Group buying is one of the hottest trends in online shopping arena these days. And why wouldn’t it! With so many websites offering bulk deals at incredibly low prices, everyone wants to be that clever guy who got the better deal – and this is what brings these websites so much profit.
So, if you want to be a part of this bandwagon by launching your own group buying website, then what’s stopping you?
Well, the missing link between you and your successful group buying website is an ideal WordPress theme and useful plugins. So, in this post, I’m featuring the best WordPress themes and plugins that enable you to start your own successful group buying website. Let’s take a look.
Read Also: How to Drive Recurring E-Commerce Sales
WooCommerce
WooCommerce by Automattic has immense support for all kinds of products; thus it is an ideal choice for building group-buying sites. Moreover, this tool is extensible through plugins, allowing you to add or remove features as and when required.
A fantastic feature I see is, you can quickly make your site accessible to the whole world with WooCommerce, thanks to its support for multiple languages and 140+ region-specific payment gateways. Last but not the least, it is an open-source product, so you can customize its source to meet your needs if its features are not enough. (Free)
WP eCommerce
WP eCommerce is another e-commerce solution that supports extensive customizations and provides marketing tools to take your group-buying site to the next level. Because it has provision for dozens of payment gateways like eProcessing Network, XERO, AffiliateWP, etc., you can conveniently process payments across the globe.
Surprisingly, WP eCommerce supports multisite environments too unlike some other plugins and provides multilingual support as well. Moreover, you can manage your listings with its powerful inbuilt tools and integration with the popular courier services. (Free)
WooCommerce Group & Daily Deals
WooCommerce Group & Daily Deals is a mobile-ready plugin that allows creating groups and different types of deals. The deals can be easily customized based on the categories of customers and you can also schedule the deals to promote on select days only. Another exciting feature is that it makes your site translation-ready.
This plugin offers a lot more configuration options like it lets you assign limited time for a deal and you can customize the front-end display of the deals. Moreover, it can also generate detailed reports, an unusual feature which I find missing in few other plugins. ($21)
WP Coupons and Deals
WP Coupons and Deals is a lightweight plugin to showcase deals and coupons on your website. A unique feature I see is that it provides a live preview of a coupon while inserting it in the post straight from the post editor. You can also categorize the coupons and show your exclusive coupons and deals anywhere on the site using widgets.
Moreover, the plugin also lets you set and display expiration dates of your coupons, which is another great option. Some of its pro features include options to hide coupons, create coupons using templates, and show or hide coupons conditionally. (Free)
Affiliate Coupons
Affiliate Coupons helps you earn money through affiliate referral offers by promoting product vouchers and deals. An interesting feature I see is, you can link your coupons to vendors to categorize them and display them easily using a shortcode.
The vendors can be created with predefined affiliate links. Also, there are multiple options to sort your coupons and many configuration options to customize the look and feel of them. (Free)
Social Deals Engine
Social Deals Engine is another deals plugin with some unique features like extendable functionalities, powerful shopping cart, social checkout options, etc. It allows showing special offers and deals with configuration options such as scarcity, exclusivity, limited quantity, etc. With its integrated cart, users can avail multiple deals easy way.
Thanks to its responsive interface, users can avail coupons on mobile devices as easily as on desktop platforms. You can customize file download limits and link expiry dates and customize receipt templates to suit your brand. Moreover, you can track the payment history as well as sales and earnings statistics and even export them to a CSV. (Free)
Wishpond Social Contests
This plugin lets you create promotion based landing pages where you can host your deals, sweepstakes, and contests. What I liked is you can create contests and promotions through its easy-to-use drag-and-drop builder. Also, Wishpond Social Contests allows managing your participants and helps increase your site traffic through social media share buttons. (Free)
What more surprised me is, you can integrate this plugin with WP eCommerce and add promotions menu to the products menu. With 50+ flexible templates, you can choose the perfect one that suits your site – a feature that makes it unique from the rest of plugins. Last but not the least, it also supports sending newsletters and provides real-time stats.
Competition Form
Competition Form converts your Contact Form 7 forms into competition or sweepstake entry forms, which helps you collect entries and view them directly from your dashboard. The entries are arranged via Contact Form 7 only and it allows to export them to a CSV too.
A unique feature of this form is, it lets you choose random winners on a particular date for specific sweepstakes, allowing you to automate competitions. Though it provides fewer features than Wishpond Social Contests yet it’s worth trying if you use Contact Form 7. (Free)
Woocommerce Role Pricing
Woocommerce Role Pricing plugin provides an option to set rates and discounts according to the role of the viewer. While visiting your site, every customer can view the store with or without discounted prices – a unique feature that sets this plugin apart from others.
You can set direct discounts to editors, subscribers, or customers, and choose between applying discounts or amounts based on regular price or sale price. Also, its premium edition offers many more features such as providing discounts by variables or categories. (Free)
VoucherPress
VoucherPress allows you to create vouchers, coupons, and tickets for products shown on your website. It offers some customization options like choosing the layout and font for its templates. Also, you can download and print the vouchers from its web link.
It also provides shortcodes to showcase vouchers in customized formats. What I find usable is, you can restrict selected vouchers and ask viewers to register before accessing them. Moreover, you can deliver the voucher code directly to the user’s email address. (Free)
WooCommerce Group Buy and Deals
WooCommerce Group Buy and Deals plugin works as an extension to the WooCommerce plugin mentioned above on this list. This extension helps to design group-buying sites which work exactly like Groupon and are heavily customizable as well.
You can set up a deals site in less than an hour using this plugin and start showing deals and promotions to your visitors. You can show or hide deals for a specific time, use plenty of supported shortcodes, and configure more options using this plugin. Moreover, you can let your users view active and purchased deals on their ‘My deals’ page. ($21)
Kupon
Kupon helps you create terrific-looking coupons and deals site and sell physical as well as digital products. The theme offers numerous premium features that save you from buying premium plugins, for example, daily deals marketplace support and a feature to track failed deals and fund money manually for them.
The theme supports child theme and multisite network, which I find is absent in other themes. Moreover, with some of its paid extensions, you can enable gift certificates, allow users to shop with the booking feature, and do a lot more. ($59)
WPGroupbuy
WPGroupbuy allows the creation of a beautiful and flexible deal website. A unique feature of this plugin is, it lets your users create business accounts and submit deals and track sales directly on your website. Moreover, you can even view advanced reports and stats, and export the report data to a CSV too.
Another feature that makes your job easier is, it supports multiple payment gateways and on-site credit card payment methods as well. Also, its localization support on top of former feature helps you to design multilingual site and sell deals in multiple regions. ($99)
Daily Deal
Daily Deal is a featureful coupon theme that helps to create deal sites. You can create various types of coupons and sweepstakes and customize homepage as needed. Using its “Submit Deal” form, you can even allow your users to submit deals. Also, you can customize the submission form, add different types of deals, and configure email notifications.
An interesting feature is, it includes a built-in blog so that you can provide updates on the latest or upcoming coupons and offers. Last but not the least, the theme includes an affiliate module to build and manage affiliates and supports several payment gateways. ($59)
CouponHut
CouponHut is a coupon-specific theme for WordPress that comes with a clean, responsive design, allowing you build deal and coupon sites. You can add percentage based discounts, expiry dates, and time triggered events to your coupons – a fantastic feature I find only in this theme. Also, it provides various ad blocks to display ads.
Moreover, there is an integrated rating system that allows people to give and view ratings for every deal. I also liked its powerful front-end search functionality, which provides various filters to users, helping them to look for deals or coupons as easily as possible. ($69)
CouponXL
CouponXL is optimized for creating websites to sell coupons, deals, and offers. I found it amazing that one can enable its membership system and manage affiliates and other members. You can even allow them to showcase their deals and products.
Moreover, the theme supports various types of coupons, different fee schemes, multiple types of deals, and many more customization options. Another interesting feature is, it integrates well with PayPal and more payment gateways. And you can also allow social profile signups and view statistics about visits, clicks, and more. ($49)
Read Also: 32 Coupon Sites for Shopping Deals & Bargains – Best of
Clipper
Clipper comes with easy monetization tools and features to earn by creating a coupon website. I found a unique feature called custom write panel, which lets you easily edit the vouchers from the admin dashboard. With its submit coupon form, you can easily accept coupons from your visitors and list them on your site.
Along with custom schemes and layouts, Clipper also offers support for child themes and avails an API for customizing its functionality. Moreover, you can import coupons from other systems, manage ads, and check out statistics about daily views. ($69)
Couponer
Couponer is a discount and coupon theme which can be customized with multiple options. You can easily create vouchers and show daily deals to your visitors. The theme offers premium design, membership features, unlimited colors, and more.
Also, you can restrict coupons and discounts to members and opt for more configuration options. You can add widgets like coupon text, coupon social, coupon categories, newsletters, etc., and use its page templates to create pages. Moreover, the theme offers various coupon listing options, numerous custom post types, etc. ($49)
Deals
Deals is a fully functional theme incorporating a coupon management system that lets you create and show discounts and coupons and earn money through ads. Interestingly, the theme includes a user rating and voting system that allows your visitors give their feedback and helps improve your site’s visibility.
The theme is translation ready and also brings you multiple layouts, custom menu options, various widgets, and a powerful image slider to showcase the exclusive coupons on your website. ($39)
DealPress
DealPress transforms your site to a group buying website that offers various fully-functional features. The theme makes it easier for you to post deals and write blog posts to attract organic traffic. An interesting feature is, it supports numerous payment gateways to help you monetize your deal site and charge the members.
Moreover, DealPress offers native support for Google Maps and Google Analytics that helps you to track your site’s traffic and user engagement. Last but not the least, it also integrates well with social networks like Facebook and Twitter to help grow popularity. ($69.99)
