Transfer Woo.com subscription purchases to clients or other users with a click

Written by Gary Murray on July 25, 2017 Blog.

Until yesterday if you needed to transfer a Woo.com subscription to a client or another Woo.com user you had to submit a ticket and one of our Happiness Engineers would transfer it on your behalf.

But no longer! You can now self-initiate a Woo.com subscription transfer which can then be accepted or rejected by the user you nominate. Read on to learn more.

Simplifying Woo.com subscription management

Over the past few months, we have been working on simplifying Woo.com subscription management. Oftentimes the person who buys an extension isn’t the person who needs access to it, or should be billed for the renewal.

The new feature we’ve introduced gives the subscription purchaser the ability to self-initiate and control transfers directly from their Woo.com account dashboard.

This puts more control in customers’ hands enabling them to more easily manage extensions across multiple accounts and improves their client’s experience including a more seamless handover when a project is complete.

Transferring subscriptions between Woo.com accounts could be applicable and used to solve the following scenarios:

  • Consolidating purchases across multiple Woo.com accounts into one account
  • Handing over all the extensions related to a specific site to a client once development has been completed, along with the billing
  • Transferring ownership of an extension purchased on behalf of someone else or a company/agency

How it works & things to note

If you would like to check out the new feature head to your My Account dashboard on Woo.com.

If it’s a screen you’re familiar with you’ll spot some small design changes in the My Subscriptions page, including a link to Transfer a specific subscription once you’ve popped out the respective drop-down details:

All Woo.com purchases have an option to be transferred (with the exception of bundles which are still transferred by submitting a ticket.)

To initiate a transfer all you need is the registered Woo.com account email of the person that you would like to transfer the subscription to.

After you have initiated a transfer the person receiving the extension will receive an email and a notification in their My Account dashboard asking them to accept (or reject) the transfer.

All the technical details will be handled in the backend – easy.

Some important things to note:

  • The actual transfer process can not be canceled after a transferred extension has been accepted by the person receiving the extension
  • The billing for the subscription transfers to the new owner of the extension in the transfer process.

To read more about the exact steps involved in transferring an extension you can read more about it in our documentation for this new feature.

We hope this makes it easier to build sites for others and hand over subscriptions seamlessly. We’ll be back with announcements of new Woo.com account management features soon.

26 Responses

  1. Leho Kraav
    July 25, 2017 at 4:07 pm #

    Yo. What subscription system are you using for your backend – Prospress WC Subscriptions by any chance?

    • Gary Murray
      July 25, 2017 at 7:48 pm #

      Hi Leho

      We use a custom solution on WooCommerce.com as our requirements were a bit different to what is offered by WC Subscriptions and we had more specific scenarios we needed to cater for.

    • LitterBoxHub
      July 29, 2017 at 12:39 pm #

      I don’t think so that this is possible in WooCommerce, I am using them since last 1 year, this is something can’t be done.

  2. 1fratman
    July 26, 2017 at 7:50 pm #

    Gary
    We have been trying to transfer a subscription for 6 days now. I will do $100,000.00 in business this month through my WooComm acct. and in 6 days no one can find any information on my account. I am floored that this is where we are at after 6 days. We have a major issue , I put in a ticket and 4 days later I get 1 response from a “Happiness Engineer” saying sorry it took so long to get back to you we are swamped. Could you please send me in the right direction so I can transfer my account. I need an ACE who can handle this issue. I hope you are that person

    Unhappy Customer

    Gary F

    • Gary Murray
      July 26, 2017 at 8:52 pm #

      Hi

      Sorry to hear you have been having hassles. We do have documentation in place here: https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/transferring-woocommerce-com-subscriptions that covers the process of making a transfer between two accounts if you would like to do this yourself.

      Or else, can you provide me with your ticket number and I can look into your specific problem?

      • Gary
        July 27, 2017 at 12:13 am #

        Gary
        Ticket# 605309

        In a nut shell we are trying to move/ migrate our site over to a new host and whenever we do it the cart does not work. I am not the IT guy doing this I own the site and am extremely frustrated because no one can figure this thing out. Take a look at this and then contact me on my email, it would be very much appreciated. I can get all the details you need from my IT guy as needed.
        Thank you very much for your time

        Gary

  3. shaunDMA
    July 27, 2017 at 3:21 pm #

    Gary, the transfer links on the “My Subscriptions” are being redirected to this blog page.
    Is that intentional or am I missing something.

    The link itself (before clicking goes to https://woo.com/my-account/my-subscriptions/transfer/?key=intentionally-removed-by-shaun) but then gets a 301 redirect.
    Shaun

    • Gary Murray
      July 27, 2017 at 4:49 pm #

      Thanks for reporting that Shaun – we will sort it out.

      • HotDogMarketing
        July 27, 2017 at 4:58 pm #

        I am experiencing the same problem, has this been sorted out yet?

        • Gary Murray
          July 28, 2017 at 10:23 am #

          Yes, this should be working now.

  4. L Lo
    July 27, 2017 at 7:00 pm #

    Is it working or not? This useful for webmasters and marketing managers!

    • Gary Murray
      July 28, 2017 at 10:24 am #

      Yes this is working as expected, we fixed that bug yesterday.

      • Zaiba
        August 13, 2017 at 8:20 am #

        Thanks Gary.

        I love the Woocommerce team,

        They are awesome when it comes to fixing bugs.

  5. Nikhil Kumar
    July 28, 2017 at 2:48 pm #

    I have one question, can i use it on daily news websites with one block for e-commerce?

    • Gary Murray
      July 30, 2017 at 5:44 pm #

      Hi Nikhil

      If your daily news website is using WordPress and your theme supports WooCommerce you should be able to do what you are asking – it may require some customization to your theme though if it does not support WooCommerce out-of-the-box.

      If you have any further questions I would suggest reaching out to our Support team with pre-sales questions: https://woo.com/contact-us/

  6. Kitchenopedia
    July 29, 2017 at 12:39 pm #

    Hi Gary! I think this is one of the best post which you have published on WooCommerce. Amazing!

    • Christine M. Burert
      August 4, 2017 at 2:49 am #

      I think too, great post.

  7. elizabethdenny1
    August 2, 2017 at 10:27 am #

    hello guys i am using opencart store and want to move on woocommerce any suggestion for this type of store.
    http://www.celebstyleoutfits.com

    • Gary Murray
      August 3, 2017 at 9:00 am #

      Hi

      Can you open a pre-sales ticket here and one our Happiness Engineers can help you with your query: https://woo.com/contact-us/

  8. Adrian Wackernah
    August 5, 2017 at 9:23 am #

    Hi Gary, in the past I did purchasing a five-site-license for me and my customers. In all cases I manage their sites. But that will not be forever in future. How do I transfer only a single license from a five-pack to them. This was possible in the past with the helper plugin, but now as I have to link a site to my account, such customers will get access to all purchased plugins. The other way would to update plugins by hand or if they leave and do manage their site self, I have to sent them a copy of plugin by email and they do have to install the update self as long as they paid me for updates.

  9. Calvin Soto
    August 7, 2017 at 8:10 am #

    Hi, Gary, I have to say that this article is really useful. I think this is the most practical article on WooCommerce.com.

  10. Jakob Boman
    August 11, 2017 at 1:55 pm #

    What a time saver!!
    Thanks for the upgrade:-)

  11. Amna Sheikh
    August 17, 2017 at 7:18 am #

    I always wanted this feature of transfer a subscription it’s great now it is available. I will give it a try hopefully it will work for me.
    Amna

  12. Victoria Banks
    August 20, 2017 at 11:25 am #

    Hi please help me this is the error message that I get when I try to re upload Facebook for Woocommerce…

    Unpacking the package…

    Installing the plugin…

    Destination folder already exists. /home/content/a2pewpnaspod04_data04/31/41206131/html/wp-content/plugins/woocommerce/

    Plugin install failed.

    Return to Plugin Installer

    • Kat
      August 21, 2017 at 7:15 am #

      Please visit us at the Help Desk, and one our Happiness Engineers can assist you: https://woo.com/contact-us/