B2B Account

Store Design

Topic summary

A user wants to create a B2B Shopify store where businesses apply for accounts, get approved, then access a full shop with login credentials.

Shopify Implementation Options:

  • Use apps like Wholesale Registration Manager or Locksmith to manage business applications and restrict access until approval
  • Set up wholesale pricing for logged-in B2B customers using apps like Wholesale Club or Bold Custom Pricing
  • Customize checkout to accommodate business payment methods (bank transfers, net terms)

Important Considerations Raised:

  • Key questions to answer first: Will the store serve both B2B and retail? Do different customers need different price lists? Is the sales process self-serve or quote-based?
  • Shopify wasn’t originally designed for B2B—it’s fundamentally a DTC platform. Even Shopify Plus (expensive) is built on retail infrastructure
  • Alternative suggested: Dedicated B2B platforms like Sellify that sync with Shopify but provide purpose-built features (custom price lists, quick reordering, tax exemptions, multiple logins per account, credit terms)

Warnings from Experience:

  • Avoid using too many apps—they often conflict and create maintenance nightmares
  • Custom programming creates dependency on developers
  • Keep the solution simple; consider whether a marketplace (Amazon Business) might better serve the needs
Summarized with AI on October 29. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

I want to design B2B website which means i will selling our products exclusively to businesses. They will apply for a business account with us and we can grant them access if we agree and then they will have log in to a full shop. Once logged in it will be a normal shop, where they can browse and buy/pay.

Is it possible in Shopify?

2

Hey @hamzaabbas ,

Yes, it is possible to set up a B2B website on Shopify. There are several ways to approach this, and it can be achieved with customizations and using available apps. Here’s an overview of how you can set it up:

  1. Create a Business Account Application Form:

You can create a custom application form for businesses to apply for an account. You can either use an app like Wholesale Registration Manager or Locksmith to restrict access to your store or specific products until you approve the application.

  • Wholesale Registration Manager: Allows businesses to apply for access to your store. Once they apply, you can manually approve them before granting access to the shop.

  • Locksmith: You can lock down the store and specific pages/products and only allow approved users to access them.

  1. Grant Access After Approval:
  • After reviewing and approving the application, you can provide businesses with the ability to log in and access the full shop. Shopify allows creating accounts for customers, so once a business is approved, they can log in to their account.
  1. Show Wholesale Pricing After Login:
  • Once logged in, the business users can access products at a wholesale price. Shopify supports this feature using apps like Wholesale Club or Bold Custom Pricing. These apps let you set up different pricing rules, such as showing wholesale prices to logged-in B2B customers.
  1. Checkout Customization for B2B:

You may want to customize the checkout process for B2B customers. Shopify supports customizing the checkout process, and you can use apps like Order Bump or Advanced Checkout to adjust the B2B buying flow.

  1. . Payment Options for B2B:
  • You may offer credit terms or other payment methods for businesses. Shopify allows adding payment methods beyond standard credit card payments, such as bank transfers or net payment terms, using apps or manual configuration.
  1. Access Control and Security:

Ensure that only approved businesses have access to your products, especially if you have a different pricing structure for them. Apps like Locksmith or Wholesale Lock Manager can lock down product categories and pages to ensure they are only visible to approved customers.

Steps:

  1. Create a business registration form using a form builder app or custom code.

  2. Manually approve businesses and give them access.

  3. Customize product prices for B2B customers.

  4. Adjust the checkout process to accommodate business buyers.

  5. Monitor and manage B2B accounts through your Shopify admin.

If you’d like more details on how to implement any of these steps or need recommendations on specific apps, don’t hesitate to reach out via the email in my signature below. I’m here to help bring your vision to life and assist with the best of my experience. Thank you for your understanding!

Best Regards,

Rajat

1 Like
3

What are your requirements? Namely:

  • Is the store only to be used for B2B or will it also have retail orders
  • Will different customers be on different price lists
  • Do your customers typically re-order the same thing?
  • What is the sales process like, it is typically self serve or do you need to send quotes to prospective buyers
  • How do you manage growth on the B2B side are you using a CRM?

Depending on your needs using Shopify as the front end b2b experience may or may not make sense. You may need a bunch of apps to accomplish what you want and keep in mind Shopify was never designed for B2B, they moved towards B2B experience with Plus but it is very expensive and still built on top of a fundamentally DTC infrastructure.

So depending on your needs, it may be better to go with an optimized B2B solution like Sellify which syncs products & inventory from Shopify but provides a full B2B storefront experience:

  • custom price lists (can be changed per account)
  • quick reordering
  • separate product listings (ie marketing materials, displays, etc)
  • handle tax rules and tax exemptions
  • support multiple logins per account (ie B2B customers may have staff that all need separate logins but can access the same account, order history, etc)
  • credit terms
  • etc

No need for cludging together a bunch of different apps and no need for custom coding, a B2B experience that just works.

Sellify-B2b.png
Sellify-B2b.png1600×900 146 KB

4

Thank You

5

Rajweb gave a pretty substantial answer about all the things you can do- and it’s a lot.

The second answer (about Sellify) makes one thing pretty obvious: B2B and B2B can be very different things.

the people at Sellify think that it’s ‘wholesale’, and while it’s true that this is one form of B2B, it’s a pretty special one.

i started a B2B shop on Shopify about a year ago and it was a painful learning experience. I was a sales and marketing executive in B2B and B2B2C for over 30 years and was not prepared that some of the most basic things are just not there in Shopify.

But, an eshop is not a business (like a cash register or a shelf) is not a business. Similarly, Shopify is just a tool and you need to think hard about it, what is the essence of your business and how you want to make it work- but don’t expect Shopify to solve it for you. In many instances, you might be much better off in a marketplace (like Amazon, Etsy, eBay). And Amazon business provides a lot of the things a business needs. Built in.

My advice: keep it simple. Throwing a lot of apps into a Shopify store can quickly lead to a nightmare. A lot of apps just don’t work together, leading to a deadlock situation. Custom programming makes you totally dependent on that programmer as soon as the next update comes around or you need a tweak.

6

This is a good take. And completely agree B2B is broad umbrella with wholesale being a specific niche. The reason I mentioned wholesale above is because a major proportion of Shopify sellers looking for a B2B solution have a product based business they are selling DTC via Shopify and want a solution to sell to resellers via wholesale model. Sellify excels at this which is why I chimed in on the question from that perspective.

You are 100% correct there are other features besides just offering custom price lists for B2B selling and Shopify falls short in many of these areas. This is also why we have a full CRM option that is integrated with Sellify B2B as managing B2B relationships is much different than B2C, i would think in practically all verticals.

Finally, agreed about the issues with using multiple apps, this is almost certainly not going to be efficient. Also having apps which make modifications to your theme can have repercussions for your DTC site. This is why we recommend completely splitting them. Obviously I’m biased but Sellify was not created as a Shopify app / plugin. It is a separate platform to integrate with a variety of order management systems. We saw we could help people on Shopify which is why we built that integration. It syncs to/from Shopify but doesn’t live within Shopify, doesn’t rely on other apps, doesn’t modify your theme, etc. It also means you don’t need custom programming to make things work. It keeps it simple as you say.

Thanks for your take and sharing your experience.

7

Yes — totally possible on Shopify, and you don’t need Plus for that setup.

The usual pattern is:

  1. Businesses apply for an account

  2. You review the application

  3. If approved, you tag their customer account (ex: wholesale)

  4. Only customers with that tag can access the full store

From there, you can either redirect non-approved visitors to an application page or show a message prompting them to log in.

If you want an app-based approach without heavy theme edits, my app Latch handles exactly this flow. It lets you:

  • Lock your entire storefront behind a business-only login

  • Allow only tagged B2B customers to browse and purchase

  • Auto-redirect non-approved visitors to an application or landing page

  • Keep everything invisible to retail traffic until they’re approved

Full disclosure: I’m the developer of Latch, happy to answer any questions or walk you through how it would look for a B2B-only store.

Best of luck!