Today’s B2B buyers expect an online purchase experience at par with the B2C buying journey. One powerful way to cater to these evolving expectations is by offering flexible payment terms. With WooCommerce split payments, you empower your wholesale customers to buy and give them the convenience they deserve – all while boosting your cash flow and driving more sales!
In this article, we’ll explore the concept of WooCommerce split payments, walk you through the benefits of implementing it for your business, and teach you how you can do it. Without further ado, let’s get straight into it!
What Are WooCommerce Split Payments?
The term “split payments” can be used in multiple contexts in the e-commerce world. Within the context of WooCommerce, however, it primarily refers to the ability to divide payment terms for a single purchase.
WooCommerce split payments provide a more flexible approach than traditional one-time payments by allowing customers to spread their payments over multiple installments. This can be structured in different ways. For example:
- Partial payments: WooCommerce wholesalers can allow customers to pay in partial payments, spreading the total invoice cost across multiple transactions.
- Deposit payments: Alternatively, wholesalers can offer deposit-based payments. In this arrangement, wholesale customers make an initial payment, typically a percentage of the invoice amount, with the remaining balance paid off in installments or specific schedules.
- Customized payment plans: Depending on the needs of the buyer or the size of the wholesale order, sellers may also offer customized payment plans. These plans are tailored to specific requirements and may feature extended payment durations or structured installment schedules.
Benefits Of Offering WooCommerce Split Payments
Offering WooCommerce split payments can work wonders in improving your bottom line and ensuring customer satisfaction. Let’s explore some of its key advantages below:
1. Helps you attract more wholesale customers
Providing flexible payment terms entices more customers to do business with your brand. With more payment options, you can cater to buyers with varying budget constraints, purchase preferences, and financial goals.
Offering split payment options also empowers new customers who may have otherwise deterred buying due to large upfront payments. For example, small businesses with limited cash flow, or new entrants in the industry. By removing barriers to purchase, you encourage these types of customers to partner with your business with confidence, laying the foundation for long-term relationships.
2. Allows you to improve sales conversions
As a wholesaler, you know firsthand about the substantial sums involved in B2B transactions. More often than not, this poses significant barriers to purchase for your wholesale clients. By providing the option to break down large invoices into more manageable payments, you remove this financial burden and facilitate quicker purchase decisions. As a result, you boost your conversion rates and drive revenue growth for your business.
This advantage has a ripple effect on your business. With enhanced cash flow, you experience greater financial stability, allowing you to invest in growth opportunities and scale faster.
3. Gives you a competitive edge in the market
Modern B2B buyers value flexibility in payment terms. In fact, according to a recent industry survey, 83% of B2B buyers say they would abandon an e-commerce purchase if no payment terms were offered on checkout. By giving them the payment options they are looking for, you give your wholesale customers more reasons to choose your business over competitors.
How To Offer WooCommerce Split Payments (Step-by-Step)
Out of the box, WooCommerce does not provide the functionality to offer split payment terms for wholesale transactions. Fortunately, you can easily implement this using our plugin: Wholesale Payments.
Wholesale Payments is our newest addition to Wholesale Suite–a collection of plugins tailored to WooCommerce wholesale business owners. With this plugin, you can offer flexible payment terms, empower B2B customers to purchase, and automate invoicing right within WooCommerce.
We’ll use this tool throughout the tutorial, so make sure you have installed and activated the plugin. If you haven’t already done so, you can get the plugin here. You can also check out our getting started guide for more information.
So, let’s get right into the steps!
Step 1: Enable Wholesale Payments as a WooCommerce Payment Method
After installing Wholesale Payments, make sure you enable it on the WooCommerce Payment settings page. Firstly, navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Payments and look for Wholesale Payments. Then, toggle the button to “Enabled”.
Step 2: Connect your Stripe Account To Wholesale Payments
Wholesale Payments seamlessly integrates with Stripe, allowing you to automate invoicing and accept versatile payment methods from B2B customers. To connect a Stripe account to Wholesale Payments, head to your WordPress Dashboard > Wholesale > Wholesale Payments. Immediately, you’ll see a button “Connect with Stripe”.
Then, you can either:
- Connect your existing Stripe Account
- Create a new Stripe Account right within the integration page
Wholesale Payments makes it easy for you to create a new Stripe Account. To do so, simply follow the prompt screen and provide the necessary information. Once you’re done, click “Agree and Submit.” Once the process is complete, you’ll automatically be redirected to the plugin admin page, where you can see your Stripe API settings.
Step 3: Customize your split payment plan
Wholesale Payments makes it easy for you to set up WooCommerce split payments. Firstly, it offers a selection of pre-configured payment options typically used in B2B transactions. You can view these plans by navigating Wholesale > Wholesale Payments > Payment Plans.
Some pre-configured examples include NET 30/60/90 payments, 3 equal payments, and deferred payments. You can select and edit any of these plans and enable them for your customers:
Configuring a custom split payment plan
This is where Wholesale Payments’ flexibility shines– with this plugin, you can create tailored payment plans to meet the unique needs of your customers! To create your first plan, firstly click on “Create a custom payment plan”. This will then take you to the Edit Payment plan screen, where you can modify:
- Plan Name: Set a payment plan name for easy reference.
- Description: Provide additional information about your payment plan.
- Breakdown
- Days after order: Set payment timings relative to the order date (Day 0 is the purchase date.)
- Amount due: Choose from a fixed amount, percentage, or no payment required.
You can add as many payment schedules as you want to accommodate the requirements of your wholesale customers.
Let’s illustrate this with an example. Suppose you want to give your wholesale customers the option to pay in four equal installments within a 90-day period. Here’s how you can configure it using Wholesale Payments:
With this configuration, customers will be able to make four equal payments over a span of 90 days, giving them ample time to settle their invoices without straining their cash flow.
Important Note: Payment configurations that use Percentage type for Amount Due should reach 100% for the payment plan to be saved and updated.
Step 4: (Optional) Apply role restrictions
In most instances, you’ll want your wholesale payment plans to be available only for eligible B2B customers. Fortunately, applying role restrictions to your payment plans is a seamless process with Wholesale Payments. After configuring your payment plan, simply click the button for “Apply payment plan restrictions”.
As seen in the screenshot above, this gives you the option to:
- Specify which wholesale user roles have access to your payment plan. This ensures that only users with the designated roles can view and select the payment plan during checkout.
- Select specific users that will have access to your payment plan. This level of control allows you to provide customized payment plans to key clients or business partners.
Important Note: Wholesale Prices, our free plugin within Wholesale Suite, creates the Wholesale Customer user role for you by default. However, if you want to create more wholesale user role levels, you can leverage Wholesale Prices Premium. This premium version allows you to create unlimited wholesale user roles to tailor the B2B shopping experience in your WooCommerce store.
Step 5: Enable your new payment plan
Now that you’re done configuring your WooCommerce split payments plan, it’s time to make it available for your B2B customers!
Once you’re satisfied with your settings, simply toggle the “Enable” button and click “Save Payment Plan”. Once you head back to the Payments Plan dashboard, you’ll see a summary of your enabled payment plans highlighted in green:
Here’s how it will look like upon checkout for wholesale customers:
Conclusion
WooCommerce split payments allow wholesale customers to spread invoice payments over multiple installments. It empowers your wholesale customers to buy, helping you enhance their satisfaction and increase conversion rates. In a market where convenience and flexibility are paramount, integrating this into your payment processes can be a game-changer!
In this article, we’ve explored some of its key benefits. We’ve also walked you through how you can implement WooCommerce split payments using Wholesale Payments in five easy steps:
- Enable Wholesale Payments as a WooCommerce Payment Method
- Connect your Stripe Account To Wholesale Payments
- Customize your split payment plan
- Apply role restrictions (Optional)
- Save and enable your custom payment plan
Wholesale Payments, our newest addition to Wholesale Suite, allows you to offer flexible payment terms to your wholesale customers. With this plugin, you streamline payments and invoicing right within your WooCommerce store, saving you time and helping you give your B2B clients the payment options they are looking for.
Do you have any questions about this topic? Let us know in the comments section below!
