As I understand it, there is no current method for allowing users to have multiple vendors. What do you think is the best approach to making this happen?
My first thought was to force them to create a new account with a separate email, then add a way for them to connect accounts and have a “switch user” option. The only issue with that is some users don’t have more than one email, and this is less user friendly.
I also wondered if I could make a form that creates a new vendor and attaches it to the user, and then have a select vendor option somewhere, but the way everything is set up to include vendor account settings in the user settings, etc, I’m not sure it would work.
Any comments or other suggestions? I can develop whatever if I could just get some feedback and maybe some direction. Thanks in advance.
I dont really understand “Multiple Vendors Per User” mean, and what it purpose,
but if we looking at other product “plugin marketplace” like dokan/wcfm etc,
vendor owner can add several role as admin, staff, customer service etc…
or at least ability to assign another handler for the order
My whole site is based on vendors having a profile where they can list products and services. Some vendors have multiple businesses, not just locations. They need to be able to have multiple vendor accounts, but I don’t want them to have to creat new user accounts for each business. One of my vendors has over a dozen businesses; creating that many accounts with that many different email addresses is not user friendly.
We planned to build such an architecture into the framework for future updates, so that the vendor profile would be separate from the user’s, and multiple could be added, but unfortunately, there is no such feature and no ETA either.
Thanks. I decided to go with creating new user accounts and have them switch back and forth, then block the ability for the main account from being a vendor. Here’s my process so far:
Created a Gravity Form with vendor name, category, and unique username fields.
Make a new user role called “vendor”.
Upon submitting the form, it will create a new account with a secret password and a fake email that indicates it’s a vendor account, their user id, and their actual email address. That way I get the user without searching the database for one that matches. Gave this account the vendor role, and storing an array of the additional vendor account ids on the main account.
Added a link on the settings page to create a new vendor which leads to the form.
Add a dropdown to the user settings page with a list of their vendors. Only shows up if they have created vendors.
Hid the listing button to anyone not a vendor.
Rerouted all Hivepress emails to the main account.
Perform a check for new messages on additional accounts, and display notification badge on their main account.
Add an action hook for when the main email account is updated to also update the vendor account emails.
Add an action hook for updating the main account user if the vendor account is deleted.
Currently I am moving onto step 7. Can you think of anything else I might be missing? They will not be able to log into their vendor accounts directly.
Yes, at first glance, the workaround looks good. But please note that we have not tested it, so we cannot guarantee that it will work without any issues (for example, if there are updates from our side).