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BigBuy User Guide v1.2.1

Introduction #

This User Guide will explain everything you need to know, before starting with our BigBuy WooCommerce plugin version 3.2.0 or higher.

Download, install & activate the plugin #

Questions and Support #

About BigBuy #

What is BigBuy? #

BigBuy is a business webshop specialising in the electronics and technology categories. Besides offering various services such as fulfillment, they also act like a Dropshipping supplier.

One of the biggest benefits of BigBuy is their wide-range of premium brands and distribution channels in Europe. BigBuy is one of the less well known dropshipping suppliers, who can offer a 2-3 day delivery time in almost all European countries. That is one of the main reasons, BigBuy is one of the most popular dropshipping supplier at this moment.

Before you start: create a BigBuy Dropshipping account #

To be able to start with dropshipping via BigBuy, you will first need to sign up for a BigBuy dropshipping account. You can sign up for free via bigbuy.eu, by clicking the Create account button right above in the menu.

You can immediately start with selling products from BigBuy, after you have subscribed to one of their paid subscription plans. To be able to use our BigBuy dropshipping plugin for WooCommerce, you will need to choose the E-commerce Pack. Once you have done that, you can immediately start selling the entire product catalog of BigBuy with over 80,000 products.

Since we are a partner of BigBuy we can offer your 20% discount on the E-commerce Pack. You can use the following coupon code: DISCOUNT20.

Authorization & License #

BigBuy API key #

You can find the BigBuy API key in your BigBuy account.

  • Go to bigbuy.eu
  • Click on My account right above and select Control panel in the dropdown menu
  • Click in the My account dashboard on the tab Synchronise with BigBuy
  • Copy the API key Sandbox or API key Production
  • Log in to your WordPress dashboard
  • Go to WooCommerce > Settings > BigBuy > Authorization
  • Fill in the API key you have just copied
  • Click the button Click to authorize
  • The status should change to Authorized in green

Does the authorization fails? Please check our list of errors for the BigBuy WooCommerce plugin.

Woosa license key #

As with all our software, usage of our plugins requires an active Woosa license key. Follow our Getting Started article activating your Woosa license key to make sure your license key is activated before you start any processes with our plugins.

General settings #

Track & Trace code in customer emails #

Once an order has been placed on your webshop, the customer would like to receive updates about their shipment. The most common way to update a customer is by sharing the Track & Trace code of the shipping carrier.

Our plugin will import the Track & Trace code in the particular WooCommerce order, however that part is only visible for you as a webshop owner. The Track & Trace to customer emails setting, will enable you to automatically send the Track & Trace code to the customer. We depend on the default WooCommerce email templates. If the Track & Trace code doesn’t show or you’re using custom email templates, let your developer check how to display Track & Trace code in emails.

Choose your payment method #

We would like to automate the entire dropshipping process for you, including the shipment of orders. To automate this process, it is mandatory for BigBuy to have a payment method configured. This payment method will be charged, when you have received a customer order which is submitted to BigBuy for shipment.

There are two possible payment methods to select, which both should be configured in your BigBuy dropshipping account before you can use them in the WooCommerce plugin.

Moneybox #

Moneybox is a deposit payment method, offered by BigBuy. Basically, you will need to put money in the Moneybox and have a positive balance before you can use it.

This also means your order will not be automatically be shipped, without having a positive balance. You will receive an error for that within the WooCommerce order. This also means, you need to frequently and manually deposit money.

PayPal #

PayPal is the most easiest payment method to use, since your PayPal account will be automatically charged. However, this only counts when your PayPal account is active and has a positive balance.

In both cases, you need to make sure your balance is positive. However, with PayPal this is a bit easier since you can also connect a bank account or creditcard to it.

Use an external cron job #

A cron job is a scheduled task in your webshop, which will take place on a recurring basis. For example, updating the stock can be scheduled every 60 minutes. The cron job makes sure, the task will be processed every 60 minutes. Basically it “pings” your webshop to start that process on time.

The WordPress cron job system is not very reliable, mainly if you are starting a new webshop with not many visitors. It will only “ping” your webshop, when someone is visiting your website (including yourself). You can imagine that visiting your website every 60 minutes to trigger a cron job, beats its target.

Another reason to not rely on the WordPress cron job is that you have less options to adjust the schedule. Some processes can increase to load on your server and you might want them to run only during the night. In both cases we advise you to use an external cron job.

There are two options to configure an external cron job:

  1. [DIFFICULT] On your own server (i.e. cPanel)
  2. [EASY] The Woosa cron server

On your own server #

Please consult a developer or server expert to configure a cron job on your own server.

The Woosa cron server #

Woosa has a cron server where we can configure your cron URL to “ping” your webshop, at any schedule. Want to go for the easy way? Submit a ticket a request to configure your cron URL.

Preserve Stock Offset #

To prevent selling products in your webshop that are already out of stock at BigBuy, you can use the Preserve Stock Offset setting. Simply go to WordPress dashboard > WooCommerce > Settings > BigBuy tab > Settings mini-tab and fill in a number in the input field. Not sure how to use this setting? Let’s explain more in debt why we have introduced this setting.

As you might have noticed, BigBuy has a lot of webshops who are using their dropshipping solution. This means you will have a lot of competition worldwide, in the same product catalog. This also means that a product can have a stock of 8 now, but can be out of stock within a few minutes. That situation will mainly occur with popular products.

Besides BigBuy only updates their stock once every 30 minutes, which causes a slight delay in the stock level in your webshop. To prevent you from selling products that are already out of stock, we have introduced the Preserve Stock Offset setting. What it does? Let’s describe it with an example:

  • Let’s say you are selling a keyboard with the SKU number S55019227. This is a very popular keyboard. It is 14:31 and at this moment the stock level at BigBuy is 8. BigBuy will only update its stock around 15:00 again.
  • However in that short period, 10 other webshops have sold the product with SKU number S55019227. This means the actual stock level is -2 instead of 8. Already 2 webshops need to disappoint their customers.
  • Nevertheless, your webshop will still say a stock level of 8 and therefore customers still think they can purchase the product. Let’s say, a customer has purchased the product.
  • Only when sending the order to BigBuy, you will find out that BigBuy can no longer deliver this product because it is out of stock. You need to contact your customer to disappoint them and will lose revenue.

We could have prevented this situation by configuring the Preserve Stock Offset with value 10 for example. This means, when a product reaches stock level 10 or lower in your webshop the product will be set out of stock.

We are doing our very best to update the stock levels as soon as possible, but need to deal with the amount of webshops using BigBuy and the delays of BigBuy itself. Therefore we have introduced the Preserver Stock Offset setting, so that we can prevent disappointed and losing revenue as much as possible.

Debug mode #

When you enable the checkbox for Debug Mode, all data our plugins add will be visible in Custom Fields. For example: when a BigBuy order number is present, it will show the name and value of that particular field.

Custom Fields can be adjusted, deleted or added. In this way developers have the ability to debug issues.

Remove configuration #

When you activate a WordPress plugin it will add information to your database. The database stores this information, until you remove it yourself. Also when you disable and even delete a plugin, the database tables will still exist. This has a benefit and a downside at the same time.

If you keep the database tables stored, the plugin will remember the data once you re-install it. However, it can also take up unnecessary space in your database table. Basically, it is up to you what your expectation for the future is!

Are you in doubt what to do here? Discuss it with your developer or web agency.

Automatic handling of orders #

Send orders to BigBuy #

One of the biggest advantages of working with a dropshipping supplier like BigBuy, is that they send orders directly to your customers. Because of this, you don’t have to purchase or pre-finance products yourself.

However, vidaXL must know the ordered products and address details of the customer in order to be able to send the order. Therefore we have added the setting Send orders to BigBuy in the plugin settings. In this way, you can decide yourself when a WooCommerce order should be sent to BigBuy automatically for shipment.

You can choose 3 triggers to send orders to BigBuy:

  • Disable this, I will do it manually.
  • Automatically when order status is completed.
  • Automatically when order status is processing.

In this case we mean the status of the WooCommerce order.

Import products #

Now you have configured all general settings with, we can almost start to import products into our WooCommerce store. Go to WooCommerce > Settings > BigBuy tab > Synchronization mini-tab.

Import products as draft #

When you have this checkbox enabled, all new products will be imported with Draft status in WooCommerce.

Why would you use this functionality? Because BigBuy products will be imported with the content that BigBuy provides and therefore is used by thousands of other webshops. You might want to prevent creating duplicate content and getting strikes from Google. Therefore the Draft status will buy you some time, to edit the product content and make it as unique as possible.

Exclude BigBuy brand from the product title #

When you have this checkbox enabled, product titles that start with BigBuy will remove BigBuy from the title. This means product titles with BigBuy in the middle of the title, will not remove BigBuy.

BigBuy is not only a dropshipping supplier, they also produce products within their own brand. Since they also have an online consumer store, using their brand can come across as promotion for them.

Exclude products based on B2B price #

The B2B price is the purchase price you pay BigBuy for that particular product.

For this setting you can configure a minimum and maximum amount. For example when the B2B price minimum is 50 and the maximum is 500, we’ll only import products within that price range.

This can be helpful if you don’t want to sell to cheap or to expensive products.

Include or exclude out of stock products #

Some products in the BigBuy catalog are out of stock and therefore not possible to sell. You can decide wether or not to import out of stock products.

If you set this setting to exclude, all out of stock products won’t be imported to your WooCommerce shop. If you set this setting to include, all out of stock products will be imported.

Define how to calculate your selling price #

Every seller wants to offer the best price with the biggest margin. Therefore we offer multiple options to configure a selling price.

  • Use same price as BigBuy
    The BigBuy advise price, like they have on their own consumer webshop.
  • Percentage amount
    Add a percentage amount above the B2B price of BigBuy.
  • Fixed amount
    Add a fixed amount above the B2B price of BigBuy.

You can either choose the same price as BigBuy or a percentage and fixed amount. It is not possible to combine the BigBuy price with a separate margin.

Automatically update product information #

All products will be imported with the product information and content of BigBuy. You can decide yourself which content, you would like to automatically update.

Below a list of the product content provided by BigBuy:

  • Title
  • Short description
  • Description
  • Attributes
  • Dimensions
  • Categories

If you want one of these not to be updated automatically please disable the checkbox in the synchronization settings of the plugin. You can find these via WooCommerce > Settings > BigBuy tab > Synchronization mini-tab.

Manually edit product information #

Edit product content (e.g. title and description) #

Since a lot of webshops are using BigBuy as a dropshipping supplier, there is a lot of common product information circling around on the internet. We therefore advise you to manually edit your product information and make it unique.

You can manually edit the following product information:

  • Title
  • Short description
  • Description
  • Attributes
  • Dimensions
  • Categories

Once you have edited the product information, make sure it will not be overridden by adjusting the automatically product update settings according to your changes.

Edit product category #

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Change selling price #

Once you have imported products with the selling price settings above, it can happen that you’re not happy with the selling price or margin. In that case, you can manually change the selling price in the WooCommerce product itself.

Make sure the price will not be updated automatically, by disabling the checkbox in the synchronization settings mini-tab.

Add or change product attributes #

Our BigBuy plugin for WooCommerce adds the following attributes during the product import:

  • Brand
  • Color
  • Delivery time
  • Diameter
  • Gender
  • Manual
  • Number of packages
  • Shipping time
  • Size

Is there a relevant attribute missing? Feel free to add those manually. All attributes can be used in the Appearance > Widgets > Shop Sidebar > Filter by Attributes to make them visible in the sidebar of the catalog.

Developers #

Usage of an external cron job #

A cron job can be configured for scheduling tasks to be executed in the future. This is normally used to schedule a task that is executed periodically – for example, to send out a notice every morning.

All plugins of Woosa rely on cron jobs for tasks like updating stock, price and other relevant product content. Woosa uses the WP cron and Scheduled Actions in WooCommerce to execute those tasks on time. In some cases a hosting provider or third-party plugin can interfere with our cron jobs and block update processes. That’s why we have introduced our external cron job.

If you have enabled the checkbox to use an external cron job, you’ll need to configure the URL on an external server including the scheduling scheme. This can be your own server or the Woosa cron server.

If you choose to configure it on your own server, make sure a developer will do this for you.

List of actions #

The list of actions in all our dropshipping plugins for WooCommerce, show what the synchronization is currently doing. It checks for example every 60 minutes if an order which is shipped by vidaXL has any updates. While it is executing this action, you will see it turning green.

The biggest misconception about this table is, that actions with inactive status are not working in the shop. However, what it actually means is that it is currently not active. Once the time is there to run that action, it will become active and green.

Tools #

At this moment we only support the clear cache functionality for our plugin users.

Logs #

All (error) logs related to our plugins. In this way a developer can debug when an error occurs.