Sign-in and customer accounts in B2B

You must activate customer accounts to use Shopify B2B. B2B customers must sign in to your store before they can access B2B-specific information, such as products and pricing, or place B2B orders. This ensures only authorized customers can access your wholesale offerings.

To sign in as a B2B customer, the customer needs to be set up and associated with one or more company locations in your Shopify admin. Any customer who isn't associated with a company location or doesn't sign in is considered a D2C customer.

If you want to let prospective customers request access to your store, then consider setting up company account requests using Shopify Forms.

Considerations for setting up B2B customer sign-in and accounts

Before you set up B2B customer sign-in and accounts, review the following considerations:

• Your checkout branding customizations, such as your logo or colors, automatically apply to your sign-in page and customer accounts. You can't customize the branding of your customer sign-in page and customer accounts separately from your checkout. Learn more about customer accounts customization.
• You can't use legacy customer accounts for B2B customers and orders.
• Your customers sign in to their accounts by entering their email address associated with a company location, and a one-time PIN that's sent to their email. No password is required. This ensures that you and your customers don't need to manage passwords or locked accounts. Learn more about customer experience when using customer accounts.
• The settings in Settings > Checkout > Customer information apply only to D2C customers. B2B customers aren't required to enter this customer information, even if you mark it as required.
• Customizations that you make to customer accounts with apps, apply only to signed-in customer accounts pages, but not to the sign-in page.

Customer accounts features for your B2B customers

Your B2B customers can take the following actions from their customer accounts:

• View order history, account information, and company location information.
• Access saved payment methods and make payments.
• Track orders.
• Place reorders by duplicating a past order.
• Submit and track return requests.

If you require additional functionality for your customer sign-in and accounts, then explore third-party apps on the Shopify App Store.

Using customer accounts in a blended store

If you use a blended store and currently have legacy customer accounts activated, then switching to customer accounts will affect both B2B and D2C customers. D2C and B2B customers can both sign in to customer accounts. The customer experience depends on the type of customer profile that their email is associated with:

• If a customer's email address is associated with a company location, then the customer gains access to the B2B customer experience.
• If a customer's email address is associated only with a customer, then the customer gets the D2C customer experience.
• If a customer's email address isn't associated with either a customer or company location, then a new D2C customer profile is created.

Activate customer accounts for your B2B business

You can activate customer accounts from your Shopify admin. After you set up your company contact and activate customer accounts, customers can sign in using a secure 6-digit verification code sent to their email address.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Customer accounts.

2. Optional: To display a sign-in link in the header of your online store and at checkout, turn on the Show sign-in links option. The sign-in link is usually located in your store's header, but the placement might vary depending on your theme.

3. In the Choose which version of customer accounts to link to section, select Customer accounts.

4. Optional: If you're using legacy customer accounts, then click Update.

5. Create a subdomain based on your third-party domain name that points to the customer account.

6. Optional: If you want to require all customers to sign in before checkout, then configure your customer contact method settings.

Add the URL manually to your online store menu

You can add the customer accounts sign-in URL anywhere in your online store, such as your menus. For example, add a Wholesale link to the footer of your online store that links to customer accounts. You can also share the URL to customer accounts in direct communications with your B2B customers, or in any resources that you create for them.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Customer accounts.

2. In the URLs section, copy the URL for Customer accounts.

3. Add a menu item to your online store menu that uses the URL for Customer accounts.

Restrict access to your store or specific pages for B2B customers only

By default, your B2B store is publicly accessible. Anyone can visit and browse your products and store content, including D2C customers. However, only logged-in B2B customers can access B2B-specific pricing, B2B-only products, and B2B-exclusive store content. If you operate a dedicated B2B store, then you can restrict access so that only logged-in B2B customers can view your store. You can also restrict access to specific pages using custom development or third-party apps.

Considerations for restricting store access

Before you restrict store access, review the following considerations:

• Restricting access prevents non-B2B customers from browsing your store, but it doesn't redirect all visitors to a sign-in page. If you need a full login-wall experience, then you might need a third-party app or custom Liquid development.
• Customers who purchase through the Shop app might be able to begin checkout without signing in. If you operate a dedicated B2B store, then contact Shopify Support to confirm that checkout login requirements are activated for your store.
• If you operate a blended store with B2B Markets and customer accounts, then restricting access might redirect D2C customers to authentication on some pages. Test your storefront as both a B2B and D2C customer before activating this setting.
• Prospective customers can't request access to your store through company account requests when store access is restricted.

Restricting access to your entire store

If you operate a dedicated B2B store, then you can restrict access so that only logged-in B2B customers can view your store.

When a non-B2B customer tries to access a restricted store, they can't browse your online store and they receive a notification that they aren't registered B2B customers. Their sign-in attempt still creates a customer record in your system. You can use Shopify Flow templates to automatically remove these records.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Preferences.

2. In the Store access section, select Restrict access to B2B customers only.

3. Click Save.

Restricting access to specific pages only

If you want to restrict only certain parts of your store, such as specific pages, then you can use the following methods:

• Custom development: Use Liquid to add access restrictions.
• Third-party apps: Install apps from the Shopify App Store, such as Locksmith.

Customer experience

After a customer account is set up, an existing B2B customer can sign in using the six-digit sign-in code and access your B2B products and pricing. Review the following instructions on how your B2B customers can place B2B orders, review orders, and update account information.

Place an order

If a B2B customer is assigned to more than one company location, then they need to select which location they want to order on behalf of before they can add items to cart. The B2B customer selects products to add to their cart as usual, with the exception that the prices offered are those that you specified in your catalog for that company location.

Note

When a B2B customer goes through the checkout, some information is pre-filled, such as shipping or billing address. This information can't be edited during the checkout process. If a customer needs to change their shipping or billing addresses, then they can do so before checking out in their account page if they have the Location admin role or the location checkout setting is set to editable shipping address.

To place an order, the customer goes through the following process:

Steps:

1. The customer navigates to your online store and clicks the sign-in button.
2. The customer enters their email address. After they receive an email with their six-digit sign-in code, they enter this code to access their account.
3. In their account, the customer clicks Go to store.
4. If the customer has access to only one company location, then they're immediately taken to the store. If they have access to multiple company locations, then they need to select a company location to buy for.
5. In your online store, the customer selects products and adds them to the cart. The prices offered are those that you specified in your catalog for that company location.
6. When the customer clicks Checkout to complete their purchase, they're taken to a payment page. In the payment page, the shipping and billing addresses are pre-filled according to the information in the company profile. Customers will have the option to enter a purchase order number for the order. Customers don't need to enter any information other than payment details.
   • If the company location payment terms are set to No payment terms, then the customer enters their credit card information. After reviewing their order, they click Pay now to complete the order.
   • If the company location payment terms are set to a net term, then the customer clicks Submit. The order is displayed in your Orders page, and the payment status of the order is set as Payment pending.
   • If the company location has net terms with a deposit set up, then the customer clicks Submit now and pays the deposit amount immediately. The order is displayed in your Orders or Draft orders page depending on your order submission settings. Your order payment status is set as Partially paid or Payment pending depending on whether the payment was captured automatically or manually.
   • If the company location orders are set to Only allow draft orders at checkout, then the customer clicks Submit for approval. The order is displayed in your Drafts page, and is complete only when you click Create order on the draft order page, or when the customer submits payment after you send them an invoice.

After completing the checkout, the customer is taken to an Order status page. If the company location has payment terms set, then the due date is displayed. Customers can also view the purchase order number for the order, if one was entered at checkout.

Review and pay for an order

After a customer places an order, they can track the order in their customer account and filter their orders by the order date. If a B2B customer places an order with payment terms, then they can choose to pay before the invoice is due.

Steps:

1. The customer navigates to your online store and clicks the sign-in button.
2. The customer enters their email address. After they receive an email with their sign-in code, they enter their six-digit number to access their account.
3. In their account, the customer clicks on the order to be paid.
4. On the order page, the customer clicks Pay now.
5. The customer enters their payment information and clicks Pay now.

Update account information

1. The customer navigates to your online store and clicks the sign-in button.
2. The customer enters their email address. After they receive an email with their sign-in code, they enter their six-digit number to access their account page.
3. In their account page, the customer clicks Account, and then clicks Account information.
4. To edit their name or email address, the customer clicks Edit in the Profile section.
5. To review company location information, the customer chooses a location from the menu in the Location section.
6. To edit addresses, the customer clicks Edit in the Addresses section. Editing an address requires the Location admin permission. Permissions, other B2B customers, and payment terms for the selected location are displayed, but can't be changed.