The Multi-Vendor Beginner's guide for X-Cart vendors covers:

Note: In this manual, by "vendor," we mean a marketplace vendor/seller/merchant or an agent acting on their behalf and represented by an X-Cart store user with the access level "Administrator" and the role "Vendor." Vendors can log in to the store’s back end but only access a limited set of features (Called a "Vendor area").

After a vendor account has been registered (see Vendor Registration), the vendor can log in to their Vendor area using any user login form in the store.

For example, they can use:

The vendor should read the onboarding "Welcome to our marketplace" message like the one on the image above (if available) and follow the instructions provided therein.

The vendor should check the information in their user profile and see if anything needs to be added or corrected. See Managing Vendor Profile Information as a Vendor.

Important: Vendor users do not set tax rates. Setting tax rates is the responsibility of the store administrator.

The vendor must check the Financial Details section in their profile (My Account > Financial Details) and see if there is any tax-related configuration to be done there. That applies to the multi-vendor stores using an automated sales tax calculation solution like AvaTax or TaxJar and having vendor responsibility to collect taxes on their sales configured.

For example, vendors in the US need to ensure that all the US states in which they will do business and which pertain to their nexus (and only those states) are listed in the "US tax calculation" settings section. It is required to ensure that vendor tax calculation requests to AvaTax/TaxJar are correctly sent.

For more information on the usage of sale tax automation add-ons with X-Cart Marketplace, see:
​AvaTax Sales Tax Automation: Usage with Marketplace

TaxJar Sales Tax Automation: Usage with Marketplace

Warning: Failure to correctly specify the states in the Financial Details section may result in the store’s failure to send tax calculation requests to AvaTax/TaxJar for the vendor’s products.

The vendor should populate the catalog with the products they will sell. See Managing the Catalog as a Vendor for information on how to add products to the catalog manually. See Vendor Import/Export for details on adding products using CSV import.

See how to use product classes and attributes in Vendor Access to Product Classes and Attributes.

The vendor does not take part in the configuration of taxes, tax rates, or tax classes; it is the responsibility of the store administrator.

However, to ensure that the store's tax configuration works for them, the vendor must assign the tax classes created by the store administrator to their products and shipping methods. The latter will work only if the store is set to work in the "Vendors as separate shops" multi-vendor mode, and the vendor has their shipping methods to which tax rates need to be applied.

The store administrator can check whether the tax classes they configured have been assigned to the vendor products and shipping methods as expected and, if required, can correct the classes assigned. If a proper tax class is not set for the vendor’s products or shipping methods by the vendor or by the store administrator, the default tax class will be used for them. For more info on tax classes, see Tax Classes.

If the store is set to work in the “Vendors as separate shops” multi-vendor mode:

In the "Warehouse" mode, different vendors' products are shipped from the same warehouse, so the ship-from address and shipping methods are the same for all the vendors. The configuration of the ship-from address and shipping methods, in this case, is done by the store administrator.

If the store administrator enables the option to create coupons and discounts, the vendor can create coupons and discounts for their products. See Coupons: Usage with Marketplace and Volume Discounts: Usage with Marketplace.

Once customers start buying products owned by the vendor, the vendor will be able to view the orders via the Orders section. They will also have access to sales statistics, including their order statistics and best-selling products. See Vendor Access to Orders and Statistics.

With every purchase of the vendor’s products, the marketplace will accumulate the vendor’s earnings on the vendor’s earning balance. As soon as a sufficient amount of money has been collected, the vendor will be able to request a payout. See Requesting Vendor Payout.

Related pages: