Just installed WooCommerce Wholesale Order Form and not sure where to start? This guide walks you through the main settings so you can build a fast, one-page order form for your wholesale customers.
Wholesale customers want to get in, place their order, and get out. The quicker they can order, the happier they are, and the more often they come back.
The order form gives them one page with all your products, quantities, and add to cart controls, so they can order in bulk without clicking through product pages.
📝 Looking for pricing, features, or to purchase Wholesale Order Form? Visit the Wholesale Order Form product page.
This guide covers:
- Overview: what the plugin does
- Multiple order forms: create as many forms as you need and place them anywhere
- Drag-and-drop form builder: how the form editor is laid out
- Extra product columns: add columns such as SKU, stock, and product image
- Add to cart options: the two ways customers can add products to the cart
- Search, filtering, and sorting options: help customers find products fast
- Include or exclude products and categories: control which products each form shows
- Lazy loading: pagination versus loading more products as customers scroll
- User role permissions: restrict which user roles can see the form
- Need help: where to get help
Before you start
- WooCommerce is installed and active.
- WooCommerce Wholesale Order Form is installed and activated.
Overview
WooCommerce Wholesale Order Form is a stand-alone plugin for WooCommerce that gives your customers a fast ordering page. It works hand in hand with the rest of our suite of tools.
The order form has hundreds of features, and the Wholesale Order Form feature list shows them all. This guide covers the main features so you can get up and running fast.
When you activate the plugin, it creates a sample order form and a page called Wholesale Ordering that shows it.
Multiple order forms
To create a new form:
- Go to Wholesale > Order Forms.
- Click Add Form.
The Order Forms page also lists every order form you have created.
You can create as many order forms as you need, each set up for a different purpose. Each form can show a different selection of products.
To show a form on your site, copy its shortcode, for example [wwof_product_listing id="123"]. You find it in the Shortcode column on the Order Forms page, and at the top of the form editor. Paste the shortcode on any page. One page can show more than one form.
Drag-and-drop form builder
The drag-and-drop form builder lets you build and change order forms without code.
There are three main sections on the form:
- Form Header
- Order Form Table
- Form Footer
In the Form Header and Form Footer, click Add Row to add a row. Then drag elements from the Edit Form tab into the row and arrange them how you like.
Extra product columns
The product listing table only has one section which contains columns to show information about the product.
Each column has a ⚙ icon above it. Click it to open the style options and other options for that column, such as Column Heading Text and Sortable.
Add the In Stock Amount element only if you track stock in WooCommerce.
The Product Image element shows the thumbnail of each product. Click its ⚙ icon to set the Image Size.
Add the SKU column
Add a SKU column when your wholesale customers order by product code.
- Go to Wholesale > Order Forms and open the order form you want to edit.
- Click the Edit Form tab.
- Under TABLE ELEMENTS, drag the SKU element into the Order Form Table, in the column position you want. Clicking the element does not add it.
- Click Update to save the form. On a new form that you have not published yet, the button is Publish.
The column shows the SKU from the Inventory tab of each product. For variable products, fill in the SKU on each variation too.
Adding a GTIN column works the same way. See How to add a GTIN column to the wholesale order form.
Add to cart options
There are two ways to let customers add products to the cart from the order form. Each one has its own advantages.
The Edit Form tab has the Add to Cart Button element and the Add to Cart Checkbox element.
The Add to Cart Button element shows an add to cart button on each row. This has a few advantages:
- It’s faster for the customer
- Fewer mouse clicks (every mouse click adds time and frustration)
- The page does not reload when customers click it
If you choose this style, we recommend also adding a sidebar with a cart widget to the page. See how to create a wholesale ordering form in WooCommerce for the sidebar and cart widget steps.
The Add to Cart Checkbox element shows a checkbox on each row. Add the Add Selected Products to Cart element to the form footer, so customers can add all the checked products to the cart in one go. This also has advantages:
- Customers can add products all at once
- Feels more like a traditional order sheet
- The page does not reload when customers click it
Search, filtering, and sorting options
These options help customers find products fast and control the order products appear in.
To let customers search by SKU, click the ⚙ icon on the Search Input element and tick SKU Search.
To change the product order, open the Settings tab and use Product Sorting and Product Sorting By. You can sort by name, date, SKU, price, and more.
On the Settings tab, the Zero Inventory option shows products that have zero inventory.
Include or exclude products and categories
Each order form can show your whole catalog or only part of it. Use this to build a form per product category, or to keep some products off the form.
- Go to Wholesale > Order Forms and open the order form you want to edit.
- Click the Settings tab.
- Fill in the fields you need. For categories, use Included Category or Excluded Category, not both. For products, use Include Products or Exclude Products, not both.
- Included Category: show only products from these categories.
- Excluded Category: hide products from these categories.
- Include Products: show only these products.
- Exclude Products: hide these products.
- Click Update to save the form. On a new form, the button is Publish.
Keep these points in mind:
- When Included Category has a value, Excluded Category is greyed out. Use one or the other.
- When Include Products has a value, Exclude Products is greyed out.
- You can pick a single variation in Exclude Products only. To find it, type the variation ID in the field. Include Products lists parent products, not variations.
For the full steps to build a form for one category, see How to restrict the order form to load only certain product categories.
Keep virtual or downloadable products off the form
The order form has no setting that filters by product type, so it cannot hide virtual or downloadable products on its own. You have two options:
- Add those products to Exclude Products.
- Put them in one category, then add that category to Excluded Category. This is easier to keep up to date as you add new products.
To hide products from wholesale customers across your whole store, not only on the order form, see How to adjust visibility of wholesale products.
Lazy loading
Next, decide how the form handles more products than fit on one page.
By default, the order form shows 10 products per page. The same number applies when customers filter or search for products.
To change this number, open the Settings tab and set Products per page. You can enter any number from 1 to 100.
If you tick Lazy Loading on the Settings tab, the form loads more products as customers scroll down.
Both options work well, so pick the one that suits your customers.
Pagination shows customers how many pages there are up front, which tells them how big your catalog is.
Lazy loading keeps adding products as customers scroll, until there are no more products to show for the catalog or the current search.
User role permissions
If you do not wish to display the order form to everyone, you can restrict which user roles can access the order forms. You can find the Form Permissions option under the Settings tab.
Advanced features
When it comes to solving wholesale for WooCommerce we believe in a holistic approach. You need to solve three big problems:
- Setting wholesale prices, visibility, tax, etc. This is solved with WooCommerce Wholesale Prices Premium.
- Efficient ordering. This is solved with WooCommerce Wholesale Order Form, and it has a big effect on how happy your customers are to do business with you.
- Recruiting and managing wholesale customers. This is solved with WooCommerce Wholesale Lead Capture.
WooCommerce Wholesale Prices Premium
Premium is the add-on for the free plugin and immediately it opens up a lot of extra features that will give you maximum flexibility.
Additionally, some countries require certain specific rules to be followed when selling and advertising pricing to wholesale customers and Prices Premium has been designed to cater to everyone.
Top Feature Highlights:
- Unlimited number of additional wholesale roles
- Set prices via global % or category % in addition to the product-level pricing
- Tax exemption based on user role which is flexible enough to cater to even the most stringent tax policies
- Shipping mapping where you can force wholesale customers to use certain methods and you can restrict certain shipping options to only wholesale customers
- Payment gateway mapping where you can force wholesale customers to use certain gateways and likewise restrict certain gateways to only wholesale customers
- Adjust the visibility of products to be wholesale only, retail only or a mix. This lets you adjust variation visibility as well
- Add minimum purchase rules so you can enforce your wholesale agreements on the order level and set sensible minimums on the product level
These are just a few of the hundreds of features inside the premium add-on.
WooCommerce Wholesale Lead Capture
Managing wholesale-level customers can be a bit of a headache if you are doing it manually. The Wholesale Lead Capture plugin gives you a wholesale-specific registration form, a dedicated wholesale login page, sign-up email sequences, and your choice of manual or automated approvals.
It takes the pain out of manually recruiting & registering wholesale customers which will save you time and let you put wholesale recruitment on autopilot.
Top Feature Highlights:
- Registration form builder lets you capture whatever information you need during sign-up
- Pre-fill the checkout fields with the information that you capture during sign-up to smooth the first-order process for your new wholesale customer
- Built-in spam protection with honeypot technology and optionally Google reCAPTCHA
- Automated email sequences for admin and customer-facing approval and notification emails
- Complete user approvals system which can be based on manual approvals or 100% automated if you wish
The Lead Capture plugin will make recruiting your wholesale customers and managing them much less painful.
What’s next
- How to restrict the order form to load only certain product categories
- How to add a GTIN column to the wholesale order form
- How to adjust visibility of wholesale products
- Wholesale Order Form product page for the full feature list
Need help?
If you have a question or run into any issues, we’re here to help.
- Premium users: Open a support ticket
- Free users: Visit our community forum
