LiteCommerce:WholesaleTrading

This article refers to LiteCommerce 2.x only. For user manual to LiteCommerce 3.x, please visit this website.

Introduction

LiteCommerce Wholesale Trading add-on module introduces multiple enhanced wholesale trading capabilities to your LiteCommerce-based online store. With this module you will be able to:

define wholesale prices on your stock products;
specify global discounts for all products in your store;
define product access levels for different customer groups;
limit purchase quantities of individual products;
create and print out price lists of product categories or the entire store.

This module helps you to attract retailers by offering them products at lower prices and a convenient interface for placing bulk orders, and encourage wholesale customers to buy more products from your store.

Having the Product Options add-on module version 2.15 or later installed on your system greatly enhances the functionality of the Wholesale Trading module.

Configuring the Module

In order to configure Wholesale Trading add-on module, in the 'Modules' section click on the 'Wholesale Trading' module link to enter the module's settings page.

Several module options are to be configured here:

Price message when price is denied: in this field type in a message to be displayed to customers in case they are not allowed to see the price of the product. The message can contain elements of HTML. For further details see the sections 'Setting up product access restrictions' and 'Restricted Product Access' of this manual.
Clone purchase limit settings when a product is cloned, Clone wholesale pricing settings when a product is cloned, Clone product access settings when a product is cloned: select any or all of these options to clone the corresponding information when a product is cloned.
Additional registration form fields: to create additional fields for various tax IDs in the wholesaler registration form, place check marks against the corresponding optional fields:
- Add Sales Permit/Tax ID field to the registration form
- Add VAT Registration number field to the registration form
- Add GST Registration number field to the registration form
- Add PST Registration number field to the registration form
Membership granted through product purchase overrides current membership: This option has an effect on product purchase-facilitated memberships. Place a check mark in this box to grant such memberships irrespectively of current membership level of a customer. Remove the check mark to grant memberships only to those customers, who do not have memberships. For further details on this option see Section 2.3.d 'Granting membership through product purchase' of this manual.
Enable direct addition to the cart for products with disabled catalog visibility: As you will see later, the Wholesale Trading add-on module enables you to limit product visibility in the catalog. Using this option you can specify whether products which do not appear in the catalog should be still available for purchase through direct cart placement. For further details on this feature see the section 'Setting up product access restrictions'.

Categories for bulk shopping: This option changes the appearance and functionality of the categories you select in order to make them better suited for bulk shopping. Bulk shopping categories are formatted in such a way as to make wholesale purchases easy and convenient. To mark more than one category as bulk, <CTRL>-click on each bulk category title.

To see how bulk shopping categories are presented to the customers, refer to the section 'Bulk Shopping'.

Configure the abovementioned options and click on the Update button to save them.

Operating the Store with Wholesale Capabilities

Registering Wholesaler Customers

In order to take advantage of discounted product prices available to members of an individual wholesaler group, a customer must be granted the corresponding membership first. Take the following steps to approve the wholesaler registration request of your customer:

In the 'Management' menu choose 'Users' section to open the 'Search for user' screen.
Perform a search and in the 'Search results' table click on user's e-mail to access his profile.
Navigate to the 'Access Information' section of the profile and find the 'Requested membership' and 'Granted membership' fields.
If the values of the two fields differ, it means that a customer has submitted a membership request for corresponding membership that has not been approved yet.
Set an expiration date for the new membership. Select 'Specific date' and set a date in the future using drop-down boxes provided. You can also select 'Never' to grant the membership for ever.
Click on the 'Grant membership' link to approve membership registration request.
Additionally you can specify the customer's 'Sales Permit/Tax ID #', 'VAT registration number', 'GST registration number' and/or 'PST registration number' in the respective fields under the 'Tax registration details (wholesalers only)' section of the profile.

See the section “Submitting Wholesaler Registration Request” for details on managing wholesaler tax registrations from the Customer Zone.
Click on the Update button to save changes.

Once the customer's membership status changes, this change is recorded in his membership history. The history can be seen in the customer's profile under the 'View membership history' link in the 'Access Information' section.

Setting up Global Discounts

Global discounts feature is a valuable means to encourage customers to buy more products at your online store. Using LiteCommerce Wholesale Trading module, the store administrator can define multiple global discounts for different membership groups.

Follow the instructions below to define a global discount:

In the Administrator Zone, choose 'Global discounts' section from the 'Catalog' menu.

In the 'Subtotal' field enter the minimal amount of subtotal to which the global discount should apply.
In the 'Membership' field specify membership group eligible for the discount. In the drop-down list choose 'No membership' to make discount available to everybody, 'All memberships' to make discount available to customers with any of the existing memberships, or choose an individual membership group.
In the 'Discount' field enter the discount amount.
Select desired 'Discount type', which can be either a fixed value ('absolute') or a relative value ('percent').
Click on the Add button to save the discount.

To modify a global discount, change its settings and click on the corresponding Update button. To delete a discount, click on the corresponding Delete button.

Working With Individual Products

Defining wholesale prices on products

Wholesale Trading module implements a flexible discount program for volume purchase orders. You can set special prices for certain purchase amounts and certain customer memberships. You can specify as many special prices and conditions as you need.

Follow the instructions provided below to define a wholesale price on a product:

Choose the 'Products' section from the 'Catalog' menu in the Administrator Zone.
Find the product and click on its title to enter the 'Product Info' page.
Click on the 'Wholesale pricing' tab to switch to the wholesale settings page of a product.

Adding a wholesale price

Enter the discounted product price, product amount to which the decreased price should apply, and the membership condition.

Click on the Add button.

The new wholesale price will now appear in the 'Wholesale price list'. You can define multiple wholesale prices for different conditions. To modify conditions and price of an existing wholesale discount, edit the corresponding fields and click on the Update button next to the record. To delete a wholesale discount, click on the Delete button next to it.

Defining wholesale prices

Setting up product access restrictions

Default LiteCommerce configuration makes the whole online store catalog available to all Internet users. Wholesale Trading module allows the store administrator to define product access restrictions for any product in the store. For each product in the catalog the administrator can specify members of which membership group(s) can see product information and price, and order the product. Follow the instructions below to define product access restrictions:

Choose the 'Products' section from the 'Catalog' menu in the Administrator Zone.
Find the product and click on its title to enter the 'Product Info' page.
Click on the 'Product access' tab to switch to the product access settings page.

Defining product access restrictions

Three sets of permissions are defined here:

'The product will be shown to' set contains the list of membership groups, whose members can see this product in the catalog in the Customer zone.
'The product price will be shown to' set contains the list of groups, whose members can see the price(s) of this product.
'The product will be available for sale to' set contains the list of groups, whose members can buy the product.

Select membership groups that should be given the corresponding privileges. Use <CTRL>-click to specify more than one group. Choose 'All' to make a certain privilege unrestricted.

Click on the Update button to save restrictions.

Customers that do not have enough privileges cannot see restricted information or perform restricted actions.

If the 'Enable direct addition to the cart for products with disabled catalog visibility' parameter of the Wholesale Trading module is set to 'Yes' (a check mark is placed in the corresponding field in the module's settings page), products which are not visible through the catalog can still be purchased by direct placement of a product to the cart. To arrange this, the store administrator must e-mail to a customer the HTML code of a link or button provided in the 'HTML links' tab of the 'Product Info' page. To place a product to the cart, the customer must access the URL supplied by the store administrator.

Defining product purchase limits

You can limit the purchase amounts of select products so that a customer could not purchase an amount which is lower than the minimal or higher than the maximal amount allowed.

Follow the instructions provided below to define product purchase limits:

Choose the 'Products' section from the 'Catalog' menu in the Administrator Zone.
Find the product and click on its title to enter the 'Product Info' page.
Click on the 'Purchase limit' tab to switch to the product purchase limit settings page.

Setting product purchase limits

Enter the minimal and maximal purchase amounts allowed.
Click on the Update button.

To cancel purchase amount restrictions, unset the purchase limit values and click on the Update button to save changes.

If ProductOptions module is installed, product purchase limit applies to the total quantity of all product variants being purchased.

Granting membership through product purchase

As a part of your store promotion program, you can choose to grant wholesaler or other group membership automatically to any customer who buys specific products. When a customer orders such a product and his order is processed and marked as' Processed', he automatically receives a membership associated with the purchase of the product for a specified period of time.

To define a membership to be granted through product purchase, take the following steps:

Choose the 'Products' section from the 'Catalog' menu in the Administrator Zone.
Find the product and click on its title to enter the 'Product Info' page.
At the bottom of the 'Product Info' page find the 'Select membership to sell through this product' field and choose a membership for a drop-down menu.

Defining membership to be granted through product purchase

In the 'Membership validity period' field, specify the time period when this membership is to be valid. Once the membership expires, the customer's membership level is set to the one he had previously. Setting this field to '0' (zero) means unlimited time membership.
Click on the Update button to save these settings.

Importing/Exporting Wholesale Data

Importing purchase limit

Wholesale Trading module allows importing purchase limit data from a CSV file. For better understanding of LiteCommerce CSV import/export procedures, please consult the section 'Understanding LiteCommerce Import/Export Procedures and CSV File Format' of LiteCommerce Reference Manual.

In order to import purchase limit from a CSV file, follow the instructions below:

1. Choose 'Import catalog' section in the 'Catalog' menu.

2. Select the 'Import purchase limit' tab.

3. In the 'Column order' form specify the order of data fields as they appear in your CSV file. The following field names are available:

product
SKU
min
max

All remaining fields must be set to 'NULL'.

4. Select the text qualifier and field delimiter conforming to the CSV file format you are using.

5. If the CSV file with purchase limit data is located on your server machine, just write down the path to the file and its name in the 'File (CSV) local' text box.

6. If the CSV file is located on your local hard disk you can upload it by clicking on the 'Browse' button and choosing the file.

7. Click on the 'Import' button to import purchase limit data from the CSV file.

Exporting purchase limit

Wholesale Trading module can export purchase limit data into a CSV file. For better understanding of LiteCommerce CSV import/export procedures, please consult the section 'Understanding LiteCommerce Import/Export Procedures and CSV File Format' of LiteCommerce Reference Manual.

In order to export purchase limit data follow the instructions provided below:

1. In the 'Catalog' menu, choose the 'Export catalog' section.

2. Select the 'Export purchase limit' tab.

3. In the 'Column order' form specify the order in which data fields should appear in the resulting CSV file. The following field names are available:

product
SKU
min
max

All remaining fields must be set to 'NULL'.

4. Select the field delimiter conforming to the CSV file format you are using.

5. Click on the 'Export' button to export purchase limit data into a CSV file. The default name of the exported file is 'wholesale_prices.csv'.

Importing wholesale prices

In order to import wholesale prices from a CSV file, follow the instructions below:

Choose 'Import catalog' section in the 'Catalog' menu.
Select the 'Import wholesale pricing' tab.
In the 'Column order' form specify the order of data fields as they appear in your CSV file. The following field names are available:
- product
- SKU
- amount
- price
- membership
  All remaining fields must be set to 'NULL'.
Select the text qualifier and field delimiter conforming to the CSV file format you are using.
If the CSV file with wholesale pricing data is located on your server machine, just write down the path to the file and its name in the 'File (CSV) local' text box.
Select the 'Drop all wholesale prices before import' option if you want to delete current wholesale prices in the product catalog.
If the CSV file is located on your local hard disk you can upload it by clicking on the 'Browse' button and choosing the file.
Click on the 'Import' button to import wholesale pricing data from the CSV file.

Exporting wholesale prices

In order to export wholesale pricing data follow the instructions provided below:

In the 'Catalog' menu, choose the 'Export catalog' section.
Select the 'Export wholesale pricing' tab.
In the 'Column order' form specify the order in which data fields should appear in the resulting CSV file. The following field names are available:
- product
- SKU
- amount
- price
- membership
  All remaining fields must be set to 'NULL'.
Select the field delimiter conforming to the CSV file format you are using.
Click on the 'Export' button to export wholesale pricing data into a CSV file. The default name of the exported file is 'wholesale_prices.csv'.

Importing product access information

In order to import product access information from a CSV file, follow the instructions below:

Choose 'Import catalog' section in the 'Catalog' menu.
Select the 'Import product_access' tab.
In the 'Column order' form specify the order of data fields as they appear in your CSV file. The following field names are available:
- product_id
- show_group
- show_price_group
- sell_group
  All remaining fields must be set to 'NULL'.
Select the text qualifier and field delimiter conforming to the CSV file format you are using.
If the CSV file with product access information is located on your server machine, just type in the path to the file and its name in the 'File (CSV) local' text box.
If the CSV file is located on your local hard disk you can upload it by clicking on the Browse button and choosing the file.
Click on the Import button to import product access information from the CSV file.

Exporting product access information

In order to export product access information from a CSV file, follow the instructions below:

In the 'Catalog' menu, choose the 'Export catalog' section.
Select the 'Export product_access' tab.
In the 'Column order' form specify the order in which data fields should appear in the resulting CSV file. The following field names are available:
- product_id
- show_group
- show_price_group
- sell_group
  All remaining fields must be set to 'NULL'.
Select the field delimiter conforming to the CSV file format you are using.
Click on the Export button to export product access information into a CSV file. The default name of the exported file is 'product_access.csv'.

Creating a Price List

One of the features introduced by the Wholesale Trading module is a price list creation tool. You can choose to create a price list for the entire online store or an individual category. You can also create membership group specific price lists. Follow the instructions below to generate a price list:

In the Administrator Zone, choose the ‘Print price list’ section from the ‘Catalog’ menu.
Specify price list options.
Click on the Preview button.

Review the generated price list and click on the ‘Print’ link to have the price list printed.

Customer Zone

This section contains information about:

submitting wholesaler registration request;
reviewing membership;
bulk shopping;
buying products at wholesale prices;
restricted product access.

In order to take advantage of discounted product prices, available to members of the special wholesaler groups, a customer must register himself as a wholesaler first.

Submitting Wholesaler Registration Request

Take the following easy steps to complete a wholesaler registration request:

If you are a registered store customer, log into your account:
- if the store has a 2-column design, at the Storefront choose 'Your Account' tab, type in your authentication information and click on the 'Submit' button. Then switch to 'Your Account' section again and click on the Modify Profile button.
- if the store has a 3-column design, in the 'Authentication' menu type in your authentication information and click on the Submit link. Then in 'Your profile' menu choose the Modify profile link.
  Proceed to step 4.
If you are a new store user, you must register first:
- if the store has a 2-column design, in 'Your Account' tab click on the 'register here' link to proceed to customer registration form.
- if the store has a 2-column design, in the 'Authentication' menu click on the 'Register' link to proceed to customer registration form.
If you are a new store user, provide essential personal, shipping and billing information in the fields of the registration form. Please note that fields marked with red asterisk [*] are mandatory.
To register as a wholesaler, in the profile/registration form find the 'Signup for membership' section and in the' Membership' field choose from a drop-down list a membership group where you want to be included.
If you would like your Sales Permit/Tax ID #, VAT registration number, GST registration number of PST registration number to appear in your invoices, you can type them into the respective fields under the 'Please fill corresponding fields when applying as wholesaler' section.
Click on the Submit button to finalize your wholesaler registration request.

Reviewing Membership

When membership is granted to a customer through product purchase or the store administrator approves the wholesaler registration request, new membership and its expiration date become visible in the customer's profile.

Bulk Shopping

When a category is set up for bulk shopping, all products in that category are presented to the store customers as a table.

If Product Options module is installed and a product has different options defined, each product variant is presented individually.

Customers can quickly add multiple products and their variants to the shopping cart right from the category page. Additionally, in the category page customers can review bulk prices and instantly calculate purchase subtotals.

To calculate a subtotal:

place check marks against products you want to buy;
specify quantities of the products selected;
click on the Calculate button; the calculated subtotal will appear at the bottom of the product list.

To reset the selection of products in the category:

click on the Reset button.

To add products to your shopping cart:

place check marks against products you want to buy;
specify quantities of the products selected;
click on the Add to Cart button.

Buying Products at Wholesale Prices

When special wholesale prices are defined on a product, the store customers can take advantage of buying products at the discounted prices, provided that they place a certain amount of that product in their shopping carts. In the case when wholesale prices are defined for a certain membership group, a customer must hold membership in that group in order to take advantage of the wholesale offer.

For products with a defined purchase limit, the "Buy now" action redirects a customer onto the "Product details" page (this allows to avoid a warning sign being displayed that a product has a purchase limit and cannot be added to the cart directly).

Restricted Product Access

When product access restrictions prohibit your online shopping system from displaying product price to a customer, a message defined by the store administrator is displayed in the 'Price' field of the product details page.

When a customer who does not have enough privileges attempts to see restricted information or perform a restricted action, a warning message comes up.

Terms and Definitions

Bulk shopping: purchasing products in bulk quantities.

Global discount: discount that applies to all products available at the store in case the customer's shopping cart exceeds a certain amount defined by the store Administrator.

Price message: text message displayed to a user if his membership level does not give him access to price information of a product.

Product access: product information (price, product details, etc.) access settings; can be configured individually for different membership levels.

Wholesale price: discounted product price applicable to purchases of multiple quantities of a product.