WooCommerce websites have a reputation for getting complicated quickly. What begins as a fairly straightforward online store can eventually involve customer accounts, product variations, shipping rules, tax settings, coupons, wholesale pricing, inventory management and a growing collection of plugins trying to make everything work together.
That complexity is one of the reasons Divi 5 caught our attention for WooCommerce development. It gives us a stronger foundation for designing the customer-facing experience while still allowing us to build the custom functionality happening behind it.
ParTee Pop gave us a chance to put both sides of that equation to work.
Building ParTee Pop as More Than an Online Store
ParTee Pop is a handmade earring and accessories brand built around original designs created in its Lancaster, Pennsylvania studio. The website needed to introduce the brand, showcase an expanding product collection and make shopping easy, but ecommerce was only one part of what we wanted the site to do.
From the beginning, we knew the website needed room to grow.
That became particularly important when ParTee Pop began developing its wholesale program. Instead of treating wholesale as a completely separate system, we saw an opportunity to build it directly into the existing WooCommerce website.
The result is one website serving two very different audiences without asking either one to navigate around functionality that doesn’t apply to them.
Using Divi 5 to Build the Customer Experience
For the public-facing website, Divi 5 gives us considerably more control over how the store looks and behaves without forcing every page into a traditional WooCommerce layout.
That matters because an ecommerce website still needs to be a brand website.
Products may ultimately be what customers purchase, but the surrounding experience establishes what the brand feels like. We can use Divi 5 to create custom layouts for the homepage, collections, product content and supporting pages while maintaining a consistent design system throughout the site.
As the product catalog grows or the website changes seasonally, that system also makes the site easier to manage. We can establish reusable design decisions instead of rebuilding the same styling over and over again.
For a small ecommerce business, that flexibility can be just as important as what customers see on launch day.
Taking WooCommerce Beyond Standard Ecommerce
The more interesting part of the ParTee Pop build happens behind the scenes.
When we started planning the wholesale program, we could have added another off-the-shelf wholesale plugin and worked around whatever functionality it provided. Instead, we looked at what ParTee Pop actually needed.
Retail partners needed to be able to apply for a wholesale account. ParTee Pop needed control over who was approved. Approved vendors needed access to private wholesale pricing and ordering tools, while regular customers needed to continue seeing the normal retail experience.
So we built it.
The custom ParTee Pop wholesale system works directly with WordPress and WooCommerce. Once we approve a retailer, the website recognizes that customer as a retail partner and gives them access to wholesale functionality that isn't available to regular shoppers.
Approved vendors can log into the website, browse products with their wholesale pricing and place wholesale orders directly through the existing WooCommerce checkout process. Wholesale ordering stays connected to the same products and underlying ecommerce system instead of creating an entirely separate storefront that requires ongoing maintenance.
For the retailer, it feels like a natural extension of the website. For ParTee Pop, it creates a much more manageable way to run both sides of the business.
Building the Wholesale Portal Around the Business
The wholesale portal also demonstrates why we don’t think every WordPress problem needs another generic plugin.
ParTee Pop needed more than discounted prices. The system had to account for the actual wholesale workflow, including retailer applications, approval status, access permissions, wholesale-only navigation, minimum order requirements and private wholesale pricing.
It also needed to make sense for the person managing the store.
That last part is easy to overlook. Custom development shouldn't create a system that only the developer understands. The goal was to give ParTee Pop control over its wholesale program from within WordPress and WooCommerce, where the rest of the store was already being managed.
When an approved retail partner returns to place another order, they can simply log in and order through the website. There is no emailed spreadsheet to complete, no separate wholesale catalog to reference and no need for ParTee Pop to manually turn an order request into a WooCommerce order.
The website is doing more of the work.
Why Divi 5 and WooCommerce Make an Interesting Combination
Divi 5 and WooCommerce solve different parts of the ecommerce puzzle.
WooCommerce provides the commerce engine. Divi 5 gives us the flexibility to shape the experience around it. WordPress gives us the ability to extend the system when a business needs something that doesn't come out of the box.
That combination can be particularly useful for businesses that have moved beyond a basic online store.
Maybe customers need different pricing based on who they are. Part of the website might need to be private, while distributors, dealers, members or wholesale customers may need their own experience. An internal process that currently happens through email could even happen directly through the website instead.
Those are the kinds of conversations we like having before we start adding plugins.
Fewer Workarounds. More Intentional Development.
One of the things we’re watching closely with Divi 5 is how much more we can accomplish within the core website build rather than relying on layers of additional tools and workarounds.
That doesn’t mean plugins are bad. WooCommerce itself is a plugin, and there are plenty of well-built WordPress plugins that solve problems extremely well.
The problem comes when a website is assembled around the limitations of its plugins rather than around the needs of the business.
For ParTee Pop, custom development gave us the ability to build the wholesale workflow around the way the company actually wanted to operate. Divi 5 gave us the flexibility to build the public-facing experience around the brand. WooCommerce provided the ecommerce infrastructure connecting the two.
Each part has a job, and they work together.
Your Website Can Do More Than Look Good
A good website should absolutely look good. We’re designers. We’re not going to pretend that part doesn't matter.
But some of the most valuable work a website can do isn't immediately visible.
It can replace repetitive processes and give different customers different experiences. It can also connect parts of a business that previously lived in separate systems. The result can make ordering easier, reduce administrative work and create room for a company to grow without rebuilding everything six months later.
ParTee Pop's wholesale portal is one example of what that can look like.
At pushingink, we design and build WordPress and WooCommerce websites with the bigger picture in mind. When you work with pushingink, you're working directly with Brian and Kate, the same people thinking through the design, user experience and development of the site.
If you're planning a new WooCommerce website, considering a move to Divi 5 or trying to figure out how to make an existing WordPress website do something it wasn't originally built to do, get in touch with pushingink. We can help you figure out what should come out of the box, what should be customized and what probably doesn't need another plugin.
