Introduction
Bookings for WooCommerce is one of several plugins coded and sold by Plugin Republic, a one-man operation based in the UK. Gareth Harris does all the writing, support and updates himself, making it very much in his interests to keep the plugins up to date and fully functional.
Bookings is designed for site owners offering time-based services; the most obvious use is for rentals. Whether you’re offering holiday accommodation, vehicle-hire, venue or long-term property rentals, Bookings is simple to set up and manage. You can define billing time periods, trigger discounts on specified actions and build in buffers, as some of the features. An aspect especially useful for holiday lets is to show a calendar with booked dates blocked out, with a customisable “last available booking date” to control how far ahead you’re committed to taking bookings. Very useful in a climate of changing regulations where there’s a limit to how far ahead you can plan.
The effect of Bookings is to add the rental option as a new product category to WooCommerce and can work alongside other plugins such as the WooCommerce Product Addon, which allows the addition of factors like cleaners, welcome packs and bike hire over and above the basic rentals. There are 2 pricing plans, $49 and $89, for 1 and unlimited WordPress sites, both offering a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Features and Benefits
- Add Rental options to WooCommerce product roster
- Define booking periods and price per unit
- Set premium and discounted prices
- Block out booking calendar to prevent double-bookings
- Give a buffer between books, for example to allow for cleaning
- Automatically generate the total price and allow customers to add it to their basket
- Manage and update bookings as necessary
How to Use Bookings for WooCommerce
Once you’ve installed the plugin, you can set up a new WooCommerce product, selecting “Booking”. This then lets you define what time period you bill for, eg by night or weekly, what day each booking begins on if relevant, and the standard price. You can build in a standard buffer period between bookings, which is measured in days and set your latest booking date. Additionally, you can set non-standard pricing periods to account for peak or trough times to maximise your revenue.
Once you’re happy with your product, you publish it like any other WooCommerce item and it will go live. WooCommerce Bookings will work with most themes so fits nicely with the look of your storefront.
Summary
WooCommerce Bookings is a slick way to add rental options to your site, ideal if you’re running holiday lets, boat hire or booking out venues. While it has great functionality on its own it integrates with the Product Addon and Deposits and Part-Payments plugins. The price point for each of these is low enough to consider them as one package, and that combination unlocks the greatest functionality.
Taken on its own merits, Bookings gives you enough to run a customisable rentals site, with variable price points, discounts and unavailable periods. Any further functionality can be added as and when needed, but the ability to package rental periods and manage the subsequent bookings makes it simple to run a lettings site using WooCommerce.