Shopify B2B Agency in Houston
Uncap is a Chicago-based Shopify B2B agency and Shopify Platinum Partner that builds B2B commerce on Shopify for manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers across the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands metro. Uncap's team, based at its Chicago headquarters, travels on site for kickoff and key milestones, and its Shopify builds include ERP and system integration.
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Talk to our expertsUncap builds Shopify B2B commerce for manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers in Houston and across the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands metro. Uncap is a Shopify Platinum Partner, and Uncap's team, based at its Chicago headquarters, travels on site for kickoff and key milestones.
Houston's B2B economy in government numbers
By establishment count, wholesale is the larger of the two. In the Census Bureau's 2023 County Business Patterns, the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands metro counted 9,596 wholesale trade establishments with 155,666 employees, and 5,739 manufacturing establishments with 207,412 employees.
Measured in jobs, manufacturing comes out ahead. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the metro had 240.1 thousand manufacturing jobs and 176.4 thousand wholesale trade jobs in September 2026 (preliminary, not seasonally adjusted). A year earlier the figures were 240.3 thousand and 177.5 thousand. Total nonfarm employment stood at 3,489.4 thousand in September 2026.
Goods also have to move. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 198.9 thousand jobs in transportation, warehousing and utilities in the metro in September 2026 (preliminary). Port Houston describes the Houston Ship Channel complex, with more than 200 private terminals and eight public ones, as the Port of Houston, and reports that it ranked first among U.S. ports for foreign waterborne tonnage in 2024, at 220.1 million short tons.
Machinery, chemicals and the wholesalers who supply them
County Business Patterns also breaks those totals down by industry. In 2023 County Business Patterns, the metro had 175 oil and gas field machinery and equipment manufacturing establishments with 11,622 employees. Machinery manufacturing as a whole counted 541 establishments and 28,478 employees, and fabricated metal product manufacturing counted 1,588 establishments and 45,640 employees.
Chemical manufacturing counted 473 establishments with 38,868 employees in the same year. On the distribution side, machinery, equipment and supplies merchant wholesalers counted 1,982 establishments with 31,732 employees.
Selling online looks different in each of these. For machinery and equipment parts, Uncap's machinery and equipment page shows how buyers work from the unit to the failed component on an interactive exploded diagram. For industrial supply and MRO distributors, the industrial supply and MRO page covers cXML punchout into customers' procurement systems and search across very large catalogs.
If you make the product, start with Shopify for manufacturers. If you stock and resell it, the distributors page covers catalog architecture, account pricing and faster ordering for large catalogs.
What Shopify B2B handles for an industrial account
Shopify B2B is available on the Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Plus plans. It isn't available on the Starter or Retail plans. You do not need Shopify Plus to take B2B orders. The catalog rules differ between Plus and the other plans, as the list below shows.
B2B on Shopify is built around companies. A company is the parent organization, and each company location is the business you sell to, such as a plant, a branch or a job site. Each location can have its own tax ID, tax exemptions, shipping address and billing address. A buyer with several sites can therefore have a different tax status at each one.
- Catalogs: a catalog sets which products and prices a B2B buyer sees. On the Basic, Grow, and Advanced plans, you can have up to 3 active catalog assignments across active B2B markets. On Plus, that limit does not apply, and catalogs can be assigned directly to company locations.
- Payment terms: payment terms define how long a company has to pay for an order, and you can set them for each company location.
- Tax: plans that support B2B automate tax calculation for B2B orders and let you set exemptions at the company or location level.
Uncap Blueprint, the planning step before a migration build, covers solution architecture, data migration taxonomy and ERP integration mapping, so these settings are planned before the store is built.
Connecting Shopify to the ERP you run
The ERP stays the system of record. Uncap integrates Shopify with ERP and back-office systems from 13 vendors: Acumatica, Cin7, Epicor, Fishbowl, Infor, Microsoft Dynamics, NetSuite, Odoo, Oracle, QuickBooks, Sage, SAP and Syspro. The full list, with a page for each system, is on the integrations page.
Two of the case studies further down show this in production. ULE Group runs Epicor ERP behind its Shopify B2B store, and Kooks runs Infor Visual ERP behind its combined B2B and D2C store.
Depending on the system, the integration runs through Uncap Connect or a managed integration. Uncap Connect starts at $8,000 for onboarding and then a flat $390 per month. For a specific ERP and the depth of sync your operation needs, the Uncap team confirms fit directly.
The integrations page also lists the systems behind other Uncap builds. On one Shopify Plus B2B storefront there, Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&O is the system of record for products, companies, pricing, and inventory.
How an engagement with Uncap runs
Here is the path from first plan to life after launch.
- Plan with Uncap Blueprint. Uncap Blueprint is a $7,500 fixed-price, four-week engagement covering architecture, integrations and total cost of ownership. The plan is yours to keep, and the fee is credited 1:1 toward implementation.
- Kick off on site. Kickoff happens at your site, with Uncap's team, based at its Chicago headquarters, traveling to you.
- Build to a fixed scope. The Shopify build covers architecture, design, theme and app development, ERP and system integration, data migration with SEO redirects, and launch, with timeline and budget agreed before the build starts.
- Migrate and cut over. A migration from another platform typically takes 10 to 16 weeks, and the median cutover is around 14 weeks. A new build runs about 12 weeks from discovery to launch.
- Review key milestones in person. Uncap's team returns to your site for key milestones.
- Keep improving after launch. Ongoing growth work is a monthly engagement covering conversion, order value, retention and operations, with plans from $2,500 a month.
Proof from Uncap clients in similar businesses
None of the case studies below is a Houston business. They are Uncap clients in distribution and manufacturing, the two sectors the figures above describe.
- ULE Group: an electrical, lighting and power distribution business that moved its catalog of over 250,000 SKUs onto a Shopify B2B storefront built by Uncap, with an Epicor ERP integration for inventory and pricing. Read the ULE Group case study.
- Kooks Headers and Exhaust: a performance automotive manufacturer that moved its retail and wholesale business onto one Shopify B2B and D2C store, integrated with Infor Visual ERP, with 38% lower total cost of ownership. Read the Kooks case study.
- Welding Store: a welding supply business that had operated for more than half a century as Welding Industrial Supply Company (WISCO) and wanted to serve a larger radius than its physical store allowed. Uncap built a completely new B2B ecommerce website. Read the Welding Store case study.
In the words of Georgia Kryssing, Sales and Marketing Director at Kooks: "Before switching to Shopify, our old website held us back. We lacked analytics, marketing tools, and B2B capabilities, had no live inventory or search, and were stuck on a platform that was restrictive and hard to scale."
More client reviews are on the testimonials page.
Uncap Products for parts, quotes and trade accounts
Some industrial workflows need more than Shopify B2B gives you out of the box. Uncap builds products for those patterns, and each one runs on Shopify.
- Uncap Diagrams: interactive exploded diagrams on the storefront, so buyers click the part they need straight off the schematic and add it to the cart, with no part number required.
- Uncap Portal: a self-serve home for trade accounts on Shopify, with catalogs, pricing, reorders, invoices and users, so buyers help themselves and reps stop fielding the same requests.
- Uncap Quotes: account-specific quotes from your catalog. Buyers configure, price and check out themselves, and when a buyer says yes, the approved quote becomes a Shopify order in one click.
An Uncap build does not have to include any of them. Diagrams, for example, fits a parts business whose buyers start from a drawing, and Quotes fits a sales team that keeps rebuilding the same quote in a spreadsheet.
Bring your customer list structure, your price rules and the name and version of your ERP. From there, Uncap can tell you which Shopify plan fits and whether Blueprint or a build is the right first step.
Answers, before you ask.
Does Uncap have a team in Houston?
Uncap's team is based at its Chicago headquarters, 8770 West Bryn Mawr Ave, Suite 1300, and Uncap works with businesses across the United States. For Houston clients, the team travels on site for kickoff and key milestones.
Which Shopify plans include B2B features?
Shopify B2B is available on the Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Plus plans. It isn't available on the Starter or Retail plans. B2B ordering does not require Shopify Plus. The plan question usually comes down to how many catalogs you need and whether you want catalogs assigned directly to company locations, which Shopify offers on the Plus plan.
How many B2B catalogs can we run without Shopify Plus?
On the Basic, Grow, and Advanced plans, you can have up to 3 active catalog assignments across active B2B markets. Assigning the same active catalog to two active B2B markets counts as two assignments. The 3-assignment limit doesn't apply on Shopify Plus, where catalogs can also be assigned directly to company locations.
Can each customer site carry its own tax exemption in Shopify?
Yes. In Shopify B2B, each company location can have its own tax ID, tax exemptions, shipping address and billing address. A buyer with several plants or branches can be one company with several locations, each with its own tax settings. Uncap sets this up during the build.
Can Uncap integrate Shopify with our ERP?
Uncap integrates Shopify with ERP and back-office systems from 13 vendors: Acumatica, Cin7, Epicor, Fishbowl, Infor, Microsoft Dynamics, NetSuite, Odoo, Oracle, QuickBooks, Sage, SAP and Syspro. Depending on the system, the integration runs through Uncap Connect or a managed integration, and the team confirms fit for your ERP and version directly.
How long does a move to Shopify take?
A migration from another platform typically takes 10 to 16 weeks, and Uncap's median cutover is around 14 weeks. A new build runs about 12 weeks from discovery to launch. You can start with Uncap Blueprint, a four-week planning engagement that settles architecture and integrations before the build.
What does Uncap Blueprint cost?
Uncap Blueprint costs $7,500 at a fixed price and runs for four weeks. It covers architecture, integrations and total cost of ownership, and the plan is yours to keep whether or not you build with Uncap. If you go ahead with implementation, the Blueprint fee is credited 1:1 toward it.
Can our buyers order on payment terms?
Yes. In Shopify B2B, payment terms define how long a company has to pay for an order, and you can set payment terms for each company location. Two accounts in the same store can therefore buy on different terms, and Uncap sets them up location by location during the build.
What does ongoing support cost after launch?
After launch, Uncap's ongoing work is a monthly engagement that moves four levers: revenue, optimization, retention and operations. Revenue work raises margin per order and average order value, and retention work covers email automation, self-service portals and quick reorders. Plans run from $2,500 a month, priced to the work, with no surprise scope.
