How To Build A Dealer Portal On Shopify? (2025)

Quick Answer

You can build a dealer portal on Shopify in 2025 without needing Shopify Plus or custom development. Using apps like Wholesale Pricing Discount and Wholesale Lock Manager, it’s possible to create a secure, tag-based portal for selling to dealers or distributors. This setup lets you control pricing, hide products or collections, and manage access directly on your existing Shopify plan.

Why a Dedicated Dealer Portal Matters for Your Shopify Store

B2B buyers including, wholesalers and distributors, have different needs compared to retail customers. They often require:

• Discounted pricing such as bulk or tiered pricing
• Early access to the exclusive products
• Partial payment terms like Net 30, Net 60, Net 90
• Faster reordering workflows
• Downloadable B2B invoicing or PDF reciepts
• Order history and Global market support

Trying to manage both retail and wholesale customers through the same storefront—without segmentation—can create friction. Common issues include:

• Retail buyers seeing wholesale prices
• Dealers placing orders without approval
• Confusing checkout and pricing workflows for both customer types

This can be solved by a dedicated dealer portal, that utilises customer tags or login-based controls to tailor pricing, workflows, and access based on the type of customer.

How to Build a Dealer Portal on Shopify (Step-by-Step)

Step 1: Create a Seperate Dealer Login

To create a separate dealer login on your Shopify store, you need to add a dealer Signup and Login form to your Shopfy store that lets potential dealers apply for B2B access.

To do this, you can use:

• Shopify Forms app (free and native)
• Dedicated Wholesale Signup Form offer by Wholesale Pricing Discount B2B Shopify app.

With this dealer registration form, you can collect required information like, their company name, contact email, tax/VAT ID, resale certificate, website URL, expected monthly order volume and other business details.

Step 2: Approve Dealers and Tag Their Accounts

Once you receive submitted enties or requests from your created B2b dealer form, you can manually approve the qualified dealers as per your dealer onboarding eligibility criteria, and assign a special customer tag(s) to them (in their respective customer profiles), which could be, for example:

Wholesale, B2B-USA, Net-30-Eligible, distributor-Tier1, VIP, Gold, Silver, Platinum, Dealer-approved etc.

Futher, If you want to automate the customer tagging and approval of B2B dealer entries on Shopify, you can use the Shopify Flow app to create a workflow to do it.

Step 3: Restrict Access to the Dealer-Only Content

Further, you can use an access control app like Wholesale Lock Manager or Shopify’s built-in logic (like password-protected page) to restrict who can view:

• Certain products or collections
• Special price lists
• Net Terms ordering
• Dealer onboarding resources or assets

This will help you show your store’s B2B login wall or “Request Access” message if the visitor isn’t tagged as a dealer.

Step 4: Set Up Custom Dealer Pricing

As mentioned earlier, once B2B customers are approved and tagged, you can assign them special pricing or discounts that differ from what retail customers see. Apps like Wholesale Pricing Discount B2B can help you set custom pricing to specific products or collections, ensuring only tagged B2B buyers have access to these exclusive offers.

Further the app lets you,

• Assign custom pricing per tag or account
• Offer volume/tiered discounts
• Set Minimum Order Quantities or minimum cart totals
• Display dealer pricing only after login

For example: Dealers tagged distributor-tier-2 might see $80/unit instead of $120 MSRP

Step 5: Offer a Faster Ordering Experience (Optional)

Further, to perfect your dealer portal on Shopify or make it more personalized and CRO friendly to increase your average order volume and repeat orders, your can offer a faster ordering experience to them.

You can implement this on your store with a dealer-specific order form (bulk order form) that:

• Lists all products with SKUs, inventory, and price on a single page
• Lets buyers input quantities in-line
• Enables easy reorders of past purchases

Step 6: Control Checkout and Payment Options

For approved dealers, you also might want to:

• Offer Net Payment Terms (e.g., Net 30) 
• Allow draft order workflows
• Offer items in bundles or subscription basis
• Offer multiple product options such as colors, sizes, addons, etc.
• Use “Pay Later” logic or offline invoicing

You can do all this by integrating other third-party apps available on the Shopify App Store. Just make sure that they integrate easily and are compatible with each other.

By following these six steps with easily help you build a perfect dealer or distributor portal on Shopify and invite your B2B buyers to purchase in bulk from your store.

What a Shopify Dealer Portal Typically Includes (Feature Matrix)

Real-World Shopify Dealer Portal Example

Imagine a brand based in the USA, specializing in artisanal home decor, serving both individual retail buyers and institutional hotel suppliers globally.

Current Setup:

• Public Site: Showcases standard retail prices for individual consumers in USD
• Dealer Access:
  • A hotel supplier in Dubai (tagged b2b-uae, wholesale-tier-2) logs into the portal.
  • They see hidden product collections featuring industrial-grade furniture and exclusive bulk textiles.
  • Pricing is adjusted based on their wholesale-tier-2 tag, with a Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) of $1000 USD (or equivalent AED).
  • At checkout, the “Pay by Invoice” option with “Net 60 terms” is enabled only for this b2b-uae tagged customer.
  • The portal provides access to downloadable marketing brochures for their region.

This setup ensures that the USA based brand can efficiently serve its diverse customer base without confusion, optimizing workflows for both local and international wholesale and b2b partners.

Essential App Stack for Your Shopify Dealer Portal (Optional but Highly Recommended)

To maximise functionality and efficiency, consider these apps:

Final Summary for your Shopify Dealer Portal

You don’t need to build a complex, standalone B2B e-commerce platform. Shopify, when intelligently combined with strategic customer tagging and a few purpose-built applications, offers a highly effective, secure, and scalable solution for creating a dealer or distributor portal within your existing store.

This integrated approach offers significant advantages:

• Unified Operations: Manage both your retail and wholesale businesses from a single Shopify dashboard.
• Personalized Experiences: Deliver tailored content, pricing, and workflows for each B2B customer segment, whether they’re in London, Sydney, or Toronto.
• Cost-Effective & Flexible: Avoid the high costs of custom development or Shopify Plus for core B2B functionalities.
• Efficient Team: Automate manual processes, freeing up your sales and support teams.

The result? Your dealers receive the seamless, professional B2B experience they expect, no matter their location, and your brand establishes a powerful, efficient wholesale channel.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for Your Shopify Dealer Portal