Wholesale price lists

Price lists contain the products that you want to offer at wholesale prices. Price lists are available for use in your wholesale store only. They don't apply to any other sales channel (not even your online store).

Price lists override your regular, online store prices in your wholesale storefront. They let you offer different prices for the same products to different customers.

A customer must be assigned a price list to be able to purchase products at the prices offered in that price list.

Price lists contain the following information:

  • The products and the prices that you want to offer to some or all of your wholesale customers.
  • A customer tag to connect your customers to the price list. Any customer (current or future) that has this tag is assigned to this price list and can order products at the prices offered in the price list.

Choose a price list type

You can create price lists that offer percentage discounts off your standard pricing or discounted prices for each individually-priced item:

Description of price list types
Price list typeDescription
Percentage discounts

Offer percentage-based prices for all products (All products) in the wholesale store or groups of products in collections (Selected collections).

Percentage discount price lists offer products at prices that are calculated by applying the discount to their online store prices. When the price of a product in the online store changes, then the wholesale store price is recalculated. For example, you create a price list for pencils that applies a 30% discount off their online store prices. The online store price for a pencil is $1.00, so the wholesale price is 70¢. If you change the online store price of the pencil to be 50¢, then the wholesale price is 35¢.

Volume pricing

Offer specific products and variants at fixed prices (Volume pricing for products, Volume pricing for variants, and Price list import). Volume pricing supports minimum and maximum quantities and quantity increments..

Price lists that offer fixed prices are not affected by changes made to the online store prices of their products.

Create different price lists for different customers

You can charge your customers different prices for the same products and services. To do this, create multiple price lists that feature the same product but at different prices. Then assign different customers to each list.

You can create as many price lists as your business needs. For example:

  • To reward loyalty, create a price list that offers your best prices and assign it to your top customers.
  • To offer a customer exclusive pricing, create a price list and assign it only that customer.
  • To manage pricing agreements with your manufacturer, create separate price lists for their products and assign them to customers based on their pricing rules.
  • To create unique purchase orders or quotes for a new customer, create a price list that combines products and prices from more than one list.

Pricing for customers in multiple lists

Manage different price structures by layering your price lists and assigning groups of customers to multiple price lists. A customer can have more than one price list.

For example:

  • Create a base price list and assign it to all your customers.
  • Create price lists that offer better discounts and assign these to your customers as their orders reach different spending thresholds.
  • Create price lists based on the geographical locations of your customers.

Resolve price list contradictions

Because you can assign a customer to multiple price lists, it's possible that a customer could be offered the same product at different prices. When such a difference occurs, the price rule that affects the most specific group of products will take precedence (in the order of variants, then products, then general discount lists):

  • If there are volume pricing by variant lists, then your customer is offered the lowest variant-level rate they qualify for. This will be used instead of volume pricing by product or discount price lists.
  • If there are volume pricing by product lists, then your customer is offered the lowest product-level rate they qualify for. This will be used instead of discount price lists.
  • If neither of these rules apply to that customer, then they're offered the lowest discount rule they qualify for, such as a discount rule that affects collections or all your products.

For example, one of your customers is a small business that sells outdoor gear. You assign this customer the following price lists:

Price listRed hat price
base-list - 20% off all hats$16
retailers-list - 30% off all hats$14

Both price lists are discount price rules that affect all products in a collection, and the lowest discounted price is $14. Your outdoor-gear customer pays $14 per hat.

For the month of December, you put your red hats on sale. You assign your outdoor-gear customer a price list that offers a discounted price if more than 20 red hats are ordered:

Price listRed hat price
base-list - 20% off all hats$16
monthly-sale-products - volume pricing by product list$15
retailers-list - 30% off all hats$14

Because your customer has access to both a general discount list and a volume pricing by product list, the lowest product-level price is what the customer pays. Your outdoor-gear customer pays $15 per red hat.

For the last week of December, you run another sale (using the weekly-sale-products price list) that discounts extra large red hats if more than 15 are purchased:

Price listRed hat price
base-list - 20% off all hats$16
monthly-sale-products - volume pricing by product list$15
retailers-list - 30% off all hats$14
weekly-sale-products - volume pricing by variant list$10

Because your customer has access to a general discount list, a volume pricing by product list, and a volume pricing by variant list, the lowest variant-level price is what the customer pays. Your outdoor-gear customer pays $10 per extra large red hat.

Run sales in your wholesale store

It's common for a product to be offered at different prices on different price lists. For special deals or other temporary price changes, you can create a dedicated price list, and then assign customers to it. After the sale is over, you can unassign customers from this price list by removing the tag from it or by deleting the price list.

For example, you have a regular price list that offers all products at a 40% discount and a clearance price list that offers set prices on a few slower moving products. To run a sale, you can assign the clearance price list to the same customers who are included in your regular price list (by adding the same customer tags to the clearance price list).

Exclude products from the online store

You can always exclude products from your online store by making them unavailable to your online store channel.

Exclude products from the wholesale store

The easiest way to exclude products from your wholesale store is to omit them from your price lists. If you have any products that you don't want to offer in your wholesale store, then you should create price lists based on collections, rather than a list that applies to all products in your store.

If you need to exclude a product temporarily from your wholesale store, then hide the product by making it unavailable in the wholesale channel.

Known issues and limitations

The following list contains some known issues and limitations related to pricing and price lists:

  • The wholesale channel does not support discount codes or Shopify Scripts (so you can't offer cart-level discounts).

  • Volume-based pricing, where the price for all units decreases as more products are sold, is supported in some volume-based lists. Tiered pricing, where the price per unit decreases after the quantity in a tier has been purchased, isn't supported in any price list in the wholesale channel.

  • When you set up quantity increments for products in a price list, you can enter only whole numbers for the increment amount. You cannot increment your orders by fractions or decimal increments.

  • If you run a sale using Launchpad on products that also appear in your wholesale store, then their wholesale prices could be affected by the sale event. For the duration of the Launchpad event, any price lists that apply a percentage discount will have the discount applied to the sale price (not the regular retail price). Price lists that use fixed prices are not affected by Launchpad events.

  • If you add a new variant to a product that's already included in your fixed price lists, then its price will be determined by the prices and quantity increments you have set at the product level. This does not hold true for percentage-based price lists, which use the same discount as other variants for that product.

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