.
B2B trade buyers have completely different needs from retail consumers. When you create a WooCommerce wholesale store, it is therefore essential to configure the trade area according to your buyers' needs. For example:
Since B2B customers are normally registered companies, you might want to disable taxes for some or all of your wholesale users - while still charging tax to public customers.
WooCommerce wholesale stores don't tend to offer sales and discounts to trade users, so you might want to remove the coupon code field from the checkout for trade buyers only.
As regular customers, your wholesale buyers might benefit from extra payment options that you don't offer to public shoppers. For example, you might allow wholesale users to pay later by invoice or BACS, instead of having to pay when they place their order.
Wholesale users often buy in bulk, so you might want to offer different shipping methods that aren't available to public customers. For example, perhaps you're using the Product Shipping plugin to offer weight-based shipping - but only want these options to appear to wholesale users.
Version 1.3 of WooCommerce Wholesale Pro has all these features. Use them to customize your private wholesale area so that B2B and B2C users receive an even more tailored experience.
If you want to improve the shopping experience on your WooCommerce website and increase sales, then you need to make it easier to purchase products. Customers are likely to buy more if you let them add multiple products to the cart from one page.
Here’s how it works: the customer simply ticks a checkbox to select each product they’d like to buy. Next, they click an Add Selected to Cart button to add everything at once. Finally, they head over to the checkout page.
In this article, we’ll show you how you can use the WooCommerce Product Table plugin to allow your customers to select multiple products and add them to the cart from a single page. Before we begin, let’s quickly take a look at how your Woo store can benefit from this.
Why you should let customers add multiple products to the cart from one page
If you’ve been using WordPress and WooCommerce for some time, you probably already know that the default layouts and user flows are very limited. There's no built-in way for customers to add multiple products to the shopping cart at once.
At best, your Woo product listing pages include an Add to Cart button for individual products. If a customer wants to buy more than one product, they’ll have to click a separate Add to Cart button to add each product to their cart.
What’s worse is that they have to visit the single product page of each product they want to purchase. This might be to get more information, set quantities, or configure product variations.
We needed a plugin to be able to add multiple products to a cart at once. After looking around we weren't able to find much other plugins other than yours.
With the WooCommerce Product Table plugin, you can improve your customer’s shopping experience by creating smooth one-page ordering. Instead of navigating to single product pages, your customers can shop directly from the product table view.
WooCommerce Product Table lets you add multi-select checkboxes alongside (or in place of) the Add to Cart buttons in the product table view. Customers will be able to tick the checkboxes next to the products they’d like to buy and select multiple products. They can choose their quantities and product variations directly from the table layout. Finally, they can click a single Add Selected to Cart button. This will add multiple products to the cart at once.
I was looking for a way for people to buy multiple things on one page, one-stop shopping.
By allowing customers to quickly select products, you can speed up shopping user flows on your online store. As a result, you’ll effectively be improving your online sales and conversion rates.
Which businesses can benefit from letting customers add multiple products to the cart from a single page?
How do you know if your WooCommerce online store will benefit from offering customers quick buying options? The first thing you need to do is analyze your customers’ buying habits. Ask yourself if it makes sense to buy multiple products from your online store at a time.
A click - click - click method of adding items to the users cart is what we needed.
Although multi-select checkboxes certainly have their benefits, not every business can benefit from them. For instance, if you’re selling large furniture, customers are likely to buy one (or maybe two) items at a time. However, there are plenty of products that lend themselves to multiple ordering, and this is where WooCommerce Product Table comes in.
Examples of products that customers typically buy more than one at a time
If you’re selling small, low-cost products or products that are meant to be used together then your online store can certainly benefit from having a multi-select checkbox system.
Does your WooCommerce store fall into any of these categories?
Low and medium cost products. When making purchases isn’t backed by major buying decisions, customers are more inclined to add multiple products to their shopping cart. In fact, improving your shopping user flow might even encourage them to buy more from you. E-commerce stores selling stationery items, toys, books, cosmetic products, and jewelry (for example) can benefit from letting their customers use WooCommerce to add multiple products to the cart from one page.
Related products. If you’re selling products that are designed to be used together, then you can improve the shopping experience by letting customers add multiple products to the cart from a single page. For instance, if you’re selling clothes then your customers are likely to purchase more than one item from you. If they’re buying a t-shirt, they might also purchase jeans or sandals to go with it to complete their look.
Build-your-own products. Online stores selling any kind of build-your-own product can benefit from letting customers add multiple products to the cart from the product listings page. This includes stores selling items such as gift hampers, custom cosmetic boxes, or bakery items.
And that’s not all!
As you can see, there are many other businesses and online stores that can improve their shopping user flows simply by letting customers add multiple products to the cart from one page.
Customers view your foods in a list and tick all the meals they require. No need to visit the single product page! A WooCommerce add multiple products to cart plugin could be just what you need.
Introducing the WooCommerce Product Table plugin
WooCommerce Product Table is a plugin designed for WooCommerce websites that lets users add multiple products to the cart from one page.
It lets you list products in a customizable, searchable table layout with a checkbox next to each product. You can choose to display an Add Selected to Cart button directly above and/or below the product table.
With the WooCommerce Product Table plugin:
You can create a single product table to list all of your products with multiple Add to Cart buttons and/or checkboxes.
The product tables are fully customizable, searchable, and sortable. You can add them pretty much anywhere on your site (pages, posts, or widgetized areas) simply by inserting a shortcode. Its the perfect bulk add to cart plugin for WooCommerce.
How to add multiple products to the cart from one page in WooCommerce
If you have a WooCommerce online store, you can use the WooCommerce Product Table plugin to create a functional product listings table. Customers will be able to use the product list table to add multiple products to the cart from one page. Here’s what you need to do:
Get the WooCommerce Product Table plugin. You’ll also receive a license key for using the plugin in a confirmation email.
Log in to your WordPress website and head over to Plugins → Add New. Upload the plugin’s zipped file and click Activate.
Navigate to WooCommerce →Settings →Products → Product Table and paste your license key into the License Key input field.
From the same screen, scroll down till you see the Add to cart button option and select Checkbox only. This will display a multiple add to cart checkbox next to each product item in the table layout. Alternatively, select the Button & checkbox option if you want to display individual Add to Cart buttons alongside the multi-select tick boxes.
Read through the other settings and make any other changes to customize how you want the product tables to behave.
Head over to Pages → Add New to create a new page (or edit an existing page) that you’d like to add the product table to.
Add the [product_table] shortcode to your page.
Click the Publish button to proceed.
That’s it! A product table will automatically be generated on the front-end of your WooCommerce website. It'll include options to let users add multiple products to the cart from one page. It might look something like this:
Display important product information in the table
One of the key benefits of using the WooCommerce Product Table plugin is that your customers don’t have to visit single product pages to get important product information or add to the cart.
The purpose of letting customers add multiple products to the cart from one page is to speed up the shopping user flow. For this reason, it doesn’t make sense if customers can't get important information directly from product listing pages. You want to display everything the customer needs to make a purchasing decision in the table layout.
"We were looking for a product table with the ability to buy several things without being directed to the individual product pages and well, that's what your plugin does! :)"
With WooCommerce Product Table, you can choose which columns to show (or hide) in the table view. Out of the box, the plugin supports all the standard product data that WooCommerce stores in the WordPress database. You can also add extra columns, such as custom fields and taxonomies. Here’s a complete list of the available columns you can choose from.
Choose your columns carefully to maximize your sales. Add the columns that will actively encourage customers to add more products to their shopping cart. For example, you might decide to include a product reviews column. This will give customers some insight into what other people thought about the product.
Let customers select quantity and product variations
Customers might want to use a quantity selector or provide variation options to customize their product or order. Making these options available alongside the Add Selected to Cart button will further improve your site’s user experience.
Here’s what you need to do:
Activate the quantity selector. The WooCommerce Product Table plugin comes with a built-in option to display a quantity selector directly in the table layout. Simply activate the quantity selector option from the plugin’s settings page. By doing so, customers will be able to set a quantity before adding a product to their cart.
Display product variations. With the WooCommerce Product Table plugin, you can display product variations as dropdown lists or as separate rows.
If you’re using the WooCommerce Product Options plugin in tandem with WooCommerce Product Table, extra product options will show up next to the Add to Cart buttons. In some cases, adding variable products might not make sense for the type of product you’re selling. Instead, you can add extra options (in the form of checkboxes, radio buttons, or text fields) directly to the table layout.
Add product quick view buttons
Adding multiple products to the cart is all about keeping the customer on one page. So what happens if you want to provide extra information which doesn't fit on the one page order form? You don't want to send customers to a separate page for each product - that defeats the purpose of the multi-add to cart features.
The solution is to use the method described in this tutorial with the WooCommerce Quick View Pro plugin. This plugin works with WooCommerce Product Table and adds quick view links or buttons to the WC order form. Customers click on these links to view more product information in a quick view lightbox window. They can learn more about the product and then close the lightbox to return to the one page order form, where they can add multiple products to the cart. This aids multiple purchases better than sending customers to multiple pages.
If you want customers to add multiple products to the cart at once, then you may wish to remove the add to cart buttons from the quick view lightbox. Instead, use the plugin settings page to show other information in the lightbox such as the short description and full product image gallery. Customers will still need to use the multi-select checkboxes to add products to the cart, directly in the order form. Or if you prefer, you can have the checkboxes on the order form AND allow customers to purchase products individually from the lightbox. The choice is yours.
Adding multiple products to the cart is all about letting customers order more quickly and easily. However, that's only the first half of the customer journey.
It's equally important to provide quick ways for customers to add their details and complete the purchase. That's where WooCommerce Fast Cart comes in.
This handy plugin displays a popup cart and checkout after customers add products to the cart. They can then complete the order directly in the popup, without leaving the page. This is much better for customers than having to visit separate cart and checkout pages.
Add WooCommerce Fast Cart for a quick popup cart and checkout.
Letting customers add multiple products to the cart form one page:
Improves the shopping user flow for your customers.
Boosts sales.
Increases the value of each sale.
Depending on what types of products you’re selling, speeding up the buying process and letting customers select products quickly just might convince customers to buy more from you.
"It is super simple for the customer to select many items at one time."
Do your customers typically purchase more than one product from your online store at a time? If so, do you think that letting them add multiple products to the cart from one page would improve their shopping experience? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
Are you thinking about creating a WooCommerce shop only for registered users? Looking for a way to limit access to your online store so that only logged in users or those with a password can browse and make purchases? You've come to the right place!
In this article, we'll guide you through the process of hiding your WooCommerce shop from guests with the easy-to-use WooCommerce Private Store plugin.
This powerful yet simple plugin enables you create a secret WooCommerce shop only for registered users. It keeps your store exclusive by hiding its pages from the public eye. This ensures that only logged-in users or those with the correct password can access and order your products. It maintains the privacy and exclusivity of your store - an ideal solution for businesses that cater to a specific clientele or want to offer special deals for registered customers.
We'll start by introducing you to the WooCommerce Private Store plugin, its features, and its benefits. Next, we'll take you step by step through the catalog visibility process, ensuring that you're able to set up your private store with ease. We'll also provide tips and best practices for managing your private store and creating a seamless experience for your registered customers.
By the end of this article, you'll have all the information you need to build a WooCommerce shop only for registered users. So, buckle up and get ready to start a journey to learn how to set up and manage your very own private eCommerce store.
How does it work?
When you install the Private Store plugin, you instantly have a WooCommerce wholesale store that is only available to logged in users. Simply choose how your customers will unlock the hidden store, and you're done!
Maybe you're setting up a WooCommerce shop only for registered users and want to hide it from non-members. Maybe you're building a B2B wholesale store. Whatever your reason, you can easily hide WooCommerce from non-registered users and guests.
3 steps to access your hidden store
It works like this to make sure your WooCommerce products are only for registered users:
A guest user visits your website They can see all your main pages but none of the WooCommerce content. If you have links to the Woo shop page, category pages, product pages, etc. in the menu then these will be hidden from public view. Any WooCommerce sidebar widgets are hidden too. The same applies to other WooCommerce elements such as the cart. The guest user has no idea that your WooCommerce shop exists. Even if they try to access a WooCommerce page directly (e.g. if they know the URL of a product), they will be asked to enter a password.
The user either enters a password or logs into their account Some visitors to your membership site will have an account, which they can log into. They can log in using the usual WordPress/WooCommerce login page. (This might be /wp-login, the WooCommerce 'Account' page, or a front-end login such as Theme My Login. Or if you want people to log in with their Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ account, use the WordPress Social Login plugin.) If you like, then you can also let non-registered users enter a password to unlock the store.
The hidden WooCommerce shop is unlocked After logging in, all the WooCommerce content becomes visible to the specific user. This might include links to the main shop page in the menu, WooCommerce widgets, and all the individual pages within WooCommerce. The logged in user can browse your ecommerce store and buy products with no restrictions.
Alternative option: Want to restrict certain products to registered users, but not your whole store? Checkout the WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin instead.
How to make your WooCommerce shop only for registered users
If you like what I've described above, the good news is that it's really easy to set up. Here's how to set up product visibility for your whole store. I have assumed that you already have a WP website with WooCommerce set up, and you're ready to hide your WooCommerce for logged-in users and visitors only.
Buy WooCommerce Private Store. Download the plugin files and license key from the order confirmation page or the email receipt.
Log in to the WordPress admin and go to Plugins → Add New.
Click 'Upload' and then 'Browse' and upload the plugin files you downloaded in Step 1.
Install and activate WooCommerce Private Store.
Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Private Store. Enter your license key and configure the other plugin settings. Make sure you tick the 'Logged In Users' box. (You can ignore the 'Login Form' settings as you won't be using password protection for your store. Instead, you will use the WordPress user login.) If you like, then you can also choose which user roles will have access.
Click 'Save'.
And that's it! Your WooCommerce shop is now completely hidden from public view. Guests can see your normal web pages but none of the WooCommerce content. Once they log in to their account, the whole of WooCommerce is instantly unlocked for them. Simple!
Can I hide the links to my hidden WooCommerce store?
By enabling the log in to see add to cart and prices in the WooCommerce feature, you can restrict access to your WooCommerce shop only for registered users and visitors. This means that all links to your main Shop page, product categories, individual products, and even the WooCommerce widgets that showcase your products, categories, and other relevant information will be hidden.
Furthermore, elements such as the shopping cart icon and other call-to-action buttons will also be concealed. In essence, any content related to your WooCommerce store, including the links to access it, will be inaccessible to guest users.
This feature provides an additional layer of security and privacy to your online store, as it ensures that WooCommerce products only for registered users with valid login credentials can view and purchase your hidden products. It also helps prevent unauthorized access to your store's pricing and other confidential information, which can protect your business from potential threats.
Can I force users to register before they can access my WooCommerce store?
Yes, you can use the WooCommerce Private Store plugin to hide your online store and restrict access to WooCommerce products only for registered users. To do this, you can use the built-in 'Account' page of the plugin or a front-end registration plugin like Theme My Login.
Theme My Login offers various options to moderate new registrations, including the ability to require administrator approval for new accounts. Alternatively, you can use a free plugin like New User Approve to approve new user accounts before they can access your private store. This ensures that only authorized users have access to your store.
When using a registration plugin, customers will need to create an account and have it approved before they can log in and access your hidden store. Once approved, they can log in and browse your products, add items to their cart, and check out just like a regular online store.
What if I don't want my customers to have individual user accounts?
If you want to keep your WooCommerce store private and only accessible to a select few, you may consider using a plugin that allows you to hide your store behind a password. This is a great option for businesses that want to keep their products and pricing information secure and confidential.
The plugin makes it easy to set up a private store login page where your customers can enter a password to access your store. Unlike requiring customers to log in to their accounts, the password option offers a simpler and more straightforward process. Customers enter the password on the login page. If it's correct, they are granted access to the hidden WooCommerce shop.
Once customers have entered the correct password and unlocked the private store, they will have full access to all the main WooCommerce Shop pages, including your products, categories, and product tags. Customers can search for a single product, add them to their cart, and proceed to the checkout page in the usual way.
Here's a review from a customer using WooCommerce Private Store to create team and school stores behind a common password:
This is the most convenient and easy to use plugin for creating team or school stores. My customers love that they have their own custom page to sell on without having to make their own site. Barn2 customer service is very quick efficient. The team really takes care of their customers and products!
If you use the built-in WooCommerce Account page as your register/login page, then you don't need to worry about this. That's because the same page will show a registration and/or login form to guests, and the 'My Account' area for logged in users. This makes it relevant to all types of users like subscribers, whether or not they're logged in.
If you use WooCommerce Private Store with a login plugin such as Theme My Login, then you need to structure your store in an intuitive way. Think about each step of the user journey. For example, you want to add a prominent login link for logged out users. But once people are logged in, then the login page is no longer important to them.
You can add a link to the user login page anywhere you like. For example, you can add it to the menu or header (depending on your theme). This link will be subtle, so it won't bother logged in users. You could also ask your developer to dynamically change it to a logout link for logged in users.
Setting the login page as the homepage might seem like a logical step. However, this can be confusing for users, as even when they're logged in, they'll see the login page with a message indicating they're already logged in. Instead, set another page such as the main 'Shop' page as the homepage. When guest users visit the homepage, they will see a user login form. But when WordPress only for logged in users visit, they will see the shop page. This is a more user-friendly way to set it up.
This lets you lock down specific categories within a Woo store, and hide products within them. Your other categories and main Shop page remain public. This means that you can have public and hidden areas within a single WooCommerce shop.
If you have a WooCommerce store that you want to keep private and accessible to WooCommerce products only for registered users, then using a WooCommerce Private Store or a similar solution can be a great option for you. By hiding your WooCommerce shop only for registered users, you can ensure that your specific products and pricing information are secure and protected.
Deciding between password-protecting or hiding your WooCommerce store until users log in depends on your specific needs and security requirements. If you have a small number of users who require access, password protection may be the better choice. For larger user bases, hiding WordPress only for logged in users may be more efficient.
Some other features that you might expect from a private WooCommerce plugin could include the ability to customize the login page and set up user roles and permissions. As well as track user activity within your store. These features can help you manage your WordPress only for logged in users more efficiently. As well as ensure that your products and pricing information are only accessible to the intended audience.
Please leave your comments below.
Our WooCommerce Product Table plugin comes with a lazy load option for loading product tables with large numbers of products. In response to popular demand, we've just released a new version which lets you search and sort your lazy loaded tables by SKU.
For those of you who don't know, an SKU stands for 'Stock Keeping Unit'. The SKU field is built into WooCommerce, providing a way to store a unique identifier code for each product. An SKU is a bit like the ISBN number for a book, but you can use it to store any type of code (text or numeric) for your products, in any format. While the SKU field is optional, WooCommerce.com have published a convincing article about the benefits of using SKU's in your Woo store.
What is lazy load?
Because of the structured tabular layout, lots of store owners use WooCommerce Product Table to list hundreds or even thousands of products. For example, it's a popular way to sell technical or wholesale products that require lots of extra data and don't need big images. You can use it to create a one-page WooCommerce order form, with all the purchasing options such as add to cart buttons or checkboxes, quantity pickers and variation dropdowns directly in the product table view.
Most WooCommerce stores only display 9 or maybe 12 products per page, without variations. The product table layout means that you’re likely to be loading many times more data than this. Inevitably, this can cause performance problems and slow page load times. And that's where lazy load comes in...
Lazy load is an alternative method of loading the product table, which you can activate by ticking a box on the plugin settings page. Instead of loading all the products with the initial page load, it just loads 1 page of the table at a time.
For example, let's say you have a table with 1,000 products in total, set to list 25 products per page. Without lazy load, you'd be loading all 1,000 products at once - ouch! That's a lot of data and most servers won't cope with this. Instead, you can enable lazy load and just load 25 products at once. Much better!
The problem with lazy load
As you can see, lazy load is a fantastic way of creating product tables such large numbers of products. However, it's never been perfect.
The problem is that with lazy load, WooCommerce Product Table only knows about the products on the current page. It simply hasn't loaded the others yet! This means that the searching and sorting is limited. You can search and sort by product name or description because WordPress indexes these fields in a way that the plugin can access without having loaded the entire table. However, until now it wasn't possible to sort or search by SKU and other data.
Because WooCommerce Product Table is popular for selling technical or wholesale products, people often want to use it to find products based on their SKU. This means that not being able to sort/search by SKU was a big limitation. As a result, this has become one of the most in-demand items on our feature request list.
We're always looking for ways to improve our WP plugins based on customer feedback. After some head scratching, we found a solution.
New feature: search & sort lazy loaded tables by SKU
Version 2.2 of WooCommerce Product Table is now available. While it looks the same as previous versions, there are lots of improvements and code changes under the hood.
When you create a Woo table with lazy load and an SKU column, a sort arrow will now appear at the top of this column. Users can click on this to sort by SKU in either direction. You can also sort the product table by SKU when the table first loads.
In addition, the AJAX-powered keyword search box above the table will now search by SKU field as well as the product name and description.
Example use case
Here's a common use case to help you to visualise the new features:
A WooCommerce wholesale store uses WooCommerce Product Table to create a one-page wholesale order form for their WordPress site. They have a large number of products, so they activate the lazy load option to boost performance.
The B2B wholesale buyers already know what products they want to buy, and have a list of SKU's for their regular products. They simply type a product code into the search box to search by SKU. They then add the product to the cart, and repeat the process to quickly create their order.
This is far more user-friendly than other ways of ordering your regular products. The customer doesn't have to scroll through multiple pages. Instead, they just type the product code and order much more quickly. Perfect!
Where to get the plugin
If you're already using WooCommerce Product Table, just upgrade to the new version from the WordPress Dashboard. If you haven't got it yet, buy it today and start adding searchable, sortable product tables to your store.
If you’re running a wholesale ecommerce store or trade shop, then you know this type of business comes with particular challenges. You’ll need to find a way to display all your items effectively and cater to multiple types of customers. A WooCommerce trade account plugin is an essential part of this.
Fortunately, there are plenty of tools that can help you out. This is especially true if you’ve built your trade shop using WordPress and WooCommerce.
With a WooCommerce trade account plugin, you can get the exact functionality you need to keep your ecommerce platform running smoothly.
In this article, we’ll talk about why your store might need a WooCommerce trade account login. Then we’ll show you how to use the best WooCommerce trade account plugins and explain how to add a trade-friendly order form to your site. Let’s get started!
Introducing WooCommerce trade accounts
In WooCommerce, a trade account refers to a hidden eCommerce area designed for businesses and customers placing wholesale or trade orders. It is a distinct type of account that offers specific pricing and a user experience tailored to the needs of trade customers. Trade accounts provide a platform for trade customers to access these exclusive features.
Benefits of trade accounts in WooCommerce
There are lots of reasons to offer a trade account facility in your WooCommerce store:
Exclusive pricing: WooCommerce trade accounts allow you to offer trade customers exclusive pricing. This enables you to provide wholesale discounts and special pricing based on trade status, order volume, or other criteria. It helps foster stronger relationships with trade customers and encourages repeat business.
Tailored catalogs and products: With trade accounts, you can customize product catalogs specifically for your trade customers. This allows for the presentation of trade-only products or variations. You can highlight trade-specific items, and hide products only intended for retail customers. This improves the browsing experience for trade customers as they only see the products which are aimed at them.
Streamlined ordering process: The best WooCommerce trade account plugins provide a streamlined ordering process tailored to the needs of trade customers. They may include features such as bulk order forms, quick reordering of previous purchases, and advanced search options. This simplifies the buying experience, saves time, and improves efficiency for trade customers.
Account management and insights: WooCommerce trade accounts offer dedicated dashboards where trade customers can manage their account information, track order history, view invoices, and access other account-related features. It provides transparency and convenience for trade customers, enhancing their overall experience and facilitating efficient account management.
Enhanced customer support: Trade accounts often come with dedicated customer support channels, providing trade customers with personalized assistance and faster response times. It ensures that trade customers receive the necessary support and guidance for their specific needs, building trust and loyalty.
Increased order minimums and credit terms: Trade accounts allow businesses to set higher minimum quantities for trade customers, ensuring profitability and efficient order processing. Additionally, trade accounts can offer credit terms or payment methods tailored to the needs of trade customers, enabling them to manage cash flow effectively.
Industries that can benefit from having a trade account
Trade account functionality can benefit a variety of industries that engage in business-to-business (B2B) transactions. Here are some examples:
Wholesale distribution: Industries involved in wholesale distribution, such as electronics, consumer goods, or building materials, can benefit from trade account functionality. It enables them to offer custom pricing, bulk order options, and personalized catalogs to their B2B customers.
Manufacturing and industrial supplies: Manufacturers and suppliers of industrial equipment, machinery, or raw materials can utilize the WooCommerce trade account to provide B2B clients with specialized pricing, product customization options, and streamlined ordering processes.
Hospitality and food service: Industries like restaurants, hotels, or catering services can benefit from trade accounts to access exclusive pricing, bulk ordering capabilities, and specialized product ranges for their specific needs.
Health and beauty products: Suppliers or distributors of health and beauty products, such as cosmetics or salon supplies, can utilize trade account functionality to offer different prices, bulk ordering discounts, and personalized product recommendations to their B2B customers in the beauty industry.
Professional services: Industries offering professional services, such as consulting firms, marketing agencies, or software development companies, can benefit from trade account functionality by providing exclusive access to specialized services, discounted rates, and personalized support for their WooCommerce B2B client portals.
Educational materials: Companies involved in the production or distribution of educational materials, textbooks, or e-learning resources can utilize trade account functionality to offer discounted pricing options, bulk ordering options, and customized catalogs to educational institutions and B2B customers in the education sector.
Why you might need additional tradeshop plugins for your WooCommerce store
When it comes to building an online store of any type, WordPress is an excellent platform. It’s secure, beginner-friendly, and quick to set up. While WordPress does lack specific e-commerce features, these can easily be added using a trade shop plugin such as WooCommerce.
Small, basic shops may not need anything else. However, wholesale stores and trade shops have particular needs, which might not be fully met by WooCommerce. For example, here are just a few of the special challenges facing online trade stores:
Out of the box, WooCommerce doesn't differentiate between different types of customers. There's no way to separate out the experience for retail and trade customers. You can't charge dynamic pricing, show different products, or provide a separate WooCommerce trade account facility.
Trade buyers have different needs from retail shoppers, as they already know what they want and need a quick way to make their selections. You might be selling hundreds or thousands of items, so you’ll need a way to organize them effectively and help trade users find what they need quickly.
WooCommerce assumes that your store will be available to the public. However, if you’re only selling to other businesses, you might want to hide your entire store from public view.
To add these features to your trade shop, you’ll need some additional tools. As it turns out, the WooCommerce Wholesale Pro account login plugin is perfect for the job.
The best WooCommerce trade account plugin
Now, let’s look at WooCommerce Wholesale Pro - a WooCommerce trade account plugin that will help you customize your store. It's perfect whether you're creating a trade-only shop or a WooCommerce store with separate public and trade areas.
WooCommerce Wholesale Pro has all the features you need for trade login and every other part of your B2B area.
Trade account and user registration
Trade users can register for an account and log in on the trade account page. This gives them access to the trade-only section of WooCommerce, which normal retail customers can't see.
As the administrator, you can choose whether to allow trade users to register and log in immediately, or hold their application for approval first. Moderating new B2B users adds an extra layer of security to your trade login.
Here's an example of a WooCommerce trade account and registration form in action. NRD Web Design used WooCommerce Wholesale Pro for their client Best Remy Hair Extensions. They added 'Wholesale Login' and 'Wholesale Registration' links to the website header, intuitively driving trade users to the private section.
WooCommerce trade prices
Nearly all B2B stores offer special trade-only pricing rules to logged-in users. Retail customers pay the recommended retail price (RRP), whereas trade users get variable discounts on the RRP.
WooCommerce Wholesale Pro makes it easy to add product pricing to WooCommerce. Logged in wholesale buyers will see the discounted pricing, and retail customers continue to see the standard pricing.
You can even add multiple wholesale user roles, each with percentage discounts. This is ideal if you offer tiered pricing or role-based pricing in your WooCommerce trade store.
Trade-only products
With WooCommerce Wholesale Pro, you can either sell the same products to everyone (with the correct trade pricing for B2B users, of course) - or you can sell different wholesale products to the two groups.
Each product category has the option to show it to public shoppers, trade users, or both. This makes it easy to sell trade-only products which are hidden from the retail store.
This feature is also ideal for creating a 100% private store, with no retail area. Simply mark all the categories as 'Wholesale Only', and your formerly public shop disappears from view! Only logged in B2B customers can see it from the private WooCommerce trade login area.
How to set up a WooCommerce trade account area
To get started, you’ll first want to purchase and install the WooCommerce Wholesale Pro plugin. Then, you’ll need to activate your license key. Navigate to WooCommerce → Settings, and select the Wholesale tab:
Enter your license key here, and click on Save changes at the bottom of the page.
Next, you’ll want to configure the powerful plugin’s settings. These are all located on the same Wholesale page. Choose a shop page to use for the trade login, and decide whether to enable WooCommerce trade account registration (with or without moderation).
There are lots of other options for customizing your trade login area. Go through all the settings and set it up exactly as you like.
That’s it! Now you can start adding trade users who can log into the B2B area or add them manually via the WordPress admin.
Create trade-only order forms for your WooCommerce store
By now, you know how to add a private WooCommerce trade account area to your store. Trade users can easily log into their accounts and access trade-only products and pricing. But what about the actual experience of using your WooCommerce trade shop?
Retail customers are happy to spend time browsing and choosing products. By default, WooCommerce is set up so that customers have to visit individual product pages to see and purchase each item they want. That's fine for most retail customers, who want to look at large images and read lots of information before making a decision. However, your trade users have completely different needs.
This creates a terrible user experience for a WooCommerce trade store, however. You’re selling a lot of products, and customers are likely to place large orders for multiple items at once. Requiring them to visit each specific product page will only slow them down.
Logged in trade customers already know all about your products. They've bought them before and are simply reselling them to their own customers. They don't want to waste time browsing or looking at pictures. Instead, they need to quickly view a list of all your trade products, where they can choose product quantity and add multiple products to the checkout at once.
You can do this by using WooCommerce Wholesale Pro with its sister plugin, WooCommerce Product Table. This adds a quick order form layout which perfects your WooCommerce trade shop.
What features can your WooCommerce trade order form have?
WooCommerce Product Table makes it easy to create a customizable one-page order form. It lists all of your items on the main trade store page, and also works on product category pages in the trade login area:
Woo Product Table lets you:
Make product comparisons simple, by showing off everything you have to offer side by side.
Help people find what they want quickly, by using searching, sorting, and filtering functionality.
Enable customers to tick all the items they want and purchase them from one page.
Enable the wholesale order form layout in the trade login area without affecting the experience for retail users. Or if you prefer, you can use it in the retail area too!
Where to get the trade order form
When you buy WooCommerce Wholesale Pro, you can choose whether to buy it on its own, or with WooCommerce Product Table for a discount. You'll need both trade shop plugins to get a trade login area complete with trade order forms.
Setting up user roles and permissions for trade customers
Setting up user roles and permissions for trade customers is a crucial aspect of managing wholesale operations using WooCommerce Wholesale Pro. This WordPress buy sell trade plugin offers robust features that allow you to customize user roles and access. Here's how you can set up user roles and permissions for trade customers using the best WooCommerce Wholesale plugins:
Creating custom user roles: WooCommerce Wholesale Pro enables you to create custom user roles specifically for trade customers. You can define roles such as "Wholesaler," "Trade Customer," or any other relevant designation. These roles will differentiate wholesale customers from regular retail customers within your WooCommerce system.
Assigning capabilities: Once you've created the custom user roles, you can assign specific capabilities or permissions to each role. Capabilities determine what actions or features a user with that role can access.
Controlling catalog visibility: WooCommerce Wholesale Pro allows you to control which variable products or product categories are visible to trade customers. You can set up rules that restrict certain products to wholesale customers only, ensuring that they have access to trade-specific offerings. This customization ensures that wholesale customers see relevant products and helps streamline their browsing experience.
Restricting access to non-wholesale areas: WooCommerce Wholesale Pro gives you the ability to restrict wholesale customers' access to non-wholesale areas of your wholesale website. This prevents them from accessing retail-specific features or wholesale prices that are not relevant to their WooCommerce trade account. By limiting access, you create a focused and streamlined experience for wholesale customers.
Integrating with user role management plugins: WooCommerce Wholesale Pro integrates with popular user role management plugins, such as "Members" or "User Role Editor." This integration provides additional flexibility and control over different user roles and permissions. You can leverage these WordPress buy sell trade plugins to fine-tune and customize the capabilities and access levels of WooCommerce wholesale suite further.
Add a WooCommerce trade account area today!
WooCommerce is an excellent way to sell online, but it’s designed to work best for customer-facing retail stores. If you’re building a trade shop, then you’ll need a WooCommerce trade account plugin to add the extra features you need.
The WooCommerce Wholesale Pro plugin adds everything you need for a professional trade account and B2B area. Either use it to power your entire store, or run it alongside your main retail shop.
Complete trade features include trade login and wholesale registration forms, trade cart discounts, trade-only products, unlimited user roles, quick order forms, and more!
Full documentation, support, and video tutorials.
Love it or your money back!
Do you have any questions about how to use WooCommerce tradeshop plugins effectively on your site? Let us know in the comments section below!
Looking for a solution to hide WooCommerce products at your store? Sometimes you don't want every single product available to the public, especially if you're running something like a B2B/wholesale or members-only store (though the use cases definitely don't stop there).
In this step-by-step tutorial, I'll show you how to hide products in WooCommerce using three different methods, depending on the level at which you want to hide your products. By the end of this article, you'll be able to hide:
A single product using WooCommerce to hide specific products from the shop page.
An entire category of products using the WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin (either by password, role, or individual user login).
Your entire store using the WooCommerce Private Store (either by password or user login).
Benefits of Hiding Products on a WooCommerce Store
There are several reasons why store owners might want to utilize WooCommerce hide products on your ecommerce store:
Exclusive products: You may have some products that you only want to make available to a select group of customers, such as a VIP customer group or WooCommerce members of a loyalty program. By using the WooCommerce hide product feature, you can create a sense of exclusivity and make customers feel special.
Seasonal products: If you sell seasonal products, you may want to hide them during the off-season to avoid confusing customers or cluttering up your online store. This can also help you to manage your inventory more effectively.
Pre-launch products: If you're concerned about product visibility WooCommerce, and are planning to launch a new product or collection, you might consider hiding it until you're ready to make it available to the public. This can help to build excitement and anticipation among your customers.
Wholesale products: If you offer wholesale customers pricing to certain customers, you may want to use the WooCommerce hide product feature from other customers who are not eligible for the discounted pricing.
Personalization: You may want to create a personalized shopping experience for your customers by using product visibility WooCommerce based on their past purchase history, preferences, or other factors.
Which way of hiding WooCommerce products is right for you?
I'll keep this brief because you probably have a good idea of which is right for your situation already. But in a nutshell, if you're wondering how to hide products in WooCommerce, there are a few different methods available depending on your needs and preferences.
Option 1 - Hide an individual productThe core WooCommerce functionality is helpful if you just need to hide a single product. There's a built-in way to use WooCommerce to hide specific products from the WooCommerce shop page. But it becomes difficult to manage if you want to hide multiple products.
Option 2 - Hide categoriesWooCommerce Protected Categories are good if you want to just create some hidden products in an otherwise public store. You can use it to password protect products based on category; WooCommerce hide products by role; or WooCommerce hide products from everyone except specific users.
Option 3 - Hide your whole storeWooCommerce Private Store is good if you want to make every single product hidden. You can use it to password protect your entire store or hide it from all logged out users (guests).
Below, I'll take you through how to use each plugin to hide WooCommerce products, as well as the core WooCommerce functionality. Or if you prefer, then you can watch a video about how to set up product visibility WooCommerce:
Option 1: Hide a specific WooCommerce product from the shop page
Note: when you use this method, the product is hidden from the shop pages. But if a user gets their hands on a direct link, they'll still be able to access the product. For that reason, this method is not a good approach if you actually want to make the product private - not just hidden.
Also, this method isn't very efficient if you need to hide multiple products, as you'll need to manually edit every single product. When it comes to hiding multiple products on WooCommerce, a more efficient approach is to assign them to a category in bulk and then hide that category using one of the methods for how to hide products in WooCommerce.
If you're ok with the product still being accessible by direct URL, then it's fine to use WooCommerce to hide specific products from the shop page.
You can do this by editing the Catalog visibility option under Publish and choosing Hidden:
Option 2: How to hide an entire category of WooCommerce products
Then, create a new product category for your private products. I'll give mine a creative name of "Private Products", but you can name yours whatever makes sense.
Once you have the category, assign the products that you want to hide to that category.
Now, you've come to the point where you need to make a choice about how you want to let people "unhide" the products in this category. You can:
Let users unhide the products by entering a password
Make the products automatically visible to certain users or user roles
How to password protect your hidden WooCommerce category
To add password protection, go to Products → Categories and edit the category that you created for your private products:
Scroll down to the WooCommerce product Visibility section
Select Protected → Password protected
Enter your desired password. You can also add multiple passwords to unlock the category if you want to give different users different passwords
Save changes
Then, you can configure how your password protected categories function by going to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Protected Categories.
In this area, you'll want to:
Uncheck the two Category Visibility checkboxes to make your category 100% hidden
Select a Category Login Page where users can enter the password to see the WooCommerce hidden products/categories
You can also peruse the other settings to see if anything applies to your specific needs.
Case study: eLearning Launchpad
eLearning Launchpad is a TOGAF 9 accredited training course provider based in the US. Delegates on training courses need to be able to download the course materials in advance of attending the courses.
But instead of using a commercial filesharing service, our WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin hides WooCommerce Products by working alongside the Free Downloads WooCommerce Pro plugin from Wp Enhanced.
Here’s how the two plugins work together. A password protected category page hides the course materials (i.e. WooCommerce products). A password is sent to course participants to access the category page. Then the materials can be downloaded. Thanks to the Free Downloads WooCommerce Pro plugin, they’re able to capture a few details before any file is downloaded.
Even though each download isn’t being sold on the site, they decided to set up the downloads as WooCommerce products to make them easy to manage - and easy to hide.
The site’s owner is pleased with how our plugin is hiding their WooCommerce products, just look at his feedback:
“I like the category simplicity and flexibility, and the ability to quickly add and delete multiple passwords”
How to hide WooCommerce products by specific user or user role
If you'd prefer to automatically give access to the WooCommerce hidden products to certain users or entire roles:
Go to Products → Categories
Edit the category that you created for your WooCommerce hidden products
Scroll down to the WooCommerce product Visibility section
Select Protected → Users and choose which users and/or roles can access your hidden WooCommerce products.
Save your changes
Then, you can configure how your user and role protected categories function by going to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Protected Categories. Here, you need to choose what happens when a logged out or guest user tries to access a hidden category or one of its products:
Option 3: How to hide your entire WooCommerce store
Now it's time for the third, and most private, way to hide WooCommerce products.
If you want to hide all of your products from the public, you'll need the WooCommerce Private Store plugin installed and activated.
Then, go to WooCommerce → Settings → Private Store to configure the plugin.
Just as with hiding specific categories of products, you can hide your store in two different ways:
Require users to enter a password to unhide the store
Automatically unhide the store for logged in users
Password protecting your hidden store
To add a password:
Enter a password (or multiple passwords) in the Store passwords box.
Choose how long the password should unhide the store (in days) in the Password expires after the box.
Enter the product page you want users to be taken to after logging in using the Redirect URL box.
Configure the Login form options.
Letting logged in users see your private store
If you want to automatically allow logged in users to see your private store, you just need to check the box for Automatically unlock the store for logged in users. Underneath, you'll find an option to choose which user roles to unlock the store for. This is handy if you only want certain user roles to have access, such as administrators and store managers.
You can also choose whether or not to Hide the login form… that displays for users who aren't logged in:
Three different options to hide WooCommerce products
Whether you need to hide a single product, one or more categories of products, or your entire WooCommerce store, one of the above methods should work for you.
Remember:
To hide a single product, you can use the Hidden Catalog WooCommerce product Visibility option. Just remember that people can still see the product if they get a direct link - it's not actually private.
If you want to hide an entire category of WooCommerce products, WooCommerce Protected Categories lets you do so via either password protection or specific logged in users or roles.
To hide your entire WooCommerce store, WooCommerce Private Store lets you do so via either password protection or by automatically unhiding your store for logged in users.
Any other questions about how to hide WooCommerce products on your WordPress website and provide great user experience? Leave a comment and we'll try to help out.
If you're looking for a way to increase sales on your WordPress e-commerce website, it's time to consider a bulk add to cart WooCommerce plugin.
Customers can buy more quickly by adding multiple products to the cart at once. They simply tick a checkbox next to each product and click a button to add them all to the cart:
It's the perfect way to increase your WooCommerce store's conversions.
Today, I'm going to tell you how to use our popular WooCommerce Product Table plugin to add bulk add to cart buttons in WooCommerce.
Let's get started!
What is the bulk add to cart WooCommerce plugin?
WooCommerce Product Table is our bestselling WordPress plugin and works perfectly as a bulk add to cart plugin.
It lists products in a customizable table layout, with a tick box next to each item. There will be an 'Add Selected to Cart' button above and/or below your product tables.
You can create a single product table listing all your products with multiple add to cart buttons. Or you can create tables listing specific products only (e.g. by category). There are options to add tables anywhere on your site, or to replace the default layouts on the main Woo shop and category pages.
You can configure pretty much any aspect of your product tables. For example, you can choose which columns of product data display in the table. You can choose whether or not to show quantity selectors and product variations in the table. It's even possible to control how the table and quick add to cart buttons behave responsively on mobiles and tablets.
Here are just a few of the benefits of using bulk add to cart buttons:
Help site users find and add products to cart faster
Make it easier to add multiple products to cart
Potentially increase conversion rate
Simplify and streamline the buying process
How to add bulk add to cart buttons in WooCommerce
First, get WooCommerce Product Table and install it on your WP website. I'm assuming that you've already got a website with WooCommerce setup and some products.
Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Products > Product Table.
Next, paste your license key from the confirmation email, and choose the default settings for your product tables. (You can override these for each individual table if needed.)
For the 'Add to Cart button' setting, choose the 'Checkbox only' style to display a multiple add to cart checkbox next to each product. Choose 'Button & checkbox' if you want a add to cart button AND bulk tick boxes.
Now it's time to add 1 or more product tables. There are 2 ways to do this:
Create a page where you want to add a product table. Add the shortcode [product_table] to the page. Enter any further product table options to the shortcode.
If you want to use product tables directly on the main WooCommerce shop page, follow the instructions in the knowledge base to add the product table layout directly to your theme's template file.
Finally, view the page and you'll see your tables with WC bulk add to cart checkboxes next to each product.
The whole point of a bulk add to cart Woo plugin is to make it quicker for people to buy from you. With that in mind, I'll give you some tips on how to encourage customers to add multiple products to the cart. Use these to get more sales by encouraging each customer to buy more products.
Are customers likely to add multiple products to the cart?
First, you need to decide whether the products you sell will benefit from quick buy options such as a bulk add to cart WooCommerce plugin. Multi-select checkboxes are a major asset to many WooCommerce stores (including wholesale WooCommerce stores). However, they're not for everyone.
Customers are more likely to add multiple products to the cart when you're selling relatively small, low-cost items; or products that are designed to be used together.
Examples of products that benefit from quick add to cart checkboxes
Low cost products
Low cost products sell better with a bulk add to cart WooCommerce plugin. This applies to any store where each product isn't a major buying decision with low value products. For example, stationery, cosmetics and make-up, food and drink, gifts and toys.
Subtle improvements like quick buy checkboxes can convince them to buy more. Further encourage this with postage discounts for multiple items, or quantity-based bulk discounts.
Make sure your customers know they can save money, and use a bulk add to cart WooCommerce plugin to make it quick and easy.
Build a box
WooCommerce Product Table is popular for selling build-your-own products such as gift hampers or wine boxes.
The box contents are listed in a table. Customers use the quick add to cart buttons to bulk select the box contents. Once they've ticked the required items, they add all selected products to the cart at once.
They add their restaurant menu to a single page, with a separate product table for each section (e.g. starters, mains, sides). Each product table has bulk add to cart buttons with an 'Add Selected to Cart' button.
Customers tick all the food options from one table, add them to the cart in a single click, and then choose items from the next table. This is much quicker than clicking individual add to cart buttons for every product.
Related products and sets
If you're selling multiple products designed to be used together, then WooCommerce bulk add to cart buttons will make the process more user-friendly. Perhaps you're selling kitchen units where customers choose their own combination from a set of items such as worktops, cabinets and doors.
Customers need to plan their entire purchase before adding to the cart. When they're ready to order, WooCommerce bulk buy checkboxes make it much quicker to buy.
Case study - using a WooCommerce add to cart plugin to sell items in bulk
Darren Bowen Photography sells a range of products printed with Darren’s unique artwork. To help customers quickly buy multiple products there are two bulk ordering pages powered by WooCommerce Product Table. One for mugs and the other for iPad smart covers.
To buy multiple items, you simply select the quantities and use the “add to cart” function or check the “buy it” box. Once you’ve put everything you need in the cart, you can check your order before making your payment. And to keep things simple, there's an easy to use one-click checkout system.
Keep reading to learn how to add similar WooCommerce bulk order forms to your own site.
Which WooCommerce products don't need bulk add to cart buttons?
As you can see, many types of product will sell best with a plugin that provides quick buy options. However, a bulk add to cart WooCommerce plugin isn't going to help you with major purchases such as selling furniture online. If each purchase is a major decision for the customer, then adding quick check boxes won't really encourage them to buy more.
Think about whether the types of product in your store lend themselves to a quick bulk add to cart format.
Show important buying information in the table
There's no point having a WooCommerce bulk add to cart plugin if customers still need to visit the single product page before they buy. The whole purpose of the quick add to cart checkboxes is to allow customers to add multiple products directly form the main shop or product listings page.
This means that your WooCommerce product tables need to contain all the information that is needed to make purchasing decisions. You can do this by choosing which columns appear in the product table.
Joseph uses the WooCommerce Product Table plugin to include a quantity field in his product table:
This plugin is absolutely fantastic. I have been looking for a plugin just like this for a while now. I so glad I discovered this one. I wanted a quick, nice way to have my many products listed in a table with a quantity field and an add to cart button. This plugin was the answer. I love the way you can customize the table to include only the columns you want and how you can order the table by a specific column. I would totally recommend this plugin.
The WooCommerce Product Table plugin supports all the standard product data that WooCommerce stores. Read the full list of available columns and choose your columns wisely. Add the product data that will actively encourage customers to buy without clicking elsewhere. You can even add extra data such as custom fields and taxonomies. These are ideal for adding any further information or downloadable documents that will help customers to reach a quick buying decision.
Add a quantity picker and variations
Customers will only use the plugin's bulk add to cart checkboxes if they can select product options directly from the product table view. This means that you need to make these options available alongside the quick add to cart buttons. This includes:
Activate the quantity selector on the WooCommerce Product Table plugin settings page. This lets customers choose a quantity before selecting the product and adding it to the cart.
Use one of the options to show variable products in the product table. You can show product variations as dropdown lists next to the bulk add to cart boxes. Alternatively, each variation can have its own row in the product table with a separate add to cart checkbox for each one.
If you're using the WooCommerce Product Options plugin with WooCommerce Product Table, then extra product options will appear next to the bulk add to cart check boxes. These two plugins work perfectly together, so this is a good way to add extra product options if variable products aren't right for you. For example, you can add extra options as checkboxes and radio buttons, or even add text fields where customers can add a personal message for each product. All this works directly on the product listing page, so customers can choose their options and add multiple products to the cart.
Help customers find products faster
Built-in options
Bulk add to cart buttons are just one way to speed up the buying process in WooCommerce. It works because products become more visible, faster. The WooCommerce Product Table plugin comes with plenty of features to help customers find products more easily. All these improvements work together to truly improve your sales and increase conversions.
For example, add filter dropdowns or filter widgets to let customers quickly refine the list of products. They can choose their filters, view a list of products they're interested in, tick the boxes and add multiple products to the cart in bulk. Keyword search above the product table offers another way to do this.
Performance and page load time is also important. If you have lots of products, you can use the lazy load option to load fewer products at a time. Lazy load lets you list hundreds or even thousands of products in a table. It minimizes load time and avoids potential speed and performance issues.
Advanced filtering plugin
For stores that need bulk add to cart options with more advanced filtering, you can use WooCommerce Product Table with its sister plugin - WooCommerce Product Filters. This adds even more sophisticated filters to your bulk order forms, as you can see in the screenshot above.
Bonus tip #1 - force customers to buy in bulk
The Product Table plugin makes it easy for customers to add bulk quantities and add multiple products to the cart at once. However, customers can still buy small quantities if they want.
If you only want to receive bulk orders, then you need to use WooCommerce Product Table with a minimum quantity plugin. It is designed to work alongside the Quantity Manager plugin, which lets you set different types of WooCommerce minimum quantity rules.
For example, you can set a minimum order quantity or value to prevent customers from placing small orders. Alternatively, you can set minimum quantities for the whole order or per category, product or variation.
Either way, WooCommerce Quantity Manager helps you to guarantee your profit margins by stopping customers from placing non-bulk orders.
Bonus tip #2 - add quick view links to your product tables
Bulk add to cart plugins are all about helping customers to buy as quickly as possible. So what happens if you have too much information, or too many product options, to fit in the product table? Obviously, you don't want customers to have to visit the single product page. After all, this would slow down the buying process and defeat the purpose.
Instead, you can enhance your product tables with the WooCommerce Quick View Pro plugin. This handy plugin works hand-in-hand with WooCommerce Product Table and your bulk add to cart buttons. It adds quick view buttons or links to the product tables. Customers can view more product information and purchase options in a quick view lightbox. They can then either select variations and add to the cart directly in the popup, or they can quickly close it and use the bulk add to cart buttons in the product table.
Adding products to the cart in bulk lets customers order more quickly and easily. However, they can still lose time completing the standard multi-page WooCommerce cart and checkout.
To optimize the second half of the customer purchase process, I recommend installing WooCommerce Fast Cart. This plugin displays the WooCommerce cart and checkout in a popup after customers add products to the cart in bulk. They can complete their order from directly within the popup. This is so much faster than having to visit multiple page after adding products to the cart.
Install WooCommerce Fast Cart for an on-page cart and checkout.
Now you can create your own WooCommerce bulk add to cart buttons!
Now you know everything about how to use a bulk add to cart WooCommerce plugin. It's the easy way for customers to add multiple products to the cart at once. As you have seen, it will really speed up the buying process on your store.
Research shows that faster customers can use an e-commerce shop, the higher your conversion rate and sales will be. Test the add to cart checkboxes on our WooCommerce quick order form demo. Get the plugin today and add bulk add to cart buttons to your WooCommerce store straight away!
Discover the easy way to create a table-based WooCommerce catalog. Ideal for large product directories, your products will be listed in a searchable table with filters.
This tutorial will tell you how to create your own e-commerce order form complete with variation pickers and add to cart buttons or checkboxes.
You'll also learn how to combine product tables with WooCommerce catalog mode, disabling the e-commerce functionality.
Whatever type of WooCommerce catalog you need to build, I'll teach you how to create the ultimate product catalog using the bestselling Product Table plugin, without the need for any custom PHP or CSS.
A WooCommerce catalog plugin is ideal for creating a 1-page view listing all your products. It makes it easy for customers to sort products and find what they're looking for. A catalog layout displays products in a neater and more compact way to the default Woo store layout.
A catalog layout makes it possible to display more products per page, so your customers can view them all together. It's perfect if you need a larger WC product catalog table, for example, you might have 100s or 1,000s of WooCommerce products.
Who needs a WooCommerce catalog plugin?
A WooCommerce product catalog plugin is useful for any website that needs a user-friendly way to present lots of products. The products are listed in a structured table or grid layout, so customers can view more products per page. Typically, a product catalog will include features to make it easier for customers to find specific products, including keyword search, filters or sort options.
Product catalog layouts have many possible uses, such as:
WooCommerce order form - Your product catalog can include Add to Cart buttons or tick boxes to add multiple products to the cart. This lets it double as a fully functional order form for WooCommerce. Or you can hide the add to cart facility to create a read-only WooCommerce catalog.
Product directory - A product catalog can also function as a complete WooCommerce directory, with large numbers of products listed in an easy-to-find format.
WooCommerce wholesale catalog - WooCommerce Product Table is hugely popular for wholesale catalogs. List all your wholesale products in a structured catalog layout to help trade users quickly find and order their products. You can use it with our other WooCommerce plugin, WooCommerce Protected Categories, to create a hidden wholesale area separate from your public shop page. You'll be able to certain user roles or by having users enter a password.
What features can a WooCommerce catalog table have?
E-commerce order form or catalog mode?
The best product catalog WordPress plugins give you a choice of whether or not to accept orders online. This gives you two options:
You might want to include full purchase functionality in the product catalog layout, with quantity pickers, variation dropdowns, add to cart buttons, etc.
Alternatively, you might want to put your store in read-only 'catalog' mode, disabling the e-commerce features. With this use case, you can still list individual products in a catalog-style table view, but this is for read-only purposes and customers can't make a purchase. You could use a contact form plugin to create an inquiry form that interested visitors can fill out to request a quote or start a purchase.
Keep reading to learn how to create a WooCommerce catalog view with both options.
Flexible information to display in the catalog view
The WooCommerce catalog plugin lets you create the ultimate product catalog, listing various product details, including columns for:
Add to cart button (with or without quantity selector and product variations. You can also choose whether or not to use the Ajax add to cart functionality)
Product image
Product prices
Stock status
SKU
Product categories
Tags
Custom fields (which can include various information. e.g. HTML links, shortcodes from other plugins, images, video, audio players etc.)
Custom taxonomies
And more
There are also lots of extra features relating to how the product catalog is displayed, and how customers interact with it. For example, you can add filter dropdowns for category, tag, attributes, variations, and custom taxonomies above the table. You can add sidebar widgets to filter by attribute, price or rating. You can show or hide elements, including the search box. There are even options to control how the responsive product catalog behaves on mobile devices.
You can either have a single product catalog page listing all your WooCommerce products, or, divide a catalog into sections. For example, you might have separate tables for products with specific categories, tags or custom field values.
Use WooCommerce Quick View to provide extra product information
When you use WooCommerce Product Table to create a catalog of your products, you can choose which columns of information to include. But what if you want to display multiple product images, or extra information that won't fit in the catalog? That's when you need to add quick view to your catalog.
The WooCommerce Quick View Pro plugin is designed to work with WooCommerce Product Table. It adds quick view buttons or links to the catalog, so that customers can open extra information and purchase from a lightbox instead of directly on the catalog page.
Transform your store layouts by using Quick View with our WooCommerce Table plugin
Use product tables with our WooCommerce Quick View Pro plugin
Quick view lightbox with thumbnail image gallery and no product information
3 WooCommerce Quick View layout options: Image only, Product Details only, or both
This is an excellent compromise because it keeps customers on the catalog page and doesn't take them to a separate page for each product. However, it lets you provide extra images, a longer product description, more data about each product, and you can also let them select variations from the quick view.
Case study - Wavelength Electronics' table-based product catalog
Wavelength Electronics sell technical products in the electronics industry. The website uses our WooCommerce Product Table plugin to create detailed product comparison tables for each product category.
The website acts as a catalog for customers to compare products. The product table needed to display a lot of technical information so they created WooCommerce custom fields to display the extra data. They also included ticks and PDF icons with links to downloadable data sheets. By using the filter dropdowns, it couldn't be simpler to compare several different products all at once.
Carry on reading to find out how you can create your own WooCommerce product catalog.
How to create the ultimate product catalog
First, I'll show you how to list products in a table-based catalog. This is all about the layout, and doesn't affect whether or not people can purchase your products (although as you'll see, you can do this by choosing not to include an add to cart column in the table). If you want to fully disable the e-commerce side of things and prevent people from purchasing, skip ahead to the section on catalog mode.
To get started, your website should have 2 plugins installed:
WooCommerce (free - download from the WordPress plugin repository)
You can then follow these instructions to create the ultimate product catalog.
1. Create a page for the WooCommerce catalog table
First, create a new page for the product catalog by going to Pages > Add New in the WordPress admin. Call the page whatever you want, for example 'Product Catalog'.
2. Enter the default WooCommerce Product Table shortcode
Now, enter the WooCommerce Product Table shortcode which will create a table displaying your ultimate product catalog (we'll add more columns in the next step!). This shortcode will list your WooCommerce products as a searchable, sortable table.
[product_table]
Publish the page and click View Page to see your WooCommerce catalog table.
You'll see a dynamic catalog listing all your WooCommerce products. It's currently using the default column headers – these may or may not be relevant to your particular product catalog, but we'll edit these shortly. The default columns are product name, short description, price and add to cart button:
By default, the plugin displays all of your products, but you can also add an inclusion or exclusion list to control which products display or add related products. Learn more here.
3. Choose which columns appear in the WooCommerce catalog table
Next, I'll show you how to choose which product data to include. This will make the table more suited as a WooCommerce product catalog.
It's time to make some changes to the WooCommerce Product Table shortcode to control which columns are displayed in the catalog. Go back to the Edit Page screen for your product catalog and try replacing the default shortcode with this:
This adds a 'columns' parameter to the shortcode. In the example above, I've added the following columns:
sku - the unique identifier for the product. Many product catalogs include a product code or ID to make products easier to identify.
name - the main title for your product.
description - the long description for the WooCommerce product.
categories - this tells the catalog to display a filterable column listing the product categories each product is in. Customers can click on a category to filter the table for products in that category.
att:size - this tells the product catalog to include a column for the 'size' attribute. Use this format for any product attributes you wish to include in the catalog. Instead of 'size', add the slug for the attribute in your WooCommerce store.
tags - this adds a filterable column listing the tags for each product.
price - this tells WooCommerce Product Table to display a price field.
Use the product table knowledge base to see which other columns are available. It also tells you how to rename the columns in your WooCommerce catalog table or hide column headings.
If you want your products to be purchasable from the catalog page, then you'll also want to include an add-to-cart column. Use the knowledge base to learn how to add quantity pickers, variation dropdowns, and other purchase options.
Now view your product catalog
Now Update and View your page. You'll see the table is now a very useful WooCommerce catalog and the 7 columns are those we listed in the product table shortcode.
Example without online purchasing:
Example with online purchasing:
4. Add filters to the WooCommerce catalog table
Another neat option in WooCommerce Product Table is the ability to add filter dropdowns and filter widgets so customers can quickly and easily find the products they need in your product catalog.
WooCommerce catalog filter dropdowns
To add filter dropdowns, add filters="true" to the product table shortcode. For example: [product_table columns="sku,name,description,categories,att:size,tags,price" filters="true"]. Alternatively, you can use the knowledge base to control exactly which filters appear in the product catalog view.
WooCommerce catalog table with dropdown filters.
WooCommerce product filter widgets
The product catalog plugin also comes with its own version of all the WooCommerce filter widgets. These include a widget to show the active filters, a layered nav filter listing product attributes, a price slider and ratings filter.
Make sure your product catalog is on a page that contains the product table shortcode and has a sidebar area (e.g. left or right column). You can then add filter widgets by going to Appearance →Widgets and adding any of the filters beginning with 'Product Table' to your sidebar. The filter widgets will appear on your product catalog pages, but won't affect the rest of your website:
Ultimate product catalog, including dropdown and sidebar filter widgets.
How to add quick view to your WooCommerce catalog
Earlier, we learned how you can improve your WooCommerce product catalog by adding a quick view plugin. If you'd like customers to be able to view extra information and/or buy products from a lightbox popup, this is how to do it:
Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Quick view and activate your license key.
Choose all the settings for your quick view lightboxes.
Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Product tables and add a quick-view column.
It's also possible to open the quick view by clicking on the product name or image in the catalog.
How to create a read-only product catalog & disable online ordering
So far, I've shown you how to create a WooCommerce product catalog table, with or without an add to cart column. If you prefer, you can use it to list products without online ordering. There are 2 ways to do this:
Option 1 - Create a read-only product table
To create a read-only product table, simply make the following changes:
Remove the 'add-to-cart' column from the WooCommerce Product Table shortcode.
This option is ok, but people might still access the single product page through the back door. And the single product page will contain add to cart buttons. If you need a more robust catalog mode solution, use Option 2 instead.
Option 2 - Use WooCommerce Catalog Visibility Options
WooCommerce Product Table works beautifully with the official Catalog Visibility Options extension. This great plugin lets you hide the price and/or add to cart buttons throughout your WooCommerce store, including the product table catalog page.
Install Catalog Visibility Options and go to the settings page: WooCommerce → Settings → Visibility Options. Here are some notes on how the different settings affect the content of your product tables:
Purchases
Use this option to enable online purchasing, disable it, or enable it for logged in users only.
If you're using the 'Logged in users' option, then you might want to include an add to cart column in the product table. If you do this, then it works best if you use add to cart buttons instead of checkboxes. (This is an option on the WooCommerce Product Table settings page.) The buttons simply don't appear for users where purchasing is disabled. Other elements such as quantity pickers disappear too - nice!
It's worth noting that variation dropdowns still appear even when Purchases are disabled. This is because the variations are listed for information only, and can't be purchased. If you don't want this, then you can disable the variation dropdowns in WooCommerce Product Table.
Prices
Finally, tick this to hide the Prices from the product catalog page. Again, you can hide prices for everyone, no one, or just logged out user/guests.
If you hide the price, then the 'Price' column in WooCommerce Product Table will appear blank. This might make sense if you want to show prices to logged in users. If you want to hide the price from everyone, then I suggest removing this column from your product tables.
Alternate text options
You'll also see 3 settings where you can add different messages to display when content is hidden. These are: Catalog Add to Cart Button Text, Catalog Price Text, and Alternate Content.
These all work correctly in the product table, and you can see them in the screenshot above. If you don't add anything to these fields, then they will appear blank in the product table.
Disable caching in WooCommerce Product Table
If you get any problems, make sure you disable the caching option in WooCommerce Product Table. If you're showing different pricing/purchase information to different types of user, then the table needs to be loaded fresh for each person. Caching will interfere with this, so disable it on the product table plugin settings page.
Option 3 - Use YITH WooCommerce Catalog Mode plugin
Alternatively, you can use a free plugin named YITH WooCommerce Catalog Mode from YITH Plugins to automatically disable the ability to buy online. Please see our separate article for full details on using the 2 WooCommerce product catalog plugins together.
Whichever option you choose, customers will be able to view your products in the catalog but there'll be no way for them to add products to the cart or use your checkout pages:
Using your WooCommerce Catalog
Have a play with your WooCommerce catalog, or the catalog page on the plugin demo site.
As you can see, your customers can do many different things with the WooCommerce catalog. They can click on a title to view the actual product page (this link can be disabled if needed - see knowledge base). They can click on a product category or tag to filter by that category. Then they can use the search box to find products.
Customers can also click on the column headers to order your products by that column - for example, to sort by price.
Once they've chosen their products, they can easily add them to the cart and buy online. Or if you've disabled online ordering in WooCommerce, they can take whatever other actions you desire, such as phoning you to place an order.
In this tutorial, I have shown you how to create an interactive WooCommerce catalog table. While the example I've given shows a popular use case, it may not meet your needs exactly. With almost 2 million websites using WooCommerce according to the latest stats, lots of sites need different types of product catalogs.
Don't worry, WooCommerce Product Table comes with many more options to refine your ultimate product catalog. For example, you can control how your table is ordered by default, and how many rows appear per page. You can let customers select quantities and variations directly from the WooCommerce product catalog view. You can add quick view lightboxes. Or even add-on options, if you're using Product Table with the WooCommerce Product Options plugin. You can control the responsive options and how the catalog behaves on different screen sizes.
The WooCommerce Product Table plugin knowledge base contains full details of what you can do with this simple but powerful plugin. In no time, you can create the ultimate product catalog to attract your customers and increase your sales.
WooCommerce is designed for retail sales. So what happens if you want to sell to B2B users as well as (or instead of) public customers? The solution is to install a WooCommerce wholesale ordering plugin. This article will show you how.
There are some key differences between B2C (business-to-consumer) and B2B (business-to-business - i.e. wholesale) e-commerce. Everyone knows that B2B customers usually get a discount off the recommended retail price. However, there's a lot more to creating a professional wholesale ordering solution for your WordPress WooCommerce store.
Fortunately, it's really easy to get everything you need for successful wholesale ordering. Simply add the WooCommerce Wholesale Pro plugin, and it does all the hard work for you, Simple!
In this article, we'll look at 5 essential things that you need in order to add WooCommerce wholesale ordering. And even more importantly, you'll learn how to set it up. Let's get started!
5 essential features for a WooCommerce wholesale ordering system
1. Fully automated (no manual orders!)
Lots of business owners get it wrong by setting up online ordering for their retail sales, while handling wholesale ordering manually. What a nightmare!
By adding wholesale ordering to WooCommerce, you can free up time to focus on more important tasks such as business development. B2B customers can place orders directly on your website, which is a much more efficient way to do business.
2. One website, not two!
Many WooCommerce store owners decide to create 2 websites: one for their public retail online shop, and one for wholesale. These might be standalone, or a WordPress multisite.
This does the job, but can be confusing for your customers (what if they end up on the wrong site?). It's also a lot harder and more expensive for you to set up and maintain multiple websites. As well as the overheads of creating and running two websites, you need two versions of each product. This brings lots of products, for example the difficulties in managing stock across duplicate products.
The best WooCommerce wholesale ordering plugins will add a private wholesale area to your main WordPress website. One website, two types of store. Perfect!
3. Wholesale pricing
As with any wholesale system, a WooCommerce wholesale ordering plugin must allow you to charge different rates for the same product to B2B and B2C customers.
The WooCommerce Wholesale plugin makes this easy. You can add unlimited wholesale user roles, and each one will see the correct pricing for their role. There are plenty of ways to set wholesale prices. You can set trade discounts globally, per category or for each individual product or variation.
Public customers will have no idea that you have a private wholesale ordering area with special B2B pricing!
And of course, wholesale pricing only works if your ordering system has user-friendly registration and login forms. WooCommerce Wholesale Pro comes with these too.
4. Wholesale order forms
It's amazing how many e-commerce wholesale stores forget about this one.
Wholesale buyers have completely different needs from retail customers. A retail customer wants to spend time browsing to find the products they like. In contrast, B2B buyers are regular customers and already know what they need. As a result, they need a quick way to select the required items, choose quantities and variations, and add everything to the cart in one click. They certainly don't want to waste time looking at big pictures or visiting a separate page for each wholesale product.
The solution is to use WooCommerce Wholesale Pro with our WooCommerce Product Table plugin. You can select the two-plugin bundle when you buy WooCommerce Wholesale Pro. The Product Table plugin adds quick one-page wholesale ordering to your store.
Each product is listed in a B2B order form layout. Instead of having to visit a different page for each product, all the essential information appears in columns within the order form. Customers can select variations and quantities, and add wholesale products to the cart - all from one page.
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Add quick view buttons or links to your WooCommerce wholesale ordering page.
For even faster one-page wholesale ordering, you can add our WooCommerce Quick View Pro plugin. This is ideal if you want to show extra product data and purchase options that may not fit on your one-page WooCommerce wholesale order form.
For example, you might want to show a longer description that doesn't fit into the product table layout. Or you might have a lot of variations or add-ons that mean that each product takes up too much space on the order form.
WooCommerce Quick View Pro is the solution. You can improve your one-page wholesale ordering by adding quick view buttons to the product table. Wholesale customers can use these to view extra information, choose options and add to the cart from a quick view lightbox for each product. When they add a product to the cart, the lightbox closes and they immediately return to the wholesale ordering page. This makes it easy for them to purchase multiple products in a single order - essential for B2B ordering.
5. Trade-only products
Finally, lots of WooCommerce wholesale ordering systems need to sell different products to the trade. You might sell most of the same products to public and wholesale users, while having a selection of wholesale-specific items. Alternatively, you might offer completely different products for B2C and B2B.
Either way, you can do this with the WooCommerce Wholesale plugin. Simply choose whether each product category is available to public customers, wholesale customers, or both.
How to add wholesale ordering to WooCommerce
As you can see, the WooCommerce Wholesale Pro plugin has everything you need to add a professional B2B area to your WordPress website. Next, let's learn how to set it up. If you have already installed WooCommerce and added some products then fortunately this only takes a few minutes.
Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Wholesale and enter your license key.
Go through each page of the plugin settings and choose how you want your e-commerce wholesale ordering system to work. This will guide you through adding wholesale roles and global percentage discounts, enabling the order form layout in the wholesale area, and how you want wholesale registration to work.
(Optional) If required, you can also add wholesale discounts to categories (via Products → Categories) or individual products or variations (via the 'Edit Product' screen).
Finally, link to your wholesale login/registration page as needed, e.g. from your navigation menu or footer.
Your WooCommerce wholesale ordering system is complete!
Where to get the WooCommerce wholesale ordering plugin
Since B2B customers are normally registered companies, you might want to disable taxes for some or all of your wholesale users - while still charging tax to public customers.
In this article, we'll guide you through the process of hiding your WooCommerce shop from guests with the easy-to-use 
