Dokan Review PROS & CONS (2023) – Why Dokan Can Be Perfect Choice To Build A Multivendor Marketplace?

We’ve witnessed a significant boom in multivendor marketplaces over a few years. If you’re unaware, they are essentially online marketplaces where multiple sellers can sell their products. This boom isn’t showing any chances of slowing down either!

Regardless of the popularity, creating and maintaining such marketplaces doesn’t come easy. As a result, efficient solutions like WooCommerce have understandably jumped in popularity. The market for WooCommerce plugins and tools has also become somewhat saturated.

Among so many alternatives, one stands out from the rest – the Dokan Multivendor Marketplace plugin. This Dokan review will give you a clear idea of what this product does and whether or not you should go for it. Let’s get going!

NOTE: Be sure to also check Dokan vs WCFM Marketplace and Dokan vs WC Vendors comparison.

 

Should You Get Started With Multivendor Marketplace?

One might ask whether investing in a multivendor marketplace is a good idea (or at least a profitable one). I’d say yes, as long as you know what you’re doing.

For one, you don’t have to create and maintain an inventory. That alone can save you lots of work hours and cash. Even better, you can reach out to a diverse demographic and make a decent profit out of the marketplace.

On the flip side, vendors also have plenty of incentives to join. Creating a full-fledged marketplace as a medium-sized business isn’t cost-efficient, nor is it easy to do.

By opting for a multivendor marketplace, they can utilize the exposure that your marketplace already has. All in all, multivendor solutions are a win-win situation for both the creators and the sellers.

 

Dokan Review

Online stores and marketplace websites can be created using Dokan as it is packed with features. It’s a plugin that includes vital features and functions for establishing platforms where users can buy and sell different items.

 

 

Dokan simplifies things and removes the guesswork. Most of us would generally spend countless hours and way too much money on plugins and extensions that will only accomplish a few minor tasks. But Dokan brings all that in a single plugin. Service-based, digital, and standard marketplaces can all be created using Dokan.

 

Why Choose Dokan?

Dokan is definitely one of the consistently high-ranking multivendor plugins. But the question is this – is Dokan the best multivendor marketplace solution for you?

 

User Interface

Dokan provides each vendor their own front-end dashboard to add products, create coupons, manage their store, view reports, etc.

Vendors have all flexibility. They can change things in their online store whenever it is needed. They can view all orders, their status, and other relevant information. The Reports Tab lets vendors view reports showing how their store is performing.

 

User-Friendly Frontend

The front end refers to what the users see when visiting the marketplace. This includes the catalogs, designs, and everything in between.

Firstly, you get a bunch of themes and templates made by Dokan. There’s a theme for most niches to help you get started quickly. While I wasn’t blown away by these templates’ design, they’re nothing to scoff at either.

What’s even better is that you’re not limited to those themes. Dokan’s possibilities are endless, thanks to the integration with WooCommerce. Any theme that supports WooCommerce works flawlessly with Dokan!

You probably know how excellent Elementor is. It’s easy to modify Dokan with support for Elementor, as everything follows the convenient drag-and-drop solution.

 

Dashboard & Backend

The dashboard (and the rest of the back end) is where the magic happens for both the admin and the vendors. Let’s take a look at those.

 

Admin’s Back End

You can have your marketplace fully customized through Dokan’s back end. That includes reviews, vendors, withdrawals, and much more. Another excellent feature is the announcement tab. The owner can announce anything to all of the vendors (or specific ones) with one click.

 

 

It’s also relatively easy to set who gets to sell products and who doesn’t. Having this control right in front of you makes maintaining the website simpler.

The dashboard is undoubtedly one of my favorites. It contains analytics for how many sales the marketplace had, which vendors sold how many items, how much you earned – the list is quite extensive!

 

Vendor Dashboard

Much like the owner’s dashboard, the vendor’s one comes with an extensive analytic section. It contains all of the recent sales info, overall earnings, and a summary of orders. Any announcements that you send to the vendor appear prominently in this section as well.

 

 

The back end also allows the vendors to manage their orders, get a quick look at reviews, look at shipment details, etc. It’s effortless to create coupons straight from these tabs as well.

Moreover, the settings section provides an extensive list of features to customize the shop. Since Dokan Multivendor Marketplace allows vendors to have their individual shops, this can benefit the sellers.

 

Third-Party Compatibility

One of the most critical third-party services that every business owner is concerned about is a payment gateway. Not supporting a certain gateway can drive potential consumers away, which we don’t want. Fortunately, Dokan doesn’t let that happen.

No matter what type of third-party gateway your vendors and customers want to use, Dokan probably has support for it already.

There are other features you may want to add to your store. Dokan has a big list of addons that you can get, be that Ajax Live Search, ShipStation, Vendor Analytics, or Wholesale Vendor.

With Dokan Pro, you even get the Yoast SEO module. This third-party plugin can take your marketplace’s SEO game to the next level. Dokan has more than 20 different professional extensions. There are also Dokan third-party addons that can be used.

 

What Can You Sell With Dokan?

There are no limitations to what kinds of products you can sell on Dokan. You can use it for the marketplace of your choosing.

You can sell both physical goods, like clothes and jewelry, and digital ones, like themes, wallpapers, and videos. An artist could set up a shop and sell their music with ease.

 

 

On top of that, it’s possible to use Dokan for various services like therapy, consultation, childcare, and more.

Along with these, Dokan also lets you customize and arrange your platform the way it suits your business best. And since vendors can design their own stores, it helps to attract customers better.

 

Vendor Management & Commissions

Managing your marketplace vendors is easy with Dokan. The WordPress Users page lets you see all of your active marketplace vendors. You can adjust vendor selling capabilities, set commission type and amounts, etc.

 

 

Every sale can have either a percentage-based or flat amount for commission. You can also review each new product added by the seller or let vendors add products directly.

Trusted member status can be assigned to specific vendors. Those vendors will have additional privileges, such as directly publishing items without requiring prior approval.

 

Handle Taxes

Dokan has built-in support for WooCommerce taxes. Site admin can configure taxes from the backend, and vendors can select those tax classes while creating or editing the products.

Dokan’s Global Tax addon may come in handy for dealing with taxes. It comes with features such as:

• Dealing with EU and VAT.
• Dealing with nexuses in a specific destination or origin-based states and sales tax in the US.
• Helping with taxes with users located anywhere in the world.

Tax rules can be applied dynamically using the Global Tax addon. This lets you conform to any value-added or sales tax rules.

 

Coupon Management

Dokan makes things easier by incorporating the coupon system for WooCommerce into the frontend. This makes it easier for custom coupons to be created by vendors at any time.

 

 

When creating coupons, sellers can determine the discount type, usage limit, discount amount, etc. Coupons can have a percentage-based or flat amount discount.

 

Dokan’s Payment System

Depending on your package, Dokan offers two methods of processing the earnings. The first one is called the Adaptive method.

When a customer makes a payment, this method automatically splits the amount between the admin and the vendor in real-time. This feature is available in all pro packages except for the free version. However, this method only works with Dokan Stripe Connect and Dokan Wirecard Connect, which are integrated into the system.

The second one is the Non-adaptive method which sends the whole amount to the admin’s account. Then, when a vendor wants to withdraw their share, they have to send a request to the admin from the front-end dashboard. Furthermore, a vendor can only send a withdrawal request when the earning has reached a certain threshold set by the admin.

On the other hand, the non-adaptive method is a manual one. The vendors can’t get their share without the admin’s approval. You can use WooCommerce’s supported payment methods in the non-adaptive system, meaning that it may take some time.

Most users prefer the adaptive method, mainly due to its automatic application. But you’re limited to the non-adaptive one if the user wants to use other gateways.

 

Order Tracking

Vendors can ship products globally with Dokan’s shipping system. The Dokan Shipping Status system lets customers track their orders. As products are being shipped, they are also being tracked simultaneously.

 

 

Contact Forms

There are times when a client may want to communicate with a vendor. If you look at the side or bottom portion of most websites’ home pages, you should see some sort of contact form. But in a marketplace, you need to individualize these forms.

A storefront contact form is provided with Dokan. This form can be personalized to meet different needs.

 

Bookable Products

Vendors can create bookable items through Dokan Booking. Clients shopping can then customize booking orders.

 

Theme & App

With Dokan, you can even turn your marketplace into an app. Dokan offers a mobile app on both Android and iOS.

You won’t need to spend hours or money on developers to build your own custom app. Dokan does everything for you. You can even customize the app with your own unique branding and white label the app if you prefer.

A complete WooCommerce Dokan theme is available from WeDevs. This theme is available at no charge. The Dokan plugin isn’t required to be able to use the theme. Both tools operate independently from one another.

 

Customer Support

Dokan has a very particular way of providing support to their customers. They do it via Support Tickets, meaning they don’t do it through any other medium.

You can get priority support for the Enterprise package, but most people won’t be buying that. That means most users will have to use this ticket-based system, which is decent enough. The only catch is that you might have to wait a bit, depending on the time and situation.

 

Dokan’s Shipping System

Dokan has a unique shipping framework that allows you to offload the burden of shipping on the vendors to their liking. A vendor can easily add multiple shipping zones and classes from the front end.

 

 

Dokan’s Zone Wise Shipping allows the vendor to set up everything to their liking, making things convenient for them too. Even better, it’s possible to customize the shipping cost depending on the zone. Overall, this shipping framework works exceptionally well for both the owner and sellers.

 

Dokan Free vs Pro

Dokan’s free version is also known as Lite. The free version’s features are somewhat limited. Stripe and PayPal payment gateways are some of the additional functions included in the paid version that can help you get your online marketplace off the ground quickly.

The free version of Dokan includes:

• Widgets for your store.
• A convenient vendor withdrawal system.
• A system for managing orders.
• A frontend dashboard for vendors.
• The ability to add as many vendors as you want.

The Pro version provides Dokan’s full potential. Some of the advanced functions in this version let you accomplish the following tasks and much more:

• Subscription management (Subscriptions) allows you to bill sellers a fixed monthly amount so they can sell on your marketplace.
• Commission types can be adjusted by setting fixed amounts or percentages from each sale.
• Integration with Stripe Connect.
• Additional nine premium modules. They will let you complete more tasks on your store site efficiently.

For more info, check Dokan free vs pro comparison.

 

Dokan Pricing

You get a total of 5 options when purchasing Dokan – Free, Starter ($149/year), Professional ($249/year), Business ($499/year), and Enterprise ($999/year).

Now, you might find that Dokan to be a tad costlier than many other options, and that’s true. However, I would say that it’s a reasonable amount to pay when you consider the features it offers.

There’s also the option of purchasing it annually or for a lifetime. The prices also vary accordingly for a lifetime purchase: Free (it’s still free), Starter ($596), Professional ($934), Business ($1747), and Enterprise ($3247).

 

Is Dokan Better Than Competition?

There are few good Dokan alternatives you can also use if you don’t think Dokan is the right choice for your needs. But are they better than Dokan? Now, this is the question where I’d say – it depends. There are so many factors to consider with so many user-based variables that I can’t possibly know.

That being said, Dokan does far better in many cases. This is why their comparatively higher prices are justified. Nevertheless, other options can cater to your needs in alternative manners.

For example, WC Marketplace comes with an extension-based system. You can build a marketplace for free and then buy extensions (starting from $15) for specific purposes. The caveat is that you might end up spending more if you require lots of extensions.

YITH Multivendor, on the other hand, costs only $99.99 (for a single site, like Dokan). Many users might prefer going that way, but it can lack a few features that Dokan has. Although, YITH can be a great option if you have multiple sites.

WC Vendors is another solid contender whose Pro version starts from $149/year. While this product and Dokan have a lot in common, both have certain benefits over the other. For more info, check WC Vendors review.

The WooCommerce powered WCFM Marketplace plugin has animpressive feature list. All essential tasks can be completed from the frontend. You can easily monitor sales reports, create coupons and products and get an overview of your store. For more info, check WCFM Marketplace review.

MarketKing stands out from the crowd by offering many features, integrations, and modules. We can single powerful seller dashboard, a complex commission system, seller registration forms, branded vendor invoicing, seller staff, earning reports, badges, etc.

Regardless of what you choose, I’d suggest checking your options out to find which one fulfills your needs efficiently.

 

Dokan Review Conclusion

The thought of creating a brand new online marketplace can be rather intimidating at first. Many different factors and components will come into play.

Simple tools won’t cut it. Advanced features and functions that can tackle processing payments showing items and other essential attributes are often required.

WooCommerce-based sites usually need plugins that allow for effective and efficient store management. That’s where Dokan comes in. It already has all the tools necessary for building and sustaining successful online WooCommerce multi vendor marketplace.

Hopefully, this Dokan review was of help. In the end, it’s totally up to you whether or not to get the Dokan Multivendor Marketplace plugin. Dokan is great. But whether it’s suitable for your business is for you to decide. The price, the features, customer service – everything needs to cater to your specific needs.

And yes, the free version is also an option since it offers many of Dokan’s unique features. However, you’ll have to upgrade in the long run for a successful, professional result. This is something you should keep in mind.