Help with logistical nightmare!!

[ChelseaI]

Hi Community,

We have built a website for a client who is a wholesale distributor of drinks, and also sells b2c. We built the site focused on their first brand, and now they have another brand to add and want people to feel like they are switching between two different sites when they alter between each brand. Both are available b2b and b2c and we currently use Wholesale Club app to manage b2b. 

What is the best way to do this??!! Ideally we want to be able to completely customise different pages of the site with different social media links for the individual brands etc.

Is the answer to create a site for each brand and then have them connected to a third site for wholesale?? If so, how can we manage inventory between them all? Surely there has got to be another way, this is doing our head in.

Thank you!

[Gangdu]

Does your client have Shopify+? 

What I did with my business was to create different stores for each brand and connect them all into a third-party shipping program (ShipStation). Each brand would have its own wholesale process as well. 

Regarding tracking inventory, you can track it in each store or you can track it in ShipStation as a whole.

[ChelseaI]

Hi @Gangdu 

Thanks for your response. No Shopify+ is waaaaaaay outside of their budget!

I have just taken a look at ShipStation but I'm not sure that it relates to what I'm trying to achieve? We want both b2c and b2b customers to be able to shop all brands on the same site (or for it to feel like they are).

[Gangdu]

@ChelseaI ,

Do you see the wholesale channel in the sales channels?

I

Is that what you are looking for?

[PaulNewton]

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@ChelseaI wrote:

Thanks for your response. No Shopify+ is waaaaaaay outside of their budget!

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Shopify Plus comes with a wholesale channel, though I'd recommend getting an in-depth demo and researching it's limitations before a change.

Either way something is off, why get into the hassle of something like separate-store-but-not-really  when either the first brand is not generating more than $2k/mth, or the new brand will not be able to pay for itself even on a standard shopify plan with a backend built to connect it to the main brand.

Shopify Plus isn't a cure all silver bullet but these are the type of growing pain questions that turn into headwounds if not addressed.  If this wont be the last brand why is the process being built incapable of paying for itself to scale?

Really without much deeper detail this seems like an overcontrived scheme for it's own sake.

Ground the plan in reality , test the simplest thing first : make custom collection templates and custom product templates.

[PaulNewton]

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@ChelseaI wrote:

Hi Community,

We have built a website for a client who is a wholesale distributor of drinks, and also sells b2c. We built the site focused on their first brand, and now they have another brand to add and want people to feel like they are switching between two different sites when they alter between each brand. Both are available b2b and b2c and we currently use Wholesale Club app to manage b2b. 

What is the best way to do this??!! Ideally we want to be able to completely customise different pages of the site with different social media links for the individual brands etc.

Is the answer to create a site for each brand and then have them connected to a third site for wholesale?? If so, how can we manage inventory between them all? Surely there has got to be another way, this is doing our head in.

Thank you!

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Hi @ChelseaI this is a presentation issue so far nothing described here is logistics issue.

An actual logistic issue would be making separate stores that need to share inventory, or a singular site that has to partition inventory between customer groups.

To have drastically different theme looks either

A) have a theme that allows deep customization through the initial CSS variables in tandem with alternate layouts/templates.

B) For WILDLY different look and behavior use two themes one for brand X , another for brand Y. Used with the preview_theme_id URL parameter to switch.

Remember to hide the preview bar and confirm app behavior as some just auto inject themselves into any theme with no merchant control of that choice.

There are also apps like locksmith that can be use to segment stores if access control is also a factor.

And multi seller/vendor marketplace apps.

Factors that point to needing separate stores.

• Admin staff per brand should only have access to that brands products and no others 
• Admin staff per brand should only have access to that brands theme and no others 
• Inventory is shared between "brands" but there needs to be a priority of which brand comes first for selling and fulfillment
• Customer accounts are required and need approval for one area but not other areas.
• Many things auto added by shopify settings need to be unique per "brand" , such as google analytics preferences
• You need multiple discount campaigns not supported by native discounts; or not solvable by apps.
• Frontend affecting apps need distinct styling per property