Storefold - Multivendor Marketplace for WooCommerce Free documentation

Storefold lets other sellers open their own store inside your WooCommerce shop. Sellers apply through a form on your site, you approve them, and they manage their products and orders from a vendor dashboard on the front of your site. Vendors never see wp-admin.

Customers check out once and see one order. In the background, Storefold creates one sub-order per vendor with that vendor's share of shipping. Each vendor receives only their part of the order, and you keep a commission as a percentage, a fixed amount per item, or both.

You manage everything under the Storefold menu in wp-admin: vendors, commissions, withdrawal requests, announcements to vendors and the marketplace settings. A setup wizard and a built-in Help and docs screen explain each option. The plugin is compatible with High-Performance Order Storage (HPOS) and the Cart and Checkout blocks, and it does not connect to any external service.

Storefold is a free plugin on WordPress.org. It needs WooCommerce, so install and activate WooCommerce first.

Storefold > Overview is your marketplace home screen.

• Summary cards show marketplace sales this month (everything customers spent on vendor products), what you earned this month (your commission), what vendors earned this month after commission, and the number of active vendors.
• Getting started is a five-step checklist: run the setup wizard, check the marketplace pages, enable a payout method, link "Become a Vendor" in your menu, and approve your first vendor. Click Hide this checklist once you are done.
• Needs your attention lists everything waiting on you, such as vendor applications and products waiting for review.
• Marketplace health runs checks with a plain fix for each problem: marketplace pages, pretty permalinks, vendor payouts, marketplace emails and vendor accounts.
• Quick links take you to the Become a Vendor page, the store directory, the vendor dashboard, the marketplace emails and the help screen.

A banner about Storefold Pro appears at the top of Storefold admin screens. You can dismiss it with the close button.

Storefold > Vendors lists every store with its Store, Owner, Status, Balance, Joined date and Actions.

Statuses

• Pending: the seller applied and is waiting for you.
• Approved: the vendor can sell.
• Suspended: their products can no longer be bought and their dashboard shows a notice. Use it for temporary problems.
• Rejected: the application was declined.

Use the status links above the table to filter the list, and Search stores to find a store by name.

Add a vendor yourself

1. Click Add a vendor.
2. Enter the Store name and the Owner email.
3. Save. If an account with that email exists, it becomes the owner. Otherwise a new account is created and emailed a link to set a password.

Administrators and shop managers cannot be vendors, because every product their account creates would count as that store's products. To try the vendor side, apply with a separate account.

Bulk actions

Tick several vendors, choose Approve, Suspend, Reject or Delete under Bulk actions, and click Apply.

Deleting a vendor removes the store and the vendor role and cancels open withdrawal requests. The user account, their products, and all commission and ledger history are kept, because they are financial records.

Storefold > Commissions shows one row per sold item: what the customer paid, what the vendor keeps and what you keep. The columns are Order, Vendor, Product, Item total, Vendor keeps, You keep, Status and Date.

Commission rows start as Pending. They become Earned when the vendor order reaches the status you chose under Vendors earn their money when in the settings, and the vendor balance goes up. When you refund an order, the matching earning is Reversed automatically.

To narrow the list:

1. Pick a vendor (or keep All vendors).
2. Pick a status: Any status, Pending, Earned or Reversed.
3. Optionally set a From and To date.
4. Click Filter.

Click Export CSV to download the commissions as a CSV file.

Vendors request payouts from their dashboard, and the requests appear under Storefold > Withdrawals. The table shows the Vendor, Amount, Method, Payout details, Requested date, Status and Action.

You send the money yourself:

1. Open the Pending tab.
2. Send the amount to the vendor with the method they chose (PayPal or bank transfer), using the payout details shown.
3. Record the request as paid with a reference, so everyone has a receipt.

To handle several requests at once, tick them, choose Mark as paid or Reject, and click Apply to selected. The Paid, Rejected and All tabs show earlier requests.

Vendors can only request a payout once their available balance reaches the Minimum withdrawal amount from the settings.

Use Storefold > Announcements to post a message to every vendor. Vendors see it on their dashboard.

1. Enter a Title.
2. Write the message in Write your message to vendors.
3. Click Publish announcement.

Published announcements are listed under Published with their Title, Date and an Action column.

Storefold > Settings holds all marketplace options, grouped in six boxes. Each option has a short explanation and a Learn more link to the matching entry in Help and docs. Click Save settings when you are done.

• Vendor rules: whether you approve each new vendor or anyone can start selling right away, whether new vendor products go live immediately or wait for your review, and an optional seller terms checkbox on the application form.
• Commission: how you take your cut (percentage, fixed amount per item, or both), your percentage and fixed amount, and who gets shipping and tax. A Live example line shows what you and the vendor get on a sample sale while you type.
• Payouts: the payout methods vendors can choose (PayPal, Bank transfer) and the Minimum withdrawal amount.
• Storefront: "Sold by" labels and who can review a store.
• Marketplace pages: which pages hold the vendor dashboard, the application form and the store directory.
• Data: whether deleting the plugin also deletes marketplace data.

Commission is calculated per sold item, on the item total after coupons, when the order is placed. The rule used is saved with each commission row, so later changes never rewrite history. Commission is never taken from shipping or tax.

See the settings reference below for every field.

Storefold > Setup wizard asks four quick questions: the kind of marketplace, your commission, how vendors get paid, and how much you want to review. Your answers fill in the settings, and you can change every answer later under Storefold > Settings.

The first question is What kind of marketplace are you building? Choose one:

• Physical products: makers and resellers shipping goods.
• Digital downloads: files, templates and software. Earnings release as soon as payment clears.
• Services and bookings: local pros and freelancers selling their time.
• Local multi-store: a city marketplace with pickup and delivery.
• Wholesale or B2B: businesses selling to businesses in bulk.

Click Continue to move to the next question.

Storefold > Help and docs explains everything you can configure, in plain language. Use the Contents list to jump to a topic:

1. Getting started
2. Settings: vendor rules
3. Settings: commission
4. Settings: payouts
5. Settings: storefront, pages and data
6. Managing vendors
7. Orders, commissions and refunds
8. Withdrawals
9. The vendor dashboard
10. Emails
11. Shortcodes and store pages
12. Security and privacy
13. For developers
14. Troubleshooting

The Learn more links on the settings screen bring you straight to the matching entry here.

Storefold registers five marketplace emails as WooCommerce emails. You edit them under WooCommerce > Settings > Emails, like any other WooCommerce email. Each one has an editable subject, heading and body text with placeholders such as {site_title} and {store_name}, and a preview.

Two examples:

• Marketplace: new vendor application is sent to the marketplace team when someone applies to become a vendor. It lists the applicant's answers and links to the full application so you can approve or reject it. Set who receives it in Recipient(s).
• Marketplace: store approved is sent to a vendor when their store application is approved. It links to their vendor dashboard and their public storefront.

For each email you can:

1. Turn it on or off with Enable/Disable.
2. Change the Subject, Email heading and Additional content. The fields show the default text as a placeholder.
3. Choose the Email type: Plain text, HTML or Multipart.
4. Add Cc(s) and Bcc(s) addresses.
5. Check the Email preview on desktop or mobile, or click Send a test email.
6. Click Save changes.

Storefold adds these pages and elements to the front of your site:

• Store directory: the page with [storefold_store_list] lists your stores with a Search stores box. When nothing matches, shoppers see "No stores found. Try a different search."
• Become a vendor: visitors without a store see a Want to sell here? box with a Become a vendor button that leads to the application form.
• Store pages: each vendor gets a store page at /store/store-name/ with banner, logo, policies, products and reviews. These pages need pretty permalinks.
• "Sold by" labels: when enabled, product pages, shop listings, cart, checkout (classic and block) and orders show the store name, so shoppers can click through to the store.
• Vendor dashboard: approved vendors manage their products, orders, coupons, earnings, payouts, announcements and settings from the Vendor Dashboard page. Vendors can also switch on vacation mode with a custom message.

If you are logged in as an administrator or shop manager, you see a You manage this marketplace note instead of the application prompt. These accounts cannot open a store. To try the vendor side, log out and apply with a separate account.