BigCommerce Multi Vendor Marketplace
Webkul’s BigCommerce Multi Vendor Marketplace app lets you and other sellers sell products through your BigCommerce store.
From the admin panel, you control sellers and their products alongside your own store products.
You can require approval so that seller products appear on the storefront only after you review them.
Create membership plans that sellers purchase during registration before they start selling products.
You earn commission from each seller based on the membership plan they choose when joining your marketplace.
If you plan to move your marketplace to Shopify, explore MultiVendor Marketplace on the Shopify.
Explore Bagisto’s Self Hosted Multi Vendor Solution if you want to run a marketplace on your own hosting.
BigCommerce Multi Vendor Marketplace features
Admin features
- Manage seller profiles, seller products, and orders from the admin panel.
- Approve products submitted by sellers.
- Assign a product to any seller.
- Sync products and categories from your BigCommerce store.
- Create seller admin accounts.
- Set a seller admin’s status to Active or Disable.
- Add sellers within the limit of your subscription plan.
- Create seller membership plans and set their commission.
- Create a Payout for a seller once an order is complete.
- Set a transaction’s status to Approve or Disapprove.
- Follow the setup instructions to add the seller login page to your storefront.
Seller features
- Use a separate seller control panel.
- View orders and change their status.
- Add products from the seller panel.
- Create seller admin accounts.
- Activate or disable a seller admin at any time.
- Send a Withdraw request to the admin after an order is complete.
Additional marketplace features
- Import and export products.
- Add custom fields to products.
- Choose any product image as the default image.
CSV import and export features
- Use advanced CSV import and export options for products.
- Admins and sellers can export orders to a CSV file.
Version 2.0 features
- Use Domain Mapping if it is included in your subscription plan.
- Create product options using the advanced options feature.
- Generate product SKUs automatically from the product options you create.
- Add a custom identifier, such as a seller ID or name, to seller product names and SKUs.
Version 2.0 updates
- Admins can make seller payouts through PayPal.
- Use Seller Allowed categories to restrict sellers to adding products in specific categories.
Note:
PAYOUT: After an order is complete, the admin can transfer the remaining amount to the seller after deducting commission.
WITHDRAW: This is the amount a seller asks the admin to pay after an order is complete.
Admin panel video tutorial: Part 1
Video tutorial: Admin panel, Part 2
Admin panel video tutorial: Part 3
Seller panel video tutorial
Installation and configuration
Step 1: Install the app
In your BigCommerce control panel, click Apps, find BigCommerce Multi-Vendor Marketplace, and click Install.
Step 2: Confirm installation
Click Confirm to complete the installation of the marketplace app.
Step 3: View the dashboard
After installation, you can view the dashboard of BigCommerce Multi-Vendor Marketplace.
You can choose and apply any theme color from the dashboard to change its appearance.
Filter dashboard reports by order status, seller, or date, as shown in the screenshots below.
Admin panel features
The following sections explain the options available in the Multi-vendor Marketplace admin panel.
My Subscription
Subscription Information
View the details of your current subscription in this section and choose a plan that fits your marketplace.
You can upgrade your subscription as needed, and a 10-day free trial starts after you install the app.
Click Upgrade Plan to choose a different subscription for your marketplace.
To use domain mapping, select a plan that lists Domain Mapping as Yes.
Select a plan to open the page where you enter your details and choose a payment method.
Choose offline payment or PayPal, and you will receive an invoice after completing the payment.
If you choose PayPal, you will be taken to its login page to sign in and complete your payment.
Transactions
An invoice is generated once you choose a plan and complete its payment.
View the list of transactions in this section to check your subscription payments.
My Company
The My Company area has two sections for your company profile and store settings.
Company Profile
View your company or store details here, including the fields shown in the screenshot below.
- Company or store name
- Store ID
- Storefront URL
- Owner’s email address
- Other company details
Company Settings
Review your store settings here and make any required changes in your BigCommerce store.
Click Sync to copy the updated store settings to your marketplace.
Settings
The updated Settings area has four sections and includes the domain mapping feature.
Setup instructions
Follow this section to add seller registration and login pages to your storefront.
- The Seller Registration URL: Provides the link to the seller registration form.
- Seller Login URL: Provides the link to the seller login form.
- Seller Login & Register link at Homepage: Follow the provided steps to add seller registration and login pages to your storefront.
If you need help during installation, click Need assistance for code integration to contact support.
Once setup is complete, the Seller login and Seller Registration pages appear on your storefront.
Embed Page: Click this option to view the list of marketplace sellers on your storefront.
Marketplace sellers appear on the storefront in the layout shown in this screenshot.
The next screenshot shows the details page for an individual marketplace seller.
General
-
- In General settings, enter the PayPal client ID and secret key for payouts, then choose sandbox or live mode.
- Enable auto payment to transfer funds to sellers’ PayPal accounts when their orders reach the order status you set for auto payment.
- Click Save after you finish configuring these settings.
How to get the PayPal client ID and secret key
Open your PayPal dashboard and click My Apps & credentials to find the client ID and secret key.
The credentials shown here are available for both sandbox and live mode.
To create credentials, click Create App and enter the required details shown below.
Seller settings
- Product Setting: Choose Yes to approve new seller products automatically, or No to review and approve them manually.
- WYSIWYG: Means “What you see is what you get.” Choose Plain for plain text descriptions or TinyMCE for an editor.
- Show Location: Select this checkbox to show customers where products ship from.
- Product Identifier: Add a prefix, suffix, or custom value to a seller’s product name.
- SKU Identifier: Add a prefix, suffix, or custom value to a seller’s product SKU.
Email settings
Follow the user guide to configure email settings for your marketplace.
Note: These settings apply to Gmail; contact your email provider for the required details if you use another service.
Add-ons
- The ShipStation add-on sends all seller order details to their ShipStation merchant accounts in real time.
Follow the ShipStation integration user guide to install and set up this add-on.
- The Seller Custom Registration add-on lets admins add custom fields to the seller registration form.
Use the Seller Custom Registration user guide to install and set up the add-on.
Domain Settings
Domain mapping lets you customize the marketplace domain name when your subscription plan includes this feature.
Enter the domain name you want to map to your BigCommerce marketplace store.
Note:
Map your domain to http://bigcommerce.webkul.com by creating a CNAME record in your DNS settings, as shown below.
Record type: CNAME
cname: test.example.com (your chosen domain)
value: bigcommerce.webkul.com
ttl: 600 seconds
Step:1-
Step:2-
Step:3-
Step:4-
Seller Control
Seller Companies
Review each seller’s details in this section and update the seller’s status as needed.
- Seller name
- Email ID
- Seller status
- Active date
To add a seller, click the plus icon, enter the seller’s details, and click Save.
Use the allowed categories option to limit which categories a seller can add products to.
Go to Seller Control > Seller Companies, then click Seller Company to set the categories for that seller.
Seller Plan
This section lists the plans you have created for sellers who join your marketplace.
To create a seller membership plan, click the plus icon and fill in the plan details.
After clicking the plus icon, enter the required details and click Save.
General plan settings
- Plan Title: Enter the plan name.
- Status: Set the plan’s status to active.
- Code: Enter a code for the plan.
- Price: Set the price of the plan.
- Best choice: Mark this plan as the best choice.
- Interval: Choose days, quarterly, half yearly, or yearly for the plan’s time interval.
- Interval value: Enter the number for the selected time interval.
- Description: Describe the seller plan.
Plan conditions
- Max Product: Set the maximum number of products a seller can add under this plan.
- Commission: Set the commission percentage for the plan.For a $100 order under a plan with 5% commission, the admin deducts $5 and transfers the remaining $95 as a payout.
Accounting
For manual seller payments, create a Payout in Accounting for the sales amount after deducting your commission.
Once the Payout is complete, you can change its status to Approved.
View total sales and commission here, along with the total payout and withdrawal amounts.
Note: Create a payout only when you are paying the seller manually outside the app.
When you create a payout or approve a seller’s withdrawal, the app treats the amount as paid manually.
The app then shows only the remaining payment amount, rather than making that payment itself.
Accounting records transactions between the admin and sellers, giving you an overview of payments between both sides.
- Total Sale: The total sales amount for the admin’s store.
- Commission: The total approved commission the admin earns from sellers.
- Total payout: The amount the admin can transfer to a seller after deducting commission.
- Total Withdraw: The total amount a seller asks the admin to pay after an order is complete.
Seller Commission
Open the Seller Commission tab to view the amounts you need to pay to sellers.
Click Pay Now to send the seller’s payment through PayPal from this tab.
Enable the auto-payout option if you want seller payments to be sent automatically to their PayPal accounts.
Automatic payments follow the order status you select for auto payment in the settings.
Note: Seller commission is calculated after deducting the admin’s commission and the seller plan fee.
Only approved entries and entries with failed payments from Accounting are included in seller commission.
Payout Transactions
Payout Transactions lists all transactions made for payments to sellers on your marketplace.
Documents
You can ask sellers to upload identity proof, address proof, or other documents during registration.
Create the required seller documents here so they appear on the seller registration page.
Fill in all the required details and click Save to create the seller document.
After you save the document, the seller registration page will appear as shown below.
Follow the steps below to view the documents a specific seller uploaded during registration.
Click Documents, then use the download icons to download the files that the seller uploaded during registration.
To hide the document page during registration, go to Setting > Seller registration, select No, and click Save.
Users
Seller Admin
View each seller admin’s name and email address, along with the seller company they belong to.
Set a seller admin’s status to Active or Disabled, and use filters to find an account.
Create seller admins from this section, or use Batch Action to apply an action to several selected items.
Customer
The Customer section displays the list of all customers in your marketplace.
Products
Category
View all store categories here and sync them from your BigCommerce store to Multi-vendor Marketplace.
Product
Click the plus icon to add products to your store, or sync products that already exist.
Search for products using the filters listed below to find the items you need.
- Name
- Price
- SKU
- Product status
You can also import or export products and assign any product to a seller.
Product synchronization
Click Sync products to copy products from your BigCommerce store to the marketplace as a batch task.
Assign a product to a seller
To assign a product directly to a seller, click the Assign seller button.
Select the seller from the dropdown and click Assign to complete the assignment.
Order
The Order section shows all orders associated with sellers in your marketplace.
Select an order and click Packaging Slip to download the packing slip for that order.
Both admins and sellers can export their orders to a CSV file, as shown below.
Seller panel features
Seller registration
Sellers must register before they can start selling products on the marketplace.
Enter the details listed below and click Next to continue with seller registration.
- Seller name
- Selected membership plan
- Email address
- Contact details
Upload the documents required as identity proof, then click Register to complete this step.
After registration, sellers receive an email with their username and password at the address they used to sign up.
Use the username and password from that email to log in to the seller Dashboard.
Dashboard
After logging in, sellers can view the dashboard shown in this screenshot.
Category
Sellers can view all the categories available in the store from this section.
Products
This section lists the seller’s products and includes filters to help find a specific item.
To add a product, click the plus icon and enter its details on a single page.
Complete the following tabs to add a product or edit its details.
Basic Information
Enter the product details listed below before choosing its category and shipping settings.
- Name
- Price
- Height
- Weight
- Other product details
Select the product category and shipping, then complete the remaining details to create the product.
Images
Upload multiple product images from your device or add them using image URLs.
Choose any of the uploaded product images to use as the default image.
Inventory
This field shows how many products are available in the store.
Choose to track inventory if you want customers to see the number of products available.
To hide the number of available products from customers, choose not to track inventory.
Product Options
Enter an option name and select its type from the dropdown to create product options.
Use those options to create product variations, including multiple color variants or an image through pattern variation.
After you create product variants, their SKUs are generated automatically under the SKUs tab.
For each variant, you can edit the product details and add its product images.
Custom Fields
Add custom fields to give customers more detail about your products.
Extra Details
Use this section to add the following information about your product.
- Brand name
- Product UPC
- Warranty
- Availability
- Featured product setting
- Store visibility
- Maximum quantity
- Minimum quantity
Storefront view
Import products
Use the import option on the seller’s product page to import products into the marketplace.
Select the delimiter and browse your device for the file you want to use to import products.
CSV format for importing products
Prepare the CSV file you want to upload using the format described below.
For Category: Separate categories with a semicolon (;), and join each child category to its parent path with a forward slash (/).
Include all parent categories before the child category when building its path in the CSV file.
For example: In Bath; Kitchen/Towel, Bath and Kitchen are parent categories, while Towel is a child of Kitchen.
Custom fields: Join each key and value with a colon (:), and separate custom fields with a semicolon (;).
For example: material:cotton; type:free-style
Image URLs: Separate image URLs with a semicolon, as in the example abc.png;def.png.
For variants: Add a separate CSV entry for each product variant, directly below the product it belongs to.
SKU: SKU name must have a valid format.
Option : [Option Type]OptionName = OptionValue:valueData1|valueData2; [option type]OptionName=OptionValue:valueData1|valueData2;
Symbols for Option Type
CS – SWATCH
RB – RADIO BUTTON
RT – RECTANGLE LIST
S – DROP DOWN
Note: Set the item type to product or SKU to show whether an entry is the main product or a variant of the product above.
Export products
To export products, configure the export settings and enter a file name for the export.
Choose the output type and delimiter, then select the other fields you want to include in the file.
The exported product file uses the format shown in the screenshot below.
Order
Sellers can view the list of their orders in the Order section.
Click the button to view an order’s details, where you will also find the option to create a shipment.
Enter the required shipment details shown below to create a shipment for the order.
Note: The steps in this section describe manual shipping, with shipment records created in the seller panel.
The separate ShipStation add-on sends orders to ShipStation, where sellers can create shipments after setup.
After shipping an order, the seller can create its shipment record from the seller panel.
Once a shipment is created, sellers can view it and download its packaging slip, as shown below.
Click Print to download the packaging slip for the shipment you are viewing.
Admins can also use this feature to download packaging slips from the admin panel.
Seller admin
The Seller’s admin tab lists the admin accounts associated with that seller.
To create another seller admin, click the plus icon and enter the required account details.
Seller
View the seller’s details in this section and edit them here when needed.
Accounting
Sellers can manage their store accounts here, create a Withdraw request for the admin, and view their Payout.
The account summary shows total sales and commission, along with total payout and withdrawal amounts.
Each accounting entry includes the fields described in the list below.
- ID: The seller’s transaction ID.
- Status: Approved, Declined, Payment Initiated, Payment Cancel, or Complete.
- Type: Withdraw, Payout, or Order placement.
- Seller: The seller’s name.
- Reference: The reference for the transaction.
- Commission: The admin’s commission.
- Transaction Amount: The amount for this transaction.
- Date: The date and time of the transaction.
Note: When the admin pays a seller, the accounting status changes to Payment Initiated.
The status then changes to Payment Cancelled or Complete, based on the result of the transaction.
Settings
Vendors can add their profile and PayPal payout details in Settings, as shown below.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Why does the seller name appear as HTML text on the product page?
See this screenshot: http://prntscr.com/nh1a1c
Changes in the BigCommerce catalog API can cause the seller name to appear as HTML text.
To fix this issue, update the template file by following the steps below.
- Open ‘templates/components/products/product-view.html’.
- Find the following lines:
{{#each product.custom_fields}}<dtclass=”productView-info-name”>{{name}}:</dt><ddclass=”productView-info-value”>{{{value}}}</dd>{{/each}}
- Now replace above code with below updated code:
{{#each product.custom_fields}}
{{#if name ‘===’ ‘Seller’}}
<dt class=”productView-info-name”>{{name}}:</dt>
<dd class=”productView-info-value wk-seller-url” id=”wk-seller-url”>{{{value}}}</dd>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
var seller_url_div3 = document.getElementById(“wk-seller-url”).textContent;
var str = seller_url_div3;
var str1 = document.createElement(‘str1’);
str1.innerHTML = str;
document.getElementById(“wk-seller-url”).innerHTML = str1.innerHTML;
</script>
{{else}}
<dt class=”productView-info-name”>{{name}}:</dt>
<dd class=”productView-info-value”>{{{value}}}</dd>
{{/if}}
{{/each}} - Click Save and apply the changes.
The screenshots below show where to open the theme files and update the code.
- Go to Storefront > My Themes, then select Advanced > Edit Theme Files.
2. Open the file templates/components/products/product-view.html in the theme editor.
3. Replace the existing code with the updated code shown in the screenshot below.
How to manage the marketplace URL
1. Use Domain Mapping to replace bigcommerce.webkul.com with your site’s subdomain, such as marketplace.xyz.com.
2. Create a web page in BigCommerce and add an iframe that links to seller login or registration.
Webkul support
For help with the BigCommerce Multi-Vendor Marketplace app, create a support ticket with Webkul.
Current Product Version - 2.0
Supported Framework Version - BigCommerce
6 comments
Please generate a ticket at – https://webkul.uvdesk.com/en/
We will surely assist you over the ticket.
Thank you!!
Please generate a ticket at http://webkul.uvdesk.com
Thanks!!
Thank you so much for your time and effort to go through our application. Our application covers all the basic functionality of the marketplace, keeping in mind the expectations of our customers. Meanwhile, we can also provide 10 days free trial on request of our existing clients to check the functionality of our application in a better way.
Click here to get 10 days free trial: https://www.bigcommerce.com/apps/multi-vendor-marketplace-by-webkul/
For any further query, you can raise a ticket at https://webkul.uvdesk.com/en/