How to Sell Wholesale on Shopify: Plans, Store Setup, and What to Add

You can start selling wholesale on any current Shopify plan (Basic, Grow, Advanced, or Plus) with Shopify's built-in B2B features. Create a company for each wholesale customer, build a B2B catalog with your wholesale prices, and set payment terms. The biggest early decision is whether to run wholesale in the same store as your D2C business or in a separate B2B store, and our answer is that it depends on whether you're on Shopify Plus.

Shopify is a fantastic base for a wholesale business, especially if your D2C store already runs on it. This guide covers what each plan supports, how to choose your store setup, the setup steps, and the gaps we hit running wholesale on Shopify B2B alone.

Can you sell wholesale on Shopify without Plus?

Yes. As of April 2026, Shopify's native B2B features are available on the Basic, Grow, and Advanced plans at no extra cost, not just on Plus (Shopify Changelog). That includes company profiles, net payment terms, volume pricing, and sales staff permissions.

The limits on non-Plus plans, per Shopify's B2B features by plan page:

1. Three active B2B catalogs across all your B2B markets. Plus has unlimited catalogs.
2. No catalogs assigned directly to a company or company location. That's Plus-only.
3. No deposits, partial payments, or payment requests per fulfillment.
4. Separate B2B storefront content and checkout (through Shopify Markets) need Advanced or higher.

Should you use a blended store or a separate B2B store?

You have two options (Shopify Help Center):

• A blended store runs D2C and B2B in one Shopify store and admin. Inventory and the theme are shared, and B2B customers are kept separate as companies.
• A dedicated store is a separate Shopify store just for B2B, with its own admin, theme, inventory, and settings. You can gate it so only wholesale customers can get in.

Choose carefully. Shopify notes that switching later means redoing most of your setup. Our take is that it depends on your plan.

If you're on Shopify Plus: use a separate B2B store

Shopify Plus includes expansion stores, and a B2B wholesale store is one of the eligible types (Shopify Help Center). We recommend using one. A separate B2B store keeps your reporting clean, and it gives you more flexibility to set up the storefront for B2B needs without cluttering your D2C setup.

The trade-off is upkeep: two sets of products, and apps set up twice. To cut that down, we recommend Multi-Store Sync Power. It syncs products, inventory, and collections across connected stores and is affordable.

If you're not on Plus: use the same store for B2B and D2C

If you're on Basic, Grow, or Advanced, we'd recommend running wholesale in the same store as D2C.

A second store means a second plan and a second set of apps, and you don't need that to get started. Shopify's catalogs control which products and prices B2B customers see, but these plans allow 3 active B2B catalogs.

Each catalog carries one price list, so that's at most three sets of wholesale prices (Shopify Help Center). Keystone doesn't cap catalogs or price levels by plan. It also makes it easy to bring in only your B2B customers and products (if they differ from D2C), so you don't need to upgrade your Shopify plan.

How to set up Shopify B2B

The steps are the same for both store types. Shopify's getting started guide has full checklists.

1. Pick your store type. Blended or dedicated.
2. Create your companies. Each wholesale customer is a company in Shopify, with one or more locations and contacts.
3. Build your catalogs. Set wholesale pricing and choose which products B2B customers can see. Add quantity rules and volume pricing where you need them.
4. Set payment terms. For each company location, choose payment due right away, net 7 to net 90, or due on fulfillment.
5. Set up your reps. If you work with sales reps, create a sales rep role and assign each rep to their company locations. Basic doesn't include staff accounts, so this needs Grow or higher.
6. Test it. Place an order as a test B2B customer before you invite real buyers.

What we ran into running wholesale on Shopify B2B alone

When we tried to make Shopify B2B replace our previous wholesale ordering system, these are the issues we hit.

Nobody knew what was happening with an account

Our team members were having conversations with prospects and customers at tradeshows, on store visits, over email, and on phone calls, without anyone logging anything. That often led to confusion about what was happening with an account, and that confusion often led to indecision and paralysis. Nobody wants to be the one who reaches out to an account not knowing that yesterday their coworker already received an order.

Shopify kept our orders, but the conversations behind them lived in people's heads, inboxes, and phones. That's a big reason to run a CRM alongside Shopify, not just Shopify.

Shopify doesn't help you find new retailers

Shopify B2B's features start once a retailer is already your customer: companies, catalogs, payment terms, and checkout (Shopify Help Center). It doesn't help you find new stores or work them toward a first order. Keystone does.

You can build prospect lists, find stores that already carry brands like yours, and look for shops like an account that already works. Then send samples and follow up with email sequences, so a "maybe" doesn't go cold. When they're ready, you write their first order on the same account. Use prospecting tools like follow-up sequences, lookalike search, and finding stores that carry brands like yours. Keystone makes it easy.

Rep tools are better, but reps still need more

Rep segmentation used to be a real problem for us. Shopify has fixed most of it. Sales staff permissions come with every plan and limit each rep to their assigned accounts on the Customers, Orders, Draft orders, and Companies pages (Shopify Help Center).

There are still real issues, though. To be fully operational and more self-sufficient, reps need backend access: their accounts, their reports, and how they're tracking against their targets. Here's what reps still need, and how Keystone handles it:

1. Reps only get part of the backend. Outside those four pages, Shopify doesn't filter data to the rep's accounts, including Analytics (see point 3), and reps order through draft orders that the buyer checks out (Shopify Help Center). In Keystone, reps get real backend access, scoped to their own accounts: sales orders and shipment tracking, invoices with due dates and what's overdue, draft orders, and suggested reorders. Each account also shows its contacts, open orders, and logged calls, visits, and emails, so reps can answer buyer questions without waiting on your team.
2. Reps need to know what's available to sell. Available-to-sell (ATS) reports are key to making sure reps know what they can sell now and what's coming. Shopify tracks available and incoming inventory (Shopify Help Center), and reps see stock levels when they build a draft order. In Keystone, reps can pull ATS any time to see what they can sell right now and the next incoming PO with its expected date. Connect your incoming POs through Inventory Planner, Flexport, or any other inventory management tool. Brands can also schedule weekly or monthly ATS emails to reps, so they always know what to sell.
3. Reports aren't filtered by rep. Shopify suggests keeping reps out of Analytics and Home, because the sales data there isn't filtered to their accounts. In Keystone, each rep gets a dashboard and reports for their own accounts: sales against their targets, at-risk accounts, accounts due for a reorder, and top accounts. Reps can build their own custom reports too.
4. Every rep needs a Shopify user. Basic includes no staff accounts, Grow includes 5, Advanced includes 15, and Plus is unlimited (Shopify Help Center). Independent reps and rep agencies use those up fast. Keystone reps don't use up those seats.
5. Assignment is account by account. Reps are assigned to company locations, not territories. In Keystone, you can map territories by state or country, and Keystone suggests a rep for each new account that doesn't have one.
6. No commission tracking for wholesale reps. Shopify's staff sales attribution is a POS feature, so rep commissions end up in an app or a spreadsheet. Keystone calculates commissions, including split commissions, and reps see their month-to-date commissions on their dashboard.

In our experience, rep reporting is one of the biggest things Keystone adds. You can email each rep a weekly or monthly sales-vs-target report, so the team stays on the same page without anyone pulling numbers by hand.

Future ship orders

Our business was built on booking orders well in advance. Anything not shipping right away caused problems, because we couldn't set future ship dates. Shopify's native pre-order options still can't be used with B2B orders or draft orders, according to Shopify's developer docs.

Invoicing and getting paid

We wanted to invoice when an order shipped and start net 30 from that date. Shopify's net terms start from the day the order is placed (Shopify Help Center). There's also a "due on fulfillment" term. For QuickBooks, Shopify relies on an app, such as Intuit's QuickBooks Online app. If you book orders months out, net 30 from the order date can come due before anything ships.

None of this is a knock on Shopify. It's a great foundation, and it keeps getting better. These are wholesale-specific workflows. More on that in Supplementing Where Shopify B2B Lacks.

Where Keystone fits on top of Shopify

Keystone works hand in hand with Shopify to give brands, reps, and buyers a great B2B experience. Shopify stays your foundation, and Keystone fills the gaps:

• Lead gen and prospecting. Shopify doesn't help you find your customers. Keystone does, from prospect lists and stores that already carry brands like yours to samples and follow-up sequences.
• A CRM built for wholesale. Your team logs in-person meetings, calls, emails, texts, and tradeshow conversations on each account, with notes and a follow-up flag, even from a phone. The account shows the last contact, logged activity, emails sent, and order history, so you can check before you reach out. From there, the same CRM helps win the next order with email campaigns, sample follow-ups, and suggested reorders buyers can submit without logging in.
• Reps outside your Shopify admin. Reps and sub-reps log in to Keystone, not your Shopify admin, so they don't use up Shopify staff seats. They see only their assigned accounts, orders, invoices, and reports. Commission reports, including split commissions, are built in.
• Price levels without plan limits. Keystone doesn't cap catalogs or price levels by plan. Each account gets a price level, and Keystone catalogs and orders use that account's prices.
• Pre-orders and ship windows. Buyers place pre-orders and at-once orders from your catalog, grouped by ship window.
• Invoicing on fulfillment. Invoices go out when orders ship, with net terms counted from fulfillment. Buyers pay by card or on terms.
• QuickBooks sync. Invoices, credit memos, and payment links sync to QuickBooks, so no one types them in twice.
• Only the B2B data you need. Keystone connects to your wholesale Shopify store and brings in only your B2B customers and products. It also brings in your D2C sales data, so wholesale suggestions reflect what's selling near each account.

We'll help you get set up: your data in, Keystone set up for how your team works, and your inventory, incoming shipments, and QuickBooks invoices connected. If you're weighing other wholesale tools, here's how Keystone compares.

Keystone is the system that runs your wholesale business with you. Connected to your Shopify store, its CRM helps you find retailers and win orders with email campaigns, samples, pre-orders, and no-login suggested reorders. Its back office handles invoicing, terms, reporting, and rep commissions, and syncs to QuickBooks, NetSuite, and Luminous.

Ready to set up wholesale on Shopify?

Whether you're starting wholesale on Shopify or already hitting these gaps, book a demo. We'll look at your setup together and show you how Keystone fits.