Articles About WooCommerce Protection

Need to hide a WooCommerce category from the shop page? Sometimes you might have products that you don't want to publicly list on your shop page. To your dismay, though, WooCommerce doesn't have the option to hide categories from the shop page.

One of the key features of WooCommerce is its ability to organize products into categories, making it easy for customers to navigate and find what they're looking for. However, there may be times when you want to hide a particular category of products from the shop page.

Sometimes you need a happy medium between hiding a single product and hiding your entire WooCommerce store. Perhaps you have some products that are not quite ready for public release, or maybe you want to restrict certain items to a specific group of customers. Whatever the reason, you may be disappointed to learn that there is no option for WooCommerce hide category from shop page.

This can be a frustrating problem, especially if you have spent a lot of time and effort creating your WooCommerce product categories and organizing your inventory. Thankfully, there are a few methods available that can help you achieve your goal of hide category from shop page WooCommerce.

Benefits of hiding categories in WooCommerce

One of the key features of WooCommerce is its ability to organize products into categories, which can be helpful for customers who are trying to find specific products on the website.

However, there are situations where WordPress site owners may need to hide category WooCommerce of products. For example, if a product is out of stock or has been discontinued, you may not want that category to be displayed on the WordPress website. This can help to avoid confusion for customers who may be interested in the product, only to find that it is not available for purchase.

Another reason why it's important to be able to use WooCommerce hide category feature is to simplify the navigation of the website. When there are too many categories displayed on the website, it can be overwhelming for customers to find the products they are looking for. By hiding specific categories on your ecommerce store, you can provide a simplified user experience for your customers and potentially improve your store's SEO or search engine ranking. Hiding irrelevant categories reduces clutter, highlights the most relevant products, and can lead to higher customer engagement and satisfaction, ultimately resulting in increased conversions.

When to hide categories in your WooCommerce store

Effective category management is a key aspect of running a successful online store. Improving website usability and enhancing the customer experience can be achieved by strategically hiding certain categories in WooCommerce. To learn how to hide categories in WooCommerce and implement this effective approach, continue reading. Here are some common examples of when hiding categories can be beneficial for WooCommerce shops:

• Discontinued products: When a product is no longer available for purchase, it's important to remove it from the website to avoid confusion. By hiding the category of discontinued products, you can ensure that customers don't see or try to checkout these items.
• Out of stock items: If a product is temporarily out of stock, you may want to hide category WooCommerce until the product is back in stock. This can help to avoid customer frustration and reduce the number of inquiries about the availability of the product.
• Seasonal products: Some products may only be relevant during certain times of the year. For example, Christmas decorations may only be relevant during the holiday season. By hiding the category of seasonal products during the off-season, you can create a more streamlined user experience and avoid overwhelming customers with irrelevant products.
• Restricted products: Some products may be restricted by age, location, or other criteria. By hiding the category of restricted products, you can ensure that only eligible customers are able to access these items.

Exploring different methods to hide WooCommerce categories

If you want to hide specific categories on your WooCommerce shop page, there are two main methods you can use.

Method 1: Using a plugin to hide categories

Using a plugin is the recommended method for hide category from shop page WooCommerce. The main benefit of using a plugin is that it is easy to use, even if you don't have much technical knowledge. All you need to do is install the plugin, activate it, and then configure the settings for WooCommerce hide the category from shop page.

To help, we're going to show you how to hide a category in WooCommerce shop page via a user-friendly plugin.

Our simple written tutorial and video will show you how to customize how your hidden WooCommerce categories function - all without writing a single line of code.

Method 2: Hiding categories with code snippets

The second method for hide category from shop page WooCoomerce involves using code snippets. This method requires more technical knowledge than using a plugin, but it can be useful if you want more control over how categories are hidden.

To use this method, you will need to add some code snippets to your theme's functions.php file or to a custom plugin. You can find code snippets for hide category WooCommerce stores, and then modify them to suit your specific needs.

You can customize the code for WooCommerce hide category from shop page in a specific way or to achieve a particular result. However, it's worth noting that using code snippets can be risky if you don't know what you're doing, as a mistake could break your site or cause other issues.

The best plugin to hide a WooCommerce category

The problem

There are lots of reasons why you might want to use WooCommerce hide category from shop page from the main page. For example, maybe you're creating a WooCommerce wholesale store and need to hide the wholesale categories from the shop page. Maybe you're selling customer-specific products, with a hidden category for each company.

Whatever you're reason, unfortunately, WooCommerce doesn't come with an option to do this.

While it is possible to use a PHP function for WooCommerce hide category from shop page, that solution:

• Isn't very user-friendly because it requires you to work directly with PHP code, rather than a human-friendly interface.
• Makes it difficult to change which categories are hidden later on, because you'll need to dive back into the code every time you want to make an adjustment.

The solution

WooCommerce Protected Categories offers a simpler solution to hide a WooCommerce category (including all products/subcategories inside). It:

• Gives you more flexibility than the WooCommerce PHP function in terms of how shoppers interact with your hidden categories.
• Lets you choose which categories to hide right from your WordPress dashboard.
• Lets you decide whether use WooCommerce hide category from the shop page completely, or whether to show them but require customers to enter a password or login to access a protected category or its products.

How does this WooCommerce hide categories plugin work?

To hide WooCommerce categories, you can use the WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin. It enables you to conceal one or multiple WooCommerce product category within your WooCommerce store. When you hide a category from the shop page…

• All the products inside that category are also hidden.
• You can choose whether or not to display hidden categories and their products on your shop page, category pages, archive pages, and search results.
• With the WooCommerce hide product category functionality, you have the flexibility to decide whether hidden categories and their associated products should be visible in your navigation menus and widgets.

And as I mentioned earlier, you can "unhide" your categories via:

• A password - once a user enters a correct password, the plugin automatically unlocks all the products in that category. They can then navigate through the hidden category and its sub-categories without having to re-enter the password.
• User roles - by utilizing the WooCommerce hide category by user role feature, you can restrict visibility of hidden categories and their corresponding products exclusively to users with specific user roles.
• Individual users - only selected logged in users can see the hidden category and its products.

Have a read through this glowing review from a happy customer using the WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin:

Step-by-step guide: How to hide WooCommerce categories with WooCommerce Protected Categories

Below, we'll show you how to hide WooCommerce categories on shop page using WooCommerce Protected Categories.

Step 1: Choose how to hide your categories

First, install and activate WooCommerce Protected Categories in the WordPress admin panel. Next, go to Products → Categories to hide WooCommerce categories on shop page.

You can either create a new category to house your hidden products or you can edit an existing category. Whichever method you choose, you'll see a new Visibility section at the bottom of the page. Click the 'Protected' option, and choose between:

• Password protected Visitors will need to enter a password to see the category. You can create multiple passwords to unlock the category if desired.
• User roles Your category will only be visible to certain user roles.
• Users Your category will only be visible to the users that you select here.

Once you've hide WooCommerce categories on shop page or category page via either method, go to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Protected categories to configure a few more basic settings.

Step 2: Configure general plugin settings

One especially important group of settings is Category Visibility.

If you want to completely remove a WooCommerce category from the shop page, you should uncheck both boxes. Alternatively, tick both boxes to still display the category, but require users to enter a password or login to see its contents.

Use the other settings to control your password login form, and what happens when a logged-out user tries to access a protected category:

Step 3: Enable password protection, user role restriction, and more

Once you've hide WooCommerce categories on shop page, you'll want to provide other ways for selected customers to access them. There are a few ways to do this, depending on whether you've hidden the categories behind password protection or user login.

Providing access to WooCommerce password protected categories

Create a central category login form by adding the shortcode [category_login] to any page. Customers will be directed to the hidden category with the password they have entered. Once unlocked, the customer will be able to see the protected category, products and pricing and cart buttons on the main Woo shop page. The protected content will remain hidden from the store catalog for everyone else. As store owner, you can customize the hidden category login page in the plugin settings.

Providing access for a user or role-protected WooCommerce categories

If you've created user or role protected categories, then there are some different settings for your hidden categories. These let you choose what happens when someone without the correct privileges (e.g. a logged out user) tries to access a WooCommerce hidden category or product.

To provide access to the WooCommerce hidden category, simply encourage users to login as usual. For example, they can login using the WooCommerce Account page, which shows a login form for logged out users.

I also recommend using the free Peter's Login Redirect plugin. Use it to redirect users to the correct hidden category after they log in. This gives you fine-grained control over where each individual user or user role is redirected after logging in.

You may also like: How to display WooCommerce products by category.

Real-world applications: eLearning Launchpad Case study

eLearning Launchpad is a US training course provider. Our WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin hides its product categories, working alongside Wp Enhanced’s Free Downloads WooCommerce Pro plugin.

Attendees download course materials ahead of the training session. But these materials need to be kept private. That’s why they needed a WooCommerce hide category WordPress plugin. Files are hidden behind a password protected category page and eLearning Launchpad sends out passwords to access the page. From there, customers can download materials. The Free Downloads WooCommerce Pro plugin lets eLearning Launchpad capture customer data before files are downloaded.

The downloads are set up as WooCommerce products even though they aren’t being sold on the ecommerce site. This is to simplify managing the downloads and take advantage of the benefits, such as being able to hide categories and products in WooCommerce.

Below, I'll show you how to use this WooCommerce hide category plugin…

Alternative method: How to hide categories through shortcodes

Another way to utilize WooCommerce hide category on your main shop page is by using HTML and CSS. This method requires some technical knowledge.

First, you need to inspect the category you want to hide on your product page using your browser's developer tools. You can then identify the HTML element that represents the category and its ID or class. Once you have this information, you can add some custom code that hides the category by setting its display property to "none."

It is important to note that using how to hide categories in WooCommerce only affects their visual display and does not impose any actual access restrictions. Users can still access the hidden category through direct links or by typing its URL. So, if you want to restrict access to the category, you'll need to use the WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin.

It's worth noting that if you're not familiar with coding, using this method can also be risky. A mistake in your code could break your site or cause other issues. Therefore, you should only use this method if you have some basic knowledge of HTML and CSS or if you're working with an experienced WordPress developer.

Related: How to allow customers to filter by category in WooCommerce. 

Best practices in WooCommerce category management

Efficient category management is crucial for a well-organized and user-friendly online store. Here are some tips to optimize your category management process. Use them to ensure smooth navigation and a seamless shopping experience for customers:

1. Organize categories thoughtfully: Take the time to carefully plan and structure your categories. Ensure that they are logical, intuitive, and reflect the products you offer. Consider creating subcategories or using parent-child relationships to further organize your products. This helps customers easily locate the items they are looking for and improves the overall browsing experience.
2. Utilize conditional rules: Leverage the power of conditional rules to further customize category visibility. With the right plugin, like WooCommerce Protected Categories, you can set up rules based on user roles, membership levels, or other criteria. For example, you can hide specific categories from general customers while making them accessible to VIP members-only. This level of control allows you to provide tailored experiences to different customer segments.
3. Prioritize category display: If you have overlapping or conflicting rules for category visibility, prioritize the display order. For example, if a customer belongs to multiple user roles, you can prioritize the display of categories associated with their highest role.
4. Regularly review and update: Category management is an ongoing process. Regularly review your category structure, rules, and priorities to accommodate any changes in your product offerings or customer segments. Monitor customer feedback and behavior to identify areas for improvement or potential adjustments to your category management strategy.
5. Test and optimize: Experiment with different category arrangements, conditional rules, and priority settings. This lets you find the optimal configuration for your specific business needs. Test the user experience and gather feedback to fine-tune your category management strategy.

Start hiding WooCommerce categories today!

If you have products that you don't want to publicly list on your WooCommerce shop page, you can easily hide them using the Protected Categories plugin. This is the best WooCommerce hide category from shop page option. That's because it's easy to use and doesn't require technical knowledge.

The plugin is super-flexible. You can choose to require a password, restrict access to certain user roles, or only allow specific individual users to view the hidden categories.

Questions about how to hide a category in WooCommerce shop page? Leave a comment and we'll do our best to help.

Thierry at Photo Studio TNK is a photographer in Paris, France. He does photoshoots for clients and then sells them securely on his WooCommerce photography website. Thierry spent a long time searching for suitable WordPress plugins that would allow him to do this. After much research, he found the perfect solution in our WooCommerce Protected Categories and WooCommerce Product Table plugins, combined with some other third party plugins.

The way it works is that each photography client has their own hidden WooCommerce category, containing their photos. No one else can see these hidden photos. When the client enters the password, they are taken to an exclusive WooCommerce page listing their photos in a filterable table layout. They can view photos, select variations and quantities, and add multiple photos to the cart. This makes it quick, easy and secure to order photo prints with WooCommerce.

After telling Thierry's story, I will provide step-by-step instructions on how you can achieve the same setup to sell your own photography in WooCommerce.

Get Protected Categories Get Product Table

Thierry's WooCommerce photography story

"Let us start with who I am.

I am a studio and wedding photographer: https://photostudiotnk.com/en (not every page is translated in english, I never had the time…).

I am 58.

In other lives I used to be an engineer, a searcher, a software developer, the CEO of an Open Source Company, etc., but I have practiced photography since I was a kid.

Some years ago, I decided to quit « industry world » to become an independent photographer and build my own company.

My business model is mainly about studio photo sessions and weddings. But selling prints is also part of my business (I print photos by myself on a A2 Canon Pro Printer).

The problem

If you have dozens of photos every week, you can find software that can be more or less OK to sell prints.

But, for weddings, which are the main source of revenues, nothing really exists on the shelf to sell prints. (I have tested nearly every software that exists - either with WooCommerce, or independent of WooCommerce.)

Between May and October, I have about 500 photos to post-treat and put online EVERY WEEK. And no software exists for this amount of photos. I need to show photos to customers in a unique easy to use interface, where they can buy several photo prints on the same page.

The solution

The first thing to do is to make a product for each of the 500 weekly photos. Using CSV to do this is archaic and prehistoric!!!

The only plugin that achieves this is easily is Product CSV Import Suite.

So, now I use this to make products from each of my photos. And it does this very well.

Now, some thoughts about galleries, lightboxes, etc…

I think that galleries, with fancy layouts, lightboxes, etc, belong to the past.

Why?

because more than 70% of web accesses are made from smartphones. Who cares about galleries, lightboxes, fancy boxes and gallery themes to see photos on a smartphone?

Of course, I have to « show » the photos to my brides, grooms and their guests, so I need « something » for showing the photos.

But, from a marketing point of view:

• the page to see the photos and to buy them MUST be the same (no click to go to a shopping page): this is a key point: when a potential customer is on a page to see photos, do not ask him to go on another page to buy prints!!
• the photos should be "big" enough both for desktops screens (30% of my customers) and for mobiles (70% of my customers), without need of gallery functions or lightboxes. What I sell is photo prints, not gallery themes!!

So I decided to give the WooCommerce Product Tables plugin a try.

My settings

Here is some feedback about my settings:

• Lazy load is mandatory with 500 photos in a category.
• Image size « original » is the only way to get big enough photos both on desktops and mobiles. I tried « large » but it does not work on mobiles, image size is not responsive. medium is too small on desktops, and defined sizes seem not to be responsive. (Editor's Note: All themes have different default image sizes, so you'll need to experiment to find the right size for your photos or add a custom size.)
• I added a filter of each wedding moment (engagement, preparation, church, cocktails, etc) using categories (sub categories of the main category for a given wedding).
• Use the add to cart checkbox option to add photos to the basket. This encourages customers to buy more photos…
• I added responsive_display="child-row-visible" so that add to cart, etc, are always visible on mobiles.
• By enabling the product table layout on category pages.
• I customized this template to show my « free downloads » category on the same page as the photos. This is because I offer free low res photos downloads to my customers using the Free Downloads WooCommerce plugin.

Of course, the WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin was mandatory for creating private wedding galleries!!"

How to create your own WooCommerce photography website

Thank you very much to Thierry for sharing his story. Next, I'll provide step-by-step instructions on how to use WooCommerce to sell to your own photography clients via their own individual client area.

Your finished WooCommerce photography website will have these features:

1. Each client will have their own private category, hidden from public view. You can choose whether clients must enter a password to view and buy their protected products, or log into their individual user account. (Either way, we'll need the WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin for this.)
2. You can easily bulk upload photos from each photoshoot to the WordPress Media Library and convert them into sellable WooCommerce products. (We'll need the Product CSV Import Suite plugin for this.)
3. Each client's photos will be displayed in a filterable table layout with add to cart checkboxes. (We'll need the WooCommerce Product Table plugin for this.)

Before you start, you need a WordPress website with WooCommerce already installed.

Step 1 - Create a private WooCommerce category for each photography client

1. Install the WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin.
2. Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Products > Protected Categories in the WordPress admin. Paste the license key from your order confirmation email, and make sure the Catalog Visibility boxes are unticked. This keeps your photography clients' photos hidden from the public parts of your site.
3. Go to Products > Categories and create a separate category for each client. Choose the 'Protected' option and either password protect the category or use the 'Users' option to automatically unlock them for individual logged in clients. Either option is fine, but the 'Users' option will require you to create a separate user account for each client. If you don't want this, then use WooCommerce password protected categories instead.
4. Add any sub-categories, e.g. 1 for each of the client's photoshoots, or 1 for each part of their wedding. Leave these set to 'Public', as the plugin will automatically protect them with the same protection as the client's main category.
5. Finally, create a user-friendly way for clients to access their hidden photo product categories. This depends on what type of category protection you're using for your WooCommerce photography products:
   1. Password protected categories - Create a new page where customers will log into their hidden category. Add the shortcode

      This page is protected because it relates to a new plugin which is not yet officially launched. Please enter your password below.

      Password:

        to insert a login form. Link to the photography client login page from the main menu on your website (Appearance > Menus).
   2. User-protected categories - Add a link to the WooCommerce 'Account' page to your website menu. This displays a client login page for logged out users. Install the free Peter's Login Redirect plugin and go to the plugin settings page. Create a login redirect for each client so that they are automatically forwarded to their hidden photo category after logging in.

Step 2 - Bulk upload photos from each photoshoot and convert them to WooCommerce products

1. Install the Product CSV Import Suite WordPress plugin.
2. Use these instructions to create a gallery for each photography shoot. This will let you upload all the photos to the WordPress media library, before you convert them into WooCommerce products.
3. Use the Products CSV Import Suite documentation to create a CSV file containing the data for all the photos and variations that you want to add as products, plus the URL's of the photos you just uploaded.
4. Import your CSV file to WordPress in order to create the products, each one linked to the correct photos.
5. Now, go to the 'Products' list in the WordPress Dashboard. You'll see your photos listed as proper WooCommerce products, complete with prices, variations and more.

Step 3 - Sell to your photography clients with a WooCommerce product table layout

1. Install the WooCommerce Product Table plugin.
2. In the WordPress Dashboard, go to WooCommerce > Settings > Products > Product Tables.
3. Enter the license key from the order confirmation email, and choose all the settings for your product tables. (Tips: As Thierry recommended above, you'll probably need to enable lazy load. You'll also want to experiment with different image sizes to perfect the presentation of your photography products. It's also a good idea to activate variation dropdowns (if you're selling variable products) and choose the 'checkbox' add to cart button style to encourage customers to buy more.)
4. Next, you need to add the product table layout to the product category archive template in your theme. This is necessary to show product tables on each client's password protected category. Use these instructions for this step.
5. Finally, view one of your password protected category pages. Once you've entered the password, you'll see all the client's photos in a neat product table grid.

Bonus step (optional) - Add a WooCommerce quick view gallery for each product

If you only need to upload one image for each product, then you can skip this step. Or if you're uploading multiple images for each product, then you need a way for customers to view the full image gallery. That's where a quick view gallery comes in!

The WooCommerce Quick View Pro plugin is designed to work on its own, or alongside WooCommerce Product Table. It adds quick view links and/or buttons. You can choose what information to include in the quick view lightbox. This includes the full product image gallery with a choice of 2 gallery styles (thumbnails or bullet navigation). You can also show product data and add to cart options directly in the quick view.

Quick view is the perfect addition to your list of WooCommerce photography products.

Once you've completed these steps, the next step is to give your customers the logins so they can start buying photo prints online!

Further reading: WooCommerce for photographers - the complete guide to WooCommerce photography plugins.

Looking for a WooCommerce private category plugin to make one or more categories at your WooCommerce store private? 

Private categories are a great way to:

• Create WooCommerce wholesale stores
• Hide specific products or entire categories from anonymous users
• Hold a secret sale
• Create a members only shop
• Create other private WooCommerce content!

While WooCommerce includes built-in functionality to make a single product private, it's not really suited for making an entire category of products private because:

1. It's time-consuming.
2. It greatly complicates managing your private products later on.

To save a lot of time and give you more flexibility, you can use a WooCommerce private category plugin like WooCommerce Protected Categories.

With this plugin, only users with certain user roles (that you can choose) will be able to see the product categories that you mark as private - or the products within them.

How does this WooCommerce private category plugin work?

WooCommerce Protected Categories lets you make one or more categories at your WooCommerce store private.

When you make a category private:

• Only logged in users with a certain role can see the private WooCommerce category or its products.
• The private category and its products will be hidden from everyone else - including on your shop page, category pages, archive pages, search results, navigation menus, and widgets. (There's also a setting to show protected categories and products in public areas, if you prefer.)
• You can choose which user roles have access to the private category. For example, you might want to make the private categories available to all logged in users, or a specific role such as 'wholesale'.
• All the products in that category are also private.
• Any subcategories are also private.

Below, you'll learn how to use this WooCommerce private category plugin.

Step 1: Mark WooCommerce categories as private

Once you have WooCommerce Protected Categories installed and activated, you can start marking categories as private right away.

To do that, go to Products → Categories to view a list of all your WooCommerce product categories.

Edit an existing category or create a new category that you want to make private.

Whether you're creating a new category or editing an existing one, you should see a new Visibility option near the bottom of the page.

• Protected - Tick this to see a choice of 3 options below:
  • Password protected - Make the category private so that only people with a correct password can unlock it. Enter 1 or more passwords.
  • User roles - Make the category private so that only certain logged in WordPress user roles can see it. Select the user roles here. You can easily create extra user roles (e.g. 'Wholesale') with the free User Role Editor plugin.
  • Users - You can also make WooCommerce categories private to individual users, and hidden from everyone else.
• Private - This is another way to create a private WooCommerce category. It uses the 'Private' posts feature built into WordPress itself, which restricts content to specific user roles (normally administrators and store managers). Use the private categories option if you already use private posts/pages/products elsewhere on your site. But for most people, the various 'Protected' options are best because they give you more fine-grained control.

At this point, your category and all its products are private. But you still will likely want to perform a few additional steps to configure how that privacy actually functions.

Step 2: Configure WooCommerce private category plugin settings

To configure the plugin's general settings, go to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Protected categories.

There are lots of options here for how your private WooCommerce categories will behave. For example, this is where you customize the login page and choose what happens when a logged out user tries to access a protected category. You should also use these options to choose whether or not to show private content in the public parts of your store.

You can also choose whether not to add a 'Protected' or 'Private' prefix to the category page. Here's an example of the WooCommerce private category prefix setting:

Can I put a product in a public category and a private category?

Each product can only be in a private WooCommerce category OR a public category - not both.

If you want to put the same product in a public and private category (for example, to charge different prices to different users role) then you can easily clone WooCommerce products using the free Duplicate Post plugin. Just bear in mind that when someone accesses a private category, they can still see all your public products.

(If you're cloning products and want to manage inventory across each version of the product then we recommend the Group Stock Manager plugin. This lets you share stock levels across multiple products.)

Can I create different private categories for different users?

Yes! You can either do this by creating a separate WooCommerce password protected category for each person; a separate category for each user role; or a unique category for each user. You can create as many protected WooCommerce categories as you like, each with different protection options. You can then give a password to everyone who needs access to them. This is a good way to create customer-specific products.

Please note that the 'Private' categories option doesn't let you create user-specific products, as they're visible all logged in users with access to private content. Use one of the three 'Protected' options instead.

Further reading: The complete guide to creating customer-specific products in WooCommerce.

Save time with a WooCommerce private category plugin

By using a WooCommerce private category plugin, you can easily make multiple products private and control exactly who has access to them.

Have any other questions about how this WooCommerce private category plugin works? Just leave a comment and we'll try to help you make your decision!

Lots of business owners waste time manually creating a WooCommerce price list for their website. While it's true that WooCommerce doesn't come with a built-in price list, this doesn't mean that you have to do it manually! 

In this tutorial, I'll show you how to use a WordPress price list plugin to create a dynamic price catalog listing the costs of all your products. You can choose whether to keep the pricing page public or hide it from public view.

What is a WooCommerce price list plugin?

A product price list is basically an easy-to-read catalog of product prices. It might list the pricing for all your products in a single list, or you might have different lists for each category.

If you have a printed catalog then it's often worth having a public or hidden price list for customers to view online. This saves having to re-issue a printed price list every time your pricing changes.

Or maybe you need to generate a reseller price list in WooCommerce, so that B2B buyers can see all the prices in one place.

A WooCommerce price list plugin is normally quite simple, consisting of a product table view with 2 columns: Name and Price. This lets customers compare all your products alongside one another based on price.

Ideally, a WooCommerce pricing table can be sorted by price so that customers can view the list starting with the lowest or highest cost products. You might also want to add extra columns of information (e.g. category or product attributes). Some price list plugins have extra features such as price filters or sliders. These let customers or resellers find specific products and refine the table to view prices.

As you can see, there are lots of different types of WooCommerce pricing table. You can create all sorts of product price list with the WooCommerce Product Table plugin, which I'll tell you about next.

See a demo of the WooCommerce price catalog plugin in action

WooCommerce Product Table - The ultimate price catalog plugin

WooCommerce Product Table is the bestselling WordPress plugin by ourselves at Barn2 Media. It instantly lists products in a simple or a more advanced table view. It's the perfect WooCommerce price list plugin because it creates flexible product price lists, with no need for manual data entry. You don't have to re-enter the prices or import from another program such as Excel - the plugin creates pricing tables instantly using information already stored in the WordPress database.

You can keep your pricing table simple with columns for product name and price, and no extra features. Or if you prefer, you can add columns of extra product data, plus extra features such as search box and filters. There are options to list all product prices or specific products only (for example, products from a certain category).

First, I'll tell how how to use the Product Table plugin to create a simple price list and more advanced pricing tables. Later, I'll explain how to make this page available to the public, or to create a hidden price list which only certain people can see.

Create a simple WooCommerce price list

It only takes a few minutes to install WooCommerce Product Table and create a basic product price list:

1. Get WooCommerce Product Table, then install the plugin by following the instructions in the confirmation email. You need to activate your license key for the plugin to work.
2. Use Pages > Add New in the WordPress admin to create a page. Call it 'Pricing Catalog', 'Price List' or whatever you like.
3. Now, add the shortcode [product_table columns="name,price"] to the page.
4. Save the page and view it.

In just 4 steps, you created an instant WooCommerce price list. The plugin has listed all the products in your store in a dynamic table layout with columns for name and price. Customers can find products by typing in the search box, or click on the 'Price' column header to sort by price in ascending or descending order. Easy!

Create more advanced WooCommerce price lists

The simple price list in the previous section may be all you need. However, WooCommerce Product Table is a powerful plugin and you can also use it in more advanced ways. There are lots of options to configure your price catalog, add multiple pricing tables and much more. The plugin has dozens of options, but here's a summary of the most relevant ones for creating a WooCommerce price catalog.

Recommended options

• Create multiple price lists with different products By default, the WooCommerce price list plugin lists all the products from your store. Alternatively, you can create separate pricing tables - for example, one list for each category.
• Add extra columns of product data The WooCommerce pricing table plugin supports all the built-in WooCommerce product data, plus extra fields such as custom fields and taxonomies. This lets you display extra product data in the pricing table. Think carefully about which products to include, and add whichever columns will help to increase sales! If you want customers to be able to buy directly from the price list then you can even include add to cart buttons or checkboxes.
• Add product filters If your price catalog contains lots of products, then you need to provide an easy way for customers to find what they want. As well as the (optional) search box above the table, you can add filter dropdowns above the pricing table, or filter widgets in a sidebar.
• Change how the price list is sorted By default, products are listed in the order set in the main WooCommerce settings (WooCommerce > Settings > Products > Display). You can change this to order the WooCommerce pricing table by any column. For example, [product_table sort_by="price"] will sort by price in ascending order, with the cheapest first. There's also an option to change the sort order. Customers can override this by clicking on any column header in the price list.
• Fast-loading Lazy Load option WooCommerce Product Table is very quick to load, but if you have 100's of products (or more) then that's a lot to load all at once. You can improve performance for big price lists by activating the lazy load option, which loads 1 page worth of products and pricing at a time.

Add quick view to the WooCommerce price list

Lots of people like to create a WooCommerce price list that also acts as a one-page order form. The aim is that customers can view prices and order from one page, without having to visit a separate page for each product.

You can do this by including an add to cart column in the price list. Or if you have too much information (or too many product variations) to fit into a simple price list, then you can add quick view instead.

By using WooCommerce Product Table with its sister plugin, WooCommerce Quick View Pro, customers can open a quick view lightbox for each product. This allows for faster shopping than sending customers to individual product pages, as they remain on the price list page at all times.

You can choose what information to show in the quick view including product images, specific information, and add to cart options.

How to help people find your WooCommerce price catalog

It's easy to make your WooCommerce price list available for public view. You can link to the price list page in exactly the same way as any other link in WordPress. For example, you can link to the pricing list page from your navigation menu, or anywhere else on your site. You might want a 'Price List' link in the menu, or a button in a sidebar widget.

Or if you prefer, you might want to hide the price list from public view. I'll tell you how to do this next.

Create a hidden WordPress price list

So far, you've learned how to create a WooCommerce price catalog listing your product prices. But what if you want to keep your pricing private and hidden? Fortunately, there are a few ways to do this depending on the privacy level you need for your price lists.

Option 1 - Password protect the price list page

Choose this option if you want to hide the price catalog page from public view, while leaving the rest of your store (including the prices on normal product and category pages) public.

You can easily password protect the page where you're using the WooCommerce price list plugin. Simply choose the 'Password Protected' option from the 'Visibility' settings in the 'Publish' box on the Edit Page screen. Only people with the correct password will be able to access your price lists.

Option 2 - Hide prices from logged out users

WooCommerce Product Table integrates with the free Hide Price Until Login WordPress plugin. If you add this plugin, then the product prices on your price list AND elsewhere in your store will be hidden. They will then appear when the customer or reseller logs into their user account.

Option 3 - Hide prices for a specific group of products only

Perhaps you want a public store with prices, with a completely hidden area where both the products and price list are hidden. You can achieve this using the WooCommerce Password Protected Categories plugin.

This hide price WooCommerce plugin lets you create one or more password protected categories and protect them with one or more passwords. Password protected categories and their products can either be shown in the public parts of your store and price list. People must enter the password to access the single product page. Alternatively, you can hide password protected products from your public store and price list so that they only appear once someone has entered the password.

You can use the same WooCommerce privacy plugin to create private categories. Their products will only appear to logged in Editors and Administrators. (You can change which user levels private products are visible to with the User Role Editor plugin.) The products in private categories are hidden from everyone else. This is a good option if you want a single price list, with some product available to everyone and others only visible to specific user levels. You can create a single WooCommerce price list with public products visible to everyone, and private products which only appear for the correct user levels.

Can customers print the WooCommerce price list?

The WooCommerce Product table integrates perfectly with the free Print, PDF, Email by PrintFriendly plugin. This simple plugin can add Print or Save As PDF buttons to the top or bottom of your WooCommerce price catalogue.

The plugin settings page has options to automatically show the Print/PDF button at the top or bottom of every page or post on your website. If you don't want this, then you can just add it to your price list page using this shortcode: [printfriendly]

Create your own price list today!

By now, you've learned how to create a WooCommerce price list and how to customize it to suit your needs. You've also learned how to make it public or hide it from public view.

Now you can start creating dynamic price lists for your own products. Once you've set up your pricing tables, the prices will update automatically whenever you change your pricing. You don't need to worry about keeping the list up to date.

I'd love to hear how you get on. Please add your comments and questions below.

If you're looking to add an extra layer of security to your WooCommerce shop, password protecting it can be a great protection option. This is particularly useful for wholesale stores, membership sites, and other types of WordPress sites that require restricted access. Learn how to password protect your WooCommerce shop page and safeguard your online store with ease.

But, by default, WooCommerce doesn't provide any way to add a WooCommerce password to your entire shop. That means, as is the WordPress way, you're going to need a little help from a plugin.

To that end, I'm going to spend this post showing you how to password protect a WooCommerce shop page using a simple but effective plugin with just a few settings. I'll provide full written instructions plus a step-by-step tutorial video. When you finish, you'll know exactly how to get functionality like this for your shop using the WooCommerce Private Store plugin:

Importance of password protection for WooCommerce shops

Password protection for WooCommerce shop pages is essential for a number of reasons. Firstly, it can help to ensure that only authorized users are able to access certain areas of your entire store. For example, if you're running a wholesale store, you may want to restrict access to pricing information and other sensitive details to approved users only. Similarly, if you're running a membership site, you may want to ensure that only paying members are able to access premium content.

By using a WooCommerce password to protect your shop page, you can also add an extra layer of security to your online store. This can be especially important if you're dealing with sensitive customer data, such as credit card details and other personal information. WooCommerce password protection can help to prevent unauthorized access and potential data breaches, safeguarding your business and your customers' privacy.

In addition to these benefits, password protect WooCommerce plugin can also help you to create a sense of exclusivity and demand for your products. By making certain products or areas of your WooCommerce store password protected, you can create a sense of exclusivity and scarcity that can help to increase sales and drive customer engagement.

Now, let's look at a couple of real-life examples from companies that needed to password protect WooCommerce shop page.

Case study #1: Sprezzatura Imports

Sprezzatura Imports is a wholesale coffee distributor in the US. They specialize in importing the Italian coffee brand ICAF and sell to distributors through a private password protected WooCommerce shop page. This is where our WooCommerce Private Store plugin comes into play.

Only distributors can access the price list and purchase single products, that’s why this area is locked away behind a login screen. To secure the private online shop, Sprezzatura Imports used our WooCommerce Private Store plugin. Everything Sprezzatura Imports want to hide from the public can be hidden in this secure area.

And to keep things simple, registered distributors can quickly access the WooCommerce orders password protected area as the login page has been added to the navigation menu.

Case study #2: Montana Medicinals

Gecko Designs were building a ecommerce website for Montana Medicinals, which operates a medical marijuana dispensary in the State of Montana. For legal reasons, they needed to password protect their WooCommerce shop so that only pre-authorized customers could access it.

The developers achieved this in minutes using the WooCommerce Private Store plugin.

First, they used a sitewide WordPress age verification plugin to ensure that no one over age 18 can access the website at all. For added security, they used WooCommerce Private Store to password protect the WooCommerce shop.

When you click on the Shop link in the navigation menu, you are prompted for a password:

If Montana Medicinals has given you the password, then you can unlock the WooCommerce shop and purchase the medicinal marijuana within. If you do not have a correct password, then you cannot unlock the shop to view password protect products or buy.

The developer was delighted with the plugin and wrote a glowing review:

How to password protect a WooCommerce shop

Beyond the obvious of having a WooCommerce store that actually needs password protecting, all you'll need to follow this guide is the WooCommerce Private Store plugin. WooCommerce Private Store lets you protect your shop with one or more passwords, as well as choose:

• How long the store stays unlocked when a user enters the password
• What page users can log in to the store from
• Where to take users after they log in

When you use the plugin, every aspect of your shop is hidden until a user enters the password, including:

• Shop pages
• Navigation menu links
• Sidebar widgets

While the store functionality is hidden until the user enters a password, the rest of your site will function like normal. By using the password protection visibility option for your WooCommerce shop, your website visitors will still be able to view your homepage, blog, and regular WordPress pages. Only the password-protected content will be hidden and accessible only to approved or logged-in users.

Features and benefits of the plugin for WooCommerce shops

The WooCommerce Private Store plugin is a powerful and flexible tool for password protecting your WooCommerce shop. Here are some of the key features and benefits of this plugin:

1. Password Protection: The WooCommerce Private Store plugin allows you to password protect your entire shop or specific product categories, products, or pages. This helps to keep your products and pages private and secure and allows you to restrict access to specific user groups or individuals.
2. Customization: With the WooCommerce Private Store plugin, you have full control over the design and functionality of your password-protected shop. You can customize the message displayed to users when they attempt to access your shop, and can also choose whether to hide or show product prices and checkout buttons.
3. User Management: The plugin includes user management features that allow you to add, edit, and delete users with ease. You can also create user roles and assign specific permissions to different user groups, giving you granular control over who can access your shop.
4. Security: The WooCommerce Private Store plugin includes several security features to help protect your shop and your customers' data. You can require strong passwords and enable two-factor authentication, and can also choose to log out inactive users automatically after a certain period of time.
5. Integration: The plugin is fully compatible with other WooCommerce plugins and themes, allowing you to customize and extend the functionality of your shop as needed.

Step 1: Set up general settings

Once you've activated the plugin and entered your license key, go to WooCommerce → Settings → Private Store to set up the passwords that unlock your store, as well as a few other general options.

You can use a single password for everyone. Or, you can use the Plus icon to create multiple passwords that unlock your store.

Below the passwords, you should also enter a value for Password expires after. This plugin settings lets you control how long, in days, the store remains unlocked after a user enters the password:

Below that, you can use the Redirect URL field to redirect the user to a specific products page after they enter the password. If you leave this blank, visitors will just go to your normal shop page after they enter the password.

Finally, you can also choose whether or not to automatically unlock the store for Logged in users or specific user roles.

If you check this box, anyone who's logged in to your WordPress website will not need to enter the password in order to see the store:

Step 2: Configure login form

Below the general settings page, you can use the Login form section to configure the page where users log in.

The settings are all fairly self-explanatory:

How the plugin works in more detail

Once you have installed the password protect WooCommerce shop page plugin, all traces of your store will disappear from the front end of your site. All of your regular WP content will function normally, though:

If a user:

• Goes to the store login page
• Tries to access any WooCommerce page via a direct URL

They will see your login form like this:

And as soon as they enter a valid password, they'll instantly see all of your:

• Store and product pages
• Navigation menu items
• Widgets

And that's all there is to it!

For a more surgical approach, you can also use the WooCommerce Password Protected Categories plugin to password protect a single product category, rather than your entire shop. You can also use our plugins to build a members-only WooCommerce store.

Protect your WooCommerce shop page today!

If you're running a WooCommerce shop, it's crucial that you take steps to ensure the security and privacy of your customers' data. One of the simplest and most effective ways to do this is by using a password protect WooCommerce shop page plugin.

By password protecting your WooCommerce shop page, you can restrict access to sensitive information and prevent unauthorized users from viewing or making purchases. This can help to safeguard your business and your customers' privacy, and prevent data breaches and other security issues.

Adding password protection for your WooCommerce shop page is easy and straightforward. There are many plugins and tools available to help you get started. Whether you're running a wholesale store, a membership site, or any other type of online store, password protected pages are an important consideration for enhancing the security and functionality of your shop.

So if you haven't yet implemented password protection for your WooCommerce shop page, we encourage you to take action today. With the right tools and resources, you can quickly and easily enhance the security of your online store, and provide your customers with the peace of mind they need to shop with confidence.

If you have any other questions about how to password protect a WooCommerce shop, leave a comment and we'll be sure to help out.

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).

WooCommerce Private Store
Protected Categories

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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

To get started, you'll need WooCommerce Protected Categories installed and activated at your WooCommerce store.

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

Private Store Protected Categories

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.

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!

You may also like our complete guide to WooCommerce wholesale plugins and how to use them.

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.

Do our FREE wholesale store e-course!

FREE COURSE

This online course is 100% free of charge. It will teach you everything you need to know about creating a WooCommerce website with wholesale ordering area - no experience needed.

Sign Up

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.

1. Install the WooCommerce Wholesale Pro and WooCommerce Product Table plugins.
2. Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Wholesale and enter your license key.
3. 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.
4. (Optional) If required, you can also add wholesale discounts to categories (via Products → Categories) or individual products or variations (via the 'Edit Product' screen).
5. 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

WooCommerce Wholesale Pro is the perfect solution for all your wholesale ordering needs.

Alternatively, you can find more detailed setup instructions in our in-depth tutorial about how to build a WooCommerce wholesale store.

Whether you are a small business owner looking to expand your product offerings or a large retailer looking to tap into the wholesale market, this free guide is for you. Discover everything you need to know about how to create a WooCommerce wholesale website.

WooCommerce is great for creating an e-commerce site, but it doesn't distinguish between retail and wholesale customers. That's no good because B2B buyers have different needs from other customers. As well as needing wholesale pricing and discounts, they're already familiar with your products and want a quicker, easier way to buy.

The problem is: How can a company like yours create a wholesale website without affecting the experience for normal public customers?

Luckily, there's an easy solution - simply install the best WooCommerce wholesale plugin.

What to expect from this WooCommerce wholesale tutorial

This is the complete step-by-step guide on how to create a WooCommerce wholesale website. Keep reading if:

• You're looking to expand your business and tap into the wholesale market.
• You currently take wholesale orders manually and want to automate this through your website.
• There's already a wholesale ordering plugin on your website, but it doesn't fully meet your needs.

This tutorial will take you through the process of creating a wholesale website from scratch. You will learn how to:

By the end, you will have a fully functional WooCommerce wholesale website.

And the best part? You can set it up in 15 minutes, then sit back and let it do all the work for you. It’s way faster and way cheaper so you can start taking wholesale orders today!

What is a wholesale website?

A wholesale website is an online shop in which part or all of the eCommerce area is restricted to B2B (business-to-business) buyers. These buyers are typically resellers of your products. They need to buy the products at discounted trade prices so that they can mark them up when selling them to their own customers.

A wholesale website may also have a public shop for retail customers. These public customers cannot see wholesale prices.

Why create a wholesale website?

You should create a wholesale website if you want resellers to be able to purchase at trade prices. Of course, you can avoid this by taking wholesale orders manually over the phone. However, it's far more efficient to let them do it themselves on your website.

This will help to grow the wholesale side of your business because it is more convenient for buyers, as well as freeing you up for more important tasks. A wholesale website can be tailored specifically to the needs of wholesale buyers, without affecting the public-facing shop. This helps to build loyalty to your brand and ensure that they continue selling your products for many years.

What is the best website builder for wholesale?

The best website builders for creating a wholesale website include WooCommerce, Shopify and Squarespace. They all make it easy to create a wholesale website without any technical expertise.

Out of these top 3, I recommend using WordPress with WooCommerce because:

• You probably use it alreadyAs the marketing leading website builder, it's likely that you already use WordPress for your main company website. You might even already use it with WooCommerce for your public eCommerce shop. As a result, the easiest option is simply to add a wholesale area to your existing site.
• Excellent choice of professional-grade wholesale pluginsThere are some fantastic WooCommerce wholesale plugins available. These are perfect for adding all the features you need. This includes WooCommerce wholesale pricing, user registration, bulk order forms, minimum order requirements, and tiered pricing.
• Infinitely customizableA WordPress wholesale website is completely flexible and you get full control over it. You can choose from a wide range of themes and plugins to create a unique wholesale website that represents your brand and offers a great user experience for wholesale buyers.
• You own your dataUnlikely proprietary website platforms, you own your data.
• 100% free, and you keep the profits!WordPress and WooCommerce are both completely free to use. You'll pay a bit for a domain name, web hosting and your WooCommerce wholesale plugin. However, this works out far cheaper than using an enterprise solution where you pay a share of the profits on every sale.

If you are looking to create a wholesale website, WooCommerce is a great platform to use. Next, I'll tell you how to set it up for this purpose.

Your complete guide to creating a WooCommerce wholesale ordering store

This step-by-step guide will show you how to use the WooCommerce Wholesale Pro WordPress plugin to create a wholesale website. We'll cover all the essential features:

1. How to create a private wholesale areaDiscover the easy way to restrict access to your WooCommerce wholesale ordering store. You can either create a completely hidden B2B store; or a public retail WooCommerce store with private wholesale area. It comes with everything you need including unlimited wholesale user roles and user registration (with or without moderation). You can also choose which products to show in the public and/or wholesale stores.
2. Set wholesale pricing and discountsNearly all WooCommerce wholesale websites need to charge different retail prices and wholesale prices. What's more, many also need to charge different wholesale pricing to different groups of wholesale users. I'll show you how to add 3 different types of wholesale dynamic pricing.
3. Create user-friendly wholesale layouts and order formsFinally, you'll learn how to list products in an easy-to-use WooCommerce wholesale ordering form. B2B customers don't want to browse through multiple pages or look at big images, so a wholesale quick re-order list is a must.

At the end of this tutorial, you will know how to create a WooCommerce wholesale website with all these amazing features. It's easier to set up than other WooCommerce wholesale plugins or WordPress membership plugins. You'll have everything you need to create a wholesale website today.

To get started, watch the video or follow the written instructions in the step-by-step guide below.

1. Set up your basic WooCommerce store

If you haven't already done so, then you need to create a WordPress website with a domain name. You should also install the WooCommerce plugin on it. (If you don't know how, check out this guide on How do I set up a WooCommerce shop?) Add some products to get started. At this stage, all your products will be publicly available and presented in the default layout.

Keep reading to learn how to add a hidden WooCommerce wholesale area.

2. Create a private WooCommerce wholesale ordering area

Firstly, you need to create a wholesale WooCommerce store which is hidden from public view so that only approved wholesale customers can access it. You might choose to set up a standard online retail WooCommerce store with a separate private wholesale area. Or you can even have a 100% hidden WooCommerce wholesale ordering store that no one else knows exists!

You can do all of this with WooCommerce Wholesale Pro. This section will answer the question "How do I create a wholesale page in WordPress?" You'll learn how to use this fantastic WooCommerce wholesale plugin to add:

1. Wholesale login page - with or without a registration form for new wholesalers.
2. User roles - create additional wholesale custom user roles.
3. Wholesale products - you can either use the same products in the public and wholesale areas (with special pricing and order forms for wholesale users, of course); or you can have completely different products for retail and wholesale.
4. Menu links - Set up the wholesale website navigation.

All these steps are optional, so you can stick with the default options to set up the WooCommerce wholesale app even more quickly.

2a. Install the WooCommerce wholesale plugin

To get started, buy the WooCommerce Wholesale Pro plugin. Install and activate the plugin, then add your license key using the instructions in the confirmation email.

As soon as you do this, the plugin will automatically create a wholesale user role, a Wholesale Store page, and a Wholesale Login page.

Your WooCommerce wholesale website is now 90% set up, and you haven't even done anything yet!

2b. Set up wholesale registration (optional)

Secondly, log into the WordPress Dashboard and go to WooCommerce → Settings → Wholesale → General. Choose whether or not to allow new users to register for the wholesale store:

If you enable wholesale registration, then:

• The Wholesale Login page will also include a registration form.
• You can choose whether new wholesalers can access the wholesale area immediately, or whether their customer account will be held for moderation by an administrator first.

If you disable wholesale registration, then you can still add wholesalers manually via the WordPress admin.

Edit your wholesale registration emails (optional)

The WooCommerce wholesale plugin comes with a range of emails for each stage of the wholesale registration process:

When you install the wholesale plugin, these emails will be pre-populated with suitable wording. You can easily edit the emails at WooCommerce → Settings → Wholesale → Roles if required.

Once registered, wholesale users will receive the same emails as your normal customers. These are provided by WooCommerce rather than the wholesale plugin.

2c. Add extra wholesale user roles (optional)

The WooCommerce wholesale plugin automatically creates one wholesale user role. If you want to charge different wholesale prices to different wholesale users, then you need to create a separate user role for each group.

You can easily do this at WooCommerce → Settings → Wholesale → Roles:

If you enabled wholesale registration, then new wholesalers will be added to the default wholesale user role. You can then change their user role manually (for example, when you approve their account).

If you add new wholesale users manually via Users → Add New in the WordPress admin, then you can select the appropriate wholesale user role from the 'Roles' dropdown.

2d. Control the visibility of your WooCommerce wholesale products (optional)

By default, all the products in your WooCommerce wholesale store are available to everyone. Public users and normal customers see the standard price for each product, while wholesale users see the correct price for their role.

If you prefer, then you can choose whether each category of products is visible to public users or wholesalers only. You can easily do this under Products → Categories:

This lets you sell different products or SKU's to retail and wholesale buyers.

Tip: If you need more advanced visibility options - for example, to restrict products to individual users or specific wholesale user roles - then you can do this by using WooCommerce Wholesale Pro with our other plugin, WooCommerce Protected Categories.

2e. Set up the wholesale website navigation

Finally, you need to structure your wholesale website so that people can easily find their way around. This only takes a minute:

• Link to the wholesale login pageSome WooCommerce wholesale websites add a wholesale login link to their public website, while others keep this private. You can add a link to the 'Wholesale Login' page to your menu or anywhere else on your site (e.g. the footer). Or if you want to hide the fact that you have a wholesale store, then you can send a link to the Wholesale Login page to your distributors (e.g. in the email to new wholesale users). As a result, retail customers will never know there's a hidden wholesale area.
• Edit your navigation menuThe WooCommerce Wholesale Pro plugin cleverly shows and hides your menu links so that each user only sees pages they have access to. Make sure the main menu on your site contains all the required links for both the public and wholesale users. Each one will only see the correct links for them. For example, public visitors or normal customers will see the link to the Wholesale Login page. But they won't see any other links to wholesale-only content. If they login as a wholesale user, then the menu changes to hide any public-only links and display the wholesale-only content. Neat!

Case study: Wholesale navigation for Best Remy Hair Extensions

NRD Web Design used WooCommerce Wholesale Pro to create a wholesale website for their client Best Remy Hair Extensions.

To ensure that wholesalers can find the hidden products and pricing, they added clear 'Wholesale Login' and 'Wholesale Registration' links to the website header. This creates an intuitive user experience for wholesale buyers, without affecting the navigation for normal customers.

Richard Davenport from NRD Web Design was delighted with his client's WooCommerce wholesale website (and his experience with Barn2 in general). He said:

3. Set up wholesale pricing and discounts

The next step is to add the correct pricing and discounts for your wholesale users. You can set different pricing for each wholesale role - perfect if you have tiered wholesale discounts for different groups.

When you create a wholesale website with WooCommerce Wholesale Pro, there are 3 easy ways to set prices:

1. Global percentage discountOn WooCommerce → Settings → Wholesale → Roles, set a % discount for each wholesale role. This will be deducted from the wholesale price of all products for users with that role, except for any products that have a category or product-specific discount.
2. Category percentage discountFor greater control, you can set category-level % discounts which will affect all products in that category and its sub-categories (except for any products where you have entered individual wholesale pricing).
3. Product-specific wholesale pricingFor even more fine-grained control, you can set specific wholesale variable prices for each product or variation. (Note: This option only appears for roles where you have enabled product-specific pricing on WooCommerce → Settings → Wholesale → Roles.)

Logged-in wholesale users will see the correct product pricing for their user role. The main price will appear crossed out, and the wholesale price will appear alongside.

If the product is also visible to guest users and non-wholesale user roles, then they will see the standard price as usual. Your WooCommerce wholesale pricing will remain secure and only wholesale users will ever be able to see it.

You can combine the different types of wholesale pricing as required, and the plugin will always show the correct price. For example, if you set a global, category-level AND individual product discount then wholesalers will just see the individual product discount. If there is no product-specific wholesale price then wholesalers will see the category discount, and so on.

How to set wholesale prices on your WooCommerce store

Adding a global wholesale price

1. Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Wholesale → Roles.
2. Click to edit each wholesale role.
3. Add a whole number in the global discount field. This percentage will be deducted from all products, unless it is overridden by a category or product-specific wholesale price.

Adding category wholesale pricing

1. Go to Products → Categories.
2. Either add a new category or edit an existing one.
3. Add a whole number for each wholesale role. This will be deducted as a percentage discount off all the product pages (except for products where you set an exact wholesale price).

On this screen, you can also hide the category from public or wholesale users if required.

Adding exact wholesale product prices

1. Go to the main Products list in the WordPress admin and click on the product you want to add an exact wholesale price for.
2. On the 'Edit Product' screen, scroll down to the 'Product Data' section. For simple products, go to the 'General' tab and add an exact price (not a percentage discount) for each wholesale user role. For variable products, go to the 'Variations' tab and enter an exact wholesale price per variation.

4. Create user-friendly wholesale layouts & order forms

So far we've covered the best ways to protect your wholesale area from public users and to set wholesale pricing. But that's only half the journey to creating a WooCommerce wholesale website.

The other half is the layout of your wholesale area. This is more to do with user experience and growing your wholesale sales rather than functionality.

There's little point having a private wholesalers section if it's clunky and difficult to use, or if it looks identical to your retail shop. You need to ensure that you're offering a visually different experience that's better catered to the needs of wholesalers.

Public eCommerce shops tend to use a standard layout with large product images and basic information. This is suited to retail customers who don't need to know detailed specifications for each product but do want eye-catching, persuasive visual listings. Customers can browse the products and click through to view more detail on individual product pages. They take their time to choose each product, and are happy to visit a separate page to choose quantities and variations for each one.

This retail-style layout isn't suitable for most WooCommerce wholesale stores. But strangely, nearly all WooCommerce wholesale plugins neglect this important fact, and leave the wholesale area looking the same as the public shop.

To fix the problem, WooCommerce Wholesale Pro is designed to work alongside its sister plugin - WooCommerce Product Table.

WooCommerce Product Table offers a wholesale-friendly order form layout

Products are listed in a responsive space-saving grid or tabular layout with extra product data and instant purchase options.

This is more appropriate for wholesale customers, who are already familiar with your products. They want to see all the information at a glance, select quantities and variations, and make quick buying decisions from a one-page order form. They definitely don't want to waste time visiting a separate page for each product!

A product table wholesale layout provides an easy way for B2B customers to re-order their regular products, acting as a wholesale quick re-order list.

How to create wholesale product tables

1. Get WooCommerce Product Table. You can buy it on its own, but it's cheapest to buy it as a bundle with WooCommerce Wholesale Pro. (You can do this on the WooCommerce Wholesale Pro sales page.)
2. Install and activate WooCommerce Product Table using the instructions in the confirmation email.
3. Go to the plugin settings page from the admin panel – WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Product Table. Enter your license key from the confirmation email, choose the default settings for your wholesale order forms, and click Save. You can customize every detail of your tables, from the styling to the table columns, filters and sort order.
4. You can manually add product tables using a shortcode. However, it's best to set up your product tables centrally in step 3. Then go to WooCommerce → Settings → Wholesale → Layout and automatically enable the product table layout in the wholesale area. This will display the wholesale order form for logged in wholesale users, while keeping your default layouts for guests and retail customers.
5. Save changes to make them live.

Getting more sales from your wholesale product tables

The WooCommerce wholesale table plugin is incredibly flexible. Here's a summary of the main features to list wholesale products:

• Columns The table can contain various columns. It supports all the main WooCommerce data fields (title, description, categories, product attributes, tags, stock, etc.). You can also add extra product data through custom fields and taxonomies.
• "Add to cart" buttons By including add to cart buttons, wholesale customers order online directly from the product table view. Choose whether to include a quantity selector and product variations. You can also create further options using the Product Options plugin. This way, you can create a wholesale order form for easy bulk ordering and quick re-ordering.
• Wholesale enquiry forms You can replace the add to cart column with wholesale enquiry buttons. By adding buttons or links to the wholesale table, users can click through to a separate page with an enquiry form (created using a WordPress contact form plugin). Alternatively, use WooCommerce Product Table with a Request a Quote plugin.
• Downloadable documents Lots of Woo wholesale websites provide downloadable files with technical product information. This is useful for downloadable promotional materials, specification documents, etc. You can add a column with an icon, button or text for each product linking to a downloadable PDF or similar.
• Search, sort & filters Use filters to help wholesale buyers to find products quickly and easily.

Use quick view to speed up wholesale ordering

By now, you know how to create a WooCommerce wholesale website order form. But what if you want to show even more information or purchase options, without taking wholesale users to a separate page for each product?

You can do this by adding the WooCommerce Quick View Pro plugin. This wholesale quick view plugin lets you add quick view links or buttons to the order form. Trade customers can view extra product information, choose variations and add to the cart from a quick view lightbox.

Once they have made their selections, they immediately return to the wholesale order form where they can add more products to their order. As a result, it's much quicker than buying from a separate page.

There are lots of ways to tailor the quick view lightbox to your WooCommerce wholesale website. For example:

• Choose whether or not to include images in the quick view popup. Many wholesale websites sell non-visual products, so there's no need to distract buyers with big images.
• Decide whether to include quick view buttons, or just let customers open the lightbox by clicking the product name or image.
• Change the wording of the Quick View button (e.g. to 'Configure Options', 'Read More' or 'Customize Product').
• Choose which information to display in the wholesale lightbox.

5. Test your WooCommerce wholesale website

Now you've set up the WooCommerce wholesale plugin. It's also important to test the experience for both public and wholesale specific users.

1. Log out and visit the shop as a guest. Can you see the correct products and pricing?
2. Now login as a wholesale user. Again, can you see the correct products and pricing? Are the menu links intuitive, and can you see the wholesale order form layout (if you're using WooCommerce Product Table)?

Go back to the plugin settings and continue tweaking your wholesale website until it's perfect.

6. Add wholesale users to your WooCommerce store

Once you've finished testing the WooCommerce wholesale plugin, it's time to start adding wholesale users.

If you have enabled wholesale registration, then people can register for an account on the Wholesale Login page. You might also want to add wholesale users yourself. There are a few ways to do this:

• Add wholesale users manuallyCreate a user account (Users → Add New) in the WordPress Dashboard for each wholesale user. Assign them to one of your wholesale roles.
• Convert existing customers to wholesaleIf you want to convert an existing customer to wholesale, then you can easily do this by editing their account and choosing a wholesale user role from the 'Roles' dropdown.
• Bulk import themIf you're migrating from another B2B eCommerce system and have a lot of wholesale users to import, then we have provided instructions on how to do this.

Whichever method you use to add them, your B2B e-commerce users can log into their account and access the private WooCommerce wholesale area. Guests and other user roles will never know it exists!

Bonus tips

Create a 100% private wholesale store

Some wholesale websites don't have a public eCommerce area at all. You can set up the WooCommerce wholesale plugin without a retail-facing store.

To do this, make sure all your product categories are marked as 'Wholesale Only'. This will hide them from public view and from search engines.

If you want to hide other parts of WooCommerce too - for example, the links to your cart and checkout pages - then we recommend using WooCommerce Wholesale Pro with our other WooCommerce B2B plugin, WooCommerce Private Store. Use WooCommerce Wholesale Pro for your wholesale registration, login, and to set different wholesale prices for each wholesale role - and use WooCommerce Private Store to ensure that those extra parts of your store are hidden from public view. (Note: Your non-WooCommerce pages - such as the homepage and blog - remain public.)

WooCommerce Private Store is designed specifically for stores that don't sell to the public. Just read what this happy customer said about it:

Hide prices from non-wholesale users

Perhaps you have a wholesale-only store where you want the public to be able to browse the products, but not see the wholesale pricing. You can do this by enabling the 'Hide Prices Until Login' feature in WooCommerce Wholesale Pro.

This will hide the prices and add to cart buttons from logged out users. When non-wholesalers visit your store, they can browse products as usual, but the prices and purchase options will remain hidden.

Create wholesale-only products and pricing

Some WooCommerce wholesale websites provide specific products and/or pricing for each customer. For example:

• You might sell custom products (e.g. branded items) that are specific to each wholesale user.
• Alternatively, you might sell the same products to all your wholesalers, but need to charge user-specific pricing.

Luckily, the WooCommerce wholesale plugin comes with built-in product visibility options. You can choose whether each product category in your online store is available to retail customers, wholesale users, or both.

This is how to create wholesale-only products which are hidden from your retail store:

1. First, set up WooCommerce Wholesale Pro, as described above.
2. Next, go to Products → Categories in the WordPress Dashboard.
3. Add or edit a product category. Either way, find the 'Visibility' settings which are added by the WooCommerce wholesale plugin. The default is 'Public and Wholesale', so change this to 'Wholesale Only'.

Create retail-only products

Of course, you also might want to create products which are available to public retail customers but not wholesale users. You can do that with WooCommerce Wholesale Pro too.

Simply follow the instructions in the previous section. The only difference is that you need to set the category to 'Public Only', and this will hide it from the WooCommerce wholesale area.

Add wholesale-only payment methods

As we discussed earlier, wholesale buyers often have fundamentally different needs from normal retail customers. After all, wholesalers are regular customers who are buying in bulk, rather than browsing for their own personal use.

As a result, many WooCommerce wholesale websites need to offer different payment methods for each type of user. For example:

• Imagine that you want to offer PayPal to retail customers but not wholesale buyers due to the high PayPal fees.
• Maybe you want wholesale customers to pay by invoice or bank transfer/BACS, while requiring instant online payment from regular customers.

The solution is to use the role-based payments feature in WooCommerce Wholesale Pro:

1. Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Payments.
2. First, make sure you have added all the payment methods that you will be offering, such as PayPal, credit card, invoice, etc.
3. Next, find the 'Payment Roles' page.
4. For each payment method on your store, select which user role(s) it will be available to.

One you've done that, guests and normal customers will only see the payment gateways which are available to their role. Similarly, wholesale buyers will only see the payment methods for their role.

Create wholesale-only shipping methods

Shipping products to wholesale customers can be very different to shipping retail orders. That's because wholesale orders tend to be in bulk and involve much larger quantities. As a result, you may want to offer different shipping methods and costs to each type of customer.

For example:

• Lots of online shops offer flat rate shipping costs or free shipping to retail customers. In contrast, they're more likely to cover their costs by offering weight-based shipping to wholesale buyers using a plugin like YITH Product Shipping.
• In addition, some WooCommerce wholesale websites offer free shipping to their highest tier of wholesale users. This might be buyers with the highest historical sales, as offering free shipping is a way to reward them for their loyalty.

You can do this using the role-based shipping methods feature in WooCommerce Wholesale Pro:

1. In the WordPress Dashboard, go to WooCommerce → Settings → Shipping.
2. Add all the different shipping methods and costs that you require for each shipping zone.
3. Now go to the 'Shipping Roles' tab within the same section.
4. Use the options on the page to choose which shipping methods will be available to each user role. Select different shipping methods for retail and wholesale customers.

Or if you don't want to worry about shipping to wholesale users, consider a dropshipping arrangement where the order fulfilment is handled by a third party.

FAQ

1. Do you need a plugin to create a wholesale website?

If you're creating a 100% wholesale website with no retail area then you might be able to do it without a plugin. Instead of using a WooCommerce wholesale plugin, you would need to ask your hosting company to password protect the entire site. You can then give the password to your wholesale buyers so that they can login and purchase.

I believe this is a bad way to create a wholesale website because:

As a result, it's far better to use a plugin to create your WooCommerce B2B website.

2. What is the difference between a WooCommerce wholesale website and a standard online store?

The main difference between a wholesale store and a regular WooCommerce store is the target audience and the pricing structure:

• A regular WooCommerce store is typically geared towards individual customers who purchase products at retail prices. These customers are usually looking to purchase products for personal use or in small quantities. The pricing structure for a regular WooCommerce store is usually set at retail prices, which are higher than wholesale prices.
• On the other hand, a wholesale website is geared towards bulk buyers who purchase products at wholesale prices. Wholesale buyers are usually looking to purchase products in large quantities for resale purposes. The pricing structure for a wholesale store is set at wholesale prices, which are lower than retail prices.

However, a wholesale website may have other differences too. For example, a wholesale area might use an order-form style layout designed to select products more quickly, whereas a retail site is designed for browsing. A wholesale area might have different payment and shipping options from a retail store.

3. Can I showcase my offerings to both wholesale and retail customers?

Absolutely. When you use WooCommerce Wholesale Pro to create a wholesale website, you can sell the same products to different customers at different prices. Each customer sees the correct pricing for their role, so there's no duplication.

Ready to create a wholesale website in less than 15 minutes?

If you've been wondering "How long does it take to create a wholesale website?" then I hope this tutorial has given you the answer.

WooCommerce Wholesale Pro is a plug-and-play solution to help store owners and developers to create a professional wholesale area in minutes. It's the best WooCommerce B2B plugin for online store owners that want to sell to different types of customers.

No technical knowledge is needed. Just follow the instructions in this tutorial, and you'll be up and running in no time.

Get the WooCommerce B2B plugin here, and start taking wholesale orders TODAY 🚀

Lots of people use WooCommerce to sell user-specific products. For example, you might want to sell different apparel or merchandise to sports teams or soccer clubs. Maybe you privately sell uniform products to to schools. You might sell branded company workwear with the company's logo, and need a hidden area of WooCommerce for each customer.

Perhaps you sell the same products to each customer, but with different prices. Maybe you're a health practitioner or service provider, and only sell to existing patients rather than the general public.

Whatever your reason for creating WooCommerce user-specific products, I'll show you how to do it. And the best thing is, it's really easy and you don't need to edit any code!

Which WooCommerce user-specific products plugin?

We're going to create your user-specific products with our popular WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin.

This simple plugin lets you add hidden product categories to any WordPress WooCommerce store. You can have a separate category for each customer, each with their own user-specific items.

Your sports teams, clubs, companies or other types of customer will use a simple password to log into their organization's hidden category. Or if you prefer, you can automatically restrict your user-specific categories so that each one is only visible to a specific logged in user. Once they've unlocked their private WooCommerce category, they can view and buy their user-specific products. No one else will even know that their hidden products exist!

You can also use this plugin for user-specific pricing in WooCommerce. Simply follow the instructions in this tutorial, and add a different version of each product - each with its own unique price - to each customer's category.

Tips:

• If you need a way to quickly clone products for each organization, then the free Duplicate Posts plugin is perfect.
• If you're cloning products and want to manage inventory across each version of the product then we recommend the Group Stock Manager plugin. This lets you share stock levels across multiple products.

Let's get started.

Before you follow this tutorial

Before you start, you should have a WordPress website set up with the free WooCommerce plugin installed. The official WooCommerce documentation is a good starting point.

You can then use this tutorial to create your WooCommerce user-specific products and categories.

How to create user-specific product categories in WooCommerce

1. 

   First, get the WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin. You'll use this to create your hidden customer-specific products.

2. Secondly, install the plugin and enter your license key on the plugin settings page. You'll find this in the order confirmation email.
3. Also on the plugin settings page, DO NOT tick the boxes to show your protected categories and products in the public parts of your store. This is important, as your WooCommerce user-specific products should only be visible to sports teams and organizations with the correct password.
4. Next, go to Products -> Categories in the WordPress admin. Create a separate category for each sports club/organization that you wish to sell user-specific products to. Tick 'Protected' and either password protect it, or restrict it to a specific user.
5. If you want to provide multiple categories for each organization, then you can do this by adding 1 or more sub-categories. You can create nested structures with as many sub-category levels as you like. As long as you set all the sub-categories to 'Public' and select the organization's main password-protected category as the 'Parent', all the sub-categories and their products inherit the same protection. Organizations only need to login to their account or enter a password once to unlock their whole hidden area.

Now add your user-specific products

6. Now, you can add all the user-specific products. For each one, tick the appropriate product category. Leave the product visibility settings as the default. The plugin will automatically protect them with the same password(s) as the protected category.
7. Lastly, create a user-specific category login page. This depends on whether you've set up password-protected or user restricted categories:
   1. WooCommerce password protected categories. Add the shortcode [category_login] to any page of your site. All the sports teams/organizations will use this login page to access their user-specific products. The plugin will redirect them to their own personal category when they enter the password.
      Now, link to this page in any way you like, for example from your navigation menu, website header or footer. Or you can keep the login page hidden and email it to your customers instead.

2. User restricted categories - Add a link to a front end login page. This could be the main WooCommerce 'Account' page, which displays a login form to logged out users and guests. Or you could install a front end login plugin such as Theme My Login. Either way, users can use this page to login to their account and unlock their hidden products.
   Finally, you can instantly redirect customers to their personal WooCommerce store by installing the free Peter's Login Redirect plugin. This has a handy feature to add a custom redirect URL for each individual user. Simply add the URL of their hidden WooCommerce category.

And that's it!

In 7 simple steps, you have created WooCommerce user-specific products and categories.

The sports teams or other types of organization will visit your website and access the login page. They will enter the password for their user-specific category, or log in to their WordPress user account. They will be redirected to the correct hidden category containing their user-specific products.

Each organization's category and their products are hidden from public view, so only people with the correct access details can see them. This includes hiding them from search engines and other places that people might accidentally find them.

Once your customers have found their user-specific products, they can add them to the cart and checkout using the standard WooCommerce checkout. You can use other plugins to add multiple payment gateways, shipping options, and everything else you need to make your store a success.

Related: Build a WooCommerce Wholesale Store with Hidden Categories for Each Customer.

Bonus tip #1 - Get more sales with a WooCommerce product table layout

Before we finish, I'll tell you about another great plugin for selling WooCommerce customer-specific products.

Our bestselling WooCommerce Product Table plugin lists products in a space-saving table view. It's an ideal layout for user-specific products because you are selling to the same customers on a regular basis. They're already familiar with your products and would rather order quickly from a one-page WooCommerce order form. They don't want to scroll through large images and multiple pages of products.

The WooCommerce table view lets your customers see all their branded products in one place. They can quickly search, sort and filter the table to find what they want. The multi-select checkboxes make it easy to tick as many products as they need. Finally, they can click a single button to add everything to the cart.

WooCommerce Product Table integrates beautifully with WooCommerce Protected Categories. Once the customer has unlocked their user-specific category, their own personal products will appear in the product table. This means that you can create a product table listing all your products, and each customer will only be able to see their own personal products. Neat!

Bonus tip #2 - Sell customizable products with Product Add-Ons

Many WooCommerce stores sell customizable client-specific products. For example, perhaps you sell sportswear or workwear and the client needs to upload their logo. Maybe the client wants to add custom text which you will print on their products.

You can do all this by adding another Barn2 plugin, Product Options. This lets you add extra fields to your user-specific products, such as File Upload fields and Text Input boxes. These fields appear on the single product page. Your customers can provide the extra information, and you will receive it via email once they place their order.

What do you need user-specific products for?

I hope the advice in this tutorial is useful and helps you to create your own WooCommerce user-specific products and categories. I'd love to know what sorts of organization you sell to that have their own unique products.

Do you provided branded apparel to sports teams? Maybe you sell corporate workwear with the company's logo. Maybe you do something else that I haven't thought of! Please let me know in the comments.