Dokan Multivendor is a popular plugin for managing a WooCommerce marketplace where vendors can come and sell their items in your shop. Features related to Dokan were first added to the Table Rate method with the version 4.2 release and continue to improve over future updates. This partnership offers you and your vendors the option to setup more flexible shipping. Each vendor can offer their own pricing and conditions, and even edit their own shipping rates if you choose.
If you are not currently a Dokan Multivendor user but would like to learn more, visit their website now to learn more.
Getting Started
Before you can setup any shipping methods or prices, you will need to decide on a few options. First, who is going to be managing the shipping costs? One of the unique features in this plugin is the ability to have other users manage their own shipping costs. Each vendors needs their own Table Rate method if you choose to give this ability. This prevents them from being able to edit the shipping costs of other vendors. You can learn more about this feature by reading the article Allow Other Users to Manage Shipping.
If each vendor has different methods, you will also need to setup different shipping packages for them. This will allow customers to purchase items from different vendors and still checkout in one order. Each package will have its own shipping line in the order summary, and shipping will be calculated separately from the other packages. This feature has been in WooCommerce for quite a while, however it does not have a settings page built in. You can enable this option through a code snippet, or try a free plugin like Bolder Element’s Multiple Packages for WooCommerce plugin. You can also enable this feature even if the prices are all setup in one table. We highly recommend this option simply for the clarity. Rather than showing one large shipping cost, the customer will see the shipping costs for specific items detailed in the order summary.
Download the Multiple Packages for WooCommerce Plugin
Method Conditions
This section only applies to shop owners who are giving their vendors separate Table Rate methods. So if you plan to configure your shipping rates within the same table, you may skip this section.
Method Conditions work exactly the same as the conditions in the table but with one key difference. These conditions apply to the method itself regardless of any other settings on this page. The method checks these conditions first, before processing the table of rates. The tables setup in this method are processed only if all conditions are met. Consequently, if any conditions return false, the method will stop and no options will be returned. This makes it the best place to add your Dokan Vendor condition. The method will check if the shipping package’s vendor matches before calculating a shipping cost from the tables below.
The Table of Rates
With the Dokan Multivendor plugin enabled, a new condition will be added to the table of rates section. Add a new condition to the table of rates and select the Dokan Vendor option. This will produce two new settings boxes to configure the condition. The secondary select box options are Includes and Excludes, with a search box to select the user who will edit the rates. As you begin typing a name, options of similar names will appear. Click on the user’s name to add them to the box.
Configuring one table for multiple vendors would look something like this:
In the example above you can see that vendors still have flexibility in their shipping. They are not limited to one row with a flat rate cost. If they decide to add a Subtotal condition, it would be based on the subtotal of just their items (when properly separated as discussed earlier). The cost for items from other vendors would have no impact here.
Dispersing the Funds to Vendors
As of now, this feature is not yet available, and funds will need to be sent manually. With the help from the developers at Dokan, we are working to ensure that this feature will be available in the 4.3 update. In addition, you will also be able to split the cart based on vendor with the multiple packages plugin, however it will appear as one line in the order summary. This will simply offer more options for how things can appear when defining your rates in one table.
Check back soon for more updates!