Selling Third Party Products On Your WooCommerce Store

In a recent Business Bloomer Club discussion, a member sought advice on efficiently listing a friend’s products on their WooCommerce shop. The goal was to maintain a streamlined checkout process on their site while ensuring all proceeds from the friend’s product sales go directly to the friend.

Managing external product transactions manually was proving time-consuming, and setting up a marketplace seemed like an overly complex solution for the requirements. Below, we’ll explore a few potential approaches to achieve this setup, including some lighter, effective alternatives to a full-fledged marketplace.

Solution 1: Embed the Seller’s Payment Button on Product Pages

One of the simplest solutions involves embedding the external seller’s PayPal button (or similar) directly on the product page. This approach allows customers to make a purchase without adding the item to your cart, ensuring that payment goes directly to the seller.

Steps to Implement

  1. Disable Add to Cart: Remove the default “Add to Cart” button for this specific product using WooCommerce hooks.
  2. Embed Payment Button: Add a custom HTML block with your friend’s PayPal payment button on the product page. This will direct customers to PayPal for payment while allowing the order details to remain in your WooCommerce records.

This approach minimizes technical setup and allows the seller to handle the transaction directly. However, it may feel less integrated if your goal is a single cart experience.

Solution 2: Switch Payment Gateways Based on Product

Another more integrated approach is to use different payment credentials for distinct products. WooCommerce offers various methods to connect multiple Stripe or PayPal accounts, enabling you to split products based on payment gateways. This allows you to manage all transactions on a single checkout page while ensuring payments for your friend’s product go directly to their account.

Steps to Implement

  1. Conditional Payment Gateway Setup: Use WooCommerce’s API to determine the active payment gateway based on the product.
  2. Code Examples: Here are guides for setting up multiple accounts for PayPal and Stripe, which can be configured based on product criteria.

This solution requires some development but provides a seamless checkout experience with designated payments for different products.

Solution 3: Implement a Vendor Plugin for WooCommerce

If you foresee growth in external vendor products, a marketplace solution may be ideal. WooCommerce offers various plugins (such as Dokan or WC Vendors) that handle multi-vendor setups and facilitate the automatic distribution of payments to specific sellers. This can offer long-term flexibility if you plan to scale the number of external products or vendors.

Steps to Implement

  1. Choose a Vendor Plugin: Popular plugins like Dokan or WC Vendors make it easy to set up a vendor-based store with payment distribution.
  2. Configure Vendor Products: Set your friend’s products under their vendor profile, allowing customers to add these items to the cart and proceed through checkout seamlessly.
  3. Automatic Payment Splits: Use the plugin’s built-in capabilities to split payments automatically, either in full to your friend or as a shared revenue model.

While slightly more complex, a vendor plugin is a powerful option for scaling multiple products and vendors in a centralized store environment.

Final Thoughts

Each solution offers unique benefits depending on your specific requirements and technical resources. For a lighter setup, consider the custom payment button or conditional payment gateways. If you’re planning for more external products in the future, a vendor plugin can help streamline operations and support expansion without manual intervention.

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Rodolfo Melogli

Business Bloomer Founder

Author, WooCommerce expert and WordCamp speaker, Rodolfo has worked as an independent WooCommerce freelancer since 2011. His goal is to help entrepreneurs and developers overcome their WooCommerce nightmares. Rodolfo loves travelling, chasing tennis & soccer balls and, of course, wood fired oven pizza. Follow @rmelogli

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