Dokan is the best multi-vendor marketplace plugin in the WordPress industry. With its extraordinary features and rich modules, it has become a family of over 70,000 members. As the flagship product of weDevs, it has introduced some lucrative features and modules over the years.
As a part of that, the recent release of Dokan Pro is bringing out the new Vendor Subscription Product Module, which will help the vendors to create their own subscription products.
Having said that, we know whenever a new version of Dokan is released, it comes with new features and improvements. This time it has come with this fresh new module for the users.
So, let's get into the details of it, shall we?
How Dokan Vendor Subscription Product will Help You
Last month Dokan Pro 3.0 was released with some major improvements. Now the plugin is performing faster than ever and also it went through some major refactoring. However, no new modules were released. But now with the new 3.0.2 version, it has a new Vendor Subscription Product module.
Those who are familiar with building marketplaces have heard about WooCommerce. Those who are in the subscription business surely know it has an extension called WooCommerce Subscription. It allows admins to create subscription products for the customers. Not for the vendors.
Then we introduced the Dokan Vendor Subscription module that helped the admins to create highly customized subscription packs and charge vendors. As you can see, one thing was missing. There were no options for the vendors to create their own subscription products.
Dokan Vendor Product Subscription will allow vendors to create and sell their own subscription products for the customers. It is mainly for the vendors.
This module is a WooCommerce subscription integration. Now,
- Vendors can capture residual revenue with recurring payments
- Easily estimate the gross collection of their store
- Build a strong relationship with the customers
- Increase engagement
- Ease of distribution
- Loyalty
So, you can see there are many perks this new integration can bring to the marketplace. If any vendor wants, they can now sell different types of courses, services, SaaS products, and many more subscription-based products.
Subscription businesses are now on the rise. Not only it provides business consistency it also creates marketing opportunities. Therefore, to give vendors the opportunity to get into the subscription business we are introducing this module.
Now hopefully you have understood what this module can do for you, let us see how you can set up for your marketplace.
How to Setup Dokan Vendor Subscription Product Module
Basically, what the admins can do with the WooCommerce Subscription module at the backend, the Dokan Vendor Subscription Product brings it all in the frontend for the vendors.
But still, this module is somewhat complex. So, we are going to guide you through how to set up the module. Then hopefully you will be able to utilize it properly.
So, let us begin with the steps shall we? We are going to show you all the details.
Pre-requisites
Before starting you need to make sure you have all the necessary plugins installed. You need to install
- Dokan Lite
- Dokan Business (Version 3.0.1)
- WooCommerce
- WooCommerce Subscription Module
Setting Up Subscription As a Vendor
There are two types of subscriptions for the vendors.
- Simple Subscription
- Variable Subscription.
We will first see how to set up the Simple Subscription first.
Creating Simple Subscription Products
In a Simple Subscription, you can create only one type of subscription for a product. For example, If you selling a magazine in only one state, therefore, you can create a single subscription for the customers of that state.
Here are the steps to create the subscription.
1.Create A Product
You need to create a product first. Just go to the vendor dashboard and select Products from the left sidebar. Now click on the Add New Products button. Fill up the necessary information and upload an image if you want. Then hit the Create Product button to finish.
2. Select Simple Subscription From the Drop- Down Menu
After creating the product, you need to Edit the product. On the edit page you will find a product type drop-down menu. There select the Simple Subscription option.
3. Set up the Necessary Fields
Now, you need to set up the necessary fields to complete creating the product. You need to set,
Subscription Price: This is the most important part as you need to ensure you much you will charge for your product.You can charge renewal payments using a billing period of daily, weekly, monthly and yearly.
Subscription Expiry Date: You need to set the expiry date of the subscription plan. However, subscriptions products with Never expire set in the field can renew indefinitely as long as renewal payments are successful.
If you create a yearly subscription plan for your magazine and charge $5 a month, also the length of the subscription is 11 months. Then your plan will look like :
Subscription price: $5 every month
Expire after: 11 months
Sign up Fee: This sign-up fee is in addition to any recurring amount that you have set for the subscription product. For example, if you create a subscription product for $70 per month with a $100 sign-up fee, the subscription’s initial total during checkout will be $170.
However, when a subscription has a sign-up fee and a free trial, only the sign-up fee is charged at the beginning of the subscription period. If there is no free trial period set on the subscription product with a sign-up fee, the price charged=
sign-up fee + recurring first month’s total.
Free Trial: This period is added to any length you set for the subscription. This option will give your customers the opportunity to have a test run of your product before buying.
For example, if you create a subscription of $10 per month for 8 months with a 1-month free trial period, the subscription will expire after 9 months.
After setting all the fields, hit the Save Product button and you will able to view the product.
Creating Variable Subscription Product
Variable Subscription is like the Variable Product. For instance, if you are selling a course as your product, you can charge different prices based on the locations of the course. However, you need to create Attributes and Variations first.
Attributes: It is the name which you are going to create variations for. Like, if you selling various courses you can create an attribute like location, months, online, offline.
Variations: You can create various variations. For example, if you have a location attribute you ca create variations like Singapore, USA, Maldives, etc.
To get started, select the Variable Subscription product type from the Drop-Down menu.
Now, you need to add Attributes. Click on the Add Attribute button.
Also, set the Attribute name, to add various variations you need to use after a variation “|”. For example, “Singapore | USA”.
Hit the Save Attribute button to finish.
Remember to choose the “Used for variations” option.
However, in different product attributes, each variation in a Variable Subscription can have a unique:
- Sign-up fee
- Trial period
- Recurring price
- Billing period
- Subscription length
Hit Save Variations to finish.
Now you can view the product with Variable Subscriptions.
However, if you want you can see the number of subscriptions the customers have purchased. Click on the User Subscriptions button from the sidebar of the dashboard and you will be able to see which subscriptions have been purchased.
Having said that, if you click on any of the subscription you will be able to see all the details regarding that subscription.
How to Buy Subscriptions As a Customer
When the customer wants to buy a subscription product, the process is very simple. Just click on the Sign up button and the product will be added to your cart.
Then, go to the Cart page and add necessary information to Checkout. That's it. After successfully purchasing the product, he/she can view the subscription products on My Subscription page on his/her account.
If he/she clicks on the View button. they will be able to see all the details regarding the product.
It is as simple as that.
Related Article: Learn more from the documentation.
Final Words On Vendor Subscription Product
The subscription business model is becoming a great way to earn good money. That is why many people are going for it. In the midst of that, the Vendor Subscription Product module will open the door to this path.
Dokan has taken a play from the WooCommerece playbook and taken it one step further with this new Vendor Subscription module.
The vendors that were looking to get into the Subscription Business, will now have the opportunity and the marketplace owners will have more users because of that.
So, what are you waiting for, grab your copy of this exclusive model and take your marketplace to the next level.