TechCare has created many Woocommerce stores for clients around the United States, and we recently launched a site we thought we should highlight so you could see some of the functional and interesting things you can do with Woocommerce and WordPress.

The store Sweetie Pie Collection was a brand new e-commerce venture for the Flower Girl and Communion Dress wholesaler.  Sweetie Pie did have a website, but there was no ability to purchase items on the former site.

Features of the new Woocommerce WordPress website

Wholesaler Website: Prices not shown unless logged in

If you visit Sweetie Pie Collections as a normal visitor on the web, not logged in, you will be able to browse the collection of dresses. You will be able to read about each dress, zoom in on each dress to see detail on edges, lace, etc, and see the SKU number. You will just not be able to see pricing or purchase a dress, as Sweetie Pie is a wholesaler and does not sell directly to the public.  On each product, we added a button that will let a visitor click to a store locator to find a store that sells the dress nearby.  TechCare used Woocommerce Catalog Visibility to hide pricing to everyone except those who have a wholesaler role or administrator role in WordPress.  If a wholesaler is logged into the website, prices are shown and the wholesaler is able to purchase dresses to sell in their store.

Wholesaler Account Creation Automatically

We used Gravity Forms, an amazing form plugin to WordPress, to create an application for a wholesaler account. We then configured User Registration Add-On from Gravity Forms to create an account for each wholesaler automatically.  “Wholesaler” as a role does not exist in WordPress, but we used User Role Editor to create this role on our WordPress website.  Users who register are sent an activation email that allows them to activate their account, log in, and order dresses!

Store Locator with Geolocation

We found an amazing plugin that allows us to show all of our retailers on a map, and the user can type in their address and see the stores closes to their location which may sell the dress.  In addition, if a user is on a mobile device and loads this page, their location is geolocated and the closest stores are shown automatically.  We were able to import the hundreds of current retailers into the system easily using a .csv file.  We left the most recently viewed items on that page, so that if a visitor has the store locator open and finds a store, they can see the dress SKU numbers they would like to inquire about right on that page!

Inventory shown to wholesalers

In the past, Sweetie Pie has sent out the recent inventory to their wholesalers on a weekly basis via email. It is a simple spreadsheet of all the dress SKUs, the sizes and how many area available in each variation.  We moved this spreadsheet online using TablePress, which lets you sort each column quickly. This helps retailers find dresses and sizes quickly.  The table is easily updated each week by a simple import of a new .csv file. This file is hidden to only logged in users, and the 404 notice that a non-logged in user will let them know that they must be logged in to view this page.

Tabs modified to show size charts for that item

Using Tab Manager from woo commerce, the tabs on each product were modified to show information pertaining to that product. For example, we added a size chart for each product that pertains to the product that a visitor is looking at.  This makes finding the correct dress very easy for the visitor.  The size charts were created in TablePress.

Filter to refine choices on products

We tried a few filters for Woocommerce until we found one that functioned the way we liked.  The one we found is quick and easy to use.  You are able to refine your choices by drilling down on the exact combination of attributes you are looking for. For example, if you are looking for a Pageant dress, with Taffeta, Pearls, or shoulder straps, you can find it.

Prices shown in different currencies such as Dollars, Pounds, Euros

Sweetie Pie sells dresses internationally, so they need to display pricing in different currencies but NOT using a currency calculator but instead of setting the pricing in different currencies. We found a plugin to do just this and wrote a little function that will let us apply that price to all variation, which was amazing since many times we would have 150 variations or more of a product!  Users are able to change the currency and also the software will geolocate each visitor so that they will be presented with the currency near them.

Final Notes

As you can see from this article, this Woocommerce Site is Dynamic, User Friendly, and has lots and lots of functionality.  Woo commerce makes this possible because you can purchase the modules that you need for you own store, and there are many ways to do different things. You are not stuck on a platform that gives you a set number of choices and ways to implement your own needs and desires.  We had a lot of fun building this site, and we are confident that this will help increase sales and strengthen the business relationship Sweetie Pie has with its current customer base and new customer base.