How to Set Wholesale Prices in WooCommerce: Basic Steps

The B2B ecommerce landscape is experiencing unprecedented growth. The worldwide business-to-business (B2B) eCommerce market is worth an estimated $32.1 trillion in 2025. Projections indicate it will grow to $62.2 trillion by 2030.

This massive market represents a significant opportunity for WooCommerce store owners. Many businesses are looking to expand beyond traditional retail sales. The global B2B eCommerce market exceeds the B2C market by 400% in 2025.

Understanding how to set wholesale prices in WooCommerce has never been more crucial for business growth. Running a WooCommerce store that serves both retail and wholesale buyers can be challenging. Managing different pricing structures is especially difficult.

If you’re looking to tap into this lucrative market, you’re in the right place. Learning how to set wholesale prices in WooCommerce is your gateway to capturing a share of this multi-trillion-dollar market.

This comprehensive guide will walk you through setting up wholesale pricing using the powerful Whols plugin. You’ll learn how to create a B2B or hybrid B2B+B2C store that can compete in today’s digital marketplace.

Why Wholesale Pricing Matters for Your WooCommerce Store

Wholesale pricing allows you to sell products in bulk at discounted rates. You can target business customers, resellers, and distributors.

Manufacturing and wholesaling account for an impressive 80% of total B2B online business deals in the U.S, highlighting a massive opportunity for WooCommerce store owners to implement wholesale strategies.

A well-designed wholesale system is essential for capturing modern business customers. This strategy can significantly increase your revenue by tapping into the B2B market. You can maintain your retail customer base while expanding into wholesale.

However, managing different price structures manually can be time-consuming and error-prone. The Whols plugin solves this problem. It provides a complete wholesale solution that seamlessly integrates with your existing WooCommerce setup.

Getting Started with Whols Plugin

Before diving into wholesale pricing, you need to set up the foundation for your wholesale system. The Whols plugin provides all the necessary tools to create a professional wholesale experience. This meets the expectations of today’s B2B buyers.

If you have already activated the Whols plugin in your WordPress online store. Move to the next step; otherwise, check the document on how to install the whols WordPress plugin.

Setting Up Wholesale User Roles

The first step in implementing wholesale prices in WooCommerce is creating dedicated wholesale user roles. This allows you to differentiate between regular customers and wholesale buyers. This is crucial given that the number of B2B decision-makers is growing. 41% of businesses have two to three stakeholders involved in purchasing decisions.

Creating Wholesale Roles:

When setting up wholesale roles in Whols, you’ll configure several important settings:

• Name: This is how the role appears on your site and in your admin area
• Slug: The URL-friendly version of the name, typically lowercase with hyphens
• Description: Additional information about the role (optional but helpful)
• Disable Coupons: Control whether wholesale customers can use coupons
  • Use Global Option: Follow your global settings
  • Yes: Disable coupons for this specific role
  • No: Allow coupons for this role
• Disable Payment Methods: Restrict specific payment methods for wholesale customers
• Allow Free Shipping: Enable free shipping for wholesale orders (requires WooCommerce shipping zone configuration)
• Exclude Tax: Option to exempt wholesale customers from taxes

This flexibility allows you to create multiple wholesale tiers. You can set up “Gold Wholesaler,” “Silver Wholesaler,” or “Distributor” roles. Each can have different privileges and pricing structures.

This approach aligns with market trends. Hybrid sales are expected to be the most dominant strategy by 2025. This is due to shifts in customer preferences and remote-first engagement.

Setting Up Wholesale Registration

To allow new wholesale customers to register, you’ll need to create a dedicated registration system. Whols provides a simple shortcode system for this purpose. This is essential considering that 44% of Millennials prefer no sales rep interaction during the purchase process.

Registration Form Setup:

Use the shortcode [whols_registration_form] on any page where you want to display the wholesale registration form. This creates a professional registration experience separate from your regular customer registration.

Key Registration Settings:

• Default Wholesaler Role: Choose which role new registrants receive by default
• Enable Auto Approve: Decide whether to automatically approve new wholesale registrations or review them manually
• Registration Messages: Customize success messages for different scenarios
• Redirect URLs: Set up custom redirects after registration and login

Manual Approval Process:

If you choose manual approval, you can review each wholesale application. You can assign appropriate roles based on the customer’s business type and requirements. This ensures quality control over your wholesale customer base. This is increasingly important as businesses become more selective about their suppliers.

Mastering How to Set Wholesale Prices in WooCommerce for Different Categories

One of the most powerful features of Whols is the ability to set wholesale prices at the category level. This approach is efficient and ensures consistent pricing across product lines. This is crucial for maintaining competitiveness in a market where the average global conversion rate for eCommerce stores is 1.9%.

Category-Based Pricing Models

When you add or edit a product category in WooCommerce, Whols allows you to add multiple pricing models. You can set different wholesale prices for different types of wholesale customers. This addresses the complexity of modern B2B buying. The average B2B buyer consumes 13 pieces of content during their purchasing journey.

How Category Pricing Works:

1. Navigate to your WooCommerce product categories.
2. For each category, you can assign pricing models for different wholesale roles.
3. When a pricing model is assigned to a category, it automatically applies to all products within that category.
4. You can set different discount percentages or fixed prices for each wholesale role.

Benefits of Category-Based Pricing:

• Efficiency: Set prices for entire product lines at once.
• Consistency: Ensure all products in a category follow the same wholesale pricing structure.
• Scalability: Easy to manage pricing for large inventories.
• Flexibility: Different wholesale roles can have different pricing for the same categories.

Advanced Pricing Strategies

With Whols, you can implement sophisticated pricing strategies that align with market expectations. B2B marketplace sales grew by 100% in 2023. Having competitive and flexible pricing is essential.

Tiered Pricing: Create different wholesale tiers with varying discount levels. For example:

• Bronze Wholesaler: 15% discount.
• Silver Wholesaler: 25% discount.
• Gold Wholesaler: 35% discount.

Product-Specific Pricing: While category pricing is efficient, you can also set specific wholesale prices for individual products when needed.

Dynamic Pricing: Combine category-based pricing with product-specific overrides for maximum flexibility. This responds to the trend where dynamic pricing becomes more common in B2B commerce.

Enhancing the Wholesale Experience

Custom Registration Fields

To better serve your wholesale customers, you need to collect necessary business information. Whols allows you to add custom fields to the registration form. This is particularly important as B2B buyers from larger companies rely more on third-party sources. Companies with revenues exceeding $250 and $500 million do this due to their perceived independence.

Field Types Available:

• Text Fields: For company names, contact persons, or reference numbers
• Textarea: For business descriptions or special requirements
• Select Dropdowns: For business categories or industries
• Checkboxes: For terms acceptance or multiple selections
• Radio Buttons: For single-choice options like business size
• File Uploads: For business licenses, tax certificates, or other documentation

Configuration Options:

Each custom field can be configured with:

• Unique field names for database storage
• Custom labels and descriptions
• Placeholder text
• Default values
• Required field settings
• CSS classes for styling

Role-Specific Registration

For businesses with multiple wholesale tiers, you can enable role-specific registration. This allows potential wholesale customers to select their desired role during registration. This streamlines the approval process in an environment where significant changes are happening. By 2025, 80% of B2B sales interactions between suppliers and buyers will occur in online channels.

Implementation Steps:

1. Access the Fields Manager in Whols settings
2. Add the “Wholesaler Roles” field to your registration form
3. Configure available roles for selection
4. Set up approval workflows for different role types
5. Assign final roles after reviewing applications

Best Practices for Wholesale Pricing in WooCommerce

Pricing Strategy Considerations

When learning how to set wholesale prices in WooCommerce, consider these factors based on current market data:

• Market Research: U.S. B2B e-commerce is worth $10.1 trillion in 2025. Understanding your competitors’ wholesale pricing is crucial to remaining competitive while maintaining profitability.
• Volume Discounts: Structure your pricing to encourage larger orders. This is especially important considering that almost half of all eCommerce purchases are taking place on mobile devices. This trend applies even in the B2B industry.
• Customer Segmentation: Different types of wholesale customers may deserve different pricing. A distributor who orders monthly might get better rates than a small retailer who orders quarterly.
• Profit Margins: Ensure your wholesale prices still maintain healthy profit margins. Account for reduced transaction costs and bulk shipping savings.

Customer Management

• Clear Communication: Provide clear information about wholesale pricing structures, minimum order quantities, and payment terms. This is especially important as self-directed interactions outpace human interactions. The ratio is 15 versus 12, respectively.
• Account Management: Consider assigning account managers to your larger wholesale customers for personalized service.
• Regular Reviews: Periodically review your wholesale pricing to ensure it remains competitive and profitable in this rapidly growing market.

Technical Considerations

• Website Performance: Ensure your site can handle the different user experiences for retail and wholesale customers without performance issues. This is crucial given that 90% of business users who have first-rate mobile app experiences will return to the website.
• SEO Considerations: Structure your wholesale pages to avoid affecting your retail SEO. Still make them discoverable by potential wholesale partners.
• Security: Implement proper security measures to protect sensitive business information shared during the wholesale registration process.

Troubleshooting Common Issues

Pricing Display Problems

If wholesale prices aren’t displaying correctly:

• Verify that the user is logged in with the correct wholesale role
• Check that pricing models are properly assigned to categories or products
• Ensure the Whols plugin is up to date and compatible with your WooCommerce version

Registration Issues

For registration problems:

• Confirm that the registration shortcode is properly placed
• Check that the required fields are configured correctly
• Verify that email notifications are working for new registrations

Role Assignment Challenges

When roles aren’t working as expected:

• Review the role permissions and settings
• Ensure the default wholesale role is properly configured
• Check that the multiple role pricing model is selected if using multiple wholesale tiers

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Learning how to set wholesale prices in WooCommerce opens doors to significant B2B opportunities. The Whols plugin simplifies wholesale implementation from basic pricing to sophisticated multi-tier systems.

Start with clear pricing strategies, then use Whols features for efficient implementation. Regular optimization based on customer feedback and market conditions will drive long-term wholesale success.

Implement these WooCommerce wholesale pricing strategies today to capture your share of the growing B2B ecommerce market.

Whether you’re just starting with wholesale or looking to improve an existing system, the tools and strategies outlined in this guide will help you create a wholesale experience that drives business growth.

Remember to review and optimize your wholesale pricing strategy regularly. Start implementing these strategies today. Position your WooCommerce store to thrive in the multi-trillion-dollar wholesale market alongside your retail operations.