Free-$999
The Dokan plugins allows you to turn your WordPress website into a ecommerce marketplace. Visitors can register on your website, list products, and sell products without the website owner having to do anything at all. You can easily setup commissions, fees, and all sorts of really nice features. Takes about 1 hour to get your website up and running!
Little Pricey!
Slight Learning Curve
Support Is Helpful
(The Good Things)
(The Bad Things)
Creating an eCommerce store is a great way to earn money online. But what if you don't have products of your own and you've decided that dropshipping is not for you?
Don't despair as all is not lost. Instead of the usual online store, consider creating a multivendor eCommerce marketplace. This way, other people can register to sell their products on your site and you get a commission from each sale.
And thanks to a plugin like Dokan, you can create your very own multi-vendor marketplace in as little as one hour.
In this review, I'll go over the plugin's ease of use, features, and pricing options. Let's dig in!
To get started with the Dokan plugin, you'll need to install it first. Login to your WordPress website and then go to Plugins > Add new. Search for Dokan, and then install and activate the plugin.
The plugin will then take you to the setup wizard. The setup wizard will also install WooCommerce for you if you don't have it installed already.
Once you're done with the setup wizard, it will prompt you to go to the Dokan dashboard or to return to your WordPress dashboard. It's worth mentioning that you will also need to enable registrations on your WordPress website to allow vendors to register and create their store.
Now that we've covered the ease of use, let's take a look at the core features of the Dokan plugin.
The Dokan plugin works with any theme that supports WooCommerce. This is a great feature as you don't have to worry about having to switch themes. On top of that, the plugin has a free theme that you can use to get started building your marketplace.
Each vendor has their dashboard where they can manage their products, see sales, discounts, orders, and everything else related to their store.
You can set commissions globally or you can charge a different commission for each seller. You can even set commissions for specific products.
You can easily add the review feature so visitors feel more confident buying on your site and from your vendors.
Vendors can easily send a withdrawal request to you right from their dashboard. As the admin, you can set the withdrawal limit, payment channel, minimum withdrawal limit, and more.
Each vendor has plenty of customization options for their store. They can upload a custom store banner, set announcements for their store, and more.
With Dokan, you don't have to worry about shipping. Simply let your vendors handle their shipping with a zone-wise shipping feature. You can also enable the ShipStation integration to make it even easier for them to manage shipping options.
Finally, you have complete control over your multi-vendor marketplace. You can enable or disable selling rights with a single click straight from your dashboard. You can also easily send announcements globally or to specific sellers.
The Dokan plugin is relatively easy to use and has a clean interface. You can see at a glance all the important details about your marketplace and easily add or manage vendors from your WordPress dashboard.
However, the plugin can sometimes be glitchy so be prepared for that as you're customizing your marketplace or working with other settings.
Other than that, the plugin integrates nicely with WooCommerce as well as with page builder plugins like Elementor and Divi. It also works with the WPML plugin which is useful if you need to translate it into your language or want to create a multi-lingual marketplace.
As far as support goes, once you upgrade to the paid plan, you can submit a ticket for any issue you might encounter. The team behind the Dokan plugin only offers support via tickets so be prepared to wait for your issue to be resolved.
If you upgrade to the Enterprise plan, you can initiate support requests via LiveChat.
They do have thorough documentation for Dokan that walks you through the entire process of installing and setting up the plugin. The documentation also covers all the features of the plugin and has tutorials for admin functions so you can refer to it if you need any help setting up your marketplace.
The Dokan plugin offers five different pricing plans. Each plan offers an annual subscription and a lifetime plan. Here's how they break down.
It's worth mentioning that this many pricing plans can be confusing not to mention the Starter plan doesn't offer anything valuable. You'd be better off upgrading to the Pro plan simply because this plan offers Stripe integration.
If you’re looking for a turnkey solution that will allow you to turn your website into a full-featured vendor marketplace, the Dokan plugin is worth looking into. It has a simple, easy to use interface and the whole setup can be completed in about an hour.
It offers plenty of great features such as front-end vendor dashboard, order management, integration with popular page builder plugins such as Elementor, and plenty of customization options.
The Dokan plugin also offers a lifetime plan as well as a 14-day money-back guarantee.
While it’s true that the plugin is on the expensive side, keep in mind that a lot of development went into this plugin. The bigger issue with pricing is that the plans don’t make a lot of sense and the Starter plan is pretty much useless considering there is no Stripe integration.
Another downside is that the plugin can be glitchy at times and the support is slow so be aware of that when comparing the pros and cons.
All things considered, if you’re an experienced WordPress user or if you have a developer on your team, the Dokan plugin offers just about everything you need for a multi-vendor website and more.
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2 Comments
Omar
Hello Darrel,
First of all I have to thank you for all the work you put in your channel,
then I want to ask you if you checked WCMF and whether you prefer it over Dokan or not.
Thank you!
Memy
Thanks for taking the time to talk about this, I feel strongly about it and enjoy learning much more on this subject. If achievable, as you gain experience, would you mind updating your weblog with more details? Its very useful for me.