ApproachHow do you build signup and approval flows for business customers?
01Clarify the customer model
Who buys: resellers, chain retailers, trades, buying groups? That determines catalogs, price levels and how many buyers a company needs.
02Cut the catalogs
Range and terms are distributed across as few catalogs as possible. Every additional catalog creates permanent maintenance effort.
03Build the application flow
The registration form only asks for what the approval needs: legal company name, VAT ID, address, contact person, range of interest.
04Automate the approval
Checkable criteria run automatically, for instance VAT ID validity. The rest goes to sales as a task, and the status stays visible to the customer.
05Connect the ERP
Customer master data, prices, inventory and documents are synchronized with the ERP. Beforehand we define which system owns which field.
06Start with pilot customers
The process runs with a handful of real customers first. Only once order, invoice and delivery run cleanly does it get rolled out broadly.
FAQFrequently asked questions about Shopify B2B
What is B2B commerce?
B2B commerce is selling to business customers through an online store: with customer-specific prices, minimum order quantities, payment terms and several buyers per company. The difference to consumer business lies less in the range than in price logic, approvals and payment terms.
Do you need Shopify Plus for B2B?
Yes. The native B2B features - company profiles, catalogs, price lists and payment terms - are tied to Shopify Plus. Without Plus you are left with workarounds via customer tags, discount codes or apps, which get messy quickly once you have several price levels.
What is the difference between Shopify B2B and the wholesale channel?
The wholesale channel was a separate, password-protected store with its own maintenance. Shopify B2B runs in the main store: same theme, same products, same reports. Different prices come from catalogs attached to the company profile, not from a second store.
How do price lists and volume tiers work?
A catalog connects a product range with a price list. Prices can be derived as a percentage of the consumer price or set as fixed prices, plus minimum order quantities and volume tiers per product. A company is assigned exactly the catalogs that apply to it.
Can B2B and D2C run in the same store?
Yes, that is the normal case. A logged-in business customer sees their catalogs and prices, everyone else sees the consumer store. What needs deciding upfront is what visitors who are not logged in should see: prices, availability or only the range.
How do you connect your ERP?
Through the Shopify APIs or a middleware. What matters is deciding which system leads: prices and customer master data usually come from the ERP, orders flow back. Without that decision you end up with contradictory data in both systems.
How long does a B2B setup take?
That depends on catalog logic and ERP integration, not on the Shopify setup itself. A few catalogs without system integration are finished far faster than customer-specific terms with bidirectional synchronization. We therefore only give a reliable timeline once catalog structure and system landscape have been reviewed.
Do you want your business customers to order for themselves?
We look at your pricing logic and your processes and show you what Shopify B2B covers natively.
