Signing up customers

Find new customers by allowing prospective customers to apply for accounts to your wholesale store. You can choose to automatically approve anyone who signs up or to review each application before approving them.

Key features and capabilities

When you set up wholesale account signup, you can choose the following features:

  • To review and approve the applications or to automatically approve all signup customers (after a customer is approved, they can log into your wholesale store).
  • To set default price lists for these customers.
  • To set a minimum order amount that these customers must meet or exceed.
  • To allow these customers to pay for some or all of their orders using wholesale checkout. When you enable this option, you can limit the amount that they can pay at the checkout and allow orders that exceed this amount to be submitted as draft orders.
  • To add additional fields to the sign-up form to collect extra information from customers, such as their business address or number. You can use this information to help you approve their application and to learn more about them.

Activate wholesale account signup

Activate wholesale account signup, so that your customers can sign up for their own accounts. A link to a sign-up form is added to the login page of your wholesale store. You can choose to automatically approve anyone who signs up or to review each application before approving them. After the customer has been approved, they can log in to your wholesale store.

To activate wholesale account signup:

  1. From the wholesale channel, open Preferences.
  2. Optional: to approve prospective customers before allowing them to create accounts, then click Manage settings > Enable account signup > Manually approve new customers. Otherwise, all signup customers are automatically approved.
  3. Optional: to collect extra information from your prospective customers, follow the instructions to add additional fields to the form.
  1. Enter the price list tags that you want to give to these customers when they apply for an account.
  2. Follow the instructions to add other settings to these customers, such as a minimum purchase amount and wholesale checkout.
  3. Click Save.

A link to the sign-up form is added your wholesale store's login page.

By default, your customers need to enter their name and email address before they can submit the sign-up form. If you didn't enable Manually approve new customers, then your customers are asked to create a password for their wholesale store account.

Approve or decline signup customers

If you chose to manually approve all new customers, then you need to review their applications before they can log in to your store. When a prospective customer submits their signup form, you receive an email notification to approve them in the wholesale channel. You can approve customers one at a time or you can use Bulk Actions to approve more than one customer at a time.

To approve a signup customer's application:

  1. From the Customers page in the wholesale channel, click the Pending approval tab.
  2. To approve an individual customer, open their account and review their application. If you asked for additional information, then the customers responses appear on this page.
  3. Choose one of the following options:
Options to select when a customer signs up for a wholesale account.
OptionAction
Approve the customerClick Approve. The customer is sent a notification email to create their account, and their wholesale status is Enabled.
Decline the customerClick Decline. Their wholesale status is set to Declined. If you want to contact the customer (to explain why they were declined), then you need to send them an email outside of Shopify. Otherwise, they are not notified that their application was declined.

Additional fields

By default, prospective customers need to enter their name and email address to apply for a wholesale account. If you need extra information about these customers (such as, their business address, number, or description) then you can add additional fields to the sign-up form. Customers need to enter answers for each field on the sign-up form before they can submit it. When you add the fields to the form, you can set their order by dragging and dropping them.

Customer FAQ

What happens after a customer submits the form (and I've chosen to automatically approve signup customers)?

After a prospective customer submits the sign-up from, the following events occur:

  • A new customer is added in Shopify, which contains the customer's name, email address, and address (if you asked for this information). Initially, this address is set as the default shipping address. The price list tags that you specified are added to this customer.
  • A wholesale account for the customer is also added to the wholesale channel. If you created additional fields to collect extra information, then these values are added to the customer's wholesale account.
  • An email notification is sent to the wholesale store email address, so that you know that a new wholesale account has been created.
  • The customer can log in to your wholesale store.

What happens after a customer submits the form (and I've chosen to manually approve signup customers)?

After a prospective customer submits the sign-up form, the following events occur:

  1. A temporary wholesale account is created for the customer. If you created additional fields to collect extra information, then these values are added to the customer's wholesale account.
  2. A notification email is sent to the wholesale store email address, so that you can review the application. You can approve the customer from the Customers page in the wholesale channel.
  3. After you approve a customer, they are sent an email to complete the signup (create a password for the wholesale store).
  4. After the customer creates their account, you are sent an email notification.

What happens when I approve a signup customer?

When you approve a customer:

  • The customer's wholesale account status is set to Approved.
  • An account for the customer is added in Shopify.
  • The customer is sent a notification email to complete their wholesale account by creating a password.
  • You can create wholesale, draft orders on behalf of the approved customer.

What happens when I decline a signup customer?

When you decline a customer:

  • The status of their wholesale account is set to Declined. This record of their application is available in the wholesale channel so that you can refer back to it and even approve it later (if you change your mind). There is no record of the customer in Shopify.
  • You cannot create wholesale draft orders for the customer.
  • No email notification is sent to the customer. If you want to contact the customer (to explain why they were declined), then you need to send them an email outside of Shopify.

What happens when I delete a signup customer application?

When you delete a customer application:

  • The wholesale account for the customer is removed and there is no record of the customer in Shopify.
  • No email notification is sent to the customer. If you want to contact the customer (for example, to explain why they were declined), then you need to send them an email outside of Shopify.

If I decline (or delete) a signup customer, are they sent an email notification?

No, they are not. If you want to explain to them why they were declined, then you can send them an email from outside of Shopify. If you decline a customer, then their status is set to Declined and their record remains in your wholesale channel, so that you can refer back to their application and you can choose to approve them later. If you delete a customer, then the customer is removed from your wholesale channel.

I've already sent a customer an invite, can they still sign themselves up?

Yes. Your customer can ignore your invite and sign up for a wholesale store account by using the sign-up form. When the customer completes the sign up process, they will have the price list tags that you set for them (when you sent the original invite) as well as the default price list tags that you give to your customers who use wholesale account signup.

Can anyone sign up or do they have to be a customer in my store?

Anyone can sign up for your wholesale store. If the customer doesn't exist in your store, then a new customer is added in Shopify and they are given the wholesale price list tags and settings.

What happens when existing customers sign up?

If an existing customer signs up for wholesale, then their customer profile in Shopify is updated with the wholesale price list tags and settings. If an existing wholesale customer tries to sign up, then they will be prompted to log in with their existing credentials.

A customer signed up for a wholesale account using an email address that is different from the one that I had in my Shopify. Now I have duplicate customers in my Shopify store. Can I merge these customer entries?

You cannot merge customers in Shopify. You also cannot delete a customer who has an order (but you can delete them if they have only draft orders). If your new wholesale customer doesn't have an order, then you can delete that customer entry and ask your customer to sign up again.

If the customer has an order, then you could:

  1. Add a note to their customer profile and include a link to the duplicate customer entry.
  2. Rename the duplicate entry so that you don't mistakenly use it (for example, add zzzz to the beginning of the customer's last name).
  3. Ask the customer to sign up again.

How do I know when a new customer has signed up?

A notification email is sent to your wholesale store email address after a customer has submitted the sign-up form. If you activated Manually approve new customers, then you can review their application from the Customers page in the wholesale channel.

Can I create draft orders for customers who sign up?

Yes. There is no difference between customers who sign up and customers that you invite. You can always create orders on behalf of your wholesale customers.

Customization FAQ

Can I set some of the additional sign-up fields as optional?

No, you cannot. All fields on the sign-up form need to be filled in before a prospective customer can submit the form. Customers cannot submit the form if there is an empty field.

Can some of the additional fields accept only numbers?

No, they cannot. There is no way to limit the data type of a sign-up field. But, you could include the data type that you want in the title of the additional field.

Can I add a background image to the sign up page?

The customer sign-up page uses the same settings as your wholesale store login page. If you need a customized sign-up page, then consider creating your own sign-up page on your online store.

Not outside of the title of an additional field. If you need a customized sign-up page, then consider creating your own sign-up page on your online store.

What happens if I change the additional fields on the sign-up form?

When a customer applies for an account, their responses are saved to their wholesale customer account. If you change or delete any fields from the form, it does not affect existing wholesale accounts.

Ready to start selling with Shopify?Try it free