Common Products for Vendors¶

Functionality¶

The Common Products for Vendors add-on allows you to create a single product base for your marketplace. That way:

• Multiple vendors will be able to offer same products at different prices.

• Customers will have a way to compare the prices and make their choice.

  

This add-on will prevent vendors from filling the marketplace with multiple similar products that slightly differ in photos or descriptions.

Here’s how the add-on works:

1. The Products → Products menu gets split into 2 sections: Products being sold and Products that vendors can sell. This change affects vendors and marketplaces administrators.

2. A marketplace administrator creates products that vendors can sell. It works just like the standard process of adding products.

   

3. A vendor browses those products and chooses which of them to sell. If the vendor is already selling some of the products, they will have the For sale marker.

4. After choosing a product, the vendor is taken to the editing page. That page doesn’t allow vendors to change much, except for prices, quantity, and shipping-related properties.

   

5. Once the vendor saves the product, it will also appear as product being sold for both that vendor and the marketplace owner. This approach ensures that the product remains the same, but allows vendors to make different offers to their customers.

6. (optional) If the add-on settings allow that, every vendor will also be able to create their own products. Those products are specific to that vendor, so they will be listed as products being sold, but won’t appear among products that vendors can sell.

   Hint

   If you don’t want a vendor’s product to appear on the storefront without your prior approval, use the Vendor Data Premoderation add-on.

7. (optional) If vendors can create their own products, then the marketplace owner will be able to make those products common on the product editing page.

   

Installation & Configuration¶

The Common Products for Vendors add-on is installed like any other add-on. Once you do it, click the add-on’s name to open its settings. The add-on has only one setting:

• Allow vendors to create products—determines if vendors have the ability to create their own products in addition to any products you may have added to the marketplace.

  

  • Forbidding vendors to create their own products is convenient if you have already added all the possible products and aren’t planning to let your vendors offer anything else. Vendors will only be able to select something from the catalog (the list of products that vendors can sell).

  • Allowing vendors to create their own products is convenient when you haven’t added all the possible products yet, or when each vendor should be able to offer some unique products, while the bulk of the products are supposed to be the same. Vendors will be able to sell existing products from the catalog or create their own products.