How To Turn An Ecommerce WordPress Store Into A Wholesale Business?

Online retailers can maximize their business with a wholesale service add-on to their site. Businesses using the WooCommerce plugin for their WordPress site can start turning their eCommerce store into a more full-fledged wholesale customer experience. Even businesses without experience in WooCommerce can quickly get started too. 

To begin increasing their scope of whole operations and redesigning their online customer experience, online retailers first need the right tools. The right tools are more often than not handy plugins and roles that can be added through WordPress to expand an online website. To that end, ensure you have a WooCommerce store you’re ready to transform and get started with the following tips and guidelines.  

Design around the customer experience 

It’s practically impossible for customers to see every wholesale product you’re selling.  Firstly, you make your own merchandise, then you strive to sell it, it’s quite a natural thing. Your site’s retail experience should therefore simplify the way customers find and access your product catalog. A one-page checkout that lets customers filter your products and quickly complete their purchase is a great way to start. 

Online retailers should increase the time they spend with their web developers on creating a single-form checkout page that includes easy-to-use order forms. Effective web design on single-page checkouts creates a way to display an entire catalog of products you offer and promote discounts your users can receive. These pages should ideally be accessible on both desktops as well as mobile devices for maximum usability. 

When hiring user experience (UX) designers, choose a professional with experience in creating web pages that are highly usable by humans. Interaction designers such as these are web page experience experts and thus you can expect to pay anywhere between $60 to $100 an hour to hire an experienced designer. These user interaction experts can help your customers better understand what they should do on your checkout page with a user-friendly design that makes your content more navigable.

Good interaction design on single-page customer checkout pages includes user-friendly interfaces and intuitive mobile app support to connect customers with your wholesale product catalog. Maintain the quality of your web design with usability testing that involves an audience to keep your design goals on track. Conduct your testing with users in your organization and replicate the desired outcome that you want to achieve on your wholesale product checkout page. 

Your main goal with usability testing of the checkout page you design is to confirm that it guides visitors as you have intended. Make this intention clear to your audience and remind them to verify whether your design is highly usable on both mobile as well as desktop devices. The greatest key to successful web design for customer checkout pages on multiple devices is an approach toward usability and a keen eye toward UX. 

Keep your customers updated

The configuration and design of your checkout form is a great first step toward adding wholesale service to your e-commerce store. To keep customers coming back to your products, you need to keep them in the loop about other products and discounts. 

WooCommerce sites can thankfully integrate quickly with plugins specifically made for informing customers about their purchases, related products, and upcoming discounts and loyalty rewards Notification capabilities with WooCommerce extensions can increase conversion rates for online retailers with wholesale service on their site by sending customers notification pop-ups regarding recent orders on both desktop and mobile devices that are easy to view and informative about exciting products and offers. 

Online retailers interested in gaining a wholesale element can maximize their customers’ exposure to loyalty programs with notification alerts based on previous purchases. If first-time customers purchase from an online store selling products wholesale, that store can send out alerts on related products that have upcoming discounts or are currently on sale. This can even encourage referrals who may also be interested in your loyalty program mechanics and who like to spot affordable products at wholesale cost.

 Online retail owners can dive further into the best free WordPress notification plugins like WP Live Chat and Tawk.To, and Tidio Live chat to increase customer awareness of product availability, selection, and potential discounts. These plugins are secure and simple methods to integrate wholesale service with mobile application notifications and real-time alerts. Extensions like these can integrate with WooCommerce sites to make them more dynamic and user-friendly. 

Maintain uptime with SSL certificates

With everything they’re likely thinking about, owners of online retail businesses that need to convert their e-commerce site may not be thinking about security. Adequate defense of a site from malicious code is difficult to achieve, but it’s necessary to protect against modern threats designed to destroy your infrastructure and allow access to customer data. 

Smaller businesses expanding their online store must protect customers through a Secure Sockets Layer certificate (SSL). SSLs help online retailers maintain other channels of communication with customers for convenience and security, which protects and combines business communications sent online. 

Consumers have come to expect that their personal and financial information will be kept secure from hackers when they are shopping for products and services online. By displaying an SSL certification to your customers, e-commerce sites gain more credibility as a source for wholesale products that take their business security seriously.

As is the case with finding vetted web developers or user experience professionals, it’s difficult to choose the best online security service for WordPress hosts. According to web developer Gary Stevens of Hosting Canada, business owners should only consider WordPress hosts that offer SSL for free as part of their plans. 

“If you’re thinking about paying for a secure sockets layer (SSL) certificate – don’t,” says Stevens. “Authorized hosts will give it to you for free. You absolutely need it, though, because Google has already started the process of degrading search engine rankings for those that don’t, but no need to pay to get one.  Before signing up, make sure you read reviews or detailed info from your hosting company .”

No credible web host should deny the need to install SSL with a wholesale retail store, the deep discounters (that charge less than a buck per month), tend to also charge $60 to $80 per year for added protection. Always choose a host who offers their SSL certificate guarantees for free. The reality is that SSL is now considered a standard level of security for all websites. Any service provider that tells you otherwise is a source of dubious professionalism.

Conclusion

Users who need a wholesale service element for their WooCommerce site need plugins that add the right features. These plugins can easily give online retailers the advantages they need to encourage more sales with design choices that focus on the customer experience. 

Strong purchase experiences and single-page checkouts can complement regular notification alerts that promote loyalty programs based on previous purchases. Secure Sockets Layer certificates help online retailers improve their website’s security and maintain other channels of communication with customers for convenience, and round out the necessary tools to turn an e-commerce WordPress store into a wholesale business.