Email B2B orders directly into Shopify, what price to use?

Shopify Discussion
1

We’ve developed an app that allows wholesale orders that arrive as PDF email attachments to be emailed directly into a store. www.pdfdatanet.com/shopify

We are trying to decide a default business rule to handle price differences. If the price on the PO is different to the product price in the store then

  • if we use the store price the invoice won’t match the PO and the customer might not pay the invoice.
  • if we use the PO price the store could be losing money on a product

The default options we have are

  • create a draft order with a note saying there is a price difference
  • reject the order with an email explaining why

Any thoughts on a default way to handle this would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

2

Great work on building this — we’re tackling a very similar challenge with our app, Email to Order, which also creates Shopify orders from emailed PDF POs: LevelOps Email to Order

On the price discrepancy issue, we’ve run into the same situation. Our current thinking is:

  • Default to creating a draft order with a clear tag or note highlighting the price difference.
  • Notify the merchant (or optionally the customer) automatically, so they can quickly approve, adjust, or reject.
  • For some use cases (e.g., trusted wholesale customers), we allow merchants to configure a tolerance threshold — e.g., auto-approve if the price is within ±5%.

This gives flexibility without blocking the order flow entirely or risking undercharging.

Curious to hear how others are handling this too — it’s one of those edge cases that can make or break B2B automation.

3

Default to Draft Order with clear note on pricing difference. It keeps things flowing, provides an opportunity for a manual review and prevents missed sales. You might consider letting merchants customize the rule on a per customer or margin threshold basis for flexibility, without having to do so manually. Hope this helps.