Shopify B2B: selling wholesale from the same store, set up step by step

Short answer: as of October 2026, Shopify B2B is built into the Shopify admin at no extra fee on the Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Plus plans — it lets you create company profiles, assign customer-specific wholesale catalogs, set quantity rules and volume pricing, and offer net payment terms, all from the same store that runs your DTC channel. It is not available on Starter or Retail plans. This page walks the actual click-path to turn it on for a wholesale account, then covers the inventory consequences that bite people two weeks later.

(Plan facts verified against Shopify's own B2B page in October 2026: B2B is included on Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Shopify Plus; most features — companies, catalogs, net payment terms, self-serve ordering, Flow automations — are on all four; Plus adds unlimited catalogs, catalogs assigned to individual companies, and deposits/partial payments. Shopify's feature set changes, so re-check their B2B and plan-feature pages before you build a process on any single line item.)

What native B2B actually gives you

The feature list that matters to a small wholesale operation, as Shopify describes it (October 2026):

• Company profiles — a business customer with multiple buyers and locations, each with their own users and permissions.
• Customer-specific catalogs — which products a company can see, and at what wholesale prices.
• Quantity rules — minimums, maximums, and increments per product or variant (your MOQ policy, enforced by the cart instead of by email).
• Volume pricing — price breaks at quantity tiers.
• Payment terms — net terms as a payment method, with invoicing; plus manual payment methods and vaulted cards.
• Sales rep permissions — staff accounts that can order on behalf of assigned companies only.
• Checkout-to-draft — B2B checkouts can land as draft orders you approve before fulfilling.
• PO number capture — buyers enter a PO number at checkout, visible in the admin.

For a merchant who has been running wholesale on emailed order forms and manual invoices, this is the structural upgrade: the buyer self-serves against your rules, the order lands in the same admin as DTC, and the paper trail lives in one place.

The click-path: turning B2B on and creating your first wholesale company

Numbered steps below follow the admin layout as of October 2026; if a label has moved, the settings are all under the same two roots (Settings → B2B, and Customers).

1. Open Settings → B2B in your Shopify admin and enable B2B on the store. This exposes the B2B objects (companies, catalogs, terms) without touching your DTC storefront.
2. Decide your storefront posture. B2B and DTC can share one store: B2B buyers log in and see their catalog; retail visitors see the normal store. If you want a separate wholesale storefront instead, you can create a second store on the same plans — but for a sub-$2M operation, one store with two audiences is the lower-maintenance start.
3. Create the company: Customers → Companies → Add company. Enter the business name, primary location, and assign a main contact — this email becomes the buyer's login anchor.
4. Add company locations if they have more than one shipping address. Each location can have its own shipping details and buyers.
5. Assign payment terms. In the company profile, set the payment terms (e.g., Net 30) or leave it at checkout payment. Net terms create invoices that age in the admin — the mechanics and cash-flow math of offering them are worked through in the net-30 payment terms guide.
6. Build a wholesale catalog: Wholesale → Catalogs → Create catalog. Choose the company it's for, pick the products (price list or percentage discount off retail), and save. On non-Plus plans you work with a limited number of catalogs, so structure them by tier (e.g., "standard wholesale") rather than one per company unless you're on Plus, where catalogs can be assigned per company for customer-specific pricing.
7. Set quantity rules on the catalog's products. Per product or variant: minimum order quantity, maximum, and increments — this is where your case-pack multiples and minimums get enforced automatically, which beats policing MOQ by email.
8. Send the buyer their portal invite. The company contact receives access to a self-serve B2B portal tied to your store, where they log in, see their catalog, and reorder.
9. Test a B2B checkout end to end — place a draft-order-style test purchase, confirm the wholesale prices, quantity rules, PO number field, and terms behave, then fulfill it as a test.

The inventory consequences nobody mentions in the setup guide

Wholesale orders are a different demand animal than DTC, and they arrive into the same stock pool:

• One big order rewrites your cover math overnight. A 300-unit wholesale order against a SKU selling 2/day DTC is 150 days of demand in one afternoon. If your buying math runs on average velocity, wholesale weeks will look like demand spikes and calm weeks will look like decay. Separate the demand streams when you plan — the channel-level consequences are the subject of the wholesale inventory guide.
• Allocation is now a commitment. When a wholesale account can self-serve order 200 units, the units are committed the moment they check out. Stores that let B2B and DTC draw from one unpartitioned pool get introduced to their own overselling risk the first time both channels want the same stock in the same week.
• Net terms stretch your cash while goods ship now. You ship 300 units today; the invoice pays in 30. Your inventory dollars are out the door with the goods. That's the entire trade of terms — worth it with vetted buyers, dangerous with new ones.
• Reorders become predictable — use it. The upside that pays for all of this: wholesale reorders are scheduled, lumpy, and legible. When your own purchasing runs through native purchase orders, a wholesale account's reorder rhythm is the easiest forecast input you'll ever get.

When native B2B beats manual invoices — and when it doesn't

Beats manual: more than a handful of repeat wholesale buyers; buyers who want to self-serve reorder; anyone enforcing case packs or tiered pricing; stores where wholesale and DTC should share one stock and one admin.

Doesn't beat manual (yet, or ever): one wholesale account that emails a spreadsheet twice a year; buyers who need custom quotes and negotiated line items every order (draft orders handle this fine); heavily custom pricing per account on a non-Plus plan, where catalog limits bite. The wholesale strategy — margins, minimums, which doors to sell through, allocation between channels — is a separate discipline from the platform feature, and it's covered in the wholesale guide rather than re-derived here.

One honest note on our own scope: InventoryX is intended to work with your Shopify inventory data to build a weekly buying list, but in V1 it doesn't segment DTC versus wholesale demand streams — treat its velocity as all-channel until you've separated the streams yourself.

Common questions

What is Shopify B2B? Native wholesale functionality inside the Shopify admin: company profiles for business customers, customer-specific catalogs, quantity rules and volume pricing, net payment terms, sales-rep permissions, and a self-serve buyer portal. As of October 2026 it's included at no extra fee on Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Plus plans, and isn't available on Starter or Retail.

How much does Shopify B2B cost? There is no separate B2B fee — it's part of the underlying plan on Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Plus. Some features (unlimited catalogs, per-company catalogs, deposits and partial payments) require Plus. Transaction and payment costs follow your normal plan and payment-processor pricing; verify current terms on Shopify's pricing page.

Can I sell B2B and DTC from one Shopify store? Yes — that's the standard setup. B2B buyers authenticate and see their wholesale catalog and pricing; retail shoppers see the normal store. Both draw from the same inventory pool unless you manage allocations, which is why demand-stream separation matters once wholesale volume grows.

What Shopify plan do I need for B2B? Basic or above — B2B isn't on Starter or Retail. Most core features (companies, catalogs, net terms, self-serve ordering) are included across Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Plus per Shopify's October 2026 documentation; check the plan-feature comparison before relying on a specific capability.

How do net payment terms work in Shopify B2B? You assign terms (like Net 30) to a company; at checkout the buyer selects terms instead of paying immediately, and Shopify generates an invoice that ages in your admin. You ship on the buyer's promise to pay within the term — so vet new wholesale accounts before extending terms, and watch how terms stretch your cash cycle.

Where to go next

Turn B2B on for one pilot company this week: a buyer you already know, on a small catalog, with quantity rules that mirror your existing emailed terms. Run one real order through the full path above. If the buyer reorders through the portal without emailing you, you've validated the setup; then read the wholesale inventory management guide before onboarding account number two, because that's where the demand-stream math starts to matter.