Building Multilingual Multi-Vendor Marketplace Sites Using WCFM Plugins and WPML

Dario

Updated

October 18, 2024

WCFM offers a suite of free plugins that allow you to create a fully functional multi-vendor marketplace site. With WPML, you can make your multi-vendor marketplace multilingual.

If you are using the pro version of WCFM, follow the guide to integrating WPML with WCFM Ultimate. 

Getting Started

Start by installing and activating the following:

• WPML core plugin, WPML String Translation add-on
• WooCommerce plugin
• WooCommerce Multilingual add-on (comes with your WPML CMS account)
• WCFM – WooCommerce Multivendor Marketplace, WCFM – WooCommerce Frontend Manager, and WCFM – WooCommerce Multivendor Membership plugins.

If you’re new to WPML, check out our Getting Started Guide. It quickly walks you through different translation options you can use.

Building Multilingual WooCommerce Sites

WooCommerce Multivendor Marketplace is fully compatible with WPML’s Translate Everything Automatically mode, which translates your content as you add or edit it.

As a website administrator, you will need to translate your website’s WooCommerce elements such as products, product taxonomies, and WooCommerce pages.

It is important to note that vendors cannot translate all of the WooCommerce elements themselves, including products. Vendors can only translate the content on their store page, such as the store descriptions and policies. We cover this under the translating the vendor Store page section.

To learn how to set up a multilingual store, check out our guide on using WooCommerce Multilingual.

Translating WCFM Pages

Upon installation WCFM plugins create three pages:

1. Store Manager 
2. Vendor Membership
3. Vendor Registration

Translating these pages is a 2-step process. First, you need to translate the page which includes a shortcode then translate the different textual elements from the String Translation screen. In this example we walk you through the process of  translating the vendor registration page:

1. Go to the page editing screen. In the Language box, click the plus icon corresponding to the language you want to translate your page into. This takes you to the Advanced Translation Editor (ATE) screen.

2. By default, the vendor registration page includes only one shortcode which doesn’t show on the ATE screen as WPML automatically copies it to the secondary language page. In case you have added content to the page, you will find the text on the ATE screen.

Click the Translate automatically button to load the automatic translation. Review the translation of each sentence then click the green checkmark icon. Once you are done reviewing all the sentences on the page, click the Complete button to publish the translation. 

3. Navigate to WPML → String Translation and lookup the text that you want to translate on the vendor registration page. Click the plus icon under the language you want to translate your content into, add the translation, then hit enter.

Repeat this step to translate all the content on the page. You can find the content of WCFM pages under the following domains:

1. wc-multivendor-membership
2. wc-frontend-manager
3. Wc-multivendor-marketplace
4. WCfM

This is how the translated page should look like on the front-end.

Translating The Vendor Store Page

Vendors can translate their store page content on the front-end such as the shop description and store policies by following the steps below:

1. Go to the store dashboard on the front-end.
2. In this example, we translate the shipping policy by navigating to Settings → Store Policies.
3. Use the language switcher in your menu to choose the secondary language you want to translate your content into. This will automatically translate the store dashboard interface to the language you have selected.

4. Add the translation in the Shipping Policy field then click Save.

You can translate other vendor store page content in a similar fashion.

Known Issues for WCFM – WooCommerce Multivendor Marketplace

Known Issues for WCFM – WooCommerce Multivendor Membership

Known Issues for WCFM – WooCommerce Frontend Manager

Getting Help from Our Support

Having difficulties translating WCFM plugin content using WPML? Visit our support forum.