With the release of almost a dozen new wholesale features at Summer Edition '23, B2B on Shopify is the future of selling wholesale on Shopify. As a result, we are deprecating the Plus Wholesale Channel and it will no longer be available on April 30, 2024.
B2B on Shopify
B2B on Shopify is the premier way to sell B2B on the Shopify platform, and solves for many previous merchant frustrations of the Plus Wholesale Channel. This holistic suite of features is built directly into the core of Shopify, giving you access to the most customizable features of our platform (e.g. themes, APIs, 3rd party apps, Functions) for your B2B business. Our feature set also includes all-new wholesale features like easy reordering, vaulted credit cards, and PO numbers, with many more features on the way throughout 2023.
Given that it’s part of the Online Store, you can set up a blended store that accepts both B2B and DTC orders (with B2B buyers being required to login before seeing wholesale info) or a dedicated B2B-only store that only accepts wholesale orders. A blended store means a single store and admin for your team to manage and one point of integration for all APIs, ERPs, CRMs, and third party apps.
Plus Wholesale Channel
The Plus Wholesale Channel is a first-party app that operates as a separate sales channel within the Shopify platform, and is disconnected from much of the core functionality that you can use in your DTC store. You must create a separate store for B2B if you use the Plus Wholesale Channel and you have only one option in storefront themes. However, you can track all orders and customers from the same admin you use for DTC.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between B2B on Shopify and the Plus Wholesale Channel?
A huge differentiator for B2B on Shopify is its access to the most customizable features of the Online Store, such as Functions (which is replacing Scripts), discounts, themes, API access, Markets, and more. It also includes a more intuitive interface for both merchants and B2B buyers. The process of importing/exporting price lists, creating reorders, etc is much more seamless within B2B on Shopify.
As an app, the Plus Wholesale Channel does not allow you to connect to other apps for additional customization and features, integrate directly to your ERP, or make branding and design customizations. One of the primary reasons we chose to build B2B on Shopify was to offer merchants selling B2B the ability to fully customize the buying experience to their customers, without settling on the complexity they need to support their wholesale business.
What features have been recently added to B2B on Shopify?
Since our initial launch, we’ve released almost four dozen new features just for wholesale. This includes:
- Volume pricing for additional discounts based on quantity added to cart
- Personalized content for B2B buyers using store contextualization
- Quick order lists to show a list of all variants on the product description page for easy ordering
- Customer-specific product publishing using Catalogs
- Minimum, maximum, and increment rules for product purchasing using quantity rules
- Payment and delivery customizations at checkout with Shopify Functions
- Full control over the order process for greater accuracy and visibility over customer orders, using checkout to draft
- Duplication of past orders to quickly fill a new cart with easy reordering
- Secure storage of credit cards on file that can be changed within the admin as payments become due, using vaulted credit cards
- Wholesale account requests, via Shopify Forms, so you can accept prospective customer information online and automatically transfer the information they’ve entered to a new company profile
- Offer your sales rep’s a limited view of the admin, to only view their assigned customers, and associated orders and customer information with staff permissions for sales reps
- Better order tracking with support for PO numbers at checkout
What features are on the future roadmap for B2B on Shopify?
Some features we intend to release in the near future are:
- Trade, an out of the box theme optimized for B2B, to help accelerate the process of store setup and give you instant access to our advanced B2B features (Q1 2024)
- Quick order forms, to further optimize the Online Store for bulk orders by B2B buyers (Q1 2024)
- Enhanced quoting, to allow you to bring more of your wholesale business onto one central platform
This is not an exhaustive list of our roadmap. Please ask your MSM, or comment below if you have questions about other features.
How do I migrate my existing wholesale data to your new feature set?
The answer depends on whether you’re currently using the Shopify platform to support your B2B business, or are moving from another ecommerce platform or manual order process.
On Shopify:
If your wholesale business is on Shopify (e.g. Plus wholesale channel, an expansion store using a 3P app or Scripts) we recommend using our new migration tool to migrate your existing data to our new feature set. With our migration tool, you can easily transfer your customer information, price lists, and order data to B2B on Shopify.
Learn more about our migration tool.
Off Shopify:
If your wholesale business is outside of Shopify, you can use a combination of tools and features to migrate your wholesale data to B2B on Shopify. Price lists can be imported directly from the admin, under the Catalogs tab. Wholesale customer data can be imported using the Matrixify app from the Shopify App Store. Order history that did not originate from Shopify can also be imported using our REST APIs.
Learn more about setting up B2B on Shopify.
What is the advantage of a blended storefront with B2B on Shopify?
A blended storefront allows you to set up and manage a single storefront for both sides of your business, rather than two. This means one single point of integration for your ERP or CRM, shared data, one third party app license to fill a feature gap, etc. The user experience will be as simple and intuitive for B2B as it is for DTC.
Learn more about blended and dedicated stores.
Which solution offers me greater customization of the buyer experience?
B2B on Shopify. This solution is built directly into the core of Shopify, giving you the same level of customization you experience for DTC. From store themes to API access, you have the power to create the store you want and customize it to meet your needs. The Plus Wholesale Channel is a sales channel disconnected from the vast majority of out-of-the-box Shopify features.
Why are new features not being added to the Plus Wholesale Channel?
B2B on Shopify is the future of B2B on Shopify’s platform and we want to focus all of our efforts on ensuring you have everything you need to sell B2B within the Online Store.
Who can I speak to about migrating over to a new solution?
If you’re an existing merchant, our MSM or our Plus Support Specialists are available to discuss the details of our new offering and help you understand the steps you need to take to transition your B2B business to a new solution.
If you’re a new merchant, our Sales team can guide you through an evaluation process and ensure you have everything you need to make the right decision for your business.
Learn more about B2B on Shopify.