Dokan is the best multi-vendor marketplace plugin in the WordPress repository for years. You can easily create a marketplace with its amazing features and earn commission from vendors.
You may already know that WooCommerce is the most popular single eCommerce site builder for WordPress owned by Automattic- the company behind WordPress! Dokan works based on WooCommerce.
Dokan brings new features and improvements with its regular updates. In the last few releases, there have been some new features added to Dokan to make your eCommerce journey easier.
In today's blog, we are going to discuss the new features from Dokan latest version 3.4.2, and also some of the major updates from the previous versions.
What's New in Dokan's Latest Version (v3.4.2) for Marketplace Owners
There have been back-to-back releases of Dokan with some notable features, improvements, and fixes. These features will have a drastic impact on your marketplace along with improving your marketplace experience.
We are going to list down the new features that have been released in the previous few releases:
- Accommodation Booking for WooCommerce Booking Module
- Distance Rate Shipping
- Search and Filtering Options for Support Tickets
- Date Filters on Dokan Logs
- Admin Coupon Support for Vendors
- Rank Math SEO Integration
- Product Bulk Edit Feature
- Company Verification Feature
Let's dig down the deep and show you how you can get benefits from these new additions-
1. Accommodation Booking for WooCommerce Booking Module
Dokan has integration with the WooCommerce booking extension that brings all the booking options to the frontend. This helps vendors create booking products right from their vendor dashboard. In the WooCommerce extension, the admin can also create accommodation booking products that make it possible to rent and lease hotel rooms, homes, apartments, or other spaces to customers.
With this product type, store owners can offer,
- Rates for overnight stays
- Ability to calculate special rates
- Reservations that span nights instead of days
- Check-in/check-out times listed on the product page, cart and order.
With the Dokan 3.4.2 version, we have added the Accommodation product option in the frontend. That means vendors now can add accommodation options while creating bookable products from their dashboard.
2. Distance Rate Shipping
In the previous release, we have added the Table Rate shipping module to Dokan. In the latest release, we have added the Distance Rate Shipping feature along with that.
Calculating shipping based on distance has always been a nagging problem for store owners. Moreover, incorrect shipping charges can be a reason for a bad customer experience and could lead to cart abandonment.
However, WooCommerce lets you set up flat shipping rates based on different geographical locations.
That is why our users have been asking for this shipping option so that even vendors can imply distance rate shipping. With this option,
- Vendors can calculate shipping rates based on distance or total time travelled
- Also, vendors can charge extra based on the number of items, cart value, weight, etc
- Easily integrates with Google Maps Embed API
- Moreover, vendors can use the advanced configuration option to set rules based on all your business requirements.
This feature in Dokan latest version (v3.4.2) will reduce the dependency on third-party plugins and increase the performance of your marketplace.
3. Search and Filtering Options for Support Tickets
Among the many modules of Dokan, there is a Store Support module that provides customers with a ticket-based support system right from the store page.
This module helps with the communication between vendors and customers as customers are able to create support tickets on the store page. Moreover, customers can create support tickets based on their order id, so it becomes easy to keep track of all the support tickets.
Also, vendors are able to reply to those tickets right from the vendor dashboard. But the problem occurs when there are too many support tickets. Finding a specific support ticket was difficult.
That is why we have added the search and filtering options in the Support section of the vendor dashboard.
They can filter the support tickets by,
- Customer name
- Date of creation
- Support ticket id.
4. Date Filters on Dokan Logs
This is a small but very important feature. Dokan has a report section that logs all the actions happening in the marketplace. In the All Log section, you can search for an order by setting “Filter by vendor”, “Filter by status”, and “Search by Order” options.
We have added the new “Filter by Date” feature in Dokan 3.4.2 so that you can search the logs more efficiently.
5. Admin Coupon Support for Vendors
Coupons are a great way to attract new customers and get loyal ones to come back for more. WooCommerce includes simple yet powerful coupon functionality that fits most stores’ needs right out of the box — which means you can start offering coupons with WooCommerce in just a few clicks.
However, with the ” Admin Coupon Support for Vendors ” feature of Dokan, admins can create coupons for vendors apply them to any specific vendors, products. Or they can exclude vendors, products as well.
6. Rank Math SEO Integration
Rank Math Integration with WooCommerce simplifies the whole technical SEO process for your eCommerce store. Although setting up Google Analytics for any website is a standard procedure, but setting up tracking for an eCommerce store is fairly tricky as you need to pass some key actions like,
- Refunding orders
- Canceling orders
- Completing orders and more.
Thankfully with the built-in support for Rank Math SEO in WooCommerce, you can easily add the Google Analytics tracking code to your WooCommerce store.
The good news is Dokan now has integration with Rank Math SEO now and vendors can optimize their stores for search while editing products.
7. Product Bulk Edit Feature
There may be thousands of products in the vendor's store. WooCommerce lets admins edit the products in bulk. That not only saves time but also increases efficiency. However, vendors weren't able to do that from their vendor dashboard and were facing some trouble while editing the products.
In the Dokan latest version, you will find that vendors can now edit products in bulk from their vendor dashboard.
8. Company Verification Feature
The Vendor Verification module helps the market owners to verify the vendors and increase the authentication of their marketplace. We have added a new feature under this module ” Company Verification“.
Now users can verify their company with proper documentation after signing up for the marketplace.
However, along with these features, there were some bug fixes as well. Check out the Dokan fixes from here.
Bonus: Dokan Lite 3.3.2 Released
If you want to start your marketplace right away then you can start with the free version. It has enough features to get you started. Keeping up with the trend we have now released Dokan Lite 3.3.2 with some more improvements and fixes.
Now, you can experience more smooth and optimization while managing your marketplace.
Upcoming Features for Dokan Pro
As we said, Dokan is updating regularly. And with every new release, we try to bring new features and updates. So, In the upcoming releases, there will be some exciting new features. Here is a sneak peek of the upcoming features for Dokan's new releases.
Min/Max Quantity
This feature allows vendors to define minimum/maximum thresholds and multiple/group amounts per product (including variations) to restrict the quantities of items that can be purchased. The Min/Max Quantities extension lets you set up quantity rules for:
Orders
- Set a minimum and maximum quantity required to checkout
- Set a minimum and maximum cost (of cart items) required to checkout
- Exclude products from said rules
Products
- Minimum and maximum quantity required
- Group/multiples required (e.g. you must purchase in groups of X)
- Per-variation control of the above product rules
Automatic Withdraw Disbursement
The automatic withdrawal disbursement feature will help the admin manage withdraws more efficiently. Those manes, admin can schedule the withdraws and vendors will receive their earnings automatically at the scheduled time. Also, vendors can also request to withdraw their earnings as well.
Dokan Product Search Clone on Single Product Multiple Vendor
This feature will help vendors to clone products right from the Add New Product page. Previously, vendors could clone products only from the Products page. With this new feature, now vendors can copy any product from the marketplace while adding a new product.
They will find a search box and there they can search for similar products and copy them. After copying the product the vendors will find all the details on the product edit page.
Moreover, there are more features in the pipeline that are waiting for a release like,
- WooCommerce Dropshipping Integration
- Request a quote feature
- Seller Badge
- Reverse Withdrawal feature
- And more.
Keep an eye on our website for updates.
The Reasons Why Dokan Is the No.1 Multivendor Marketplace for WordPress
Initially, Dokan started out as a theme. But now it lets you set up an e-commerce store with WooCommerce. You can easily turn your WooCommerce site into a full-fledged multi-vendor marketplace in less than 30 minutes. You can create a site for:
- Electronics shop
- Air BnB
- Baby Shop
- Electronics and many more.
You can start your eCommerce site with only Dokan lite. But if you want to take your marketplace to the next level then you will need the exclusive features of the Dokan Pro version. It has,
- Supports 25+ modules
- Compatible with any WooCommerce themes
- Multiple product types (booking, downlodable, etc.)
- Multiple commission types (percentage, flat, combine)
- Advanced Coupons feature with expiry and restrictions options
Activate Dokan latest version (v3.4.2) on your multi-vendor website to enjoy all the advanced features right away.
Start Your Multivendor Marketplace with Dokan & Keep Yourself ahead of The Competition!
Regrading Dokan, we always try to deliver the best for our users. Running a marketplace is no small task. However, with Dokan, managing a marketplace becomes easy.
And the new features in Dokan 3.4.2 and its other versions will surely elevate the experience of running and managing a multivendor eCommerce store.