Key Takeaways:
What is Shopify wholesale?
Shopify wholesale is a B2B selling model where merchants offer bulk pricing to business buyers through a Shopify store using tiered pricing, volume discounts, customer-specific price lists, and minimum order quantities for retailers, distributors, and resellers.
Can I run both a retail and wholesale store on a single Shopify store?
Yes. Shopify lets you sell to both retail and wholesale customers from one store by using customer logins, approval flows, and pricing rules that show different prices, products, or collections to B2B buyers without affecting retail shoppers.
Can you sell wholesale on Shopify without Shopify Plus?
Yes. You can sell wholesale on Shopify without Shopify Plus by using third-party wholesale apps that support customer-specific pricing, tiered and volume discounts, wholesale logins, and essential B2B workflows on standard Shopify plans.
What type of features should a Shopify wholesale store have?
A well-built Shopify wholesale store combines custom B2B pricing, customer-group-based discounts, wholesale logins, bulk ordering tools, and app integrations that manage pricing visibility and wholesale workflows efficiently. Read more about features >
How do I set up a wholesale store on Shopify?
You can run a Shopify wholesale store by choosing between Shopify Plus or a third-party wholesale app, depending on your scale and budget. Most merchants use apps to add B2B pricing, customer access, and bulk ordering without changing their existing Shopify plan.
This guide explains how to set up and run a Shopify wholesale store, including B2B pricing, volume discounts, customer access, and wholesale workflows. It covers the key features a wholesale setup should include and the different ways merchants can implement wholesale on Shopify, with or without Shopify Plus.
Table of Contents
How Shopify Supports Wholesale Selling
Shopify helps you create a wholesale selling experience on your store through native B2B features available on Shopify Plus and through third-party wholesale apps like Wholesale Pricing Discount B2B, which enable wholesale pricing, customer segmentation, and bulk ordering on standard Shopify plans.
Shopify Plus provides built-in B2B tools such as company profiles, price lists, and buyer-specific pricing for enterprise merchants.
Third-party wholesale apps allow most Shopify merchants to run wholesale pricing, tiered discounts, and B2B workflows without upgrading to Shopify Plus.
Both approaches support running retail and wholesale from a single Shopify store.
Why Shopify Works Well for Wholesale Selling
Shopify works well for wholesale selling because it supports customer-specific pricing, scalable product catalogs, and integrations that allow merchants to manage both retail and B2B sales from a single store.
Shopify’s theme system, checkout, and payment infrastructure make it possible to create a wholesale buying experience that supports bulk orders, volume discounts, and business-friendly payment methods such as invoicing or net payment terms.
In addition, with the variety of Shopify apps available for wholesale, merchants can add wholesale-specific functionalities to their store, such as tiered pricing, custom order forms, and pricing rules—without rebuilding their store or maintaining separate wholesale and retail websites.
This flexibility makes Shopify a practical platform for merchants who want to introduce wholesale alongside their existing retail operations or your maketplace listings such as on Faire or Amazon.
Live Shopify wholesale store examples
Below are some successful examples of Shopify wholesale stores that use different wholesale setups to sell products in bulk to B2B customers. Each example highlights a common wholesale pattern that merchants can replicate on their own Shopify stores.
1. Botaone
Botaone is a Shopify-based brand focused on Korean skincare and haircare products. The store offers wholesale pricing for bulk purchases and maintains a dedicated wholesale section for approved B2B buyers, allowing retailers and distributors to place larger orders at discounted rates.
Wholesale pattern: Dedicated wholesale section + bulk purchase discounts
2. OCN Distribution
OCN Distribution uses Shopify to support wholesale ordering for physical media manufacturing and fulfillment. The company provides a separate wholesale customer onboarding form, enabling businesses to apply for wholesale access and receive a more personalized B2B buying experience.
Wholesale pattern: Wholesale registration and approval workflow
3. The Nut Garden
The Nut Garden sells food products such as nuts, chocolates, and candies through its Shopify store. The business supports wholesale sales by offering bulk discounts and a wholesale order form that allows B2B customers to place large orders efficiently.
Wholesale pattern: Bulk discounts + wholesale order form
4. Mandrn
Mandrn sells handmade leather bags through a Shopify storefront and offers wholesale pricing to approved B2B customers. Wholesale buyers must apply through a dedicated account creation form before accessing wholesale pricing and placing bulk orders.
Wholesale pattern: Wholesale signup + restricted pricing access
Why these examples matter
These Shopify wholesale stores demonstrate that wholesale can be implemented in multiple ways—through pricing rules, customer approval flows, or dedicated order forms—while still operating from a single Shopify store. Merchants can choose the wholesale setup that best matches their products, buyers, and operational needs.
How to Sell Wholesale on Shopify (Step-by-Step)
Selling wholesale on Shopify typically involves preparing your store, choosing how you’ll handle B2B pricing, and setting up customer access and ordering workflows. Below is a practical five-step process most merchants follow to launch wholesale alongside retail from a single Shopify store.
Step 1: Prepare Your Shopify Store
Before setting up wholesale, you need a working Shopify store with the basics in place. This includes:
i. An active Shopify account
ii. A connected domain name
iii. Products ready for wholesale sale
iv. Payment and checkout configuration
If you already run a Shopify store, you can skip this step. Wholesale features are usually added on top of an existing retail setup rather than built from scratch.
Step 2: Choose a Theme and Configure Store Content
Your Shopify theme should support clear product layouts and flexible customization for wholesale content. Most modern Shopify themes work well for wholesale when paired with the right pricing and access controls.
At this stage, merchants typically:
i. Upload products and variants
ii. Add clear product descriptions and images
iii. Ensure the cart and checkout experience works smoothly for larger orders
No wholesale-specific theme is required, but clarity and usability matter for B2B buyers placing bulk orders.
Step 3: Decide How You’ll Run Wholesale (Plus or App-Based)
Shopify wholesale can be implemented in two ways: using Shopify Plus or using a third-party wholesale app on a standard Shopify plan.
i. Shopify Plus includes native B2B features such as company profiles and price lists.
ii. Third-party wholesale apps allow most merchants to run wholesale pricing, customer segmentation, and bulk ordering without upgrading to Shopify Plus.
Wholesale apps are commonly used to:
i. Show different prices to wholesale customers
ii. Apply tiered or volume-based discounts
iii. Control who can see wholesale pricing
iv. Support wholesale ordering workflows
This approach allows retail and wholesale customers to shop from the same Shopify store with different pricing and access rules. The best way to find a wholesale app for your Shopify store is to search for a “wholesale app” in the Shopify app store. You can also ask your supplier if they have a preferred wholesale app.
Our Wholesale Pricing Discount app will help you create a separate wholesale section, or you can also embed the wholesale product prices in your current theme and show these prices to specific customers (using customer tags). It means your retail customers see retail prices and wholesale customers see wholesale prices.
Step 4: Set Wholesale Pricing and Discount Rules
Once you’ve created your Shopify store, you need to set wholesale pricing and discounts on your products.
Here are some use cases of offering wholesale pricing/discount types:
i. Custom product pricing
ii. Free shipping thresholds
iii. Quantity-based pricing/discount
iv. Volume discounts
v. Wholesale bundle discounts
vi. Limited time wholesale deals
vii. Minimum order discounts
viii. Buy one, get one offers
ix. Pricing based on specific customer tags
x. Individual product variant pricing
Wholesale pricing is the price that wholesalers charge for products. Wholesalers typically buy products from suppliers in bulk and then sell those products to customers at a higher price.
Step 5: Set Up Wholesale Customer Access and Onboarding
Once pricing rules are in place, the next step is controlling who can access wholesale pricing. Most Shopify wholesale stores do this through a registration or approval process.
Common approaches include:
i. Wholesale signup forms
ii. Manual approval of B2B customers
iii. Customer tags that unlock wholesale pricing after login
This ensures only approved wholesale buyers can view discounted prices and place bulk orders, while retail customers continue to see standard pricing.
Bonus: Restrict or Hide Wholesale Content When Needed
If you have more specific requirements, for example, hiding certain products, prices, collections or specific pages from your specific retail customers, there are ways to lock or hide pages on Shopify.
You can also use a third-party app like Wholesale Lock Manager, which will help you do this without requiring any coding knowledge.
💸 Not using Shopify Plus? No problem. You can still run a full-featured wholesale store using affordable Shopify apps.
👉 Here’s our complete guide on how to sell wholesale without Shopify Plus —save $2,200+/month while unlocking tiered pricing, customer-specific rules, and net terms.
6 Best Shopify Wholesale Apps In the Market
Wholesale apps make it easy to sell wholesale on Shopify. Here are six of the best Shopify wholesale solutions for businesses:
1. Wholesale Pricing Discount B2B
Wholesale Pricing Discount B2B app is one of the best wholesale apps for Shopify store owners that want to integrate a wholesale experience in their stores. The app offers many good features such as custom pricing, minimum quantity discount, set flat price for products, wholesale signup form, etc., making it a complete B2B wholesale solution.
Features
- Discount groups
- Volume discounts
- Individual variant discount
- Wholesale signup form
- Offer net payment terms
- Shopify Markets Integration
Pricing
- 14-day free trial is available
- Basic plan – $24.99 per month
- Professional plan – $44.99 per month
- Enterprise plan – $49.99 per month
- Global plan – $64.99 per month
2. WSH Order Form & ReOrder
With the WSH Order Form & ReOrder, you receive an interface to take custom orders from your wholesale or B2B customers. This app offers you many useful features such as total customization of form fields, adding barcodes and SKUs, setting increment quantity per ‘+’ click for product add to cart, and much more.
Features
- Take bulk orders
- Repeat order or update past orders
- Set minimum, maximum, or qty. increments for products
- Customize the order form to match your website
Pricing
- 8-day free trial is available
- Basic plan – $15.99 per month
- Professional plan – $19.99 per month
- Enterprise plan – $24.99 per month
3. Wholesale Lock Manager
Wholesale Lock Manager allows Shopify store owners to lock or hide pages on their store. It also offers other features that can make the store or specific pages password-protected.
Features
- Hide or lock products from your retail customers
- Show products to only selected customers, logged-in users, and visitors with a passcode
- Lock products, collections, pages, specific URLs, and the entire store
- Hide product prices from website visitors and users
Pricing
- 8-day free trial is available
- Free for development and trial stores
- $9.99 per month
4. B2B Wholesale Hub
Using B2B Wholesale Hub, store owners can add wholesale functionality to their stores and show custom pricing to signed-in customers. There are other important features too.
Features
- Login to see wholesale pricing
- Create discounts connected to customer tags
- Create multiple discount groups
- Hide product prices from website visitors and users
- Shopify POS compatible
Pricing
- 30-day free trial available
- Basic plan – $39 per month
- Professional plan – $69 per month
- Premium plan – $99 per month
5. BSS: B2B & Wholesale Solution
This is another widely used wholesale app that offers b2b features to Shopify businesses that want to run seamless wholesale operations on their store.
Features
- Display unlimited quantity breaks
- Accept wholesale accounts manually
- Autotag wholesale customers/orders
- Order limits
- Variant based pricing
- Form conditional logic
- API for pricing
Pricing
- 14-day free trial available
- Free plan for development and partner stores
- ESSENTIAL PLAN – $25 per month
- ADVANCED PLAN – $50 per month
- PLATINUM – $100 per month
6. Wholesale Gorilla
The Wholesale Gorilla app is designed to provide a wholesale experience to the store owners. This app also offers features such as wholesale pricing and order management and more.
Features
- Override shipping of retail settings with wholesale shipping
- Quick order form
- Hide products from wholesale/retail customers
- Place an order and pay later
- Wholesale registration form
Pricing
- 21-day free trial available
- Essential plan – $34.95 per month
- Advanced plan – $69.95 per month
- Premium plan – $149.95
If you’re looking for the most effective tools to streamline your wholesale operations, check out our breakdown of the 8 best Shopify wholesale apps to boost efficiency and scale faster.
Summary
Shopify wholesale allows merchants to expand into B2B selling by offering bulk pricing, tiered discounts, and wholesale-specific buying experiences within a single Shopify store. Whether using Shopify Plus or third-party wholesale apps, merchants can create scalable wholesale workflows that support larger orders, repeat buyers, and long-term B2B growth.
FAQs
What are the benefits of Shopify wholesale?
Running a wholesale store on Shopify helps you connect with businesses that are interested buying your products in bulk quantities and at discounted prices. Further, Shopify wholesale benefits your business with increased revenue and high average order value (AOV).
Shopify Wholesale vs Retail Management?
Shopify wholesale vs retail management comes down to how you handle pricing, customer relationships, and order volume. Retail management focuses on selling individual items to consumers at fixed prices, while wholesale management involves bulk orders, custom pricing tiers, B2B account control, and often restricted access to wholesale-only products. Shopify supports both models, especially when using apps or Shopify Plus features that streamline wholesale workflows.
How do I choose to display discounts to only wholesale customers on Shopify?
You can display discounted product pricing to your specific customers by assigning a specific ‘tag’ to them. You can find more information on this here.
How does Wholesale differ from Dropshipping?
Dropshipping is a type of business where you can sell multiple products to your customers without the need to manage a physical inventory. Whenever a customer buys a product from your online dropshipping store, the supplier you partnered with, fulfills that order on your behalf.
On the other hand, Wholesale is a type of business where you buy a large number of required products for your physical inventory from a direct manufacturer or supplier and sell those products to your retail customers in bulk. Wholesale businesses typically target other businesses that are ready to buy products at bulk quantities and at wholesale prices.
What type of discounts and pricing can I offer using Wholesale Pricing Discount app?
With Wholesale Pricing Discount app, you can offer volume discounts, tiered pricing, percentage discount, individual variant pricing, and more.
We hope this Shopify wholesale article has answered all your questions regarding selling wholesale in your Shopify store. Let us know in the comments if we missed anything. Thanks for reading! 🙂
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Shopify absolutely sucks for wholesale. I’ve spent more time over the past two years testing, implementing, and being disappointed with wholesale apps (from the app store) for the standard tiers of Shopify than I care to remember. What you fail to mention is that Shopify Plus costs a minimum of $2,000/mo … and it’s awesome, if you can afford it—Plus wasn’t built for small businesses. Every penny of development and every suggested feature is wrapped into Plus. Shopify standard tiers haven’t seen a single significant upgrade in nearly a decade.
Nothing, and I mean nothing, in the standard tiers (Basic through Enterprise) is set up to help small business owners be successful. The basic system is worthless until you start spending money on apps for basic features that every online store needs to be able to sell online. I would dump Shopify in a heartbeat if there was a comparable option, especially for wholesale. All of the examples you give above are patches that fall short in one way or another.
Hey Paul,
As a Shopify wholesale app provider, we understand your frustrations and concerns. It’s disheartening to hear that your experience with wholesale apps on Shopify’s standard tiers hasn’t met your expectations. While Shopify Plus offers robust features tailored for larger enterprises, we acknowledge that it may not be feasible for every business due to its cost.
We strive to bridge the gap between the needs of small businesses and the capabilities of our wholesale apps. Our aim is to provide essential features and support to help businesses succeed, regardless of their size or budget constraints. We continuously listen to feedback from merchants like you to improve our offerings and address pain points.
While we understand your desire for a comparable alternative. And we’re committed to enhancing our wholesale solutions to better serve your needs.
We encourage you to share specific features or functionalities you believe are lacking so we can work towards addressing them. Your feedback is invaluable in guiding our development efforts and ensuring we provide a platform that empowers businesses to thrive in the competitive e-commerce landscape.
Check our wholesale apps here: https://apps.shopify.com/partners/goldj
🙂