Articles About Wholesale

Our WooCommerce Wholesale Pro plugin has become hugely popular since it launched a couple of months ago. Today we've released version 1.3, which has lots of exciting new features that our customers have asked for.

B2B trade buyers have completely different needs from retail consumers. When you create a WooCommerce wholesale store, it is therefore essential to configure the trade area according to your buyers' needs. For example:

• Since B2B customers are normally registered companies, you might want to disable taxes for some or all of your wholesale users - while still charging tax to public customers.
• WooCommerce wholesale stores don't tend to offer sales and discounts to trade users, so you might want to remove the coupon code field from the checkout for trade buyers only.
• As regular customers, your wholesale buyers might benefit from extra payment options that you don't offer to public shoppers. For example, you might allow wholesale users to pay later by invoice or BACS, instead of having to pay when they place their order.
• Wholesale users often buy in bulk, so you might want to offer different shipping methods that aren't available to public customers. For example, perhaps you're using the Product Shipping plugin to offer weight-based shipping - but only want these options to appear to wholesale users.

Version 1.3 of WooCommerce Wholesale Pro has all these features. Use them to customize your private wholesale area so that B2B and B2C users receive an even more tailored experience.

Discover 2 ways to let customers use WooCommerce to add multiple products to the cart. It's the faster way to shop and a great way to increase your average order value!

If you want to improve the shopping experience on your WooCommerce website and increase sales, then you need to make it easier to purchase products. Customers are likely to buy more if you let them add multiple WooCommerce products to the cart from one page.

In this article, I'll tell you about 2 ways to make this possible:

• First, we'll use the WooCommerce Product Table plugin to allow your customers to select multiple products and add them to the cart from a single page. This non-technical solution is ideal for all online stores, whatever your level of experience.
• We'll also look at how to write custom code to add multiple products to the cart via a special URL. This is a more technical option for developers.

Here’s how it works with WooCommerce Product Table: the customer simply ticks a checkbox to select each product they’d like to buy. Next, they click an Add Selected to Cart button to add everything at once. Finally, they head over to the checkout page:

Let's get started!

Method 1: Add multiple products to the cart from one page with WooCommerce Product Table

WooCommerce Product Table is a plugin designed for WooCommerce websites that lets users add multiple products to the cart from one page.

It lists products in a customizable, searchable table layout with a checkbox next to each product. You can display an Add Selected to Cart button directly either above and/or below the product table.

With the WooCommerce Product Table plugin, you can:

The product tables are fully customizable, searchable, and sortable. For example, you can choose which columns of product information to include in each table. Its the perfect bulk add to cart plugin for WooCommerce.

How to add WooCommerce add multiple products to cart buttons to your store

1. Get the WooCommerce Product Table plugin. You’ll also receive a license key for using the plugin in a confirmation email.
2. Log in to your WordPress website and head over to Plugins → Add New. Upload the plugin’s zipped file and click Activate.
3. Navigate to Products → Product Tables and click 'Add New'.
4. Follow the onscreen steps to create your first product table.
5. On the first page, choose whether you want to enable the product table view on your main shop pages or to manually add a table to another page.

   

6. On the 'Add to Cart' page, select either 'Buttons and checkboxes' or 'Checkboxes'. Either of these options will allow customers to add multiple products to their cart at once.
   

   

7. Read through the other settings and make any other changes to customize how you want the product table to behave.
8. Next, you need to add the table to a page. (Ignore this step if you already enabled the table on your shop page templates.) Head over to Pages → Add New to create a new page (or edit an existing page) that you’d like to add the product table to.
9. Insert the 'Product Table' block and select the table you just created. Or if you're not using the WordPress block editor, then insert the [product_table id="1"] shortcode instead. You can find the correct ID at Products → Product Tables.

   

That’s it! This will automatically generate a product table on the front-end of your WordPress website. It'll include options to let WooCommerce users add multiple products to the cart from one page, like this:

Display important product information in the table

One of the key benefits of using the WooCommerce Product Table plugin is that your customers don’t have to visit single product pages to get important product information or add to the cart.

The purpose of letting customers add multiple products to the cart from one page is to speed up the shopping user flow. For this reason, it doesn’t make sense if customers can't get important information directly from product listing pages. You want to display everything the customer needs to make a purchasing decision in the table layout.

We were looking for a product table with the ability to buy several things without being directed to the individual product pages and well, that's what this plugin does! :)

Rena Ragimova

With WooCommerce Product Table, you can choose which columns to show (or hide) in the table view. Out of the box, the plugin supports all the standard product data that WooCommerce stores in the WordPress database. You can also add extra columns, such as custom fields and taxonomies. Here’s a complete list of the available columns you can choose from.

Choose your columns carefully to maximize your sales. Add the columns that will actively encourage customers to add more products to their shopping cart. For example, you might decide to include a product reviews column. This will give customers some insight into what other people thought about the product.

Let customers select quantity and product variations

Customers might want to use a quantity selector or provide variation options to customize their product or order. Making these options available alongside the Add Selected to Cart button will further improve your site’s user experience.

Here’s what you need to do:

• Activate the quantity selector. The WooCommerce Product Table plugin comes with a built-in option to display a quantity selector directly in the table layout. Simply activate the quantity selector option from the plugin’s settings page. By doing so, customers will be able to set a quantity before adding a product to their cart.
• Display product variations. With the WooCommerce Product Table plugin, you can display product variations as dropdown lists or as separate rows.

You can do this in the add to cart step of the product table builder.

If you’re using the WooCommerce Product Options plugin in tandem with WooCommerce Product Table, then extra product options will show up next to the Add to Cart buttons. In some cases, adding variable products might not make sense for the type of product you’re selling. Instead, you can add extra options (in the form of checkboxes, radio buttons, or text fields) directly to the table layout like this:

Add product quick view buttons

Adding multiple products to the cart is all about keeping the customer on one page. So what happens if you want to provide extra information which doesn't fit on the one page order form? You don't want to send customers to a separate page for each product - that defeats the purpose of the multi-add to cart features.

The solution is to use the method described in this tutorial with the WooCommerce Quick View Pro plugin. This plugin works with WooCommerce Product Table and adds quick view links or buttons to the WC order form. Customers click on these links to view more product information in a quick view lightbox window. They can learn more about the product and then close the lightbox to return to the one page order form, where they can add multiple products to the cart. This aids multiple purchases better than sending customers to multiple pages.

If you want customers to add multiple products to the cart at once, then you may wish to remove the add to cart buttons from the quick view lightbox. Instead, use the plugin settings page to show other information in the lightbox such as the short description and full product image gallery. Customers will still need to use the multi-select checkboxes to add products to the cart, directly in the order form. Or if you prefer, you can have the checkboxes on the order form AND allow customers to purchase products individually from the lightbox. The choice is yours.

Add a popup cart

Adding multiple products to the cart is all about letting customers order more quickly and easily. However, that's only the first half of the customer journey.

It's equally important to provide quick ways for customers to add their details and complete the purchase. That's where WooCommerce Fast Cart comes in.

This handy plugin displays a popup cart and checkout after customers add products to the cart. They can then complete the order directly in the popup, without leaving the page. This is much better for customers than having to visit separate cart and checkout pages.

Method 2: Add multiple WooCommerce products to cart via URL using PHP

As you can see, the Product Table plugin provides the easiest way to add multiple products to the cart in WooCommerce. This is perfect for developers because it is so customizable, and perfect for website owners because they don't need to write any code.

However, some people need to use WooCommerce to add multiple products to the cart via a URL. This is a more technical solution so I'll briefly explain what's possible, and share some resources for getting it done.

WooCommerce itself lets you add products to the cart via a URL. It works like this:

• https://mywebsite.com/?add-to-cart=123 - this adds product with the ID 123 to the cart.
• https://mywebsite.com/?add-to-cart=123&quantity=5 - this adds 5 of product with the ID 123 to the cart.

However, this just adds one product to the cart. To add multiple carts to the WooCommerce cart instead, you need to write a custom PHP function.

Webroom Tech have provided a useful article on how to modify the above URL structure to support multiple products. Implement the code snippet from their article, and then you can use a URL to add multiple WooCommerce products to the cart like this: https://mywebsite.com/?add-to-cart=123,456,789.

Add a multiple products to cart option to WooCommerce today

Letting customers add multiple products to the cart form one page:

• Improves the shopping user flow for your customers.
• Boosts sales.
• Increases the value of each sale.

Depending on what types of products you’re selling, speeding up the buying process and letting customers select products quickly just might convince customers to buy more from you.

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.

John - GraphikJam

Do your customers typically purchase more than one product from your online store at a time? If so, do you think that letting them add multiple products to the cart from one page would improve their shopping experience? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

FAQ

Why you should let customers add multiple products to the cart from one page

If you’ve been using WordPress and WooCommerce for some time, you probably already know that the default layouts and user flows are very limited. There's no built-in way for customers to add multiple products to the shopping cart at once.

At best, your Woo product listing pages include an Add to Cart button for individual products. If a customer wants to buy more than one product, they’ll have to click a separate Add to Cart button to add each product to their cart.

What’s worse is that they have to visit the single product page of each product they want to purchase. This might be to get more information, set quantities, or configure product variations.

With the WooCommerce Product Table plugin, you can improve your customer’s shopping experience by creating smooth one-page ordering. Instead of navigating to single product pages, your customers can shop directly from the product table view.

WooCommerce Product Table lets you add multi-select checkboxes alongside (or in place of) the Add to Cart buttons in the product table view. Customers will be able to tick the checkboxes next to the products they’d like to buy and select multiple products. They can choose their quantities and product variations directly from the table layout. Finally, they can click a single Add Selected to Cart button. This will add multiple products to the cart at once.

By allowing customers to quickly select products, you can speed up shopping user flows on your online store. As a result, you’ll effectively be improving your online sales and conversion rates.

Which businesses can benefit from letting customers add multiple products to the cart from a single page?

How do you know if your WooCommerce online store will benefit from offering customers quick buying options? The first thing you need to do is analyze your customers’ buying habits. Ask yourself if it makes sense to buy multiple products from your WooCommerce custom cart page at once.

Although multi-select checkboxes certainly have their benefits, not every business can benefit from them. For instance, if you’re selling large furniture, customers are likely to buy one (or maybe two) items at a time. However, there are plenty of products that lend themselves to multiple add to cart, and this is where WooCommerce Product Table comes in.

Examples of products that customers typically buy more than one at a time

If you’re selling small, low-cost products or products that are meant to be used together then your online store can certainly benefit from having WooCommerce multiple add to cart checkboxes.

Does your WooCommerce store fall into any of these categories?

• Low and medium cost products.When making purchases isn’t backed by major buying decisions, customers are more inclined to add multiple products to their shopping cart. In fact, improving your shopping user flow might even encourage them to buy more from you. E-commerce stores selling stationery items, toys, books, cosmetic products, and jewelry (for example) can benefit from letting their customers use WooCommerce to add multiple products to the cart from one page.
• Related products.If you’re selling products that are designed to be used together, then you can improve the shopping experience by letting customers add multiple products to the cart from a single page. For instance, if you’re selling clothes then your customers are likely to purchase more than one item from you. If they’re buying a t-shirt, they might also purchase jeans or sandals to go with it to complete their look.
• Build-your-own products.Online stores selling any kind of build-your-own product can benefit from letting customers add multiple products to the cart from the product listings page. This includes stores selling items such as gift hampers, custom cosmetic boxes, or bakery items.

And that’s not all!

As you can see, there are many other businesses and online stores that can improve their shopping user flows simply by letting customers add multiple products to the cart from one page.

For example, are you running a restaurant? You can set up an online food ordering system or a takeaway order system that essentially works the same way.

Customers view your foods in a list and tick all the meals they require. No need to visit the single product page! A WooCommerce add multiple products to cart plugin could be just what you need 🛒

Are you thinking about creating a WooCommerce shop only for registered users? Looking for a way to limit access to your online store so that only logged in users or those with a password can browse and make purchases? You've come to the right place!

In this article, we'll guide you through the process of hiding your WooCommerce shop from guests with the easy-to-use WooCommerce Private Store plugin.

This powerful yet simple plugin enables you create a secret WooCommerce shop only for registered users. It keeps your store exclusive by hiding its pages from the public eye. This ensures that only logged-in users or those with the correct password can access and order your products. It maintains the privacy and exclusivity of your store - an ideal solution for businesses that cater to a specific clientele or want to offer special deals for registered customers.

We'll start by introducing you to the WooCommerce Private Store plugin, its features, and its benefits. Next, we'll take you step by step through the catalog visibility process, ensuring that you're able to set up your private store with ease. We'll also provide tips and best practices for managing your private store and creating a seamless experience for your registered customers.

By the end of this article, you'll have all the information you need to build a WooCommerce shop only for registered users. So, buckle up and get ready to start a journey to learn how to set up and manage your very own private ecommerce store.

How does it work?

When you install the Private Store plugin, you instantly have a WooCommerce wholesale store that is only available to logged in users. Simply choose how your customers will unlock the hidden store, and you're done!

Maybe you're setting up a WooCommerce shop only for registered users and want to hide it from non-members. Maybe you're building a B2B wholesale store. Whatever your reason, you can easily hide WooCommerce from non-registered users and guests.

3 steps to access your hidden store

It works like this to make sure your WooCommerce products are only for registered users:

1. A guest user visits your website They can see all your main pages but none of the WooCommerce content. If you have links to the Woo shop page, category pages, product pages, etc. in the menu then these will be hidden from public view. Any WooCommerce sidebar widgets are hidden too. The same applies to other WooCommerce elements such as the cart. The guest user has no idea that your WooCommerce shop exists. Even if they try to access a WooCommerce page directly (e.g. if they know the URL of a product), they will be asked to enter a password.
2. The user either enters a password or logs into their account Some visitors to your membership site will have an account, which they can log into. They can log in using the usual WordPress/WooCommerce login page. (This might be /wp-login, the WooCommerce 'Account' page, or a front-end login such as Theme My Login. Or if you want people to log in with their Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ account, use the WordPress Social Login plugin.) If you like, then you can also let non-registered users enter a password to unlock the store.
3. The hidden WooCommerce shop is unlocked After logging in, all the WooCommerce content becomes visible to the specific user. This might include links to the main shop page in the menu, WooCommerce widgets, and all the individual pages within WooCommerce. The logged in user can browse your ecommerce store and buy products with no restrictions.

Alternative option: Want to restrict certain products to registered users, but not your whole store? Checkout the WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin instead.

How to make your WooCommerce shop only for registered users

If you like what I've described above, the good news is that it's really easy to set up. Here's how to set up product visibility for your whole store. I have assumed that you already have a WP website with WooCommerce set up, and you're ready to hide your WooCommerce for logged-in users and visitors only.

1. Buy WooCommerce Private Store. Download the plugin files and license key from the order confirmation page or the email receipt.
2. Log in to the WordPress admin and go to Plugins → Add New.
3. Click 'Upload' and then 'Browse' and upload the plugin files you downloaded in Step 1.
4. Install and activate WooCommerce Private Store.
5. Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Private Store. Enter your license key and configure the other plugin settings. Make sure you tick the 'Logged In Users' box. (You can ignore the 'Login Form' settings as you won't be using password protection for your store. Instead, you will use the WordPress user login.) If you like, then you can also choose which user roles will have access.
6. Click 'Save'.

And that's it! Your WooCommerce shop is now completely hidden from public view. Guests can see your normal web pages but none of the WooCommerce content. Once they log in to their account, the whole of WooCommerce is instantly unlocked for them. Simple!

Can I hide the links to my hidden WooCommerce store?

By enabling log in to see prices and add to cart in WooCommerce, you can restrict access to your WooCommerce shop only for registered users and visitors. This means that all links to your main Shop page, product categories, individual products, and even the WooCommerce widgets that showcase your products, categories, and other relevant information will be hidden.

Furthermore, elements such as the shopping cart icon and other call-to-action buttons will also be concealed. In essence, any content related to your WooCommerce store, including the links to access it, will be inaccessible to guest users.

This feature provides an additional layer of security and privacy to your online store, as it ensures that WooCommerce products only for registered users with valid login credentials can view and purchase your hidden products. It also helps prevent unauthorized access to your store's pricing and other confidential information, which can protect your business from potential threats.

Can I force users to register before they can access my WooCommerce store?

Yes, you can use the WooCommerce Private Store plugin to hide your online store and restrict access to WooCommerce products only for registered users. To do this, you can use the built-in 'Account' page of the plugin or a front-end registration plugin like Theme My Login.

Theme My Login offers various options to moderate new registrations, including the ability to require administrator approval for new accounts. Alternatively, you can use a free plugin like New User Approve to approve new user accounts before they can access your private store. This ensures that only authorized users have access to your store.

When using a registration plugin, customers will need to create an account and have it approved before they can log in and access your hidden store. Once approved, they can log in and browse your products, add items to their cart, and check out just like a regular online store.

What if I don't want my customers to have individual user accounts?

If you want to keep your WooCommerce store private and only accessible to a select few, you may consider using a plugin that allows you to hide your store behind a password. This is a great option for businesses that want to keep their products and pricing information secure and confidential.

The plugin makes it easy to set up a private store login page where your customers can enter a password to access your store. Unlike requiring customers to log in to their accounts, the password option offers a simpler and more straightforward process. Customers enter the password on the login page. If it's correct, they are granted access to the hidden WooCommerce shop.

Once customers have entered the correct password and unlocked the private store, they will have full access to all the main WooCommerce Shop pages, including your products, categories, and product tags. Customers can search for a single product, add them to their cart, and proceed to the checkout page in the usual way.

Here's a review from a customer using WooCommerce Private Store to create team and school stores behind a common password:

Buy Plugin

How can I hide the login page after people login?

If you use the built-in WooCommerce Account page as your register/login page, then you don't need to worry about this. That's because the same page will show a registration and/or login form to guests, and the 'My Account' area for logged in users. This makes it relevant to all types of users like subscribers, whether or not they're logged in.

If you use WooCommerce Private Store with a login plugin such as Theme My Login, then you need to structure your store in an intuitive way. Think about each step of the user journey. For example, you want to add a prominent login link for logged out users. But once people are logged in, then the login page is no longer important to them.

You can add a link to the user login page anywhere you like. For example, you can add it to the menu or header (depending on your theme). This link will be subtle, so it won't bother logged in users. You could also ask your developer to dynamically change it to a logout link for logged in users.

Setting the login page as the homepage might seem like a logical step. However, this can be confusing for users, as even when they're logged in, they'll see the login page with a message indicating they're already logged in. Instead, set another page such as the main 'Shop' page as the homepage. When guest users visit the homepage, they will see a user login form. But when WordPress only for logged in users visit, they will see the shop page. This is a more user-friendly way to set it up.

I just want to hide parts of WooCommerce

If you want to hide parts of WooCommerce membership but not your whole shop then I'd recommend our other plugin, WooCommerce Password Protected Categories.

This lets you lock down specific categories within a Woo store, and hide products within them. Your other categories and main Shop page remain public. This means that you can have public and hidden areas within a single WooCommerce shop.

See also: How to Build a Private WooCommerce Members Only Shop

Do you have a hidden WooCommerce shop?

If you have a WooCommerce store that you want to keep private and accessible to WooCommerce products only for registered users, then using a WooCommerce Private Store or a similar solution can be a great option for you. By hiding your WooCommerce shop only for registered users, you can ensure that your specific products and pricing information are secure and protected.

Deciding between password-protecting or hiding your WooCommerce store until users log in depends on your specific needs and security requirements. If you have a small number of users who require access, password protection may be the better choice. For larger user bases, hiding WordPress only for logged in users may be more efficient.

Some other features that you might expect from a private WooCommerce plugin could include the ability to customize the login page and set up user roles and permissions. As well as track user activity within your store. These features can help you manage your WordPress only for logged in users more efficiently. As well as ensure that your products and pricing information are only accessible to the intended audience.

Please leave your comments below.

Our WooCommerce Product Table plugin comes with a lazy load option for loading product tables with large numbers of products. In response to popular demand, you can now search and sort your lazy loaded tables by SKU.

For those of you who don't know, an SKU stands for 'Stock Keeping Unit'. The SKU field is built into WooCommerce, providing a way to store a unique identifier code for each product. An SKU is a bit like the ISBN number for a book, but you can use it to store any type of code (text or numeric) for your products, in any format. While the SKU field is optional, WooCommerce.com have published a convincing article about the benefits of using SKU's in your Woo store.

What is lazy load?

Because of the structured tabular layout, lots of store owners use WooCommerce Product Table to list hundreds or even thousands of products. For example, it's a popular way to sell technical or wholesale products that require lots of extra data and don't need big images. You can use it to create a one-page WooCommerce order form, with all the purchasing options such as add to cart buttons or checkboxes, quantity pickers and variation dropdowns directly in the product table view.

Most WooCommerce stores only display 9 or maybe 12 products per page, without variations. The product table layout means that you’re likely to be loading many times more data than this. Inevitably, this can cause performance problems and slow page load times. And that's where lazy load comes in...

Lazy load is an alternative method of loading the product table, which you can activate by ticking a box on the plugin settings page. Instead of loading all the products with the initial page load, it just loads 1 page of the table at a time.

For example, let's say you have a table with 1,000 products in total, set to list 25 products per page. Without lazy load, you'd be loading all 1,000 products at once - ouch! That's a lot of data and most servers won't cope with this. Instead, you can enable lazy load and just load 25 products at once. Much better!

The problem with lazy load

As you can see, lazy load is a fantastic way of creating product tables such large numbers of products. However, it's never been perfect.

The problem is that with lazy load, WooCommerce Product Table only knows about the products on the current page. It simply hasn't loaded the others yet! This means that the searching and sorting is limited. You can search and sort by product name or description because WordPress indexes these fields in a way that the plugin can access without having loaded the entire table. However, until now it wasn't possible to sort or search by SKU and other data.

Because WooCommerce Product Table is popular for selling technical or wholesale products, people often want to use it to find products based on their SKU. This means that not being able to sort/search by SKU was a big limitation. As a result, this has become one of the most in-demand items on our feature request list.

We're always looking for ways to improve our WP plugins based on customer feedback. After some head scratching, we found a solution.

New feature: search & sort lazy loaded tables by SKU

Version 2.2 of WooCommerce Product Table is now available. While it looks the same as previous versions, there are lots of improvements and code changes under the hood.

When you create a Woo table with lazy load and an SKU column, a sort arrow will now appear at the top of this column. Users can click on this to sort by SKU in either direction. You can also sort the product table by SKU when the table first loads.

In addition, the AJAX-powered keyword search box above the table will now search by SKU field as well as the product name and description.

Example use case

Here's a common use case to help you to visualise the new features:

A WooCommerce wholesale store uses WooCommerce Product Table to create a one-page wholesale order form for their WordPress site. They have a large number of products, so they activate the lazy load option to boost performance.

The B2B wholesale buyers already know what products they want to buy, and have a list of SKU's for their regular products. They simply type a product code into the search box to search by SKU. They then add the product to the cart, and repeat the process to quickly create their order.

This is far more user-friendly than other ways of ordering your regular products. The customer doesn't have to scroll through multiple pages. Instead, they just type the product code and order much more quickly. Perfect!

Where to get the plugin

If you're already using WooCommerce Product Table, just upgrade to the new version from the WordPress Dashboard. If you haven't got it yet, buy it today and start adding searchable, sortable product tables to your store.

If you’re running a wholesale ecommerce store or trade shop, then you know this type of business comes with particular challenges. You’ll need to find a way to display all your items effectively and cater to multiple types of customers. A WooCommerce trade account plugin is an essential part of this.

Fortunately, there are plenty of tools that can help you out. This is especially true if you’ve built your trade shop using WordPress and WooCommerce.

With a WooCommerce trade account plugin, you can get the exact functionality you need to keep your ecommerce platform running smoothly.

In this article, we’ll talk about why your store might need a WooCommerce trade account login. Then we’ll show you how to use the best WooCommerce trade account plugins and explain how to add a trade-friendly order form to your site. Let’s get started!

Introducing WooCommerce trade accounts

In WooCommerce, a trade account refers to a hidden ecommerce area designed for businesses and customers placing wholesale or trade orders. It is a distinct type of account that offers specific pricing and a user experience tailored to the needs of trade customers. Trade accounts provide a platform for trade customers to access these exclusive features.

Benefits of trade accounts in WooCommerce

There are lots of reasons to offer a trade account facility in your WooCommerce store:

1. Exclusive pricing: WooCommerce trade accounts allow you to offer trade customers exclusive pricing. This enables you to provide wholesale discounts and special pricing based on trade status, order volume, or other criteria. It helps foster stronger relationships with trade customers and encourages repeat business.
2. Tailored catalogs and products: With trade accounts, you can customize product catalog visibility specifically for your trade customers. This allows for the presentation of trade-only products or variations. You can highlight trade-specific items, and hide products only intended for retail customers. This improves the browsing experience for trade customers as they only see the products which are aimed at them.
3. Streamlined ordering process: The best WooCommerce trade account plugins provide a streamlined ordering process tailored to the needs of trade customers. They may include features such as bulk order forms, quick reordering of previous purchases, and advanced search options. This simplifies the buying experience, saves time, and improves efficiency for trade customers.
4. Account management and insights: WooCommerce trade accounts offer dedicated dashboards where trade customers can manage their account information, track order history, view invoices, and access other account-related features. It provides transparency and convenience for trade customers, enhancing their overall experience and facilitating efficient account management.
5. Enhanced customer support: Trade accounts often come with dedicated customer support channels, providing trade customers with personalized assistance and faster response times. It ensures that trade customers receive the necessary support and guidance for their specific needs, building trust and loyalty.
6. Increased order minimums and credit terms: Trade accounts allow businesses to set higher minimum quantities for trade customers, ensuring profitability and efficient order processing. Additionally, trade accounts can offer credit terms or payment methods tailored to the needs of trade customers, enabling them to manage cash flow effectively.

Industries that can benefit from having a trade account

Trade account functionality can benefit a variety of industries that engage in business-to-business (B2B) transactions. Here are some examples:

1. Wholesale distribution: Industries involved in wholesale distribution, such as electronics, consumer goods, or building materials, can benefit from trade account functionality. It enables them to offer custom pricing, bulk order options, and personalized catalogs to their B2B customers.
2. Manufacturing and industrial supplies: Manufacturers and suppliers of industrial equipment, machinery, or raw materials can utilize the WooCommerce trade account to provide B2B clients with specialized pricing, product customization options, and streamlined ordering processes.
3. Hospitality and food service: Industries like restaurants, hotels, or catering services can benefit from trade accounts to access exclusive pricing, bulk ordering capabilities, and specialized product ranges for their specific needs.
4. Health and beauty products: Suppliers or distributors of health and beauty products, such as cosmetics or salon supplies, can utilize trade account functionality to offer different prices, bulk ordering discounts, and personalized product recommendations to their B2B customers in the beauty industry.
5. Professional services: Industries offering professional services, such as consulting firms, marketing agencies, or software development companies, can benefit from trade account functionality by providing exclusive access to specialized services, discounted rates, and personalized support for their WooCommerce B2B client portals.
6. Educational materials: Companies involved in the production or distribution of educational materials, textbooks, or e-learning resources can utilize trade account functionality to offer discounted pricing options, bulk ordering options, and customized catalogs to educational institutions and B2B customers in the education sector.

Why you might need additional tradeshop plugins for your WooCommerce store

When it comes to building an online store of any type, WordPress is an excellent platform. It’s secure, beginner-friendly, and quick to set up. While WordPress does lack specific e-commerce features, these can easily be added using a trade shop plugin such as WooCommerce.

Small, basic shops may not need anything else. However, wholesale stores and trade shops have particular needs, which might not be fully met by WooCommerce. For example, here are just a few of the special challenges facing online trade stores:

• Out of the box, WooCommerce doesn't differentiate between different types of customers. There's no way to separate out the experience for retail and trade customers. You can't charge dynamic pricing, show different products, or provide a separate WooCommerce trade account facility.
• Trade buyers have different needs from retail shoppers, as they already know what they want and need a quick way to make their selections. You might be selling hundreds or thousands of items, so you’ll need a way to organize them effectively and help trade users find what they need quickly.
• WooCommerce assumes that your store will be available to the public. However, if you’re only selling to other businesses, you might want to hide your entire store from public view.

To add these features to your trade shop, you’ll need some additional tools. As it turns out, the WooCommerce Wholesale Pro account login plugin is perfect for the job.

The best WooCommerce trade account plugin

Now, let’s look at WooCommerce Wholesale Pro - a WooCommerce trade account plugin that will help you customize your store. It's perfect whether you're creating a trade-only shop or a WooCommerce store with separate public and trade areas.

WooCommerce Wholesale Pro has all the features you need for trade login and every other part of your B2B area.

Trade account and user registration

Trade users can register for an account and log in on the trade account page. This gives them access to the trade-only section of WooCommerce, which normal retail customers can't see.

As the administrator, you can choose whether to allow trade users to register and log in immediately, or hold their application for approval first. Moderating new B2B users adds an extra layer of security to your trade login.

Here's an example of a WooCommerce trade account and registration form in action. NRD Web Design used WooCommerce Wholesale Pro for their client Best Remy Hair Extensions. They added 'Wholesale Login' and 'Wholesale Registration' links to the website header, intuitively driving trade users to the private section.

WooCommerce trade prices

Nearly all B2B stores offer special trade-only pricing rules to logged-in users. Retail customers pay the recommended retail price (RRP), whereas trade users get variable discounts on the RRP.

WooCommerce Wholesale Pro makes it easy to add product pricing to WooCommerce. Logged in wholesale buyers will see the discounted pricing, and retail customers continue to see the standard pricing.

You can even add multiple wholesale user roles, each with percentage discounts. This is ideal if you offer tiered pricing or role-based pricing in your WooCommerce trade store.

Trade-only products

With WooCommerce Wholesale Pro, you can either sell the same products to everyone (with the correct trade pricing for B2B users, of course) - or you can sell different wholesale products to the two groups.

Each product category has the option to show it to public shoppers, trade users, or both. This makes it easy to sell trade-only products which are hidden from the retail store.

This feature is also ideal for creating a 100% private store, with no retail area. Simply mark all the categories as 'Wholesale Only', and your formerly public shop disappears from view! Only logged in B2B customers can see it from the private WooCommerce trade login area.

How to set up a WooCommerce trade account area

To get started, you’ll first want to purchase and install the WooCommerce Wholesale Pro plugin. Then, you’ll need to activate your license key. Navigate to WooCommerce → Settings, and select the Wholesale tab:

Enter your license key here, and click on Save changes at the bottom of the page.

Next, you’ll want to configure the powerful plugin’s settings. These are all located on the same Wholesale page. Choose a shop page to use for the trade login, and decide whether to enable WooCommerce trade account registration (with or without moderation).

There are lots of other options for customizing your trade login area. Go through all the settings and set it up exactly as you like.

That’s it! Now you can start adding trade users who can log into the B2B area or add them manually via the WordPress admin.

Create trade-only order forms for your WooCommerce store

By now, you know how to add a private WooCommerce trade account area to your store. Trade users can easily log into their accounts and access trade-only products and pricing. But what about the actual experience of using your WooCommerce trade shop?

Retail customers are happy to spend time browsing and choosing products. By default, WooCommerce is set up so that customers have to visit individual product pages to see and purchase each item they want. That's fine for most retail customers, who want to look at large images and read lots of information before making a decision. However, your trade users have completely different needs.

This creates a terrible user experience for a WooCommerce trade store, however. You’re selling a lot of products, and customers are likely to place large orders for multiple items at once. Requiring them to visit each specific product page will only slow them down.

Logged in trade customers already know all about your products. They've bought them before and are simply reselling them to their own customers. They don't want to waste time browsing or looking at pictures. Instead, they need to quickly view a list of all your trade products, where they can choose product quantity and add multiple products to the checkout at once.

You can do this by using WooCommerce Wholesale Pro with its sister plugin, WooCommerce Product Table. This adds a quick order form layout which perfects your WooCommerce trade shop.

What features can your WooCommerce trade order form have?

WooCommerce Product Table makes it easy to create a customizable one-page order form. It lists all of your items on the main trade store page, and also works on product category pages in the trade login area:

Woo Product Table lets you:

• Make product comparisons simple, by showing off everything you have to offer side by side.
• Display exactly the information you want in your order form, and even include product variations.
• Help people find what they want quickly, by using searching, sorting, and filtering functionality.
• Enable customers to tick all the items they want and purchase them from one page.
• Enable the wholesale order form layout in the trade login area without affecting the experience for retail users. Or if you prefer, you can use it in the retail area too!

Where to get the trade order form

When you buy WooCommerce Wholesale Pro, you can choose whether to buy it on its own, or with WooCommerce Product Table for a discount. You'll need both trade shop plugins to get a trade login area complete with trade order forms.

Setting up user roles and permissions for trade customers

Setting up user roles and permissions for trade customers is a crucial aspect of managing wholesale operations using WooCommerce Wholesale Pro. This WordPress buy sell trade plugin offers robust features that allow you to customize user roles and access. Here's how you can set up user roles and permissions for trade customers using the best WooCommerce Wholesale plugins:

1. Creating custom user roles: WooCommerce Wholesale Pro enables you to create custom user roles specifically for trade customers. You can define roles such as "Wholesaler," "Trade Customer," or any other relevant designation. These roles will differentiate wholesale customers from regular retail customers within your WooCommerce system.
2. Assigning capabilities: Once you've created the custom user roles, you can assign specific capabilities or permissions to each role. Capabilities determine what actions or features a user with that role can access.
3. Controlling catalog visibility: WooCommerce Wholesale Pro allows you to control which variable products or product categories are visible to trade customers. You can set up rules that restrict certain products to wholesale customers only, ensuring that they have access to trade-specific offerings. This customization ensures that wholesale customers see relevant products and helps streamline their browsing experience.
4. Restricting access to non-wholesale areas: WooCommerce Wholesale Pro gives you the ability to restrict wholesale customers' access to non-wholesale areas of your wholesale website. This prevents them from accessing retail-specific features or wholesale prices that are not relevant to their WooCommerce trade account. By limiting access, you create a focused and streamlined experience for wholesale customers.
5. Integrating with user role management plugins: WooCommerce Wholesale Pro integrates with popular user role management plugins, such as "Members" or "User Role Editor." This integration provides additional flexibility and control over different user roles and permissions. You can leverage these WordPress buy sell trade plugins to fine-tune and customize the capabilities and access levels of WooCommerce wholesale suite further.

Add a WooCommerce trade account area today!

WooCommerce is an excellent way to sell online, but it’s designed to work best for customer-facing retail stores. If you’re building a trade shop, then you’ll need a WooCommerce trade account plugin to add the extra features you need.

The WooCommerce Wholesale Pro plugin adds everything you need for a professional trade account and B2B area. Either use it to power your entire store, or run it alongside your main retail shop.

Do you have any questions about how to use WooCommerce tradeshop plugins effectively on your site? Let us know in the comments section below!

Image credit: Luke Jones.

Looking for a solution to hide WooCommerce products? Sometimes you don't want every single product available to the public, especially if you're running something like a B2B/wholesale or members-only store.

Offering exclusive access to products can create buzz and increase your brand’s desirability. So to set this up in WooCommerce you need a way to hide products from public access. In this step-by-step tutorial, I'll show you how to hide products in WooCommerce using different methods, depending on the level at which you want to hide your products. By the end of this article, you'll be able to hide:

• A single product using WooCommerce to hide specific products from the shop page.
• An entire category of products using the WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin (either by password, role, or individual user login).
• Your entire store using the WooCommerce Private Store, (either by password or user login), which is a form of disabling WooCommerce for signed out or non-users.

Which way of hiding WooCommerce products is right for you?

These are the ways to hide products in WooCommerce:

• Option 1 - Hide an individual productIf you only need to hide a few specific products, WooCommerce's built-in settings let you remove individual items from the shop page. This is a quick solution but can become tricky to manage for larger product collections.
• Option 2 - Hide entire categoriesThe WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin lets you create some hidden products in an otherwise public store. Use it to hide or password protect products based on category.
• Option 3 - Make specific products password-protectedWant to create an exclusive product offering? You can password-protect specific products, allowing access only to customers with the right access - perfect for limited releases or VIP items.
• Option 4 - Show or hide products depending on user roleWith a user role-based approach, you can control product visibility based on customer type - like offering wholesale prices to B2B customers while hiding those items from regular shoppers.
• Option 5 - Hide all of your store's productsWooCommerce Private Store is good if you want to make every single product hidden. You can use it to password protect your entire store or hide it from all logged out users (guests).
• Option 6 - Password protect your entire WooCommerce storeThe WooCommerce Private Store plugin allows you to secure your entire store behind a password. This is great for private client portals, wholesale-only shops, or special event stores.
• Option 7 - Limit access your store's hidden productsRestrict access to your store’s products exclusively to logged-in users. This method is ideal for membership-based stores, employee-only shops, or any store that requires user registration.

Further Reading: How to hide prices until login in WooCommerce.

Below, I'll take you through how to use each method to hide WooCommerce products. Or if you prefer, then you can watch this video:

Option 1: Hide WooCommerce products from your shop page individually

Our first method uses core WooCommerce functionality - no plugins needed. It hides products from the shop pages. However, if a user gets their hands on a direct link, they'll still be able to access the product.

For that reason, this method is not a good approach if you actually want to fully restrict access to the product - not just hide it.

Also, this method isn't very efficient if you need to hide multiple products, as you'll need to manually edit every single product. When it comes to hiding multiple products on WooCommerce, a more efficient approach is to assign them to a category in bulk and then hide that category using one of the methods for how to hide products in WooCommerce.

If you're ok with the product still being accessible by direct URL, then it's fine to use WooCommerce to hide products from your shop page.

You can do this by editing the Catalog visibility option under Publish and choosing Hidden:

Option 2: How to hide an entire category of WooCommerce products

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

Then, create a new product category for your hidden products. I'll give mine a creative name of "Hidden Products", but you can name yours whatever makes sense.

Once you have the category, assign the products that you want to hide to that category.

Now, you've come to the point where you need to make a choice about how you want to let people "unhide" the products in this category. You can:

• Let users unhide the products by entering a password
• Make the products automatically visible to certain users or user roles

Option 3: How to make specific products password-accessible

To add password protection, go to Products → Categories and edit the category that you created for your hidden products:

• Scroll down to the WooCommerce product Visibility section
• Select Protected → Password protected
• Enter your desired password. You can also add multiple passwords to unlock the category if you want to give different users different passwords
• Save changes

Then, you can configure how your password protected categories function by going to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Protected Categories.

In this area, you'll want to:

• Uncheck the two Category Visibility checkboxes to make your category 100% hidden
• Select a Category Login Page where users can enter the password to see the WooCommerce hidden products/categories

You can also peruse the other settings to see if anything applies to your specific needs.

Option 4: How to show or hide products depending on user role

If you'd prefer to automatically give access to the WooCommerce hidden products to certain users or entire roles:

• Go to Products → Categories
• Edit the category that you created for your WooCommerce hidden products
• Scroll down to the WooCommerce product Visibility section
• Select Protected → Users and choose which users and/or roles can access your hidden WooCommerce products.
• Save your changes

Then, you can configure how your user and role protected categories function by going to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Protected Categories. Here, you need to choose what happens when a logged out or guest user tries to access a hidden category or one of its products:

Option 5: How to hide all products on your store from public view

Now it's time for the last, and most secure, way to hide WooCommerce products.

If you want to hide all of your products from the public, you'll need the WooCommerce Private Store plugin installed and activated.

Then, go to WooCommerce → Settings → Private Store to configure the plugin.

Just as with hiding specific categories of private products, you can hide your store in two different ways:

• Require users to enter a password to unhide the store
• Automatically unhide the store for logged in users

Option 6: Hide products by password protecting your WooCommerce store

To add a password:

• Enter a password (or multiple passwords) in the Store passwords box.
• Choose how long the password should unhide the store (in days) in the Password expires after the box.
• Enter the product page you want users to be taken to after logging in using the Redirect URL box.
• Configure the Login form options.

Option 7: How to only allow logged in users access your store's hidden products

If you want to automatically allow logged in users to see your hidden products, you just need to check the box for Automatically unlock the store for logged in users. Underneath, you'll find an option to choose which user roles to unlock the store for. This is handy if you only want certain user roles to have access, such as administrators and store managers.

You can also choose whether or not to Hide the login form… that displays for users who aren't logged in:

Master product visibility and take control of your WooCommerce store

Whether you need to hide a single product, one or more categories of products, or your entire WooCommerce store, one of the above methods should work for you.

Remember:

1. To hide a single product, you can use the Hidden Catalog WooCommerce product Visibility option. Just remember that people can still see the product if they get a direct link - it's not actually private.
2. If you want to hide an entire category of WooCommerce products, WooCommerce Protected Categories lets you do so via either password protection or specific logged in users or roles.
3. To hide your entire WooCommerce store, WooCommerce Private Store lets you do so via either password protection or by automatically unhiding your store for logged in users.

Any other questions about how to hide WooCommerce products on your WordPress website and provide great user experience? Leave a comment and we'll try to help out.

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

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

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

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

Let's get started!

What is the bulk add to cart WooCommerce plugin?

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

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

You can create a single product table listing all your products with 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.
   

   

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

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

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

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:

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

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

Bonus tip #1 - force customers to buy in bulk

The Product Table plugin makes it easy for customers to add bulk quantities and add 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.

Bonus tip #2 - add quick view links to your product tables

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

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

Bonus tip #3 - a quick popup cart

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.

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.

The 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.

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.

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:

Further reading: Complete guide to hiding prices until login in WooCommerce. 

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:

This is how to set up the premium version:

1. Purchase and install YITH WooCommerce Catalog Mode.
2. Head over to YITH → Catalog 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.

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.

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:

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:

• WooCommerce order form - Your product catalog can include Add to Cart buttons or tick boxes to add multiple products to the cart. This lets it double as a fully functional order form for WooCommerce. Or you can hide the add to cart facility to create a read-only WooCommerce catalog.
• WooCommerce restaurant food ordering system - A restaurant or takeaway business can use the catalog plugin to let people view menus and order food online.
• Product directory - A product catalog can also function as a complete WooCommerce directory, with large numbers of products listed in an easy-to-find format.
• WooCommerce wholesale - Use it with the WooCommerce Wholesale Pro plugin to list all your wholesale products in a structured catalog layout to help trade users quickly find and order their products.

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.
   

   

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:

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:

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:

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:

Example with online purchasing:

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.

Further reading: WooCommerce role-based pricing: Everything you need to know.

Adding inquiry forms or "Request a 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:

Next steps: Get started with WooCommerce catalog mode

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

• Use either WooCommerce Wholesale Pro's 'Hide Price Until Login' feature or YITH WooCommerce Catalog Mode to put your store in catalog mode with purchasing disabled.
• Alternatively (or as well!), use WooCommerce Product Table to list products in a structured table, either with or without online purchasing.

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 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!

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".
   

   

   Then in the following step select "Wholesale store" from the listed options.
   

   

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.
   

   

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.
   

   

5. Search and filter settings are also very useful to set up. Include category and tag filters at a minimum.
   

   

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:

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.

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