Overview of B2B features on Shopify
B2B on Shopify is a suite of features that allows you to sell business-to-business (B2B) through the Shopify admin and online store. In this article you can review the main B2B features on Shopify and how you can sell directly to other businesses.
If you're new to using B2B on Shopify for your business, then start with choosing a store type for your B2B business on Shopify and refer to the getting started checklist.
On this page
B2B companies and customers
You can set up your B2B customers using companies and company locations. With separate setting controls and customer acquisition tools, you can set up and customize B2B customers.
Review the following table to learn more about features related to companies and customers in B2B at Shopify.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Companies | Create companies for your B2B customers and configure separate settings, such as payments terms, shipping address, contact permissions, catalogs, tax exemptions, and checkout settings. |
| Company account requests | Create a company account request form that lets your customers submit a request form on your online store to access B2B purchasing. |
| Customer and order migration | Migrate existing customer order history to a company and a company location in your Shopify admin. This allows you to add your existing D2C customers and their order history to an existing company. |
| Invitation emails for new B2B customers | Customize and send invitation emails to any new B2B customers that you add to a company and let them know that they can submit B2B orders on behalf of the company. |
| Sales staff permissions | Adapt your staff permissions for different types of sales staff profiles. You can assign each staff a set of permissions that restrict their access to only the company records that have been assigned to them. |
| B2B actions and triggers in Shopify Flow | Create various automations for your B2B workflows using actions and triggers in Shopify Flow. You can use templates for common workflows, such as tagging B2B orders automatically, or create your own custom workflow. |
| Metafields for B2B | Add custom data fields to company and company location pages using metafields within your Shopify admin. For example, you can search and filter metafields in your company and company locations pages. |
B2B catalogs and products
You can offer a personalized buying experience with discounts, flexible purchasing rules, and curated product catalogs and price lists, that you can assign to a specific customer or company location.
Review the following table to learn more about features related to catalogs and products in B2B at Shopify.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Catalogs | Create product catalogs with custom pricing and assign them to specific companies. You can control the availability of products for your B2B customers and you can include all products or specific products to a catalog. |
| Customer-specific product publishing | Offer a personalized buying experience with curated product catalogs for your customers and segment catalogs at the company location level. |
| Volume pricing | Offer additional price breaks to B2B customers when they purchase a certain quantity of a product in the same order. |
| Quantity rules | Restrict the number of items that your B2B customers can purchase in an order. You can set up quantity rules to minimum, maximum, or increments that a variant can be ordered in. |
| Locking prices in draft orders | Lock a price on any draft order. A price lock ensures that the prices of products in the order don't change, even if you update the product's price later in the Shopify admin. |
| Reserving item inventory in draft orders | Reserve inventory on any draft order. An inventory reservation ensures that the specific inventory can't be purchased by other customers. |
B2B checkout
You can customize each customer's checkout with discounts, payment options, and shipping rates, based on logic that fits their B2B workflows.
Review the following table to learn more about features related to checkout in B2B at Shopify.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Checkout for B2B customers | Allow your customers to view and check out using their assigned payment terms, deposits, payment methods, and wholesale discounts. |
| One page checkout for B2B | Use the one page checkout for your B2B customers. Your B2B customers can review their order, shipping information, company information, and payment information on a single checkout page. |
| Checkout to draft | Choose whether you want to require B2B customer orders to be placed as drafts based on company location. This lets you review and make changes to orders before they’re confirmed, and negotiate with your customer when needed. |
| Payment and delivery functions | Hide, reorder, or offer custom shipping and payment options using Delivery Customization API and Payment Customization Function API. |
| B2B discounts | Create custom discounts using Discount Functions. Discount Functions can be contextualized within a blended store to segment B2B and D2C discounts. |
| Support for digital goods | Include digital goods in your B2B product collections and let your customers purchase digital products along with physical products. |
B2B payments
You can automate the manual process of assigning payment terms to orders or to draft orders in your Shopify admin. Customize payment terms and deposit requirements by company location to track, sort, and collect payment for orders as they become due.
Review the following table to learn more about features related to payments in B2B at Shopify.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Payment terms | Configure payment terms to set the time period that a company has to pay for an order. You can assign companies with the following payment terms options: Net 7, Net 15, Net 30, Net 45, Net 60, Net 90, due on fulfillment, or due on receipt. |
| Customer-specific deposits | Require customers to pay a percent-based deposit for orders on net payment terms. |
| Vaulted credit cards | Let your customers save credit cards for payment at the company location level. Saved cards can be used during checkout or from your Shopify admin. |
| Payment reminders | Send payment reminders on the payment due date for orders with payment terms using Shopify Flow. |
| Invoice from draft | Send invoices to collect payment for draft orders. |
| Partial payments for B2B orders | Accept and record multiple partial payments made towards an order. Your B2B customers can make deposits, reconcile underpayments, or split payments across multiple payment methods. |
| Manual payment methods | Use manual payment methods, such as Cash On Delivery, for your B2B orders. |
| PayPal for B2B | Offer PayPal as a payment option for your B2B customers at checkout. |
B2B self-serve purchasing and customer accounts
Your B2B customers must log in with customer accounts to access their wholesale information and assigned catalogs. Your customers can manage their accounts, edit customer name and shipping information. If they have a location admin role, then they can also place reorders, view order history, and submit returns.
Review the following table to learn more about features related to self-serve purchasing and customer accounts in B2B at Shopify.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Customer accounts | Allow B2B customers to log in using customer accounts to access B2B specific information, such as products and pricing. This ensures that only authorized customers can access wholesale offerings. Your customers can also view their order history and account information. |
| Easy reorders | Let B2B customers place reorders by duplicating a past order using customer accounts. Customers don't need to create a new order manually, all items are automatically added to cart. |
| Flexible customer shipping addresses | Set up a flexible shipping address at a company location to let your customers enter alternative addresses at checkout without saving the address to a company location. |
| Purchase order numbers | Allow B2B customers to add purchase order (PO) numbers to an order. You can also add PO numbers to an order or a draft order from your Shopify admin. |
| Self-serve returns for B2B | Configure self-serve returns so your B2B customers and company location admins can submit return requests directly from their customer accounts. Your customers can track the status of their return request. |
| Customer account UI extensions | Enhance the customer accounts experience with third-party or custom apps that use Customer Account UI Extensions. Using these apps, you can introduce new features that can help B2B customers to self-serve. |
| Support for third-party identity providers | Implement your own OAuth2.0 and OpenId Connect compliant identity providers to meet the needs of your B2B customers. |
B2B online store
You can customize your online store content to display different content to B2B and D2C customers or to display content to different markets. You can also enhance your B2B buying experience by using the B2B flagship Trade theme that's specifically made for B2B businesses.
Review the following table to learn more about features related to your online store in B2B at Shopify.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Online store contextualization | Display a different set of content to different types of customers or markets in your online store. In a blended online store, you can showcase different content to B2B and D2C customers. In a dedicated store, you can showcase different content to the different geographical markets that you sell to. |
| Quick order lists | Set up quick order lists to let your B2B customers add multiple variants of a product to their cart in one click from the product description page. |
| Trade theme for B2B stores | Use the Trade theme for your online store that's specifically designed for B2B businesses with features such as hidden product prices for customers that aren't logged in. |
| Custom B2B storefront | Create a custom headless storefront for your B2B business and leverage your preferred tech stack using Hydrogen, or the Storefront and Customer Accounts API. |
| Liquid support for themes and email templates | Customize themes and email templates to include company information using Liquid. |
B2B apps and integrations
You can use B2B APIs to build solutions or apps for your B2B business on Shopify. You can also integrate existing systems with your B2B store.
Review the following table to learn more about features related to apps, APIs, and integrations in B2B at Shopify.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| B2B APIs | Build powerful solutions for complex B2B workflows to scale and grow, and seamlessly integrate your ERP or other systems to Shopify using B2B APIs. |
| B2B apps | Use third-party B2B apps to add additional functionalities to support your B2B processes. |
| B2B integrations | Integrate your ERP, accounting system, or other essential business systems with your B2B store on Shopify. You can integrate with Acumatica and Microsoft Business Central systems. You can also build your own integrations using B2B APIs. |