3 Ways to Run Wholesale on Shopify in 2026

Running wholesale on Shopify looked very different three years ago. The typical path was: get a Shopify Plus account, activate the legacy wholesale channel (a separate password-protected storefront), and manage wholesale and retail as two isolated systems.

That path is now deprecated. Shopify retired active development on the legacy wholesale channel in favor of native B2B features that run on the same backend as your DTC store. More importantly, as of late 2025, those native B2B features are available on all paid Shopify plans, not just Shopify Plus.

This changes the decision entirely. Here is how wholesale on Shopify actually works in 2026 and which of the three approaches fits your operation.

Shopify B2B is a suite of native wholesale features built into the Shopify platform. It lets merchants sell to other businesses through the same backend that runs their consumer store. As of 2026, it is available on Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Plus plans.

The features include company profiles with multiple buyer contacts, customer-specific catalogs and pricing, net payment terms (Net 15, Net 30, Net 60, Net 90), volume pricing and quantity rules, ACH payments (US merchants), vaulted credit cards, a B2B buyer portal with self-service reorder, and Shopify Flow automation for B2B workflows.

Shopify B2B replaced what Shopify previously called the wholesale channel. The old wholesale channel created a completely separate password-protected storefront with its own login and its own theme. Shopify no longer develops that product. If you are running a legacy wholesale channel, Shopify recommends migrating to native B2B.

The most significant update to Shopify's wholesale capabilities is that foundational B2B features are now included on all paid Shopify plans at no additional cost.

Basic: Yes

Shopify: Yes

Advanced: Yes

Plus: Yes

Basic: Yes

Shopify: Yes

Advanced: Yes

Plus: Yes

Basic: Yes

Shopify: Yes

Advanced: Yes

Plus: Yes

Basic: Yes

Shopify: Yes

Advanced: Yes

Plus: Yes

Basic: Yes

Shopify: Yes

Advanced: Yes

Plus: Yes

Basic: Yes

Shopify: Yes

Advanced: Yes

Plus: Yes

Basic: Yes

Shopify: Yes

Advanced: Yes

Plus: Yes

Basic: Yes

Shopify: Yes

Advanced: Yes

Plus: Yes

Basic: 3

Shopify: 3

Advanced: 3

Plus: Unlimited

Basic: No

Shopify: No

Advanced: No

Plus: Yes

Basic: No

Shopify: No

Advanced: No

Plus: Yes

Basic: No

Shopify: No

Advanced: Yes

Plus: Yes

Basic: No

Shopify: No

Advanced: No

Plus: Yes

For most mid-market wholesale operations (20 to 50 wholesale accounts, fixed-percentage pricing tiers, net 30 terms), the Advanced plan at $399/month covers the full operation. Shopify Plus at $2,300/month becomes necessary when catalog complexity is high (each company needs its own unique pricing), when partial payments or deposits are required, or when the buying experience needs to be regionalized at the checkout level.

What it is: One Shopify store serves both retail consumers and wholesale buyers. Logged-in B2B buyers see their assigned catalog, their contracted pricing, and a checkout with payment terms. Retail visitors see the standard storefront. Shared inventory, shared order admin, one system.

How it works: You create company profiles for each wholesale account. Each company is assigned a catalog (which defines which products they see and at what price) and payment terms. When a buyer from that company logs in, the storefront and checkout adapt automatically. No second store. No separate theme. No duplicated product data.

This is the approach Shopify built its native B2B features around and the one they recommend for most merchants adding wholesale to an existing DTC operation.

When to choose this approach:

When it works well: A food brand with a consumer store that also sells to restaurants and distributors. A beauty brand selling direct-to-consumer and to salons. A manufacturing brand building a dealer portal alongside their retail site.

Limitations: If your wholesale brand positioning needs to be meaningfully different from your consumer brand, or if your catalogs barely overlap (bulk packaging vs. retail packaging), a single unified store adds friction.

What it is: A dedicated wholesale Shopify store with its own URL, its own theme, and its own product catalog running separately from your retail store. On Shopify Plus, you get 9 expansion stores included in your subscription. Expansion stores are the modern replacement for what used to be "clone stores."

How it works: You set up the wholesale operation as a fully separate Shopify store. Product data, orders, customers, and settings are independent. If the two stores share products, you manage product updates in both (or use a PIM or custom sync to keep them consistent).

When to choose this approach:

Practical considerations: A separate wholesale store doubles your product data management unless you have a PIM syncing to both. Shopify Markets has reduced the need for separate international expansion stores by enabling region-specific pricing and catalog management from one backend. If the reason for a separate store is purely international expansion (different currencies, languages, tax rules), evaluate whether Shopify Markets on your main store covers the requirement before creating a separate store.

On standard plans (no Plus): You pay a full Shopify subscription for each store. The economics favor Plus for merchants who need multiple stores, since 9 expansion stores are included.

What it is: Using third-party apps to add wholesale functionality to a standard Shopify plan (Basic, Shopify, or Advanced) without upgrading to Plus.

How it works: Apps like SparkLayer, BSS B2B Wholesale, and Wholesale Club add B2B capabilities on top of standard Shopify: customer-tagged pricing, wholesale registration forms, restricted catalog visibility, minimum order enforcement, and draft order workflows. These apps sit on top of Shopify's customer and product objects and apply price logic at the cart level.

When to choose this approach:

Honest limitations: App-based B2B works for simple operations and is a reasonable starting point. It does not have the deep integration that native Shopify B2B provides. Company-level account management, per-location pricing, net payment terms enforced natively at checkout, ACH payments, vaulted cards, and partial payments are all native to Shopify B2B and either absent or imperfect in app-based setups. For merchants where B2B revenue exceeds 10 to 15% of total, the native Shopify B2B features on Advanced plan (now available without Plus for core functionality) are usually the better long-term foundation.

Unified (Approach 1): Single source of truth

Separate Store (Approach 2): Duplicate unless synced

Apps on Standard (Approach 3): Single source of truth

Unified (Approach 1): Limited

Separate Store (Approach 2): Full

Apps on Standard (Approach 3): Limited

Unified (Approach 1): High (Plus: unlimited catalogs)

Separate Store (Approach 2): Full separation

Apps on Standard (Approach 3): Moderate

Unified (Approach 1): Yes (all plans)

Separate Store (Approach 2): Yes (all plans)

Apps on Standard (Approach 3): No (app-dependent)

Unified (Approach 1): One integration

Separate Store (Approach 2): Two integrations

Apps on Standard (Approach 3): One integration

Unified (Approach 1): Shared domain authority

Separate Store (Approach 2): Separate domain per store

Apps on Standard (Approach 3): Shared domain authority

Unified (Approach 1): One Plus subscription

Separate Store (Approach 2): One Plus + expansion stores included

Apps on Standard (Approach 3): N/A

Unified (Approach 1): One plan

Separate Store (Approach 2): Two plan subscriptions

Apps on Standard (Approach 3): One plan + app fees

Unified (Approach 1): Most merchants

Separate Store (Approach 2): Distinct B2B brands, separate entities

Apps on Standard (Approach 3): Entry-level, testing

Regardless of whether you run a unified store or a separate wholesale store, the setup process for native Shopify B2B follows these steps.

Step 1: Enable B2B. In Shopify admin, go to Settings, then Customers. Enable B2B. This option is available on all paid Shopify plans.

Step 2: Create company profiles. Each B2B customer is a company. Create a company for each wholesale account. Add one or more locations to the company (a location is a purchasing entity with its own shipping address, catalog assignment, and payment terms). Add buyer contacts to each location and assign roles: Ordering Only (can place orders) or Location Admin (can also approve orders and manage the account).

Step 3: Create catalogs. A catalog is a defined set of products and pricing rules. Create catalogs that reflect your wholesale pricing tiers: a standard wholesale catalog at 30% off retail, a key account catalog with fixed prices per SKU, a distributor catalog with a different product subset. Assign catalogs to company locations.

Step 4: Configure payment terms. Assign payment terms to each company location. Net 15, Net 30, Net 60, and Net 90 are all available natively. A buyer on Net 30 completes checkout without entering payment details; the order processes and payment is collected 30 days later.

Step 5: Set up the checkout. Enable purchase order number capture for buyers who need to attach their internal PO number. Configure minimum order quantities and quantity increment rules per product if needed. For Shopify Plus, configure partial payments or deposits if your operation requires them.

Step 6: Connect your ERP. If your operation uses an ERP for inventory, pricing, and order management, build the integration to Shopify before go-live. Real-time order sync, inventory updates from the ERP to Shopify, and pricing sync from the ERP to Shopify price lists are the core data flows. NetSuite, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, and Epicor all integrate with Shopify Plus. Shopify also has prebuilt connectors for NetSuite, Brightpearl, Sage, and Acumatica.

Step 7: Automate buyer onboarding. Use Shopify Forms to create a wholesale application form on your public storefront. When a retailer or distributor submits an application, the data flows into a draft company record in your admin for review and approval. Shopify Flow can automate the approval sequence: when a company is approved, Flow assigns the catalog, sets payment terms, and sends the welcome email.

If your Shopify Plus account is still using the legacy wholesale channel (a separate password-protected storefront at a /a/login/wholesale URL), this product is in maintenance mode. It does not receive Shopify's B2B feature updates and has not since 2022. Everything added to Shopify B2B since then, ACH payments, vaulted cards, the buyer portal, partial payments, Shopify Flow integrations, the Winter '26 B2B features, is available only on native B2B.

A migration from the legacy wholesale channel to native Shopify B2B involves recreating customers as B2B company profiles, mapping price lists to catalogs, and redirecting URLs from the old wholesale subdomain. The process typically takes four to eight weeks and unlocks the complete modern B2B feature set.

If you are evaluating a migration from the legacy channel or from a third-party app setup to native Shopify B2B, contact Uncap. We have managed this migration for B2B manufacturers and distributors as part of larger commerce modernization projects.

Uncap's practice is B2B commerce for manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers. The considerations for these operations are different from a DTC brand adding a wholesale channel.

For a manufacturer or distributor, wholesale is not an add-on feature. It is the primary revenue channel. The requirements reflect that: complex customer-specific pricing structures, ERP-connected inventory and order management, multi-contact company accounts with approval hierarchies, net payment terms enforced at checkout, and buyer self-service that eliminates manual order entry by the operations team.

The correct approach for most manufacturers and distributors is Approach 1 (unified native B2B on Shopify Plus) with full ERP integration. The unified approach gives your B2B buyers a modern portal built on the same Shopify infrastructure as your retail presence, with your ERP remaining the system of record for pricing, inventory, and financials.

The key implementation requirements that set B2B manufacturing and distribution operations apart from simpler wholesale setups:

ERP integration is non-negotiable. Orders placed in Shopify must flow to the ERP for fulfillment without manual re-entry. Inventory levels, customer-specific pricing, and account status must sync from the ERP to Shopify continuously. Building this correctly from the start eliminates the reconciliation problems that always appear when it is added late.

Pricing architecture requires planning before setup. Customer-specific pricing for 50 wholesale accounts does not mean 50 separate price lists. Most operations can be expressed as three to eight pricing tiers. Getting this architecture right before configuring Shopify saves significant rework.

Buyer onboarding is a process, not a form. For most manufacturers and distributors, approving a new wholesale account involves credit checks, payment term negotiation, and tax exemption certificate collection. Build a structured onboarding workflow in Shopify Flow before launch rather than handling it ad hoc.

Uncap has been building B2B wholesale operations on Shopify Plus since 2013 and is a Platinum Shopify Partner. We have delivered over 380 B2B implementations for manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers. Our ERP integration service connects Shopify Plus to NetSuite, SAP, Dynamics, and Epicor. Our B2B app suite covers the quote-to-cash workflow that standard Shopify B2B does not address natively.

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