IMPORTANT NOTE

This documentation was written when PayPal Classic Express Checkout was being used as the PayPal gateway.  This is no deprecated and should no longer be used!

This documentation is still accurate except for the use of "PayPal Classic Express Checkout" instead of "PayPal Complete Payments."

We are in the process of updating our docs accordingly.  Until then, please make sure you're using PayPal Complete Payments.  The rest of the guide should align pretty well.

Introduction

If you use the WC Vendors Marketplace or WC Vendors Pro plugin in your WordPress shop, and you want to support PayPal payments as well, there is no out of the box solution provided by WC Vendors.

However, you can use our PayPal for WooCommerce plugin with its PayPal for WooCommerce Multi-Account Management add-on to send PayPal payments directly to multiple accounts.

Moreover, we’ve worked closely with the team at WC Vendors to roll out a new feature to our PayPal for WooCommerce Multi-Account Management add-on that brings full support to WC Vendors Marketplace / WC Vendors Pro!

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to use this new feature to integrate PayPal payments into your WordPress marketplace and have the order payments sent directly to the vendors’ PayPal accounts.

How Will It Work?

Once we’ve configured all the required plugins, we should have a system where:

  1. Whenever a site owner approves a vendor sign-up request, their PayPal account will automatically be added to the system, ready to receive payments to orders for their products.
  2. As a site owner, you can set a global or vendor-specific commission that will be sent to your PayPal account for each order.
  3. An order may include multiple items from different vendors, in which case the vendor payments will be split based on the individual item’s price. Order commissions will be paid out accordingly as well.
  4. The site owner never touches the money. The payments are sent directly from the buyer’s PayPal account to the vendor.

1. Install and Set up PayPal for WooCommerce Plugin

PayPal for WooCommerce

After installing and setting up PayPal for WooCommerce plugin, you will have a primary PayPal account configured in your WooCommerce shop that can receive commissions on orders!

2. Install PayPal for WooCommerce Multi-Account Management Add-On

PayPal for WooCommerce Multi-Account Management Add-On

Please download the plugin and install it. After that, you’re ready to move to the next step.

3. Enable Automatic Rule Creation for WC Vendors

  • Make sure you’ve installed and WC Vendors Marketplace before trying out this step. Otherwise, the WC Vendors specific integrations in PayPal for WooCommerce Multi-Account Management plugin will not be available.
  • Next, we’ll go ahead and enable Automatic Rule Creation” in the settings page of the PayPal for WooCommerce Multi-Account Management plugin.
  • You can also enable the “PayPal Sandbox for Automatic Rule Creation” option if you want to test out your setup in a PayPal sandbox environment.
Enable Automatic Rule Creation for WC Vendors - WC Marketplace

4. Add Global Site Owner Commission Percentage (Optional)

  • If you, as a site owner, wish to receive a certain percentage of the total amount on every order as commission, then you can set up a Global Site Owner Commission with the PayPal for WooCommerce Multi-Account Management add-on.
  • The commission is sent to the primary account configured with the PayPal for WooCommerce plugin.
  • You can set the commission percentage in “WP Dashboard > WooCommerce > Settings > PayPal Multi-Account Setup > Settings”
Enable Global Site Owner Commission

That’s it! After these steps, any newly approved vendors will have their PayPal account automatically added to the secondary accounts list in PayPal for WooCommerce Multi-Account Management add-on.

Let’s See Our Setup in Action

Let’s take a complete example and see our set up in action!

Primary Account

I have configured a primary account in the Express Checkout page of the PayPal for WooCommerce plugin, and this account will receive a commission from orders.

Primary Account

A New Vendor is Approved

  • You can see that after an admin approves the new vendor, a new secondary account has been created in the accounts listing page at “WP Dashboard > WooCommerce > Settings > PayPal Multi-Account Setup.”
  • You can also notice that an author-specific trigger condition is set for this account. So the payments for this account will be sent out whenever an order comes through for this particular vendor’s product.
A New Vendor is Approved - optimized

I’ve gone ahead and signed up three vendors with sandboxed PayPal accounts. I have also added a few products for each vendor.

Three Vendor Accounts
Three Vendor Products

Global Site Owner Commission

  • I have also set up a Global Site Owner Commission of 5% with PayPal for WooCommerce Multi-Account Management add-on.
  • Note that you also have an option to set a different commission percentage for each vendor. Check out our setup guide for information on how to do that.
Example Site Owner Commission

An Order Is Placed for Account Two’s Hoodie

  • The total price on the order is $42
  • The commission that should be sent to Account One (primary account) is 5% of $42, which is $2.1
  • The final amount sent to Account Two is: $42 – $2.1 = $39.9
  • Note that apart from the commission, the vendor’s money is never touched by the site owner’s PayPal account, thus preventing issues from conflicts and chargebacks.
Single Item Order - optimized

An Order Comes in For Products from All Vendors

  • The Order includes (Total $102):
    • 1 product from Account Two ( Total $42, after commission deduction, $39.9)
    • 1 product from Account Three ( Total $20, after commission deduction, $19)
    • 1 product from Account Four ( Total $40, after commission deduction, $38)
  • The total commission to be sent to Account One is $5.1
Multiple Item Order - Optimized

Conclusion

We saw how our solution elegantly handles PayPal payments for WC Vendors Marketplace and WC Vendors Pro.

Our payment solution for WC Vendors is low maintenance, set it up once and forget about it!

We’ve also taken care of essential things such as security and clubbing payments from multiple orders into just one PayPal transaction, resulting in the lowest fee possible for you and all the vendors.

Looking for Live Help?

Schedule a live meeting with Drew Angell, PayPal Certified Developer, and get all of your questions or concerns answered.