Key Takeaways
- Shopify Wholesale Channel (Shopify Plus only) creates a separate password-protected storefront with full price list and account management — the cleanest B2B solution but requires $2,000+/month Plus plan.
- Wholesale apps (Wholesale Club, Wholesale Gorilla) replicate most Wholesale Channel features for non-Plus merchants using customer tags — viable for most small and mid-size wholesale operations.
- Customer-specific pricing (price lists or tiered discount structures) is the core B2B requirement — not achievable natively without Plus or a third-party app.
- Net payment terms (net 30, net 60) require manual invoicing or an app — Shopify's native checkout requires payment at time of order.
- Draft orders in Shopify admin allow manual wholesale order processing with custom pricing — appropriate for very low order volumes before investing in wholesale infrastructure.
B2B eCommerce is growing faster than retail eCommerce — and for good reason. Online ordering reduces the administrative cost of taking wholesale orders, gives buyers 24/7 ordering access, and improves order accuracy compared to phone or email ordering. Forrester projected US B2B eCommerce to reach $1.8 trillion by 2023. For Shopify merchants who sell to both consumers and retailers or business accounts, the challenge is that Shopify's core platform is built for retail. B2B selling has different requirements: customer-specific pricing, order minimums, payment terms (net 30/60), account approval before ordering, and often different product catalogues. Shopify has been expanding its B2B capabilities — through the Wholesale Channel for Plus merchants, and through a growing ecosystem of wholesale apps for standard plans. This guide covers the main approaches, their trade-offs, and which fits which business model.
Definition: Price Lists and Customer Tags in Shopify Wholesale
A Price List in the Shopify Wholesale Channel is a named set of pricing rules applied to specific wholesale customer accounts — for example, a 'Tier 1 Retailer' price list might set all products at 50% of retail price, while a 'Distributor' price list sets them at 40%. Price lists can apply percentage discounts off retail or set fixed wholesale prices per product. Customer Tags are labels applied to Shopify customer accounts (e.g., 'wholesale', 'vip-wholesale', 'distributor') that wholesale apps use to identify which pricing rules to apply to that customer's session. When a tagged wholesale customer logs in, the app intercepts the price display and checkout process to apply the appropriate pricing, minimums, and payment terms for their tag.
Shopify Plus Wholesale Channel: The Native B2B Solution
The Wholesale Channel creates a completely separate wholesale storefront on a subdomain — isolated from your retail store experience but sharing the same product catalogue and inventory.
The Shopify Wholesale Channel is added to your Shopify Plus store through the Sales Channels section. Once enabled, it creates a storefront at a subdomain you configure (typically wholesale.yourstore.com or b2b.yourstore.com) that requires customers to log in before seeing any products or pricing. The wholesale storefront is not indexed by search engines — it's completely private, accessible only to approved account holders.
Price list setup is the core configuration task. You create named price lists and define pricing either as a percentage discount off your retail variant prices (e.g., all products at 50% off retail) or as fixed wholesale prices entered per product. You then assign price lists to specific customer accounts — a distributor account gets the distributor price list, a direct retailer gets the retailer price list, a preferred retailer gets the preferred pricing list. One customer account is assigned one price list; if you need complex multi-tier pricing, you create multiple price lists. Order minimums are set at the price list level — a minimum cart value that must be met before wholesale checkout proceeds.
Account approval is built in — customers can apply for a wholesale account through the storefront, and you approve or decline applications from the Shopify admin. Approved customers receive login credentials and are assigned to a price list. This approval step is important for genuinely B2B operations where you don't want retail consumers to access wholesale pricing by simply creating an account.
- Separate password-protected storefront — not indexed by search engines, invisible to unapproved visitors
- Customer-specific price lists — percentage off retail or fixed wholesale prices per product
- Order minimums set per price list — cart value minimums enforced at checkout
- Account approval workflow — apply, review, approve/decline, assign to price list
- Requires Shopify Plus ($2,000+/month) — not available on standard Shopify plans
Wholesale Apps for Standard Shopify Plans
Wholesale Club, Wholesale Gorilla, and Bold Custom Pricing add B2B functionality to standard Shopify stores through customer tags — most features of the Wholesale Channel at a fraction of the platform cost.
For merchants on standard Shopify plans (Basic, Shopify, Advanced), the wholesale app ecosystem provides most of the functionality of the Wholesale Channel without the Plus requirement. Wholesale Club (by Orbit) is the most widely used — it uses customer tags to identify wholesale accounts and displays tag-appropriate pricing throughout the storefront and checkout. A customer tagged 'wholesale' sees wholesale prices on all product pages; a customer tagged 'vip-wholesale' sees VIP pricing. Pricing rules are set in the app dashboard — percentage discounts by tag, specific product price overrides, or volume-based tiered pricing.
Order minimums are enforced at the cart level — Wholesale Club allows you to set a minimum order value that must be met before wholesale customers can check out, with a customisable warning message displayed when the minimum isn't met. Product restrictions — hiding specific products from wholesale accounts or making products only visible to wholesale accounts — are available through tag-based visibility rules. The key limitation compared to the Wholesale Channel: everything happens within your main storefront, so retail and wholesale customers browse the same site (though they see different prices). There's no separate wholesale portal with a distinct URL.
Net payment terms — the ability for wholesale customers to place orders and pay within 30 or 60 days — are not natively supported by Shopify's checkout, which requires payment at order time. Apps like Wholesale Club integrate with payment term apps (Limespot, or manual net terms workflows) or the merchant can enable 'pay by invoice' by disabling payment gateways for wholesale-tagged customers and invoicing manually. For high-trust wholesale relationships, draft orders created from the Shopify admin with net terms can work for lower-volume accounts.
- Wholesale Club — tag-based pricing, order minimums, volume discounts, $49/month
- Wholesale Gorilla — similar feature set with customisable wholesale registration form, $39/month
- Bold Custom Pricing — more complex tiered pricing rules including quantity breaks, $29.99/month
- All work within your main store — wholesale customers see different prices but same storefront
- Net payment terms require separate workflow or additional app integration
Experience Signal
The wholesale setups that work best for merchants with mixed retail and wholesale businesses are the ones that keep wholesale account management simple — even if the pricing structure is complex. The friction point we see most often is merchants building elaborate tiered pricing schemes (five tiers, dozens of price list overrides) that become impossible to maintain as the product catalogue changes. Start with one or two wholesale tiers (standard wholesale, preferred distributor) and only add complexity when a specific customer relationship requires it. The administrative cost of maintaining a complex pricing structure across a growing product catalogue is higher than most merchants anticipate.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Shopify Wholesale Channel (available on Shopify Plus) creates a password-protected wholesale storefront at a subdomain of your main store (e.g., wholesale.yourstore.com). It allows you to set wholesale price lists — either percentage discounts off retail or fixed wholesale prices — assign customers to specific price lists, set order minimums, and require account approval before wholesale ordering. The wholesale storefront shares your product catalogue with your main store but displays wholesale-specific pricing. It's the cleanest B2B solution on Shopify but requires Shopify Plus ($2,000+/month). For non-Plus merchants, third-party apps like Wholesale Club or Wholesale Gorilla replicate most of this functionality within your main store.
Yes, through multiple methods: (1) Customer tags with a wholesale app — tag wholesale customers and the app displays different prices to tagged accounts; (2) Shopify Plus Wholesale Channel — separate subdomain storefront sharing the same product catalogue; (3) Discount codes — cruder but functional for small wholesale operations; (4) Separate product variants — wholesale products listed as separate variants with wholesale pricing. The customer tag + app method (Wholesale Club, Wholesale Gorilla, Bold Custom Pricing) is the most flexible for non-Plus merchants — it allows tiered pricing, order minimums, and product visibility restrictions from within a single store.
Minimum order quantities (MOQs) for wholesale orders are handled through wholesale apps rather than Shopify's native features. Apps like Wholesale Club and Wholesale Gorilla allow you to set: store-wide order minimums (minimum cart value before wholesale pricing applies), product-level minimums (minimum quantity per line item), and category-level minimums. Some apps enforce MOQs at checkout (preventing checkout below minimums) while others display warnings. For simple MOQs, a cart note and manual enforcement may be sufficient. For complex MOQ rules — different minimums by product category, tiered MOQs based on customer account type — a dedicated wholesale app is needed.
Sources
Setting Up B2B or Wholesale Selling on Shopify?
Webnixon designs and builds Shopify B2B and wholesale setups — from Shopify Plus Wholesale Channel configuration to app-based pricing for standard plans — with the account management workflows that make online wholesale work.
Book a Shopify ConsultationAbout the author
Jai Paek
Creative Director
Jai leads brand identity and UX design at Webnixon, bringing 20+ years of experience building digital design systems for agencies and enterprise teams. He has shipped design systems and visual identities for over 200 brands across Canada and the US, with deep expertise in conversion-focused UI, WCAG 2.1 accessibility compliance, and responsive web design for service businesses and ecommerce brands.
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