A WooCommerce catalogue that ends in an enquiry, not a checkout
A WooCommerce site does not have to end in a payment. The visitor browses a structured catalogue, selects products and quantities, and submits the selection as an enquiry; the price is agreed afterwards. This suits catalogues where quantity, specification or the customer’s own terms decide the figure — which is most industrial and wholesale selling.
Where it fits
- The price depends on quantity, specification or who is asking, so a fixed number on the page would be wrong
- Buyers arrive with a list of part numbers or a specification rather than one item
- The catalogue has real attributes worth filtering on, not just a title and a photo
- Sales needs the enquiry to arrive with the selection attached, not as a free-text message
- Payment terms are agreed per customer and do not belong in an online checkout
Two ways to do it
Which one applies depends on how much of the price logic has to live on the site.
- Catalogue and enquiry
- A structured product catalogue in which selecting products and quantities ends in an enquiry instead of an online checkout. This is what AumNexCart does, and it is free.
- Custom development
- A configurator, tiered pricing, per-customer rates, versioned quotes or a link into an ERP. That is project work rather than a plugin setting — the service page covers it.
What decides whether the enquiry is useful
An enquiry form is only as good as what it brings back with it. These are written up in detail on the blog, and they are where most of the difference is made:
- The fields
- Quantity is the field most often made optional and the one that changes the answer most — without it a price has to be guessed. What to ask on a B2B enquiry form
- Where it lands
- An enquiry that only becomes an email is an enquiry that can be lost. Where enquiries should land
- Showing tiers
- Quantity breaks can be shown without publishing a price list. Tiered pricing on one page
- When a configurator earns its cost
- A combination count that no photographer can cover is the signal. When a configurator pays
Questions
- Does this replace WooCommerce?
- No. The catalogue, products and attributes stay WooCommerce. What changes is the end of the path: the selection is submitted as an enquiry instead of going to payment.
- Can some products still be bought online?
- That is a project decision rather than a setting to flip. Mixed catalogues — some priced, some by enquiry — are common, and they need the rule for which is which written down before anything is built.
- Can a buyer send a whole list at once?
- That is the usual request from buyers working from a bill of materials, and it is the point at which a plain enquiry form stops being enough.
The product
AumNexCartPlans and details →