B2B on Shopify Plus

How to sell B2B on Shopify Plus

Shopify is known for its excellent, industry-leading D2C e-commerce platform - but is Shopify also a good solution for B2B and wholesale? Yes, it is!

The B2B market is enormous: globally, it was valued at $7.7 trillion in 2022 and still is now, with the global B2C market stopping at a mere $1.1 billion for the same year. What’s more, it is projected to keep growing by 9% annually in the coming years, mainly because the B2B market is still catching up with B2C when it comes to digital maturity. Does that sound like a market you would like to have a stake in? Let’s dive into what Shopify can mean for your B2B business.

Going B2B with Shopify Plus

Shopify Plus offers an all-in-one B2B solution, which includes some sophisticated B2B-specific features at no extra cost. What is more, with Shopify you tap into all the ease of use their platform is known for - and that traditional wholesale stores are not. Online B2B stores are notorious for their clunky interfaces, the challenging UX and the poor, poor layouts - while professional customers are just as sensitive to a smooth user experience as your average B2C customer. 

Additionally, B2B users are attuned to upsell and cross-sell opportunities. For instance, while shopping for a discount, you might entice them with an extra box of your catalog's bestsellers.

For B2B customers, who often place substantial orders, a secure and reliable checkout process is of paramount importance.

Is your D2C store hitting a ceiling and are you looking to expand through selling B2B? Give your new B2B channel a competitive edge from the start, and go with a platform that both your customers and your content managers will love to work with. 

Or are you currently running an online B2B store that is stagnating a bit and could use a refresh? Then the easiest way to build a scalable, future-proof B2B platform and boost your revenue is to give your site a complete makeover with Shopify Plus.

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Shopify Plus: the all-in-one solution for B2B stores

With its extensive options, sophisticated features and extreme user-friendliness, Shopify has everything you need to give your B2B sales a boost. The core of Shopify’s B2B features is custom pricing: the possibility to set customer-specific prices. This is a powerful piece of technology that will save your business lots of time and money. Combined with custom payment terms and a checkout optimised for B2B, you have the basics for your B2B channel in place - but Shopify offers a lot more nifty features. Read more about them below.

Depending on your business and its needs, one of these two setups works best for you:

 1. The all-in-one solution: A single, blended Shopify Plus storefront that caters to both your DTC and B2B customers, with a B2B checkout and authentication. In this setup, your B2B channel is fully integrated into your Shopify admin. All the products in your DTC store are available for B2B selling as well. Your B2B customers place orders through the same store but authenticate themselves before seeing buyer-specific information and prices.

2. A multi-store setup in Shopify Plus with a dedicated expansion store for your B2B channel, so you can keep your B2C and B2B operations separate - while still managing all of your stores from the same dashboard. This is usually a better fit for larger stores and businesses that have a dedicated B2B team.

If you want some expert advice on which setup is most suited to your business, get in touch with Code, and we will help you choose. We can also tell you if the features you have in mind are available in Shopify, or if they can be built by our Coders.

 

Shopify’s B2B features: what it can do

In addition to selling B2B and D2C from one store, what other B2B features does Shopify offer?

  • Company profiles
  • Price lists
  • Payment terms
  • Minimum Order Quantities
  • Repeat orders
  • Custom store theme
  • Customer accounts
  • Self-serve portal
  • Smooth ERP integration

What does a B2B store on Shopify cost?

Shopify’s B2B features are free! Which is pretty amazing, because at Code we used to build these features from scratch for our B2B clients, which easily amounted to 30-40K in cost. The custom pricing feature in particular is quite valuable.

Shopify’s B2B functionality is as yet only accessible on a Shopify Plus plan, though. Which costs 0,25% of your revenue, with a minimum of $ 2.000 a month. In other words, if your revenue is below $ 800.000 a month, your fee is $ 2000, and if it exceeds that number your fee is 0,25% of your revenue.

Is your business growing, but do you feel Shopify Plus is still a bit ambitious? In our experience moving to Shopify Plus is viable with a monthly revenue as low as $100.000. Especially if that move gives you access to a lot of custom B2B functionality for free. Read more about Shopify Plus pricing here.

Shopify’s B2B features: what it cannot do (yet)

Shopify launched its suite of B2B features in 2021 and has been optimizing and adding features ever since. But it is possible that some functionality you need is still on Shopify's roadmap. Keep in mind that, at this point, the limitations below can often be overcome by having a dedicated B2B store instead of an all-in-one blended storefront.

Here are a few B2B features Shopify is as yet still working on:

  • Orders can have a maximum of 500 line items - meaning that orders will fail if a client orders more than 500 different products or variants.
  • Subscriptions aren't compatible with Shopify’s B2B features yet.
  • If you have an existing Shopify Plus store full of apps like search, discount, tagging, and others: since B2B is a relatively new feature, not all third party Shopify apps play well with B2B yet. Apps will always refer to a product’s standard price, for instance.

 

Shopify is developing quickly

Shopify is developing at a staggering pace on new B2B functionalities, there are too many to mention but our favorite ones launched in 2023 (and most requested by our B2B merchants) are:

  • PO Numbers
  • PayPal support
  • Quick order list
  • Volume pricing
  • Payment reminders
  • Easy reorders
  • Quantity rules

And in 2024 we expect even more releases (you will get access to these new functionalities on your B2B automatically).

Payments:

  • 1-page Checkout for B2B
  • Split payments
  • Credit limits

Orders:

  • CSV Upload for bulk orders
  • Min/max order value
  • “Login as customer” (easy for your support team!)

Integrations:

  • ERP Integrations (out of the box)
  • Headless support

Shopify B2B with Code: added value

Looking for a partner to start your B2B adventure, or to upgrade your existing wholesale business? Let’s chat! We have realised a number of B2B stores for our clients like Le Nouveau Chef and can give you expert advice on Shopify’s solutions for your B2B store. Are you looking for specific features that Shopify hasn’t released yet? Our Coders have the technical expertise to build any additional functionality you need. 

Curious what Shopify’s B2B solution looks like? Book a call with us. Bob is our absolute b2b expert and is here to help you get going.

Schermafbeelding 2023-02-03 om 13.27.18

 

 

Looking for a Shopify B2B partner? You came to the right place!

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