Currently, most of the countries in the world are in quarantine or lockdown due to the famous COVID-19. With all the restrictions that governments put in place, many small businesses are in a very difficult situation. However, it’s also a good opportunity to rethink your strategy and start selling online. In this post, we’ll show you how a WooCommerce Multivendor Marketplace can help you generate more sales and increase your revenue.

What’s a WooCommerce Multivendor Marketplace?

A WooCommerce multivendor marketplace is an eCommerce site that allows stores and sellers to offer their products. In most cases, the multivendor charges a commission to the stores or sellers for the income they obtain and the shipment depends on the terms and conditions of the service. Nowadays, multi-vendor sites are becoming more and more popular because they provide stores with many benefits.

Some of the most famous multi-vendor marketplaces on the Internet are Amazon, Ali Express, or Etsy which offer products from different suppliers around the world.

So, why do you need a WooCommerce multi-vendor marketplace website?

Benefits of WooCommerce Multivendor Marketplace

WooCommerce multivendor sites offer benefits for both the marketplace and the businesses (and the consumers!). Let’s have a look at the main ones.

For Businesses

• Small businesses can save the cost of creating their eCommerce site. The multivendor marketplace is responsible for the maintenance, the management of the hosting, domain, redesign, and scalability.
• Companies can save money on marketing as users who enter the WooCommerce Multivendor can find their products.
• A multi-vendor marketplace also can act as a new sales channel for small business
• WooCommerce Multivendor sites can help internationalize brands by allowing them to be known in other countries.

For the WooCommerce Multivendor owner

• The purpose of a WooCommerce multivendor is to generate sales. There are also other goals such as creating community, promoting small brands, being agents of change, and so on. However, the main reason for starting this type of site is income generation.
• The content about the product is provided by the businesses that sell on the website.
• The brands take care of the marketing actions to promote their products (of course you can also run campaigns and promote the multivendor too).

There are currently excellent plugins to help you create your WooCommerce multivendor website easily. They come with many options to make it attractive for both sellers and consumers. Let’s have a look at some of the best ones.

Best WooCommerce multivendor plugins

Yo! Kart

This is a top WooCommerce multi-vendor plugin with highly customizable options. One of the functions that make Yo! Kart special is the referrals module, which opens up a range of possibilities for website owners, shop owners, and users in general. Shop owners can assign a specific URL to users so then they can share it to earn redeemable points. Additionally, the user can obtain points for referrals, new registrations, and first purchase.

This referral system gives you the possibility of increasing your traffic and offering benefits to users that are not based solely on discount codes.

Additionally, Yo! Kart has some interesting features for the sellers:

• Works with multicurrency.
• Tax and coupon management.
• Wallets.
• It allows a lot of management facilities like custom order management, user management (organize buyers, sellers, affiliates), shows notifications for logged in buyers/customers.
• Shops can show product add-ons.
• Sellers can add wholesales.

For the multivendor admin, this plugin offers some interesting features such as:

• It can be integrated with Shipstation.
• The admin can set a Pay per click advertiser program.
• It allows the admin to customize the site and modify design aspects such as homepage slides, banners, and layout preference.
• The admin can manage what is shown on the homepage, like collections for shops, products, categories and promoted products.

Dokan

Dokan is an excellent WooCommerce multivendor plugin that has 5 plans to choose from: one free and 4 premium ones that start at 149 USD per year. The free version has basic features such as unlimited vendors, order management, and store widgets but lacks more advanced features such as commission types, reports, PayPal and Stripe integration, seller review and verification, and more.

This top plugin comes with some great features to build trust with customers and facilitate the payment process. Some of the main ones are:

• Vendor review.
• Store support.
• Vendor verification.
• Return and warranty requests.
• Product inquiry.
• Live chat.
• Stripe integration.

The two most expensive plans (499 USD and USD 999 per year) come with special functionalities:

• Geolocation.
• Vendor vacation.
• Auction.
• WC Booking Integration.
• Vendor staff manager.
• Shipstation integration.
• Wholesales.
• Export-Import function.

Additionally, Dokan stands out because it offers SEO, Google Maps, refund policy, WooCommerce booking integrations, trusted sellers, reviews management, and social login.

The basic plan works well for small businesses. However, if you want to take it one step further and the basic version isn’t enough for you, the Starter (149 USD/year) or Professional plan (249 USD/year) are great options.

WC Vendors (Basic and Pro)

This WooCommerce multivendor is often compared to Dokan because they both offer similar features. However, there are a couple of differences that are worth noting. For example, with Dokan, a seller can send an admin approval and go through the settings of the store. WC Vendors offer more control: the seller can’t do anything until the store is approved by the admin. Additionally, this plugin has excellent customer service and works smoothly.

WC Vendors is available in 3 versions: 1 free and 2 premium ones (199 USD a year and 599 USD one-time payment).

Basic version

• Allows percentage commissions.
• Custom URL for the store.
• Shows mark shipped.
• Receive all email notifications.
• Product management via the WordPress dashboard.
• Allows cross-selling and upselling.

Pro version

• Insights about coupons, ratings, reports.
• Shipping management (store level shippings, flat and table rate, and marketplace shipping defaults)
• A lot of options for admins and vendors such as verified and featured vendors, vendor memberships, many store details like address, social media profiles, logo and header, store opening hours, vacation mode with disable cart, vendor store widgets, coupon management, and more.
• With commissions, the admin can set a fixed amount, percentage or fixed amount + fee, category commission, tiered sales by vendor and product, and tiered product prices.

If your business is small and you don’t want to spend much money, the free version is a very good choice to start selling online.

MultiVendorX

MultiVendorX is a top WooCommerce multivendor that will help you grow your business. It provides plenty of control for both vendors and admins. For example, the vendor can manage his commissions and policies, and the admin set when the seller can withdraw funds. The vendor can set the shipping taxes and regions, and the admin can manually review and approve or disapprove the products.

Some of its main features:

• Insights and reports
• The admin can restrict the multivendor with invitation-only registration
• PayPal and Stripe Integration
• Automated payments
• Products and vendors reviews
• Dynamic commissions settings
• Manual and automatic vendor registration

This top plugin also comes with many add-ons. MultiVendorX is free and there are many add-ons that you can purchase to add more functionalities.

Cs-Cart Multivendor

Cs-Cart Multivendor, also known as “Marketplace Academy” focuses on educating both the admin and the vendors to make the most of the tool. It comes with many video tutorials and plenty of customization options.

Some of its main features are:

• 70+ integrated payment methods.
• Mini stores are available for each vendor.
• Automate the vendors’ payment via PayPal.
• Configurable vendor plans.
• Categorizable commissions.
• Customizable restrictions for vendors based on their needs.
• The admin can block a vendor who hasn’t paid the plan.
• Admins can create product categories to facilitate comparison.
• The admin can log in to vendor profiles to execute changes.
• Cross-selling tools.
• Separate checkout for each vendor.
• Communication custom to vendor.
• A built-in blog for stores.
• The Multivendor Plus plan allows multiple storefronts, stores and warehouses management, open-source code of a mobile app, VIP customer care and lifetime upgrades.

Even though Cs-Cart Multivendor isn’t a cheap plugin (starts at 1450 USD making it the most expensive tool in the list), it has a 15-day trial and has a lot of great features. Additionally, all their 3 plans have 3 months of premium support and 30-days refund policy.

WooCommerce Product vendors

This extension developed by WooCommerce costs 79 USD per year with 1 year of updates and Woothemes support.

In terms of functionalities, it comes with:

• Integration with WooCommerce Bookings. This option allows you to sell time-based products.
• Allows selling physical and digital products.
• Multiple vendor levels or roles like Vendor Manager with limited access or Vendor Admin with all vendor permissions.
• Add custom private notes to orders.
• Vendors can set different shipping rules for each product.
• It doesn’t have a frontend dashboard but uses the WordPress dashboard.
• Vendors can show their products in their shops and general pages of products.

Even though this extension doesn’t stand out compared to other top WooCommerce multi-vendors, it’s a cheaper option and it maintains your website within the WooCommerce environment with the same technical support as other extensions.

YITH

YITH is a very popular multivendor plugin in the WooCommerce community that allows you to create a marketplace and get passive income. It’s a freemium tool that can be integrated with many add-ons.

YITH comes with plenty of features:

• Admin can set and change the vendor taxonomy slug.
• You can search for commissions by order ID.
• Registered users can become vendors using a “Become a vendor” page.
• Admin can moderate the featured products.
• The vendors can manage media through the WordPress gallery.
• Compatible with Aelia, a currency converter.
• Admin can allow vendors to go on vacation mode and hide or show their store.
• Users can send messages to the administrator about a shop.
• Admins can hide the payment information to vendors. They can also hide the Customer section from vendors and hide the Vendor tab from the product detail.

Even though YITH is a top WooCommerce multivendor plugin, it also has some cons. For example, the vendors can’t add taxes to the products. If you want to do that, you need to pay for another plugin to automate payments. Additionally, unlike other tools such as Dokan or WC Vendors, YITH doesn’t come with a front-end dashboard for vendors and doesn’t let you add or update products from the frontend. However, you can get those functionalities by purchasing one of their add-ons.

YITH has a free website with limited features and a couple of premium plans that start at 99.99 USD for a single site.

Conclusion

All in all, a WooCommerce multi-vendor marketplace will allow you to offer other companies’ products on your site and get an extra income.

In terms of popularity, Dokan is the most famous one and it has a free version which is good for starters. However, WC Vendors offers similar features, has a free version and a couple of affordable premium plans and great customer support.

On the other hand, if your budget is higher and you have experience with multi-vendors tools, Cs-Cart Multivendor is a very powerful option with plenty of advanced features.

Have you tried any of these plugins? Which other should we include on our list? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!