How to create a wholesale order form in WooCommerce
The default WooCommerce store layout isn’t ideal for wholesale purchasing. This is because stores that cater to wholesale buyers have special requirements that are different from those of simple online retail stores. These stores would be better off using a WooCommerce wholesale order form that makes it easier for customers to buy more products, faster.
In this article, we’ll walk you through a quick, step-by-step tutorial to show you how you can create, configure, and display a WooCommerce wholesale order form on your site’s front-end.
Even better, there’s a fully functioning demo site so you can see how the finished site looks.
But first, let’s look at what WooCommerce wholesale order forms are and how they can help you deliver better user experience and increase sales.
What do we mean by a WooCommerce wholesale store?
A WooCommerce wholesale store lets you sell products at wholesale prices to wholesale customers. You can set it up alongside your retail store or keep it hidden so that only wholesale customers can access it.
The benefit of building an online wholesale store is it lets you incentivize customers to buy more from you. It’s also a great way to increase sales.
Depending on your preferences, you can choose to set up either a wholesale store where you sell products to wholesale customers only or to both wholesale customers and retail customers.
Related Tutorial
There’s a dedicated tutorial on setting up a wholesale store in WooCommerce here
Why you need a WooCommerce wholesale order form
The default WooCommerce store layout displays all the products in a grid layout. The products are listed in rows and columns with 3 to 4 products per row.
This layout may work well for stores that have a few products and those that sell to retail customers only. However, the default layout doesn’t show product details and only displays the product’s image, name, price, and add to cart button.
The default WooCommerce purchasing user flow also offers a poor shopping experience to wholesale buyers who typically need to buy lots of products from your store. You need to make it easier for them to find products and add them to their cart.
Instead, you can display your products in a table view.
Here are some of the benefits of displaying products using a WooCommerce wholesale order form:
- Customers can see more products on one page: A WooCommerce wholesale order form helps you show more products per page. This way customers can select multiple products in one go without going to individual product pages.
- Customers can buy products, set quantities, and select variations from the same page: A WooCommerce wholesale order form allows customers to view more products at once as compared to the default WooCommerce store layout. They can select multiple products, set quantities, and add them to their cart at once. This is especially useful for customers who already know what they want to buy such as wholesale buyers.
- Customers can add multiple products to cart at once: A WooCommerce wholesale order form lets you display products in an easy-to-read format. You can show product details like the product’s description, reviews, and SKUs in separate columns for each product.
WooCommerce wholesale plugins
To build our store, we’re going to need a couple of extra plugins.
A wholesale order form plugin enables customers to see more products on one page. Wholesale customers can buy products, set quantities, and select variations from the same page. In addition to this, they can add multiple products to cart at once.
The WooCommerce Product Table Ultimate plugin offers a simple way to create a wholesale order form with purchasing options. With this plugin, you can enable customers to see more products at a glance along with product details so it’s easier for them to make informed buying decisions.
A membership and discounts plugin lets different types of wholesale customers sign up and qualify for different discounts. For example, Gold Wholesale customers might qualify for a 10% off discount whereas Silver Wholesale customers may qualify for a 5% off discount.
WooCommerce Wholesale Plugin Bundle is a powerful membership and discounts plugin that lets you build a wholesale store. It can help you create multiple pricing tiers, combine wholesale price discounts and user roles, and restrict access to specific products and categories.
In addition to this, you’ll be able to set up an entire wholesale store or create wholesale areas on your website.
How to set up a wholesale store with a WooCommerce wholesale order form
The WooCommerce Wholesale Plugin Bundle lets you create wholesale order forms for your online store. It packs in both the WooCommerce Members Only and WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing and Discount Rules plugins to help you build a WooCommerce wholesale store and, optionally, offer member pricing.
Here’s what you need to do to set up a WooCommerce wholesale order form on your online shop.
Step #1: Create wholesale user roles
Most online wholesale store owners prefer to sell to both wholesale and retail buyers. One way to do this is by setting up a separate area for your wholesale buyers.
Additionally, by setting up multiple wholesale user roles for your WooCommerce wholesale shop, you’ll be able to display your products and prices in a more flexible way. For instance, you can choose to show different prices to different types of buyers. Or, you can show or hide certain products from certain types of buyers.
To get started, you’ll need to create wholesale user roles for your wholesale buyers.
- Navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Members Only > User roles
- Click on the dropdown menu next to the ‘User roles’ field and select the ‘Customer’ user role
- In the ‘New role name’ field, give a name for your new role, e.g. ‘Wholesale Buyer’
- Click on the ‘Duplicate role’ button.
Let users register for specific user roles
You can also use the WooCommerce Wholesale Plugin Bundle to allow users to choose their user role at the time of registration. For this, all you have to do is add an extra field in your registration form. At the time of registration, customers will be able to choose the user role they’d like to register for.
Here’s how you can add a user role field to the WooCommerce registration form:
- Head over to WooCommerce > Settings > Members Only > Registration
- Select the checkbox next to the ‘Enable Roles Field’ option
- From the ‘Registration Roles’ section, select the roles you’d like to include in the role selection by ticking the role in the ‘Include’ column
In addition to this, if you want to be able to approve certain roles (such as Wholesale Buyer) but allow customers to register for other user roles (such as Retail Customer) immediately, tick the checkbox next to that user role in the ‘Needs approval’ column.
Related Tutorial
Here’s a complete tutorial on approving new user registrations in WooCommerce
Step #2: Set up wholesale pricing and discounts
Now that you have created wholesale user roles, we can proceed to setting up some rules for WooCommerce wholesale prices:
- Head over to WooCommerce > Settings > Fees and Discounts
- Make sure ‘Enable User Role Pricing’ is checked
- Click ‘User Role Pricing’ in the sub menu
- Each user role is listed – you can set percentage or fixed discounts
Alternatively, instead of applying a single global discount, you can also set different prices for each product. Learn more about WooCommerce user role pricing and how to set it up.
Bulk discount pricing
Earlier we looked at how you can offer WooCommerce wholesale prices based on user role. Next, we’ll go over how you can offer bulk discount pricing.
Combining both these strategies enables wholesale customers to benefit from two discounts – an automatic discount depending on user role and a second discount for the quantity of products they purchase.
- Navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Fees and Discounts > Dynamic Pricing
- Click ‘Add Rule’
- Using the ‘Offer type’ field, select ‘Bulk Pricing’
- Add as many tiers as you’d like for your pricing rules
Related Tutorial
Here’s a step-by-step tutorial about setting up your own B2B store
Step #3: Display products in a WooCommerce wholesale order form
So far, we’ve looked at how to set up the WooCommerce Wholesale Plugin Bundle and configure its default settings. Next, we’ll show you how to display the wholesale order form in a table layout on the front-end.
We’ll use the WooCommerce Product Table Ultimate plugin. Please note that this is not included in the Wholesale Plugin Bundle – it’s a separate plugin.
There are two ways for displaying the product table on your website’s front-end: by using a shortcode and by using a Gutenberg block.
Both methods require you to first create a new page to add that table to. To do this, go to Pages > Add New from the WordPress dashboard and enter a title for your page.
Using a shortcode
This method lets you show a WooCommerce wholesale order form on your website’s front-end by adding a shortcode in the WordPress classic editor. The benefit of using a shortcode is that it keeps your content easy to read and modify during the editing process.
For this, simply copy and paste the following shortcode on the page where you’d like to show the WooCommerce wholesale order form: [product_table_ultimate]
.
Once you’re done, click on the ‘Publish’ button.
Using a Gutenberg block
You can also display products on the front-end by adding your product table to a Gutenberg block. This can be done by clicking the ‘New Block’ icon.
Search for the ‘Product Table Ultimate’ block and the product table will automatically be added to the text editor. You can change its parameters from the ‘Block’ menu on the right-hand side of the screen.
Preview the page on the front-end. You should be able to see a neat WooCommerce product table that lets customers place their orders. It should look something like this:
You can see how this all works by visiting the demo page. Log in using the following details to see the same table with a 10% discount on all products:
U: wholesale
P: wholesale
Related Tutorial
Check out our complete guide on WooCommerce bulk order forms for more information
Bonus: how to display different categories of products in a table
By now, you should have all of your WooCommerce products in a list-style layout on your site’s front-end. If you sell different types of products then it might be a bit overwhelming for users to browse your product catalog.
You may want to show products from a certain WooCommerce category in one product table and products from another category in a different product table. This can be done with the WooCommerce Product Table Ultimate plugin.
You can see a simple example here.
To do this, you simply need to split the product table into individual sections depending on product categories. For instance, if you sell grocery items, you might consider displaying soaps, shampoos, and conditioners in one product table and pet food in another. This way customers will be able to easily find the exact product they want and place their orders.
Instead of listing all of the products in one product table, we’ll look at how you can display a separate product table for each WooCommerce category. The WooCommerce Product Table Ultimate shortcode can be modified to tell WordPress which category to show in that table.
First, you’ll have to find out the ID of the WooCommerce category you want to display in a table. In a new tab, open Products > Categories to view a list of all of your WooCommerce categories.
When you hover over a category, you should be able to see a URL for that category page at the bottom of the screen. This includes the ‘tag_ID=’ followed by a number which is your category ID. In the screenshot below, the ID number of the ‘Pet food’ category is 16.
Modifying the shortcode
If you’re using a shortcode, modify it to [product_table_ultimate source=”categories” categories=”16″].
The source=”categories” tells the product table to show products from specific categories. And the categories=”16″ parameter tells it to show products from the category with the ID 16.
Modifying the Gutenberg block
Alternatively, if you use the Gutenberg block, you’ll be able to modify the configurations using the ‘Block’ menu on the right.
- Select ‘Categories’ in the ‘Product Source’ field using the dropdown list
- Enter ‘16’ in the ‘Categories’ field. You can also show multiple product categories in a product table. Simply enter a comma-separated list of category IDs in this field
When you’re done, update the page and preview it on the front-end. It should now show products from the specified category only.
Bonus #2: How to set minimum and maximum quantities and order amounts in your order form
Running a wholesale store means you might want to set minimum and maximum quantities and/or amounts. For instance, you might want to ensure that your customers purchase a minimum quantity of certain items.
You can do this using the WooCommerce Minimum Maximum Quantity and Order plugin. This allows you to set min and max quantities on products, globally, by category, and for individual products and variations. You can also set min max amounts for each product and for the entire order.
WooCommerce Minimum Maximum Quantity and Order
Maximise your revenue by setting rules on quantity and value
There’s a helpful article on how to set minimum and maximum quantities in WooCommerce here.
Create your WooCommerce wholesale order form
Optimizing your WooCommerce order form for wholesale customers can help you improve their shopping experience.
Plugins like WooCommerce Product Table Ultimate plugin and WooCommerce Wholesale Plugin Bundle allow you to create a WooCommerce wholesale order form that lets you display all your products on one page.
We showed how you can create a WooCommerce wholesale order form and customize it in a variety of different ways. Hopefully, you’re in a better position now to take the next steps.
Ready to create a WooCommerce wholesale order form and increase sales?
Get the WooCommerce Product Table Ultimate plugin and the WooCommerce Wholesale Plugin Bundle today!