This is the order we build in, and the reasoning behind it. It applies whether you are launching wholesale for the first time or migrating an established operation.
Step 1: model the commercial reality
Before touching Shopify, write down how your wholesale business actually works. Not the tidy version — the real one, including the accounts on legacy pricing nobody wants to discuss.
- Who do you have agreements with: the business, or individual branches?
- Do branches ever get different payment terms from head office?
- Can one buyer order for multiple locations?
- Who at the customer can add or remove colleagues?
- What do you need to record about a company that Shopify has no field for?
Those answers map onto companies, locations, contacts and catalogs. Get it wrong and you will be unpicking it on live accounts later.
Step 2: decide the access posture
What can an anonymous visitor see? The usual mistake is putting the entire store behind Shopify's password page, which removes you from search completely — no category pages, no product detail, no capability content can rank, and trade buyers researching suppliers never find you.
The better split keeps information public and pricing private: public product detail, specifications, minimums, lead times and a findable application page; prices and ordering behind the login. Detail in B2B access control.
Step 3: design the onboarding path
Map the journey from "a buyer finds you" to "they place a first order". Where do they apply? What do you ask? Who reviews it, against what criteria? What happens automatically on approval? What does the applicant see at each stage?
This is where most wholesale funnels leak, because the default is an email address and a person retyping details into the admin. See B2B customer onboarding.
Step 4: build the storefront
Wholesale buyers are not browsing. They are restocking, usually something they have ordered forty times. The highest-value things to build are almost always the least glamorous:
- Reordering from order history
- Saved or standing order lists
- Bulk SKU entry, so a buyer who knows their codes never sees a product page
- Clear stock and lead-time information
- Quantity and minimum rules enforced in the cart with messaging that explains them
- Fast location switching for multi-site customers
Step 5: integrate
Shopify is rarely the only system. There is usually an ERP, possibly separate accounting, a 3PL or warehouse system, and a CRM. Integration is mostly a data mapping problem: your Shopify companies need to map cleanly to your ERP customer records, or every sync becomes a reconciliation exercise.
Automate the handoffs — order to ERP, fulfilment to buyer, invoice on shipment — and leave the judgement calls with people. More in B2B automation.
Step 6: migrate the customer book
Existing wholesale customers, locations and contacts can be bulk imported rather than rekeyed. The work that determines success happens before the import: mapping your current records to the company model and deciding which historical pricing is genuine policy versus a favour someone did years ago.
Import into a staging environment first. Migration problems are much cheaper to find there.
Step 7: test with real buyers
Give two or three friendly customers access before launch and watch them place an order without help. You will learn more in an hour than from a month of internal testing, because they will try things your team knows not to.
What to expect after launch
Order frequency usually moves before order value. Buyers who can reorder in a minute order more often than buyers who had to email. That is the first thing to measure, and it is the argument for having built the reorder flow properly.
Related: the Shopify B2B development guide, wholesale development services.