WooCommerce Product Table order form

If you want your WooCommerce store to succeed, you'll need to design it with the needs of your specific customers in mind. For instance, shops that regularly sell items in large quantities may require something beyond a traditional layout.

These stores can benefit from making the ordering process quicker and more efficient. Fortunately, this can easily be achieved by setting up a WooCommerce bulk order form. This feature will enable your customers to buy everything they need on one page, and add it all to their cart with a single click.

In this guide, we’ll explain how WooCommerce bulk order forms work and discuss what kinds of e-commerce stores they’re most suited to. Then we’ll walk you through how to set up and customize one. We'll use the WooCommerce Product Table plugin for selling multiple products in the same order form; or WooCommerce Bulk Variations to create bulk order forms listing the variations for a single product. Let’s get to work!

An introduction to WooCommerce bulk order forms

Most WooCommerce stores are structured so that customers must visit each product's individual page to buy it. This works well for shops where visitors are likely to purchase only one or two items per visit.

However, what if you’re running the type of shop where customers tend to buy many products or variations at once (such as a wholesale store)? Forcing them to navigate to every product page will only slow them down. This leads to frustration and increases the risk that they won’t complete the bulk purchase.

That’s where a WooCommerce order form plugin comes in handy. This adds a one-page product table to your site, either listing one or many products like this:

 

Customers can see all your products and variations at once (or the ones you’ve selected to display). They'll have the important information about each item right at their fingertips. Most importantly, they can pick everything they want to buy on the form, and add their entire order to the cart simultaneously in bulk. It's the perfect way to allow bulk buying in WooCommerce.

A WooCommerce bulk order form can be a smart addition to your site. It streamlines the buying process, improving the user experience at the same time. As a side benefit, it also promotes all your products, and encourages visitors to buy more items.

How to know if your store needs a WooCommerce bulk order form

Of course, not every site needs a bulk order form. How do you decide if this feature is right for your WooCommerce store?

The short answer is that a bulk WooCommerce order form comes in handy for any shop where customers tend to make multiple purchases in the same order. The more likely your visitors are to buy in bulk, the more beneficial this type of order form can be.

Let’s look at a few examples of e-commerce sites that will find a WooCommerce bulk order form invaluable.

Wholesale stores

WooCommerce wholesale ordering plugins
If you’re running a WooCommerce wholesale store then a bulk order form plugin is essential. Your customers are likely to know exactly what they’re looking for, and to buy dozens or hundreds of items at once. Requiring them to browse through separate product pages to choose their quantities and variations is hardly the optimal solution.

With a WooCommerce bulk order form, on the other hand, you can enable buyers to make selections quickly. This is a smart way to encourage them to keep coming back.

Further reading: Read our ultimate guide to WooCommerce wholesale plugins.

Office supply shops

Of course, some stores regularly sell items in bulk to individual customers. Office supply shops and similar sites are a perfect example. Customers will often want to purchase everything they need for their office in one convenient order. You need to make this bulk buying process easy for them.

The same applies to any store where the products offered are fairly simple and self-explanatory. Rather than listing out each type of printer paper on its own page, you can offer all the options on a one-page bulk WooCommerce order form.

Grocery and catering businesses

Bulk grocery stores are becoming more common, since few people purchase only one or two food items at once. These customers aren’t likely to need a lot of in-depth information about each product. A WooCommerce bulk order form plugin lets them check off everything on their shopping list, and move on:

A WooCommerce bulk order form for a restaurant.

The same goes for catering businesses, and some types of restaurants. Customers ordering food online will appreciate the option to select everything they want on a single page.

Further reading: How to create a WooCommerce restaurant ordering system.

Which is the best WooCommerce bulk order form plugin?

At this point, you probably know whether you’d like a WooCommerce bulk order form plugin for your online store. All that's left is to choose the best tool for the job.

You'll need one of the following plugins:

  1. WooCommerce Product Table - create bulk order forms listing multiple products. If you have variable products then the variations are either listed as dropdowns for the customer to choose from, or on separate rows of the table. Comes with search, sort and filters to help customers find what they want more quickly.
  2. WooCommerce Bulk Variations - create a bulk order form listing the variations for a specific product. This normally appears on the single product page, but you can list variations anywhere on your site.

As a reminder, here's what the two options look like:

Both bulk order form plugins let you list products or variations on your WordPress site, and customize it fully. They are 100% integrated with WooCommerce, and are excellent tools for creating a bulk order form.

How to design an effective WooCommerce bulk order form (in 4 steps)

Fortunately, both plugins are very easy to use and customize. Now, we'll take a look at how you can use each one to set up your own WooCommerce bulk order form.

  1. WooCommerce Product Table instructions
  2. WooCommerce Bulk Variations instructions

#1. WooCommerce Product Table setup guide

The following steps will walk you through the process of creating and customizing a WC bulk order form with WooCommerce Product Table. Let’s start with the basics!

Step 1: Install and activate the plugin

The first thing you’ll want to do is purchase and install the WooCommerce Product Table plugin. You can do this on an existing or new WP site. Just make sure you have WooCommerce installed, and you’ve added all the products you want to display.

After that, navigate to Products → Product Tables and click 'Add New'. This will open the product table builder. We'll use this to create a WooCommerce bulk order form.

Step 2: Customize your bulk order form settings

At this point, you can start customizing your WooCommerce bulk order form. There are a lot of options you can configure. To get you started, we’ll run through a few of the most important settings to consider when setting up a bulk order form for WooCommerce.

2a. Choose where to add the bulk order form

The first page prompts you to decide where to use the WooCommerce bulk order form on your site. You can either:

  • Add the bulk order form manually to a page as needed.
  • Enable the order form view globally on your main shop pages.

Depending on your selection, the following page lets you choose which products to include in the bulk order form; or which shop templates to enable it on.

Create page of table builder

2b. Add product data to the bulk order form

The next step is to choose which columns of product data to include in the order form. WooCommerce Product Table supports basically every possible type of product data. This includes the name, featured image, categories, tags, product attributes, dimensions, and so on.

Don’t forget to include an Add to Cart button! That way, customers can add products to the cart from the bulk order form.

WPT table builder columns

2c. Configure the add to cart column

The next page is also important:

Add to cart page of WooCommerce product table builder

By selecting the Quantity selectors checkbox, you enable customers to easily purchase more than one of the same item. Then, in the Add to cart button dropdown menu, choose the Checkbox or Button and checkbox option. This is crucial and will let customers check off all the items they want and add them to their cart with one click (using a handy button at the top or bottom of the order form).

If you have variable products then it’s a good idea to enable Product variations in the table. That's because customers shouldn’t have to visit individual product pages to see all of an item’s variations. Instead, you can display product options (such as colors or sizes) within your Woo bulk order form, either as a dropdown list or on separate lines.

2d. Search and sort

Just below, you may want to add one or more Filter dropdowns:

WooCommerce Product Table builder filter dropdowns

These let customers filter the order form so that it only displays items meeting a certain criteria (such as products in a particular category.

2e. Consider enabling lazy load

On the 'Performance' page, enable the Lazy load option if your WooCommerce bulk order form will contain more than about 20 products.

This is important because if you have hundreds or thousands of products then your bulk order form can take a while to fully load. By enabling this option, you’ll speed up the process so customers don’t have to wait.

Step 3: Generate your WooCommerce bulk order form

When you’re done creating your first bulk order form, you’re ready to actually add it to the page. (You can skip this step if you selected the option to use the bulk order forms on the main shop pages as they'll be added automatically.)

Open up or create a page, and add the 'Product Table' block. Alternatively, if you're not using the WordPress block editor then get the shortcode from Products → Product Tables and add that instead.

You can view the finished bulk WooCommerce order form on the front end using the Preview button:

An example of a customized WooCommerce bulk order form.

When you have published the page, customers will now be able to use the order form to make bulk purchases. Before wrapping up, however, let’s look at a few more optional features you can add.

Step 4: Add ‘extras’ to your WooCommerce bulk order form

In this final step, we want to present a few extra features you can use to enhance your WooCommerce bulk order form. While these options aren't required, they can be a valuable addition.

Add product quick view lightboxes

WooCommerce Quick View Lightbox with Product Variations

A WooCommerce bulk order form is a brilliant way to enable one-page shopping. But what if you want a way to display more information without taking customers to a separate page? What happens if you have too many variations or product options to fit neatly into the order form?

WooCommerce Product Table Quick View Magnifying Glass
Add quick view buttons or links to the bulk order form.
The answer is to use WooCommerce Product Table with its sister plugin, WooCommerce Quick View Pro. This lets customers view extra product information in a popup lightbox window. It's a great option because customers are not taken to a separate page. When they close the lightbox (either by closing it manually or adding the product to their cart), they remain on the bulk order form. This encourages them to buy more and more from the order form, increasing your average order value.

The quick view plugin has lots of options so that you can control how customers can access extra information from the bulk order form:

  • Choose whether to open the quick view by clicking on the product image, name or a dedicated quick view button.
  • Rename the quick view button to anything you like, e.g. 'Configure', 'View More Images' or 'Choose Options'.
  • Show or hide the quick view icon.
  • Choose whether to display the product image gallery in the lightbox, and/or product information and purchase details.
  • Choose exactly which product data to include in the lightbox.

Upsell with extra product options

As we’ve discussed, you can easily display product variations in your bulk order form. However, what if you also want to offer add-ons to specific items? To do this, you can purchase the Product Options add-on extension for WooCommerce:

This extension is simple to use, and gives you more flexibility in what you can let customers buy using your bulk order form. Here's an example of how the add-on fields appear in the bulk order form:

WooCommerce custom product fields in table

Show the cart contents on the bulk order form

It can also be a nice touch to display the customer’s cart contents and subtotal right on the page, and let them check out straight away. You can do this easily by installing the WooCommerce Fast Cart plugin.

Now, your customers will be able to access their cart and complete their order from the bulk order form page:

A bulk order form and WooCommerce cart widget.

Case study – Darren Bowen Photography’s WooCommerce bulk order form

Darren Bowen is a photographer who sells his photographs online at Darren Bowen Photography. On the website, customers can also buy a range of mugs and iPad smart covers all printed with Darren’s images.

Buying the mugs and iPad smart covers in bulk is easy because of the two WooCommerce bulk order forms powered by our WooCommerce Product Table plugin.

It's an easy to understand order process. The customer chooses the right quantities on the bulk order form, then uses the “add to cart” function. Once everything’s in the cart, the customer can check their order before proceeding to pay. From there, it's a fast and simple one-click single-page checkout.

Carry on reading to find out how you can add your own WooCommerce bulk order form.


#2. WooCommerce Bulk Variations setup guide

Next, we'll look at how to create bulk order forms for your variations with WooCommerce Bulk Variations. As we saw earlier, this plugin lists the variations for a specific product in a variations grid or matrix.

WooCommerce Bulk Variations lets customers view and purchase variations in bulk. This is the easiest way to sell more variations and increase sales. It also saves you time by letting you add and edit variations in bulk.

Customers can use quantity selectors next to each variation to quickly add multiple product variations to their cart. You can use the WooCommerce Bulk Variations plugin as either a bulk order form or a price matrix.

With WooCommerce Bulk Variations, you can display products that have either one or two attributes used for variations. The plugin automatically lists your variations in a matrix-style grid format. For example, if you sell t-shirts and have Size and Color as attributes, your bulk variations matrix might look something like this:

WooCommerce Bulk Variations grid

The bulk variations order form has a quantity box for each variation. This makes it easy for customers to quickly add products to cart and proceed to checkout. The best part is that customers won't have to select each variation individually. This speeds up the purchasing user flow.

Most people add these to the single product page, so I'll show you how to do that.

Step 1: Install WooCommerce Bulk Variations

  1. Log into the WordPress admin and install the WooCommerce Bulk Variations plugin.
  2. Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Bulk variations and activate your license key from the order confirmation email.
  3. Choose the default settings for your bulk variation forms, and whether or not you want to enable them automatically.
WooCommerce Bulk Variations settings page

Step 2: Add bulk variation order forms

If you used the option on the settings page to enable the bulk variations form for each product automatically, then you can skip this step! Alternatively, you can enable it for specific products only by going to the Add/Edit product page.

Product with 1 or 2 attributes which are used for variations will have an extra 'Bulk variations' tab in the 'Product Data' section of the page:

WooCommerce Bulk Variations product page tab

You can use this to configure the variations grid for each product individually.

If you want to display the bulk variations order forms elsewhere, then you can do this using a shortcode.

Step 3: View the variations grid

Finally, view the product page and you will see the variations listed in a beautiful bulk order form like this:

WooCommerce Bulk Variations grid

Bonus tips

You can use the following tips to enhance your bulk variations forms whether you're using WooCommerce Product Table or WooCommerce Bulk Variations.

Use minimum quantities to force customers to buy in bulk

WooCommerce Quantity Manager Plugin

So far, we've looked at 2 ways to create a WooCommerce bulk order form which makes it easy for customers to buy in bulk. However, we haven't done anything which actually forces customers to purchase bulk quantities. They can still place small orders if they wish to do so.

That's why it's important to set some WooCommerce minimum quantity rules in your store. These prevent customers from placing low quantity or low value orders. As a result, you create a bulk-only store and ensure that every order is profitable.

To do this, you need to use WooCommerce Product Table or WooCommerce Bulk Variations with the WooCommerce Quantity Manager plugin. This lets you set a range of minimum quantity rules to your store:

  • Add a minimum order quantity for the entire cart.
  • Set minimum quantities for specific categories, products or even individual variations.
  • Specify minimum values that the customer must spend before they can complete their order. Again, this can be set for the entire order or per category, product or variation.

Get more sales with quantity-based bulk discounts

WordPress bulk discounts plugin
Research into buying psychology has proven that customers buy larger quantities if they believe they're getting better value. This fits perfectly with a bulk WooCommerce order form.

Use your bulk order form with the official WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing plugin. Set up quantity discounts to reward customers for buying in bulk. It's a great way to increase your revenue from the same number of customers!

Speed up the bulk ordering process by skipping the cart page

Finally, you can speed up the buying process even further by automatically directing customers to their cart when a product is added. This option is found under WooCommerce → Settings → Products. Just check the box next to Redirect to the cart page after successful addition:

The WooCommerce Add to Cart settings.

You can even use a dedicated plugin to skip the cart completely, and move customers directly to the checkout page. Customers who order in bulk are usually busy people, after all. The quicker you can make the buying process, the better their experience will be.

Create a bulk WooCommerce order form today!

If you're only selling a handful of items, then it makes sense to feature them on separate pages. However, if you're moving a lot of products on a daily basis, then you need a better way to display them. For shop owners, this means using a WooCommerce bulk order form pluign.

Choose whichever plugin is best for your store:

Both plugins come with full support and a no-risk 30-day money back guarantee. They only take a few minutes to set up, so install your chosen plugin and start selling in bulk today!

Do you have any questions about how to build the perfect WooCommerce bulk order form? Let us know in the comments section below!

Image credit: Wikipedia.

Do you need to create a WooCommerce grid / list view for your store? Keep reading to learn how to use the bestselling WooCommerce Product Table plugin to let customers choose between a grid or list view of your products. This can make your store more user-friendly and improve your conversion rate.

WooCommerce Product Table order form

I’ll also provide full step-by-step instructions on how to create your very own WooCommerce grid/list view toggle.

Why do I need a WooCommerce grid/list view plugin?

Default layout without WooCommerce gridWhen you create a fresh WordPress/WooCommerce install and add a theme, your store will come with some fairly standard built-in layouts. Your products will be listed in a default grid layout with approx. 3 products on each row, large product images, and some basic data such as name and price. There will be an add to cart button but no extras such as quantity arrows or variation dropdowns. Each product will take up quite a bit of the page because of the large images and extra space between each row.

Some types of product lend themselves perfect to this default grid layout. However, others don’t sell well in this way.

When you set up WooCommerce, it’s important to think about the best way to present the types of products you’re actually selling. Don’t just stick with the grid that comes with your WordPress theme.

Many types of products sell better when listed in a tabular WooCommerce list view. The data is listed in a much more structured way, with each product on its own row of table, and multiple columns of information about each product.

Other products work well in either format, but it's nice to give customers a choice of how to view products.

Keep reading to learn how to display products in a table-based list format; and also how to add a grid/list view toggle so that customers can switch between the two views.

You may also like: How to create a WooCommerce product list view with extra columns of data.

Benefits of a product grid or list view

WooCommerce grid list view plugin

While you’re reading this, I expect that you’ve already started thinking of ways a WooCommerce grid or list view can boost your sales. Here are some of the main reasons:

More products per page

A WooCommerce list view plugin lists products in a way that takes up significantly less space per product. This means that customers can see more products at a time. They don’t have to scroll as much or click to multiple pages. This helps them to find and buy products more quickly, boosting your conversion rate.

More product data directly in the list view

When you discover that a list view plugin uses less space per product, you might assume that it contains less information about each product. Surprisingly, the opposite is actually true!

By listing products in a space-saving table, each product takes up a small amount of space. But the extra columns let you display extra product data, all within the table view.

You can see how this works in the screenshots below. As you can see, the default store layout displays just 3 products in the same space as the WooCommerce list view shows 6! Yet the table layout contains columns for extra data, quantity and variation options which aren’t available in the basic layout. It’s a win-win, for both you and your customers!

WooCommerce grid product order form layout
Left: Grid view. Right: List view.

Order form functionality

When you use WooCommerce Product Table to create a list view, you can just list products with links to the single product page. If you prefer, you can even disable the links and use it to create a read-only product catalog.

But for many stores, the best way to grow your sales is to use the product list view to use it as a one-page WooCommerce order form. An order form layout puts ALL the information that customers need to buy on a single page. There are extra columns of information to allow customers to make buying decisions. And once they’ve chosen, they can quickly select the products they require, choose variation options and quantities, and add them to the cart.

By adding these extra purchasing elements, you can transform a basic product list view into a fully functional WooCommerce order form. The entire ordering process is kept on a single page, which significantly speeds up the buying process. And research shows that the quicker the buying process, the more sales you’ll get!

Related: 10 ways a product table view can improve your WooCommerce conversion rate.

What types of products sell better in a list or grid layout?

Like I said, some products sell best in a list view, while others benefit from having a grid view too. You need to think about the types of products on your store. Decide which layout will best boost your sales - or whether it's best to let customers toggle between a grid/list view.

Here are some examples of products that work well when listed in a WooCommerce table view:

  • Non-visual products such as car parts - Lots of WooCommerce stores sell products where data is more important than what the product looks like. If you’re selling something like car parts where looks aren’t important, then it’s much better to list products in a compact list view. Sure, you might have a small thumbnail image of each product (although this isn’t essential). But you shouldn’t use the huge images that come with the standard grid layout.
  • Industry-specific products such as restaurant foods - Some types of product sell best when displayed in a specific way, based on customer expectations. For example, a restaurant online ordering system is most effective when the foods are presented in a way that mimics the layout of a printed restaurant menu. The best way to achieve this is via a web page with separate product tables for starters, main courses and desserts, with quick tick boxes for customers to select foods and order online.
  • All wholesale products - If you’re building a WooCommerce wholesale store, then a product list view will nearly always be better than the standard layout. That’s because by definition, wholesale users are regular customers and are already familiar with your products. They don’t need a grid of large pictures to help them make buying decisions. Instead, they need factual information and a fast buying process. A WooCommerce wholesale order form listing your products is exactly what trade users need.

What products aren't suited to a WooCommerce grid/list view plugin?

I would say that clothes and furniture are examples of products that aren't suited to a WooCommerce grid/list plugin. For something like clothes or furniture, customers need to see big images of each product. After all, they’re buying based on what the product looks like!

Are your products similar to the examples listed above, where space and factual information are the priority. Or are they more like clothes or furniture, where large images are what matters?

Perhaps you have some products that you’d like to list in a tabular grid layout, and others where you’d prefer the built-in store layouts. Maybe you want to let customers choose between a grid/list view of your products. That’s absolutely fine, as you can use both in different parts of your store - or on the same page, with an option to toggle between the grid/list.

Keep reading to learn how to set up either option.

How to create a WooCommerce list view

By now, you should have decided whether your products will sell well in a table-based list view - either as the only way to present your products, or with a toggle to switch between the grid/list layout. Next, I’ll tell you how to use the WooCommerce Product Table plugin to create a list view for some or all of your products. After that, you'll learn how to let customers choose between both layouts.

  1. First, get WooCommerce Product Table and install it on your WordPress site.
  2. Next, go to Products → Product Tables. Add your license key (you’ll find this in your confirmation email).
  3. Go through all the options and choose how to set up the table:
    1. The first page of the table builder will let you choose where to display the product table. Either choose for it to appear on your main shop, category pages, or choose to insert it manually onto another page.
    2. You can either list all products in the table, or select specific products/categories/etc.
    3. You can also choose which columns of data to include in the product grid view, add filters above the table, etc.
    4. The final step of the table builder will provide a shortcode for inserting it. Ignore this if you're using the Gutenberg block editor.
  4. Next, create a new page where you want to display products in a WooCommerce list view.
  5. Either paste the shortcode that you copied above, or insert a 'Product Table' Gutenberg block and select your table.
  6. Finally, publish and view the page.

You’ll see your products beautifully displayed in a WooCommerce product list view with the options you selected on the plugin settings page. Read through the full list of product table options and tweak them until you’re completely happy.

Can I import products to the list view?

As you can see, it’s pretty easy to list your existing WooCommerce products in a grid/list view. The neat thing is that WooCommerce Product Table takes the products already in the WordPress database and instantly lists them in a table layout. No extra data entry required.

This means that if you haven’t already added your products, you can import them using the built-in WordPress/WooCommerce importer or any CSV import plugin. This is a handy way to bulk import products to your site.

Let customers toggle between the grid/list view

So far, we've looked at how to replace the standard grid layout with a product list view.

If you'd rather let customers toggle between the product grid/list view, then that's fine. Simply follow the instructions in this knowledge base article to add these links to your shop and category pages.

Add quick view to the grid/list of WooCommerce products

WooCommerce Quick View Plugin Build Your Own Product

Sometimes, you'll find that you want to show extra information about each product but don't want to take shoppers away from the grid/list view. You might also have too many variations to list directly in the grid of products. This is a valid concern, because customers will buy more from you if they remain on the list of products and don't get lost on individual product pages.

WooCommerce Product Table Quick View Magnifying GlassThe solution is to use WooCommerce Product Table with WooCommerce Quick View Pro. This adds user-friendly 'quick view' buttons to the list of products, or to the default product grid. Customers can click on these to view extra product images, more information and even choose variations and add to the cart from a quick view lightbox.

It's the perfect compromise because you can show information that wouldn't fit in the product table; without taking customers to a separate page.

Where to get the plugin

A WooCommerce grid/list view plugin like WooCommerce Product Table isn’t for everyone. Consider the type of products in your store, and whether displaying them in this layout will improve customer experience.

For less visual products, listing items in a compact table layout with extra information can make a huge difference to sales. Get the plugin, follow the instructions to set it up, and improve your store layouts today.

WooCommerce order form plugin demo

If you want your WooCommerce store to succeed, it’s important to make the buying process as simple as possible. The easier it is for visitors to make a purchase, the quicker they’ll open their wallets. This means you need to find a way to streamline their experience.

One of the best solutions is to add a quick WooCommerce quick order form. Instead of visiting individual product pages, customers will be able to select the products they want and add them to their WooCommerce cart from one convenient location. What’s more, you can have customization options for your order form to make it as user-friendly as possible.

In this step-by-step tutorial, we’ll explain why you might need a WooCommerce quick order form, and talk about choosing the right tool for the job. Then we’ll show you how to create a WooCommerce quick order form using the WooCommerce Product Table plugin. Let’s take a look!

What is a WooCommerce Quick Order Form (and might you need one)?

Most WooCommerce stores provide dedicated lists or galleries where customers can see many items at once. They also display each product on its own page. This enables visitors to easily compare products, and find out more information about each one. In general, however, people are only able to purchase items one at a time. At most, they might be able to add products to the cart individually from the shop pages and category pages, but there's no way to choose quantities or specific variations.

This can be inconvenient for customers who want to buy multiple items at once. Fortunately, you can make their lives easier by creating a quick WooCommerce order form. This is simply a table listing out some or all of your products. Visitors can select all the products they want from the WooCommerce quick order form, and add them to the cart:

WooCommerce quick order form plugin

The Benefits of Adding a Quick WooCommerce Order Form

Aside from making the order process quicker and more streamlined, adding a quick WooCommerce order form provides a number of other benefits. For example:

  • Customers will be able to see lots of products at a glance.
  • It becomes very easy for people to compare similar products.
  • You’ll be using space more efficiently.

As with any feature, certain types of sites will benefit from implementing a WooCommerce quick order form more than others. This includes stores with lots of similar products, as well as those selling ‘simple’ products that can be understood at a glance (such as clothing and decorative items). A WooCommerce quick order the one-page shop will be handy if your customer base browses your store from mobile devices.

If you do decide to try out a quick order form on your WooCommerce site, you’ll find that the process is quite simple. All you need is the right WooCommerce quick order plugin!

How to choose a WooCommerce quick order form plugin

Since this is a very specific feature, you’ll need exactly the right WordPress order form plugin to implement it. Along with the basic criteria you should use when choosing any WooCommerce quick order plugin, you’ll want to look for a tool that:

  • Is customizable, so you can create a WooCommerce quick order form suited to your exact needs.
  • Offers filtering and sorting features, so customers can find what they want quickly.
  • Includes support for custom fields and taxonomies, so you can organize products however you’d like.
  • Lets customers select variations and quantities right from the order form, without needing to visit the actual product pages.
  • Is fully responsive on mobile devices.

Fortunately, our WooCommerce Product Table plugin includes all of these features and more:

This tool enables you to quickly build a product list or order form that is highly customizable. Plus, it’s designed to be used alongside WooCommerce, so customers will be able to order products right through the form.

With WooCommerce Product Table, you can easily build a one-stop shop, or create order form to be used alongside more traditional store pages. Let’s talk about how to get started now.

How to create a WooCommerce quick order form (in 3 steps)

The first thing you’ll want to do is purchase and install the WooCommerce Product Table plugin.

If you haven’t already installed and activated WooCommerce, you’ll need to do that as well. You’ll also want to ensure that you’ve created all the products you want to include in your quick order form. Then, you’re ready to begin!

Step 1: Create a quick WooCommerce order form

  1. Go to Products → Product Tables → Add New.
  2. Go through the steps to set up the order form. This includes:
    • Selecting which products to include in the order form.
      Select products page of table builder
    • Adding your order form columns. (Tip: Remember to include a 'Buy' column to allow customers to add to the cart from the order form.)
      WPT table builder columns
    • Customizing the add to cart buttons. (Tip: Enable the add to cart checkboxes for quicker ordering.)
      Add to cart page of WooCommerce product table builder
    • On the 'Add to cart' page, I also recommend selecting to show variations as dropdown lists. This will allow customers to choose variations from the quick WooCommerce order form, like the Hoodie in this screenshot:
      A WooCommerce quick order form with drop-down menus.
    • Adding filters to help customers to find products more quickly.
      WooCommerce music store filter by genre
  3. The final page of the table builder provides a shortcode for adding the quick order form to a page. Copy this (unless you're using the Gutenberg block editor, in which case you don't need to.)

Step 2: Add the quick WooCommerce order form to a page

  1. Create a page (Pages → Add New).
  2. Either insert the shortcode that you copied a minute ago, or insert the 'Product Table' Gutenberg block and select your table.

This will add the WooCommerce quick order form to the page like this:

A WooCommerce quick order form with images.

Customers will be able to add products to their carts and use the Ajax search form to find specific products.

Step 3: Add product quick view to the rapid order form (optional)

By creating a quick WooCommerce order form, customers can quickly click multiple products and add them all to the cart at once. This is ideal for selling simple products, or products with a small number of variations. But what if you have a large number of variations per product?

Obviously, you don't want to send customers to a separate page to buy each product. That defeats the purpose of a quick order form!

WooCommerce Product Table Quick View Magnifying Glass
Add quick view buttons or links to your WooCommerce quick order form.

The solution is to add quick view buttons to your WooCommerce order form. You can do this with the WooCommerce Quick View Pro plugin, which is designed to work with WooCommerce Product Table.

Install the plugin and use the settings page to choose what information to display in the quick view lightbox. Next, add a quick-view column to your list of product table columns.

This will add quick view buttons to the table (which you can rename to anything you like on the Quick View plugin settings page). Customers can click these buttons to view extra product information, product image gallery, and/or purchase options in a lightbox popup.

After adding the product to the cart, the lightbox closes and the customer remains at the same point on the quick order form, where they can continue adding more and more products to their cart.

Step 4: Optimize the checkout process (optional)

Before we wrap up, there’s one more element to consider. Along with optimizing your quick order form WooCommerce so that it’s user-friendly, you’ll want to do everything you can to speed up the ordering process. The more convenient it is to buy products, after all, the more likely customers will be to complete their purchases.

This step involves using a few additional tools. Here are the two most important features you’ll want to consider implementing:

  • Redirect users to the cart page after selecting one or more products. This encourages customers to buy right away and can be done easily using a WooCommerce setting and the free Redirection plugin.
  • Add more payment gateways to your e-commerce store. The more payment options you provide, the larger your potential customer base will be. WooCommerce itself offers a variety of ways to add new payment gateways.

At this point, take a moment to sit back and admire your handiwork. You have a fully-functioning quick order form WooCommerce that’s informative and easy to use – and the process of purchasing products through it couldn’t be simpler!

Where to get the plugin

It’s important to design your WooCommerce store to provide the best user experience possible for your customers. This means making it simple for them to see what products you offer, select the ones they want, and get right to the checkout screen. To do this, you can create a WooCommerce quick order form – either as a one-stop WooCommerce shop or to supplement your existing product pages. By using the Woo quick order table view, your customers will be able to select and buy the items they are after fast and without fuss.

Fortunately, the WooCommerce Product Table plugin makes this task incredibly easy. You’ll just need to:

  1. Create order form page.
  2. Customize your order form.
  3. Optimize the checkout process.

Do you have any questions about how to set up your WooCommerce quick order plugin? Ask us anything in the comments section below!

If you're looking for a way to increase sales on your WordPress e-commerce website, it's time to consider a bulk add to cart WooCommerce plugin.

Customers can buy more quickly by adding multiple products to the cart at once. They simply tick a checkbox next to each product and click a button to add them all to the cart:

It's the perfect way to increase your WooCommerce store's conversions.

Today, I'm going to tell you how to use our popular WooCommerce Product Table plugin to add bulk add to cart buttons in WooCommerce.

Let's get started!

What is the bulk add to cart WooCommerce plugin?

WooCommerce Product Table is our bestselling WordPress plugin and works perfectly as a bulk add to cart plugin.

It lists products in a customizable table layout, with a tick box next to each item. There will be an 'Add Selected to Cart' button above and/or below your product tables.

You can create a single product table listing all your products with bulk add to cart checkboxes. Or you can create tables listing specific products only (e.g. by category). There are options to add tables anywhere on your site, or to replace the default layouts on the main Woo shop and category pages.

You can configure pretty much any aspect of your product tables. For example, you can choose which columns of product data display in the table. You can choose whether or not to show quantity selectors and product variations in the table. It's even possible to control how the table and quick add to cart buttons behave responsively on mobiles and tablets.

Here are just a few of the benefits of using bulk add to cart buttons:

  • Help site users find and add products to cart faster
  • Make it easier to add products to cart in bulk
  • Potentially increase conversion rate
  • Simplify and streamline the buying process

How to add bulk add to cart buttons in WooCommerce

  1. First, get WooCommerce Product Table and install it on your WP website. I'm assuming that you've already got a website with WooCommerce setup and some products.
  2. Go to Products → Product Tables.
  3. Next, paste your license key from the confirmation email, and set up your table as required.
  4. On the 'Add to Cart button' page, choose the 'Checkbox only' style to display a bulk add to cart checkbox next to each product. Choose 'Button and checkbox' if you want a add to cart button AND bulk tick boxes.
    Add to cart page of WooCommerce product table builder
  5. Now it's time to display the table on your site. There are 3 ways to do this:
    1. The table builder lets you select one or more shop templates to display the table. For example, you can enable tables on shop and category pages.
    2. Add a 'Product Table' Gutenberg block to a page and select the name of your table.
    3. Add the shortcode [product_table id="1"] to the page. Replace "1" with the actual ID of your table on
    4. Products → Product Tables.
  6. Finally, view the page and you'll see your tables with WC bulk add to cart checkboxes next to each product.

Get the most out of quick add to cart options

WooCommerce quick add to cart plugin with variations

The whole point of a bulk add to cart Woo plugin is to make it quicker for people to buy from you. With that in mind, I'll give you some tips on how to encourage customers to add bulk products to the cart. Use these to get more sales by encouraging each customer to buy more products.

Are customers likely to add products to the cart in bulk?

First, you need to decide whether the products you sell will benefit from quick buy options such as a bulk add to cart WooCommerce plugin. Multi-select checkboxes are a major asset to many WooCommerce stores (including wholesale WooCommerce stores). However, they're not for everyone.

Customers are more likely to add products to the cart in bulk when you're selling relatively small, low-cost items; or products that are designed to be used together.

Examples of products that benefit from quick add to cart checkboxes

Low cost products

Low cost products sell better with a bulk add to cart WooCommerce plugin. This applies to any store where each product isn't a major buying decision with low value products. For example, stationery, cosmetics and make-up, food and drink, gifts and toys.

Subtle improvements like quick buy checkboxes can convince them to buy more. Further encourage this with postage discounts for bulk items, or quantity-based bulk discounts.

Make sure your customers know they can save money, and use a bulk add to cart WooCommerce plugin to make it quick and easy.

Build a box

Build Your Own Product Website WooCommerce

WooCommerce Product Table is popular for selling build-your-own products such as gift hampers or wine boxes.

The box contents are listed in a table. Customers use the quick add to cart buttons to bulk select the box contents. Once they've ticked the required items, they add all selected products to the cart at once.

Restaurant order form
A WooCommerce bulk order form for a restaurant.

Many restaurants use WooCommerce Product Table as an online restaurant food ordering system.

They add their restaurant menu to a single page, with a separate product table for each section (e.g. starters, mains, sides). Each product table has bulk add to cart buttons with an 'Add Selected to Cart' button.

Customers tick all the food options from one table, add them to the cart in a single click, and then choose items from the next table. This is much quicker than clicking individual add to cart buttons for every product.

Related products and sets

If you're selling products designed to be used together, then WooCommerce bulk add to cart buttons will make the process more user-friendly. Perhaps you're selling kitchen units where customers choose their own combination from a set of items such as worktops, cabinets and doors.

Customers need to plan their entire purchase before adding to the cart. When they're ready to order, WooCommerce bulk buy checkboxes make it much quicker to buy.

Case study - using a WooCommerce add to cart plugin to sell items in bulk

Darren Bowen Photography sells a range of products printed with Darren’s unique artwork. To help customers quickly buy products there are two bulk ordering pages powered by WooCommerce Product Table. One for mugs and the other for iPad smart covers.

To buy in bulk, you simply select the quantities and use the “add to cart” function or check the “buy it” box. Once you’ve put everything you need in the cart, you can check your order before making your payment. And to keep things simple, there's an easy to use one-click checkout system.

Keep reading to learn how to add similar WooCommerce bulk order forms to your own site.

Which WooCommerce products don't need bulk add to cart buttons?

As you can see, many types of product will sell best with a plugin that provides quick buy options. However, a bulk add to cart WooCommerce plugin isn't going to help you with major purchases such as selling furniture online. If each purchase is a major decision for the customer, then adding quick check boxes won't really encourage them to buy more.

Think about whether the types of product in your store lend themselves to a quick bulk add to cart format.

Show important buying information in the table

There's no point having a WooCommerce bulk add to cart plugin if customers still need to visit the single product page before they buy. The whole purpose of the quick add to cart checkboxes is to allow customers to add products in bulk directly form the main shop or product listings page.

This means that your WooCommerce product tables need to contain all the information that is needed to make purchasing decisions. You can do this by choosing which columns appear in the product table.

Joseph uses the WooCommerce Product Table plugin to include a quantity field in his product table:

Exactly What I Have Been Looking For
This plugin is absolutely fantastic. I have been looking for a plugin just like this for a while now. I so glad I discovered this one. I wanted a quick, nice way to have my many products listed in a table with a quantity field and an add to cart button. This plugin was the answer. I love the way you can customize the table to include only the columns you want and how you can order the table by a specific column. I would totally recommend this plugin.

The WooCommerce Product Table plugin supports all the standard product data that WooCommerce stores. Read the full list of available columns and choose your columns wisely. Add the product data that will actively encourage customers to buy without clicking elsewhere. You can even add extra data such as custom fields and taxonomies. These are ideal for adding any further information or downloadable documents that will help customers to reach a quick buying decision.

Add a quantity picker and variations

Customers will only use the plugin's bulk add to cart checkboxes if they can select product options directly from the product table view. This means that you need to make these options available alongside the quick add to cart buttons. This includes:

  • Activate the quantity selector on the WooCommerce Product Table plugin settings page. This lets customers choose a quantity before selecting the product and adding it to the cart.
  • Use one of the options to show variable products in the product table. You can show product variations as dropdown lists next to the bulk add to cart boxes. Alternatively, each variation can have its own row in the product table with a separate add to cart checkbox for each one.
  • If you're using the WooCommerce Product Options plugin with WooCommerce Product Table, then extra product options will appear next to the bulk add to cart check boxes. These two plugins work perfectly together, so this is a good way to add extra product options if variable products aren't right for you. For example, you can add extra options as checkboxes and radio buttons, or even add text fields where customers can add a personal message for each product. All this works directly on the product listing page, so customers can choose their options and add products to the cart in bulk.

Help customers find products faster

Built-in options

Bulk add to cart buttons are just one way to speed up the buying process in WooCommerce. It works because products become more visible, faster. The WooCommerce Product Table plugin comes with plenty of features to help customers find products more easily. All these improvements work together to truly improve your sales and increase conversions.

For example, add filter dropdowns or filter widgets to let customers quickly refine the list of products. They can choose their filters, view a list of products they're interested in, tick the boxes and add products to the cart in bulk. Keyword search above the product table offers another way to do this.

Performance and page load time is also important. If you have lots of products, you can use the lazy load option to load fewer products at a time. Lazy load lets you list hundreds or even thousands of products in a table. It minimizes load time and avoids potential speed and performance issues.

Advanced filtering plugin

WooCommerce Product Filters Table Integration

For stores that need bulk add to cart options with more advanced filtering, you can use WooCommerce Product Table with its sister plugin - WooCommerce Product Filters. This adds even more sophisticated filters to your bulk order forms, as you can see in the screenshot above.

WooCommerce Quantity Manager Plugin

The Product Table plugin makes it easy for customers to add bulk quantities and add several products to the cart at once. However, customers can still buy small quantities if they want.

If you only want to receive bulk orders, then you need to use WooCommerce Product Table with a minimum quantity plugin. It is designed to work alongside the Quantity Manager plugin, which lets you set different types of WooCommerce minimum quantity rules.

For example, you can set a minimum order quantity or value to prevent customers from placing small orders. Alternatively, you can set minimum quantities for the whole order or per category, product or variation.

Either way, WooCommerce Quantity Manager helps you to guarantee your profit margins by stopping customers from placing non-bulk orders.

WooCommerce Quick View Plugin with Product Table

Bulk add to cart plugins are all about helping customers to buy as quickly as possible. So what happens if you have too much information, or too many product options, to fit in the product table? Obviously, you don't want customers to have to visit the single product page. After all, this would slow down the buying process and defeat the purpose.

Instead, you can enhance your product tables with the WooCommerce Quick View Pro plugin. This handy plugin works hand-in-hand with WooCommerce Product Table and your bulk add to cart buttons. It adds quick view buttons or links to the product tables. Customers can view more product information and purchase options in a quick view lightbox. They can then either select variations and add to the cart directly in the popup, or they can quickly close it and use the bulk add to cart buttons in the product table.

Adding products to the cart in bulk lets customers order more quickly and easily. However, they can still lose time completing the standard multi-page WooCommerce cart and checkout.

To optimize the second half of the customer purchase process, I recommend installing WooCommerce Fast Cart. This plugin displays the WooCommerce cart and checkout in a popup after customers add products to the cart in bulk. They can complete their order from directly within the popup. This is so much faster than having to visit several pages after adding products to the cart.

WooCommerce one page checkout popup
Install WooCommerce Fast Cart for an on-page cart and checkout.

Now you can create your own WooCommerce bulk add to cart buttons!

Now you know everything about how to use a bulk add to cart WooCommerce plugin. It's the easy way for customers to add more than one products to the cart at once. As you have seen, it will really speed up the buying process on your store.

Research shows that faster customers can use an e-commerce shop, the higher your conversion rate and sales will be. Test the add to cart checkboxes on our WooCommerce quick order form demo. Get the plugin today and add bulk add to cart buttons to your WooCommerce store straight away!

Whether you're looking for a WooCommerce catalog mode plugin that displays products without purchase options, or lists them in a catalog-style format, we've got you covered. In this complete guide, I'll show you how to create both types of WooCommerce product catalog.

WooCommerce Product Catalog PluginThe phrase "WooCommerce catalog mode" can be a bit confusing. That's because people use it to refer to different things:

  • Catalog mode definition 1: Showing products in an online store without ecommerce functionality - either globally or so that certain user groups can view but not purchase.
  • Catalog mode definition 2: Displaying products in a structured table-based layout which replicates traditional printed product catalogs.

Whichever type of WooCommerce product catalog you want to create, I'll show you how to do it.

We'll use the YITH WooCommerce Catalog Mode plugin to achieve definition 1; and WooCommerce Product Table for definition 2. You can either use them alone, or together if you want to list products in a structured table with purchasing disabled. Either way, you can easily put your store in catalog mode without writing any custom PHP or CSS.

WooCommerce Product Table Demo
A structured WooCommerce product catalog created with the Product Table plugin

Option 1: Put WooCommerce in catalog mode with purchasing disabled

This definition of catalog mode involves creating a WooCommerce store in which products are available for everyone to view, but not everyone can purchase them. You might disable purchasing for all users, or guest users without an account.

For example, many WooCommerce wholesale-only stores like public users to be able to browse their full product catalog, but only approved wholesalers can purchase. Alternatively, you might want to disable online ordering if customers can only buy from you in person or over the phone.

Next, I'll tell you about a choice of 2 excellent plugins which you can use to put WooCommerce into catalog-only mode.

WooCommerce Wholesale Pro

If you're running a wholesale store, then WooCommerce Wholesale Pro has everything you need. It has a 'Hide Price Until Login' feature which puts the store into catalog mode for all logged out users. When they log into their account, the prices become visible and people can purchase the products.

This is how to set it up:

  1. Purchase and install WooCommerce Wholesale Pro on your WordPress site.
  2. Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Wholesale.
  3. Enable the 'Hide prices until login' checkbox.
WooCommerce hide price until login

When wholesale users log into their account, they will see the products with prices and add to cart buttons as usual. Everyone else will see the products listed without prices or buy buttons. You can optionally display a notice which non-wholesale users will see, like this:

WooCommerce hide price until login alternate content

YITH WooCommerce Catalog Mode

For non-wholesale stores, the YITH WooCommerce Catalog Mode plugin offers an excellent way to put stores in catalog mode.

It disables the ability for some or all of your customers to order from your WooCommerce store. The products are listed in catalog-only format, without the usual ecommerce functions.

The free plugin is perfect for testing out the waters. The premium version has lots of extra features. For example, it lets you enable catalog mode for users without an account only:

WooCommerce Catalog Mode Plugin

This is how to set up the premium version:

  1. Purchase and install YITH WooCommerce Catalog Mode.
  2. Head over to YITHCatalog Mode in the WordPress admin dashboard.
  3. From the Settings tab, configure the following plugin settings:
    • Make sure the checkbox next to Enable YITH WooCommerce Catalog Mode is ticked.
    • Tick the checkbox next to the Hide in product detail page option.
    • Tick the checkbox next to the Hide in other shop pages option.
    • Optionally, you can choose to tick the checkbox next to the Hide and disable “Cart” page, “Checkout” page and all “Add to Cart” buttons.  This essentially lets you remove e-commerce features (i.e. cart and checkout pages) from your WooCommerce store.
YITH WooCommerce Catalog Mode plugin settings

Customers can see your WooCommerce products listed in catalog mode, without an option to buy. Once they click on a product, they will be redirected to the single product page. Alternatively, you can choose to redirect them to a custom URL.

Single product page in catalog mode without e-commerce features

The YITH catalog mode plugin removes add to cart buttons and prices from single product pages. This means customers won’t be able to add products to cart from the product table or from the single product page. However, they can view all product details from individual product pages. Of course, it also disables the cart and checkout pages.

Option 2: Create an interactive catalog with WooCommerce Product Table

Now, we get to the second definition of "WooCommerce catalog mode". This refers to displaying your products in a structured catalog layout, similar to a printed product catalog. We'll do this using the WooCommerce Product Table plugin.

WooCommerce Product Table is incredibly flexible. You can choose what product data to display, change the sort order, and much more. You can list products in a fully functional catalog-style order form like this:

WooCommerce Product Table on shop page

Alternatively, you can list products without prices, add to cart buttons or links to the single product page like this:

Either way, this type of WooCommerce catalog plugin is ideal for creating a 1-page view listing some or all of your products. It makes it easy for customers to sort products and find what they're looking for.

A catalog layout displays products in a neater and more compact way to the default Woo store layout. This makes it possible to display more products per page, so customers can view them all together. It's perfect if you need a larger WC product catalog table, for example if 100's or 1,000's of products.

This type of product catalog layout has many possible uses, such as:

1. Setting up a product catalog table

Next, I'll show you how to list products in a table-based catalog. This is all about the layout, and doesn't affect whether or not people can purchase your products. (However, you can do this by choosing not to include an add to cart column in the table and by disabling the links to the product page.)

Watch this video about how to add a catalog-style table to your site, or read the instructions below:

  1. Purchase and install WooCommerce Product Table.
  2. Go to Products → Product Tables → Add New to launch the table builder.
  3. On the first page, choose whether you want to enable the product catalog view for your main shop pages, or add the catalog manually to another page.
    Create page of table builder
  4. You can then use page 2 to either select which shop pages to display the catalog on; or to select which products to include in the catalog.

2. Customizing the catalog display

The next step of the product table builder lets you choose which product data to include in the catalog. Add columns as needed:

WPT table builder columns

If you want your products to be purchasable from the catalog page, then include an Add to Cart column.

You can also edit each column name. Disable the 'Show column heading' toggle to prevent people from clicking through to single product pages. This is a good idea if you're using WooCommerce Product Table as a read-only catalog, as single product pages contain 'Buy' buttons. (Tip: If you want to use catalog-only mode and single product pages, then use WooCommerce Product Table together with YITH WooCommerce Catalog Mode. This disables the add to cart buttons from the single product page, too.)

3. Adding search and filter

The 'Search & sort' step of the table builder lets you add filters which appear above the WooCommerce product catalog. Add filters if you'll be displaying lots of products on the same page of the catalog:

WooCommerce Product Table builder filter dropdowns

Tip: The product catalog plugin also supports all the WooCommerce filter widgets. These include a widget to show the active filters, a layered nav filter listing product attributes, a price slider and ratings filter:

WooCommerce catalogue plugin

4. Add the WooCommerce product catalog to a page

Ignore this step if you already enabled the product catalog on your main shop pages.

Now, go to the page where you want to display the WooCommerce product catalog. Add a 'Product Table' block. Or, if you're not using the WordPress block editor, then get a shortcode from Products → Product Tables and insert that instead.

Publish the page and click View Page to see your WooCommerce catalog table. You'll see a dynamic catalog listing all your WooCommerce products.

Example without online purchasing:

WooCommerce product catalogue WordPress plugin

Example with online purchasing:

A WooCommerce product table with drop-down variations.

Advanced catalog features

Role-based pricing

Lots of stores that use catalog mode like to charge different prices to different types of user. Wholesale stores can use the WooCommerce Wholesale Pro plugin for this, which we discussed earlier. Alternatively, other types of store might prefer the WooCommerce Discount Manager plugin. This provides a wide range of discounts and deals which you can create for specific user roles only.

WooCommerce role-based pricing product page content

Adding inquiry forms or "Request a Quote" buttons

WooCommerce Product Table Add to Quote Buttons

Other stores that use catalog mode need a way for customers to request a quote. That way, they can disable purchasing while allowing customers to request pricing and then order later.

To learn how to do this, read our tutorial about WooCommerce request a quote plugins.

Create a WooCommerce PDF catalog

Before we finish, I should mention that there's actually a third definition of WooCommerce catalog mode. It involves creating a WooCommerce PDF catalog, which lists downloadable PDF documents on the product page.

This is a different type of product catalog because it involves listing PDF's in a catalog, instead of listing actual products. You can easily do this by installing the Document Library Pro plugin. Upload your PDF's, categorize or tag them based on which products you'll display them on, and then insert the appropriate WooCommerce PDF catalog into the product description.

To make the best use of space on the product page, it's best to add the PDF library to a dedicated 'Downloads' tab on the product page. You can do this with the WooCommerce Product Tabs plugin, just like we did in this screenshot:

WooCommerce downloadable product specification documents

Next steps: Get started with WooCommerce catalog mode

In this tutorial, I have shown you 2 ways to create a WooCommerce product catalog:

Whichever type of catalog mode you're adding to WooCommerce, follow the above instructions to get up and running in no time 🚀

In this article, you'll learn how to use the best WordPress plugins to build a WooCommerce wholesale order form. It's easy to set up, and you can put your B2B wholesale order forms within a private area for approved wholesale buyers.

If you run a WooCommerce wholesale or role-based store, your customers need to see the correct products and prices for their wholesale status or group. Wholesale customers also benefit from a tabular view of all the products available to them.

You can get this by using our wholesale suite of plugins - WooCommerce Wholesale Pro which adds wholesale registration and pricing control to your store (without affecting your public-facing shop); and WooCommerce Product Table for adding quick wholesale order forms.

The best wholesale order form plugin

WooCommerce wholesale order form plugin

WooCommerce Product Table takes your wholesale products displays them in a table. When used alongside WooCommerce Wholesale Pro, it's the perfect format for a WooCommerce wholesale ordering form plugin.

You can choose which columns are displayed in the order form. You can even add filters based on categories, tags, variations etc. There are over 50 options for you to experiment with.

What’s great is that customers can select multiple products from the WooCommerce wholesale order form and click "Add Selected to cart". This is a handy feature for wholesale buyers, most of whom will be making a bulk purchase and want to buy quickly.

How to set up an order form with WooCommerce Wholesale Pro

You can create a wholesale order form for WooCommerce in just a few minutes. Either watch this video tutorial, or follow the written instructions below.

Step 1: Install and activate both wholesale plugins

This tutorial requires two plugins; WooCommerce Wholesale Pro and WooCommerce Product Table which can be bought together as a bundle for a reduced price.

  1. Download the plugin zip files and take note of your license key for activation.
  2. On your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins - Add New Plugin.
  3. Use the Upload Plugin option and add a zip file, install and activate each plugin by repeating this step.
  4. In the setup wizard for each plugin you can enter your license key to complete the activation.

Step 2: Set up your wholesale store

First, go to WooCommerce → Settings → Wholesale and set up your wholesale store as needed. Read this guide for or a more extensive tutorial about wholesale store setup. Here's a quick preview of what the plugin can do:

  • Set a global wholesale discount.
  • Edit the wholesale login page.
  • Change the privacy settings of wholesale categories.
  • Set up wholesale user roles, set discounts and choose their tax settings.
  • Edit customer emails.
  • And much more!
WooCommerce wholesale user role 20 discount

Step 3: Create a product table for your quick order form

Next, go to Products → Product Tables → Add New. Use the table builder to set up the table which will appear on your wholesale store pages.

  1. At the start of the table builder, select the option to "Display on a shop page".
    select the second option to "Display table on a shop page"
    Then in the following step select "Wholesale store" from the listed options.
    Select the "wholesale store" option.
  2. Choose which products will be included in the quick order form.
  3. Set up the columns for your table, consider what information is most vital to your customers and leave out redundant information if possible. For a wholesale store it's often helpful to include the SKU and additional pricing information such as the "Total" column.
    Choose which columns will be included in your table.
  4. Use your preferred "Add to Cart" method, there's a choice of buttons or checkboxes, or both can be enabled at the same time. Enabling quantity pickers, and using dropdown lists for variations are also recommended.
    Choose the add to cart method for your table.
  5. Search and filter settings are also very useful to set up. Include category and tag filters at a minimum.
    Add filters to your product table
  6. For stores with thousands of listed products "Lazy Load" can be enabled to help improve performance.

After saving these settings you can visit your wholesale shop page to test out the table. If you need to change anything you can return to Products → Product Tables then find and edit the table you already created.

Now, when a wholesale user logs into their account, they will see the products listed in the WooCommerce wholesale order form:

WooCommerce quick order form plugin

Normal retail customers will continue to see the default store layouts. (Tip: If you want to use the order form layout for public customers too, then you can enable it throughout your store on the WooCommerce Product Table plugin settings page.)

You may want add even more functionality to your wholesale shop such as bulk ordering, which is why we created this list of 8 WooCommerce B2B plugins with bulk order features.

Bonus tip - Add quick view to your WooCommerce wholesale order form

You can make a wholesale order form even more user-friendly by adding quick view options:

  1. Get WooCommerce Quick View Pro and install and activate it on your WordPress site.
  2. Add your license key to the plugin settings page at WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Quick view. 
  3. Use the settings on this page to control the content of your wholesale quick view lightboxes.
  4. Now go to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Quick view and change the following options:
    • If you wish to add a quick view column to the table, add quick-view to the list of columns.
    • If you want people to be able to open the lightbox by clicking on a product name, click the 'Replace all links to product page with quick view' option near the bottom of the page.
    • If you want the image column to open the quick view too, then you will need to disable the image lightbox option further up the page.

Add wholesale order forms to WooCommerce today!

As you can see, it's really easy to use our suite of wholesale plugins to add a private B2B area with wholesale order forms. You can use them to make your whole store private, or run them as a hidden area alongside your public retail shop.

  • Quick to set up and easy to use
  • Flexible customization options
  • Full documentation and support (absolutely no way to get it wrong!)
  • Written and video tutorials
  • Love it or your money back!

Let us know in the comments how you use the WooCommerce wholesale ordering plugins in this tutorial. I'd love to hear from you.

Best WooCommerce order form plugin

Have you ever noticed how long it takes to add products to the cart in WooCommerce? Customers have to visit a separate page for each product so that they can select quantities, choose variations etc. You can speed up the customer journey by adding a quick WooCommerce bulk order form to your website. To do it, simply install a WooCommerce order form plugin.

Order forms allow customers to view and compare a longer list of products than the traditional WooCommerce layout. For lots of stores, an order form fits aligns better with how customers browse and buy products. They can see everything on one page, compare products and make quick buying decisions. This encourages more sales by enabling customers to shop quickly and efficiently.

WooCommerce Product Table order form

WooCommerce Product Table is the perfect way to create a quick order form. In fact, people keep telling me it's the best WooCommerce order form plugin around! We've built a quick order form demo so you can see how it works – go ahead and have a play.

Of course, an order form layout isn't for everyone. In this post we'll help you choose between using a WooCommerce order form plugin and the standard WooCommerce shop layout, so you can rest assured you're creating the ideal product layout for your store. Once you've learned all about WC order forms, I'll provide step-by-step instructions plus a video tutorial on exactly how to set it up.

What is a WooCommerce order form?

By default, WooCommerce displays e-commerce products in a standard format, with each product occupying a relatively large amount of space.

This typical store layout has a grid format with 3 or 4 products per row. Each will have a large featured image, a title, a short description, a price, and an Add to Cart button. Customers click through to a single product page to read more information before adding the item to their shopping cart:

Default WooCommerce layout example

A WooCommerce order form is an alternative way to list products. Presented in a structured table format, each product takes up a single row in the table, and product images are much smaller. The layout is far more compact and often includes extra features, such as sort options and filters. The screenshot below shows what you can create:

WooCommerce quick order form plugin

An order form plugin lets you list many more products on a single page than you could in the default WooCommerce store layout. And, instead of clicking through to the single product page, customers can select variations, specify a quantity and add their chosen items to the cart – all directly from the order form.

Boosting sales with an alternative layout

Both the traditional category layout and order form view use the Woo cart and checkout. Once a customer has chosen their products, the process for placing an order is identical.

The real difference is how the products are presented in the first place. This is a key part of the buying process: it's the point when customers are exploring your products and making buying decisions. The layout has a big impact on your sales and conversion rates, so it's vital to choose the right layout for your products.

Comparing the two layout options for listing WooCommerce products, you can see how a WooCommerce order form plugin (or WooCommerce bulk order form plugin) makes much better use of space than a traditional store layout:WooCommerce order form layout

Using the product table, you'll fit twice as many products into the same amount of space. Because of the compact layout, it's also possible to fit in plenty of extra features, including filter dropdowns, a search box, sorting, and the ability to select quantities and variations. This is why we often refer to it as a WooCommerce bulk order form – because it's so much easier to order higher quantities.

What sort of websites need a WooCommerce order form plugin?

While the standard WooCommerce shop format is great for some stores, there are many cases when an order form gives customers a better buying experience.

A WooCommerce order form plugin is ideally suited to stores where customers don't want to hang around browsing, but instead want to quickly choose from a list of products. Let customers add multiple products to their carts from a quick one-page order form. 

WooCommerce quick order form

How to create a WooCommerce order form

Watch this video tutorial below to learn how to create a order form in WooCommerce. You can watch me create the exact order form shown on the demo site then create your own on your WooCommerce site! Alternatively, read the quick setup guide or the step-by-step written instructions below the video:

Quick setup guide

  1. Install the WooCommerce Product Table plugin on your WordPress site.
  2. Use the table builder to control how you want the order form to work.
  3. Go to Pages → Add New and add the product table block or shortcode.
  4. Publish the page and view the WooCommerce order form.

Detailed written tutorial

To start, you need a WordPress website with WooCommerce set up and some products added.

Step 1: Install the WooCommerce order form plugin

Get WooCommerce Product Table, download the plugin zip file, and install it via Plugins → Add New.

Step 2: Create your first order form

The table builder helps you to create your first WooCommerce order form step by step. You can either create 1 order form listing all your products, or multiple order forms listing different products. Alternatively, you can enable the order form layout on your main shop pages instead of creating them one-by-one.

The table builder will open when you first activate the plugin. You can also open it later on via Products → Product Tables.

2a. Decide how to add the order form

Page 1 of the table builder lets you choose which method you'll use to display the WooCommerce order form on your site:

  • Add it to a page using a block or shortcode - Do this if you want to create order forms which don't affect your main shop pages.
  • Display on a shop page - Do this if you want to enable the WooCommerce order form layout throughout your store.
Create page of table builder

On the following page, you can then choose exactly which products to display in the WooCommerce order form.

2b. Choose what data to display in the order form

The 'Column' page lets you control which columns appear in the order form. You can display various data about your products including SKU, ID, name, description, short description, date, categories, tags, image, reviews, stock, weight, dimensions, price and buy button. The plugin supports product attributes and custom fields as separate columns in the table, e.g. size or color.

2c. Customize the add to cart column of the order form

WooCommerce order form with variations
The 'Buy' column is one of the most important parts of your WooCommerce order form. Configured correctly, you can use it to subtly encourage customers to spend more.

You can choose whether the 'Buy' column includes product variations and quantity picker, or whether you want customers to click through to the single product page to view the variations. And if you're using the Product Options plugin to add extra product add-ons, then these will appear in the order form too.

You can also choose whether to have normal add to cart buttons, multi-select checkboxes, or both.

Add to cart page of WooCommerce product table builder

Tip: The plugin settings page at Products → Product Tables → Settings also lets you customize the add to cart button wording. For example, you could reword it to 'Buy' to save space in the WooCommerce order form.

Use filters to help customers find your products

The WooCommerce order form can include filter dropdowns above or filter widgets alongside the table. This lets customers filter by category or product categories, tag or attribute. You can either include all possible filters or choose specific ones to appear.

WooCommerce Product Table builder filter dropdowns

Here's an example of the filters that come with the order forms in Product Table:

WooCommerce order form with filters

Or for even more filtering options, you can use it with our advanced filtering plugin - WooCommerce Product Filters. By using both plugins together, your filters can look more like this:

WooCommerce Product Filters Table Integration

Change the sort order of the products in the order form

You can also choose how the products on the order form are sorted by default. Customers can also sort the products by clicking on a column header.

Use lazy load to improve performance in big order forms

The lazy load option speeds up the order form load time for WooCommerce stores with many products. This uses Ajax to load products one page at a time, so if you have thousands of products then this makes a big difference.

Step 3: Create an order form page(s)

(Note: Ignore this step if you selected for the order form to appear on your main shop pages.)

  1. Copy the product table shortcode from the final stage of the table builder.
    Ready - Final screen of table builder
  2. Create a new page which you will use for your order form.
  3. Add any content that you like to the page. For example, you can add text or other content above and below the order form. You can also add subheadings (e.g. one for each category) and insert a different order form after each one.
  4. Go to the part of the page where you wish to add a WooCommerce form. Add the shortcode that you copied above, or insert a 'Product Table' block using the WordPress block editor.
  5. Publish the page and view it.

On your WooCommerce order form page, you'll see all your products listed in a neat table layout.

If you want to create multiple order forms - either on the same page or multiple pages - then that's fine too. Just create multiple tables, each one listing different pages. You can then insert multiple blocks or shortcodes to list them as needed.

WooCommerce Product Table categories screenshot

Step 4: Add bonus features to your order forms

Now we've looked at the essential features for a WooCommerce order form, I'm going to tell you how to supercharge it even further. You can do this by using other plugins to add bonus functionality.

Add an on-page popup cart and checkout

A WooCommerce order form is all about bringing the shopping experience to a single page. For this reason, it makes sense to also bring the cart and checkout experience to the same page!

You can achieve this by adding a cart popup plugin to the order form page. The Fast Cart plugin is designed to work alongside your WooCommerce order form like this:

Product table with fast cart

And also this:

WooCommerce popup checkout page

Either use it as a popup cart, or skip the cart and open the checkout as soon as customers add products to their cart from the order form. That's the quickest way to shop because customers can add products and complete their order from the same page!

Add product quick view
WooCommerce Product Table Quick View Magnifying Glass

Your order form can contain various columns of information about your products. However, you may want to display extra information that won't fit in the order form layout. Or you may want to sell product variations or other options without cluttering up the order form page.

You can solve this dilemma by using WooCommerce Product Table with the WooCommerce Quick View Pro plugin. This adds quick view buttons or links, which open extra product information and purchase options in a user-friendly lightbox window. It's a great way to show extra information without taking customers away from the order form.

Disable the WooCommerce single product page

By default, customers can click on a product title or image in the order form to view a separate page for each product. Most product order forms don't need this feature. You can disable these links if needed so that the only way to view a product is on the order form page - especially if you're using quick view instead.

Add additional fields and custom fields to the order form

WooCommerce Product Table makes it easy to add additional fields to your order form. This is useful if you need to add media such as PDFs with more information about a product, or you just need other meta information.

We have a full tutorial on how to use WooCommerce custom fields here.

Create a printable WooCommerce order form

Since publishing this article, some of our customers have asked about how to create a printable order form. The idea of this is that customers can print the order form on paper and fill it in manually. They can then post it to place the order the old-fashioned way.

In response, we've created a separate tutorial on how to create a printable order form.

What types of product sell best in a quick order form?

Now we've learned how to use the best WooCommerce order form plugin, let's consider when to use one. After all, all products are different and some lend themselves to the order form layout better than others.

Let's take a look at some examples of when an order form layout is the best way to go:

WooCommerce wholesale order form

WooCommerce Wholesale Pro prices 1

Trade customers typically make regular orders of products they're already familiar with. They don't want to spend ages browsing multiple product pages.

A compact wholesale order form lets them quickly select multiple products and instantly add to cart. This is more efficient than a more traditional WooCommerce product layout, which is too visual and spaced out.

For best results, use WooCommerce Product Table together with its sister plugin WooCommerce Wholesale Pro. Which adds other B2B functionality like wholesale registration and pricing. You can choose whether to enable the order form view for all customers, or just b2b users.

Large product directory

A lot of our WooCommerce Product Table plugin users have HUGE e-commerce stores with thousands of products. A WooCommerce directory plugin is a good way to list large numbers of products in a directory structure.

For example, one website uses WooCommerce Product Table to display thousands of ball bearings for sale. Customers can use the filters to find the type of ball bearing they require based on product attributes such as size and color. They can then tick the products they want, add to cart and buy online. This would be a cumbersome process using the traditional WooCommerce shop layout. Not to mention that large pictures of ball bearings aren't necessary! Check out our tutorial on how to create a WooCommerce product catalogue.

Here's a review from a customer who's increased sales by using Product Table to list thousands of products in a quick order form:

Great Plugin!
I needed a simple table to display thousands of products in table form and this plugin did the trick. Plus, it is super simple for the customer to select many items at one time. Before I installed I was lucky to get orders with three items, now I AVERAGE ten products per order. Support is also really good too. I highly recommend this plugin.

WooCommerce bulk order form

Similar to a wholesale order form, a WooCommerce bulk order form is useful for ordering large quantities of products. If a customer is buying products in bulk, they won't want to browse through the standard WC layout. A product table is perfect as a bulk order form because they can quickly order as many products as they like.

'Build your own product' configurator

WooCommerce Product Configurator Plugin

Lots of WooCommerce websites let customers choose multiple items from a list to build a box, create their own pizza, build a luxury hamper, or similar. Customers can select items from a list and add them all to a cart with a single click. An order form is ideal for this 'build a product' format or product configurator.

Case study – using an order form plugin to sell hampers

Barks and Squeaks is an online store selling gifts and treats for fur buddies and their owners. As well as offering individual products, the Barks and Squeaks store sells hampers. To do this, they've created an order form using our WooCommerce Product Table plugin. This enables customers to quickly pack a hamper full of lots of products, without changing pages:

Build your own product example

Which WooCommerce stores don't need a quick order form?

As you can see, a WooCommerce order form plugin is the right choice for lots of stores, but it isn't for everyone.

If you answer 'Yes' to any of the following questions, it's worth considering whether the standard WooCommerce shop format is a better fit:

  • Does your store only have a few products?
  • Do you sell highly visual products that will benefit from big images or multiple images?
  • Do customers need to spend a long time reading detailed information about your products before deciding to buy?

As an example, imagine you own an online boutique clothing store. Think about how your customers would use your store. Big images will definitely play a crucial role in encouraging sales. Your customers will also be happy to take their time browsing items and reading detailed product information. They may then go on to make a considered purchase of one, two, or perhaps a few items.

With a WooCommerce order form, customers can click through to a single page for full product information. You can also increase the size of the product images for a more visual table:

Large image product table

But ultimately, deciding on the right layout to use comes down to which one best suits your particular customers. With smaller purchase quantities and less need for quick purchases, your imaginary boutique clothing store is likely to benefit from the highly visual layout characteristic of the standard WooCommerce shop format.

Create a quick WooCommerce order form today 🚀

How your customers want to shop should dictate your store's product layout. The default WooCommerce shop layout works for customers who are happy to take their time browsing images and reading descriptions. But, when your customers need to buy multiple items quickly, a WooCommerce order form plugin is a much better solution.

We'd love to see your WooCommerce form – share your website in the comments below. We might even link to it from the WooCommerce Product Table showcase!

Create a wholesale website

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 - which we'll cover in this complete step-by-step guide on how to create a WooCommerce wholesale website. Keep reading if:

  • You're looking to start a wholesale business or expand your existing business and tap into the wholesale market.
  • You currently sell wholesale products through manual orders and want to automate this with a wholesale ecommerce store.
  • There's already a wholesale ordering plugin on your website, but it doesn't fully meet your needs.

Create a WooCommerce wholesale website

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

  • Add a WooCommerce wholesale area to your existing online store (without changing anything for retail customers).
  • Create a 100% private wholesale-only online WooCommerce store.
  • Add a wide range of B2B features - including wholesale registration forms, pricing, custom user roles, and choosing which products to show in the WooCommerce wholesale and/or retail areas.
  • Grow your wholesale revenue by adding quick one-page order forms, designed specifically for wholesale.
  • Add a range of bonus features to make the wholesale buying experience even better.

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 selling your wholesale products today!

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:

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.

This guide is also beginner friendly, which is perfect for anyone learning how to start a wholesale business or sell wholesale products for the first time.

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. 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:

WooCommerce wholesale plugin settings

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.

2c. Edit your wholesale registration emails (optional)

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

WooCommerce wholesale emails

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.

2d. 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:

WooCommerce wholesale roles settings page

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.

2e. 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:

WooCommerce wholesale category plugin

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

2f. 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.

WooCommerce Wholesale Registration Login Plugin

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

Solid plugin, great support.
Barn2 are really leading the way in customer service, and quality of product and communication. Their newsletters are one of the very few I am happy to receive, and am always actively interested to read about the new features (or plugins) that they are working on or have released. I point my people in their direction quite regularly.

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.)
WooCommerce product wholesale price
An example of setting product-specific wholesale pricing for a variable product

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

Create a wholesale website with user roles

3a. Add 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.

3b. Add category wholesale pricing

Create a wholesale website with product visibility
  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.

3c. Add exact wholesale product prices

WooCommerce variable product wholesale price
  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

PolBazar24 One-Page WooCommerce Wholesale Website

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 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 ecommerce 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 Wholesale Pro wholesale default layout

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.

A product table wholesale layout provides an easy way for B2B customers to re-order their regular products. Customers see all the information at a glance, select quantities and variations, and can quickly re-order their list from a single page.

I used another plugin suite to set up the wholesale area and it worked great except the Wholesale Order Form wasn't flexible enough for my client's needs. Wholesale Product Table to the rescue. It was much more flexible and customizable and support answered my questions quickly and was great to work with.

Mad Dog Productions

4a. 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.
  3. Launch the product table builder – Products → Product Table → Add New.
  4. On the first page, select the 'Shop pages' option, then on the following page select the 'Wholesale Store' page template to display the product table.
  5. On the remaining pages, choose the default settings for your wholesale order forms. You can customize every detail of your tables, from the styling to the table columns, filters and sort order.
  6. Now when wholesale users access your site, they will see the products displayed in the order form layout. Your normal customers will continue seeing your default store layout, unless you create product tables for those page templates too (e.g. the main shop page).

4b. Getting more sales from your wholesale product tables

A WooCommerce wholesale pricing product table with variations.
Choose what to display in your wholesale order form

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

  • ColumnsThe 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" buttonsBy 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 formsYou 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 documentsLots 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 & filtersUse filters to help wholesale buyers to find products quickly and easily.

4c. 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 plugin or 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:

Exactly what I needed
Building a wholesale store, with a plugin, where only my accepted dealers can obtain access, was exactly what I was looking for - and Barn2Media provided exactly that plugin.... After watching the YouTube videos and communicating with Barn2Media, I had no doubts, that this was the right plugin for me - and it works just perfect....

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'.
Wholesale category discount visibility options

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.

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.

  • WooCommerce wholesale plugin with quick plug-and-play setup.
  • In-depth documentation and video tutorials showing you ever step and every click (absolutely no way to get it wrong!).
  • Technical support is available if you need any help.
  • Zero-risk 30 day money back guarantee. Love it or get a full refund!

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

FAQ

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

2. 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.

WooCommerce Wholesale Product Table screenshot
A dedicated wholesale order form provides a much faster buying experience

3. 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.
WooCommerce Wholesale Plugin
An example of a WordPress WooCommerce wholesale ordering page

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.

4. 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:

  • The entire website will be private. This means that you can't have any public pages. No homepage, no About page, no wholesale registration page. The website will be completely hidden from search engines and you will have no public online presence 🙁
  • Without a plugin, you must charge the same prices to all wholesale users. Plugins are essential to create multiple wholesale pricing tiers.
  • Passwords are easily shared and are less secure than having unique logins for each wholesale buyer.

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

5. 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.

6. 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.

Best WooCommerce restaurant plugins

If you're looking to create a food delivery or takeaway service for your restaurant, WooCommerce for restaurants is a great solution. With a WordPress food delivery plugin, setting up an online ordering system on your website is easy. Keep reading to learn how to create a seamless online ordering experience.

In this tutorial, you'll discover how to create a restaurant ordering system using WooCommerce for restaurants. Restaurants can greatly benefit from having an online food ordering system because:

  • It allows customers to place their orders directly from the restaurant's website, saving them time and effort.
  • Best online ordering for restaurants can also help manage their orders more efficiently and reduce the workload on their staff.

Whether you're a seasoned WooCommerce user or just starting out, I'll show you how to set up a restaurant ordering system step by step. By the end, you will have a fully functional WooCommerce food ordering system. It will allow customers to place their orders, select pickup or delivery options, and make payments securely.

WooCommerce restaurant plugin
And the best part?

Your WooCommerce for restaurants ordering system will be 100% yours. You own your data, and you get to keep 100% of your profits.

Sound good? Let’s get started!

Why a WooCommerce for restaurants plugin is the best (and cheapest) way to take food orders online

Before we dive into the tutorial, let's look at why a WooCommerce food plugin for restaurants is the best option for taking food orders.

Many restaurants use hosted third-party services like Just Eat, Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Grubhub. By listing your restaurant with these platforms, you have access to a huge market of potential online food delivery customers. However, it’s not ideal for everyone.

Here's why:
  • No hidden charges - Hosted platforms take a big cut of the revenue from your online restaurant orders. For example, Just Eat takes 14% at the time of writing. Whilst they have a massive user base, you're competing with other restaurants on the same platform. It's easy for your restaurant to get lost.
  • Huge range of plugins available for site customization - With hosted platforms, you have no control over the functionality of your online restaurant ordering system. In contrast, you can infinitely customize a WooCommerce restaurant ordering system. Do this by installing themes, plugins, or even writing your own custom code.
  • Scalability of WooCommerce - As the world's leading ecommerce system, you can use WooCommerce to run restaurant ordering systems containing hundreds, thousands or even millions of items.
  • SEO capabilities - Since restaurant ordering will take place on your own WooCommerce store, you have full control over its marketing. You can build the authority of your restaurants' domain name over time, creating a valuable assets for your business.
  • Better checkout experience - The WooCommerce checkout is optimized for conversions and you can customize it further using plugins. For example, you can allow customers to choose a delivery or collection time slot, or let customers check out in a popup.
  • Payment flexibility - WooCommerce integrates with every payment gateway you can think of - PayPal, credit card, cash, etc. You're not restricted to the ones provided by a specific platform.
  • You own your data - As with any hosted system, closed platforms have full control over your customer data. With WooCommerce, you own it.
  • Advanced tracking and analytics - As the site owner, you have full access to your data. WooCommerce contains useful sales reports and you can enhance this by adding plugins.

WooCommerce restaurant plugin with opening hours

What you'll learn

If you’re looking for a low-cost Just Eat alternative without the fees, this tutorial will teach how you to create a bespoke online food ordering system.

We'll do it using a WordPress food delivery plugin. This means that you don't have to worry about the problems of affiliating to a third-party platform. In addition, having a WooCommerce for restaurants food ordering system on your main restaurant website looks more professional. It encourages customers to spend more time on your site, building loyalty.

What will my WooCommerce for restaurants ordering system cost?

Online food delivery system integrated with kitchen

There are financial advantages to getting a WordPress site for your restaurant. Almost all of the costs are fixed one-off, upfront fees. As a result, rather than losing a percentage of every sale, the benefit improves with every order you receive. You start saving money almost immediately.

These are the costs of building the food ordering website described in this tutorial:

  • WordPress content management system – free of charge.
  • WooCommerce plugin – free of charge.
  • WooCommerce Restaurant Ordering plugin.
  • WordPress theme – free of charge (you could buy a premium WooCommerce restaurant theme for ~$65, but this tutorial will show you how to add the best online ordering for restaurants website using a free theme).
  • Ongoing web hosting – web hosting comes at all different price points to suit any size of business. We recommend Kinsta's premium WordPress hosting. This is ideal for an ecommerce website with an online restaurant ordering system. For lower budgets, SiteGround is also good.
  • Payment processor fees – if offer online payment methods (which isn’t essential) then your payment gateway will take a percentage of the fees. This is normally a few percent - much cheaper than Just Eat’s 14%.

As you can see, setting up a WordPress food delivery system plugin yourself is far cheaper than using a third-party platform such as Just Eat.

Still not convinced? Let me show you how simple it is to set up a WooCommerce for restaurants ordering system.

Should I create a DIY WordPress food delivery website, or hire a developer?

Below, I'm going to tell you how to create a WooCommerce for restaurants ordering website using a simple WordPress food delivery plugin. This is a great option and you don't need any technical know-how.

If you'd rather have someone else set up the website for you, just forward this tutorial to any WordPress developer.

To build your own WooCommerce for restaurant order system, keep reading and I'll show you how.

How to create a WooCommerce for restaurant ordering website

In this video tutorial, you can watch me create a restaurant online food ordering system. Build yours alongside me, or read the written tutorial below.

The following tutorial covers every step of setting up a WooCommerce restaurant website:

  1. Create a WordPress websiteWordPress is the world's web building platform. It powers your overall website and makes it easy to add pages and edit content.
  2. Install WooCommerceWooCommerce is the world’s top e-commerce platform, powering over 41% of online stores. We'll use WooCommerce to add products and categories and take payments online (including PayPal and credit card). We'll also use it to add delivery and collection.
  3. Install WooCommerce Restaurant OrderingThis plugin converts your WooCommerce store into a fully-fledged food ordering system. It displays your products in a user-friendly one-page restaurant ordering system. That way, customers can browse, pick, and customize their orders. It also lets you set opening times and prevent ordering when you're closed.
  4. Add options to your food productsI'll show you 2 easy ways to add extra options for your food items, such as size choices or selling pizza toppings.
  5. Delivery and collectionWe'll discover how to add a range of delivery and collection options.
  6. Bonus tipsFinally, I'll share some extra tips on perfecting your WooCommerce restaurant ordering system. This includes accepting tips online to increase your average order value; selling discounted meal deals; and online ordering for multiple restaurant chains.

1. Create a WordPress website

This tutorial assumes that you already have a WordPress website for your restaurant. If not, there are loads of online resources to help you get started with WordPress.

Since this tutorial is aimed at non-coders, I recommend using a WooCommerce-ready theme for the design of your website. The screenshots in this article were all created using Storefront. This is a high-quality, free WP theme from the makers of WooCommerce. If you prefer, then you can use a WooCommerce restaurant theme such as Delicio.

Delicio theme uses Woocommerce Restaurant Ordering plugin by Barn2
The WooCommerce Restaurant Ordering plugin with the Delicio theme

2. Install and set up WooCommerce

Once you’ve got a WP website with a WooCommerce-ready theme installed, it's time to install WooCommerce. This will be the core of your online restaurant food ordering system and the basis for installing your WordPress food delivery system plugin. It provides behind-the-scenes e-commerce features such as the shopping cart, checkout, and online payments.

However, we won’t be using Woo to display your food menu items. You’ll need WooCommerce Restaurant Ordering for that, which we’ll cover in Step 3.

2a. How to install WooCommerce

  1. Log into the WordPress dashboard for your website.
  2. Go to Plugins → Add New.
  3. Search for 'WooCommerce', and install and activate the plugin.
  4. A button will appear towards the top of the WordPress admin prompting you to enter the WooCommerce setup wizard. Go through the wizard and enter your currency, tax details, etc. (Ignore shipping as we'll do this in step 5). Tell the wizard to create the basic pages needed for WooCommerce such as Shop, Cart, and Checkout.
  5. In the payment options section of the setup wizard, choose 'PayPal Payments Standard' and enter your PayPal email address. This is the quickest way to get started and you can always set up other payment options later. If you don’t want to take online payments, select 'Cash on delivery' and your restaurant staff or delivery drivers can take payment instead. To take credit/debit card payments without PayPal, then select 'Stripe' and follow the onscreen instructions.

2b. Create product categories for your restaurant menu

Online restaurant ordering WooCommerce categories
Most restaurant menus are divided into sections: Starters, Pizza, Salads, Desserts, Drinks, and so on. You need to create a separate WooCommerce product category for each section of your restaurant menu:

  1. Look at how your food delivery menu is structured and write a list of categories.
  2. In the WordPress admin, go to Products → Categories.
  3. In the 'Add New Product Category' section on the left, create a category for each section on your online menu. Add a Name and Slug, plus a description if you want to display some introductory text for the category on the food order form.
  4. Click the blue 'Add New Product Category' button.

The WooCommerce product categories you’ve just created for your menu will appear in a list on the right-hand side of the page.

2c. Add each dish or meal as a WooCommerce product

Next, add each food from your restaurant menu as a WooCommerce product.

In the WordPress admin, go to Products → Add New. Add the information highlighted in the screenshot below:

  1. Title – The name of the dish to appear in the online restaurant ordering system.
  2. Long Description (optional) – This can appear in the lightbox popup for each food (if you enable lightboxes in step 3). It's ideal for listing allergens and nutritional information.
  3. Product Data – Choose a product type. If your restaurant only offers 1 version of the dish then choose 'Simple Product' and add the price. If you offer choices (e.g. Small, Medium, and Large), choose 'Variable Product' and add the remaining information in step 4.
  4. Product Short Description (optional) – Use this to display extra information about the meal. This can appear on your one-page restaurant order form. It's a good place to list nutritional symbols, such as "GF, VG" for a dish that is Gluten Free and Vegan.
  5. Product Categories – Tick the menu category that the food should appear in. (WooCommerce lets you select multiple categories but most online restaurant ordering systems would have 1 category for each food, just like a printed menu.)
  6. Product Image (optional) – Click 'Add Featured Image' and upload a picture of the food. Restaurant food photography is a skill and it’s worth getting this done professionally. If your online restaurant order form will have small images then keep the file sizes small.
  7. Publish – Click the blue 'Publish' button.
WooCommerce restaurant ordering system

3. Install WooCommerce Restaurant Ordering

By now you've set up WooCommerce, added your dishes and structured them into the sections on your restaurant menu. Next, it's time to create a one-page food order form so that hungry customers can quickly build their meals and order online.

We'll do this using the powerful WooCommerce Restaurant Ordering plugin. WooCommerce provides its own layouts but they're not suitable for an online food ordering system. As a WordPress food delivery plugin, WooCommerce for Restaurant Ordering lists your menu in a one-page order form which is perfect for food ordering.

3a. Install WooCommerce Restaurant Ordering

  1. Buy the WooCommerce Restaurant Ordering plugin.
  2. Download the plugin files and copy your license key from the order confirmation page or email.
  3. In the WordPress admin, go to Plugins → Add New → Upload.
  4. Upload the zip file for WooCommerce Restaurant Ordering and activate the plugin.
  5. Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Restaurant and enter your license key. Here, you can also choose the default settings for your restaurant food order forms. Use these to configure the order forms. Also add opening times so that people can only order food while you're open.
WooCommerce Restaurant Ordering plugin settings

3b. View your restaurant ordering page

When you activated WooCommerce Restaurant Ordering, the plugin automatically created a one-page food ordering system for you. This lists all your food products, divided by category.

Find the page under the Pages section of the WordPress admin, and see how it looks!

WooCommerce resturant plugin flexible food order forms
These are just some of the many ways you can list foods with WooCommerce Restaurant Ordering

Next, you need an easy way for customers to review and complete their restaurant orders. The best way to do this is to install the WooCommerce Fast Cart plugin. This adds a floating cart popup so that customers can make changes, enter their details and check out without leaving the page. It's really flexible and you can choose whether to open the popup automatically as soon as customers add foods to their order or to display a clickable floating cart icon instead. 

WooCommerce restaurant floating cart
A website using WooCommerce Restaurant Ordering with the Fast Cart plugin.

2c. Create more food order forms (optional)

So far, you've learned how to use the default restaurant ordering page, which lists all your foods by category. If you need more flexibility, then you can also create food order forms individually.

You can do this by adding a [restaurant_ordering] shortcode anywhere on your site. Use the shortcode options to choose which categories to include, and customize the settings. This might be useful if:

  • You're listing foods on more than one page of your website, for example with one page per category.
  • You'd like to use different settings for each food order form, such as showing images or descriptions for some categories and not others.

4. Add options to your food products

If you only offer 1 version of each dish, you can ignore this section. If you want to give customers a choice – for example to choose a size or select pizza toppings – then you need product variations or add-ons.

Variable products are built into WooCommerce. You can list each type of variation as a dropdown list alongside each product in your online restaurant ordering system. Customers can select 1 variation from each list.

If you want customers to be able to make multiple selections, then you need add-ons instead. You can add more flexible options with the WooCommerce Product Options plugin. It works perfectly with WooCommerce Restaurant Ordering plugin we're using for the food order system. You can use it to add checkboxes, radio buttons, multi-select dropdowns, text input fields where the customer can type a special message, and more. For example, a WooCommerce pizza restaurant will need Product Options so that customers can order as many extra toppings as they like.

WooCommerce restaurant variations and add-ons
An example of a pizza with product variations for Pizza Size, and add-ons for Crust Style and Extra Toppings.

Next, I'll show you how to add both types of extra product options. You can use them separately or together in your WooCommerce restaurant ordering system.

Adding product variations

  1. Select 'Variable product' in the 'Product Data' section of the 'Add/Edit Product' page.
  2. Go to the 'Attributes' tab, add the product information that customers will be choosing between, and tick 'Used for variations'.
    WooCommerce restaurant ordering system
  3. Go to the 'Variations' tab.
  4. Either select 'Create variations from all attributes' from the dropdown, or add each variation individually and click 'Go'.
  5. Click the little triangle arrow that appears when you hover over a variation and add the variation price and any other information.
    Add Variation WooCommerce restaurant ordering system
  6. Finally, click 'Save changes'. When customers click on food in the restaurant order form, they can choose the variations from a lightbox before adding it to the cart.

How to create Product Add-Ons

  1. Buy, install, and activate the WooCommerce Product Options plugin.
  2. Go to Products → Product Options in the WordPress admin.
  3. Add as many options as you like, structured into groups.
  4. When customers click on a food product in your WooCommerce restaurant order form, the add-ons will appear for them to select in a lightbox.
WooCommerce restaurant order form with extra options

5. Set up delivery, collection and delivery time slots

WooCommerce offers lots of delivery options, which are perfect for restaurants. The free WooCommerce plugin lets you set up delivery areas and delivery or collection options. You can also use an additional plugin to let customers choose a specific delivery time or collection slot.

5a. Delivery areas and options

You can find these in the WooCommerce → Settings → Shipping section of the WordPress admin.

Here are some suggested shipping options that are useful for online restaurant ordering:

  • Shipping zonesCreate one or more shipping zones for your different delivery areas. For example, if you offer free shipping for certain zip codes and charge for delivery in other areas, then set up 2 shipping zones. If you also offer collection, add a third shipping zone so that people can 'click and collect' wherever they live.
  • Shipping optionsAdd one or more delivery options for each shipping zone. For example, your 'Local Delivery Area' shipping zone might have a 'Free Delivery' option for orders over $20, a $5 'Flat Rate' option for lower value orders, and a 'Local Pickup' option for customers wishing to collect their takeout meal.
WooCommerce restaurant delivery options
An example of WooCommerce delivery options for a typical restaurant

Let customers check the delivery area before they start ordering

To make your online restaurant ordering system more user-friendly, I recommend adding details of your delivery area elsewhere on your site. Here are some ideas on how you can do this:

  • Woo Delivery Area Pro pluginAdd a 'Delivery Area' page to your restaurant website.
  • If your website has a sidebar (right or left column), add a widget about your restaurant's delivery area. Or even better, add a custom Google map showing your online food delivery area.
  • Install the Woo Delivery Area Pro plugin so that customers can check they're in your delivery area before they start building their meal.

5b. Delivery time slots

Some restaurants like to deliver their online orders as soon as they're ready. Others let customers order in advance and choose a specific time slot. As a restaurant, you might want to take up to 5 online food orders in each half-hour period, and make sure they order at least 15 minutes in advance of their time slot. You can do this with the WooCommerce Opening Hours & Chosen Times plugin.

This excellent plugin lets customers choose a delivery date and time slot, subject to your restaurant's opening hours and capacity. You can restrict the number of bookings per time slot. You can specify how long customers must place their orders before their time slot, giving the kitchen plenty of time to prepare the meal.

6. Bonus tips

Before we finish, I'll share some more top tips for perfecting your WooCommerce restaurant ordering system. You'll learn how to accept tips online, sell meal deals, and more. If you operate a chain of restaurants, then you'll also learn how to adapt this tutorial to set up the best online ordering for restaurants for multiple sites.

Encourage customers to leave a tip

All over the world, restaurant customers expect to leave a tip. Don't miss out just because you're selling online! You can add tipping to your WooCommerce restaurant website using the WooCommerce Donation Or Tip On Cart And Checkout plugin.

This handy plugin adds a 'Tip' field to the WooCommerce checkout page. Customers can enter the value of their tip, significantly increasing your average order value.

Most restaurant customers add a tip of 10-15% of the total order value, depending on your country. Use the plugin to set a default tip as a percentage of the order value. To encourage bigger tips, set the default tip at the upper end of the usual amount in your country. Customers can then override the suggested tip as required.

Manage your delivery drivers

Most WooCommerce restaurant ordering systems use local drivers to deliver the orders.

You can manage your delivery drivers outside of the website. Alternatively, you can save time with the free Delivery Drivers for WooCommerce plugin. This WordPress plugin automates many of the manual tasks, connecting your drivers with your online systems and the customer.

Sell restaurant meal deals

WooCommerce Quantity Manager restaurant plugin

Lots of WooCommerce for restaurants websites provide special offers and meal deals. These are fantastic incentives to encourage customers to buy more.

Use WooCommerce for restaurants ordering with the Quantity Manager plugin to control how many items customers can buy from each category. For example, you might sell a meal deal for two people where they can buy 2 starters, 2 mains, and spend up to $15 on side dishes.

You can also use the official WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing plugin to create restaurant deals and special offers. For example, you can create buy one get one free (BOGOF) meal deals, or buy one pizza and get 50% off your second one. These deals can be global or specific to a category, so you can offer deals on pizzas or sandwiches while keeping the side dishes and desserts at full price, and so on.

Mobile ordering for restaurants

WooCommerce doesn't come with a mobile app for customers to order via their smartphones. However, most WordPress themes are fully responsive, which means they're mobile-friendly and look great on any device.

This means that your customers can view your foods and order from your restaurant online using their device of choice - no need to worry about setting up a separate mobile app!

Managing orders in your WooCommerce for restaurants' food ordering system

There are many ways to manage the online food orders that your restaurant receives in WooCommerce:

Email notification of new restaurant orders

When you receive an order, you will receive an email notification from WooCommerce. Your kitchen staff can monitor this email address and be notified as soon as an order arrives.

If you have a busy restaurant with many online orders, then keep the WordPress admin open on your screen during your restaurant opening hours. Train your staff to refresh the WooCommerce → Orders page regularly so they can take action as soon as a food delivery order is received.

WooCommerce for restaurants mobile app

The official WooCommerce iOS mobile app lets you view and manage restaurant orders from any Apple iPhone or iPad. It's often more convenient for restaurant owners and staff to use mobiles or tablets than desktop computers.

Auto-print new food orders to the kitchen

You can integrate your WooCommerce for restaurants' food ordering system with a GPRS printer. This will automatically print new online restaurant orders as soon as they're received. We recommend the WooCommerce Automatic Order Printing plugin.

Receive an alert when you receive a WooCommerce for restaurants order

Use YITH WooCommerce Desktop Notifications to automatically play a sound alert on your desktop computer, laptop, or tablet whenever you receive a new order.

If you'd rather receive a text when you receive a new order from your WooCommerce for restaurant website, try the SMS Alert Order Notifications plugin. You can also use the Twilio SMS Notifications plugin to send the customer a text when their order is ready.

WooCommerce can be integrated with many external systems. If you're using a specific system to manage your restaurant orders, look up how this can be integrated with WooCommerce.

Think creatively and you'll be surprised how easy it is to integrate your WooCommerce for restaurant ordering system with your existing kitchen processes.

Online ordering for multiple restaurants

So far, we've talked about creating a WooCommerce restaurant ordering system for a single location, using a WordPress food delivery plugin. With a couple of tweaks, you can extend this to take orders for multiple restaurants or entire restaurant chains. There are 2 ways to achieve this:

Method 1 – WordPress multisite, with a separate site for each restaurant

You may want to keep your WooCommerce for restaurants really separate, with unique content for each one (e.g. a different homepage, about page and contact us). If so, you can use WordPress multisite to create a separate sub-site for each restaurant in the chain. This is better than having completely separate websites because you get the best of both worlds: a single WordPress food delivery plugin installation with shared hosting and maintenance costs; with unique content for each restaurant.

WooCommerce for restaurant ordering will be active on each site. However, each site will have its own set of products and order notification settings, avoiding any crossover.

WPBeginner has an excellent article on How to install and set up WordPress Multisite Network. This is compatible with all the steps in the above tutorial.

Method 2 – Single website, with separate categories & order notifications for each restaurant

A simpler option is to take orders for each restaurant from your main WordPress website. There are two ways you can do this:

  • Create separate product categories for each restaurant. On the online food ordering system page for each restaurant, use WooCommerce Restaurant Ordering to list products from the appropriate categories.
  • Alternatively, use either the official Product Vendors add-on or the Dokan Multivendor plugin to add products from multiple vendors (treat each restaurant as a separate vendor). Each vendor has their own product categories. Enable the 'Category pages' option in WooCommerce Restaurant Ordering and the beautiful food order form layout will be used for each vendor's products.

Whichever method you choose, you can use the WooCommerce Multiple Email Recipients Notifications plugin to send order notifications to a different email address depending on which category the customer has ordered from. This lets you ensure that the new order emails are sent to the correct restaurant. As a result, your entire WooCommerce restaurant online  food ordering system remains on a single website - while taking orders from multiple restaurants.

Online Chinese takeaway ordering system

Case study: Online Ordering for Ciao Italia

Ciao Italia is an Italian restaurant in the US that started offering curbside pickup to its customers during the COVID-19 pandemic. They use our WooCommerce Restaurant Ordering plugin to let customers place their orders online from home.

Ciao Italia Ristorante one-page food order form

The restaurant displays its entire menu (including food, beverages, and a gift card) on a one-page order form. It does this by sorting the food items under different categories and displaying all of the categories on the menu page. Customers can simply click the (+) icon to add food items to the cart. When a customer adds an item to their cart, they see additional purchasing options in a lightbox.

Food order form lightbox with purchasing options

For example, you can use the lightbox to choose the quantity of food or beverages. If you're buying a gift card, then you can choose the value in any denomination. (Tip: They sell gift cards using the 'Customer Defined Price' option in the Product Add-Ons plugin.)

The one-page food order form makes it quick and easy for customers to place their orders and proceed to the checkout page.

Adam Tracksler from Bryce Creative developed the website. He was delighted with WooCommerce Restaurant Ordering:

In today’s environment of having to act nimbly for clients, the WooCommerce Restaurant Ordering plugin is the perfect solution for getting a website running quickly. We were able to launch on day one with the help of this plugin. It took all the heavy lifting out of the equation and let us focus on design. If you are debating whether or not this is the solution for getting a restaurant going — look no further, this is the plugin you want. The support is also top-notch!

Adam TrackslerBryce Creative

Want to set up online ordering for your restaurant in 15 minutes?

And there you have it! If you follow all the steps in this tutorial then you can create a complete online food ordering system with an easy-to-use WordPress food delivery plugin.

You've learned how to install and set up the WooCommerce platform to handle all of your menu's food products. You've also seen how you can use the WooCommerce Restaurant Ordering plugin to create customizable food order forms. Customers can choose their selections from each customer, and then place their order and pay online.

By using a WordPress food delivery plugin and WooCommerce as an alternative to Just Eat or other systems, your restaurant can save many thousands of dollars or pounds. It's easy to set up, easy to manage and will look really professional.

  • Easy plug-and-play setup.
  • Comes with full support and expert advice.
  • 30-day money back guarantee - love it or your money back!

Get WooCommerce Restaurant Ordering here, and start selling food online TODAY →