Shopify for B2B Ecommerce: Features, pricing, and why it works

For years, Shopify has had a bit of an image problem in the B2B world

It’s traditionally been seen as the go-to ecommerce CMS for fashion website and slick consumer brands.

But Shopify isn’t just for the latest coffee subscription or luxury skincare brand anymore. It’s evolved into a seriously powerful B2B platform, and it’s quietly powering some of the biggest wholesale and trade operations out there.

Shopify is built for speed and ease

B2B sites can often be slow, clunky, and full of “download our price list” buttons. Shopify flips that on its head with fast load times, mobile-first design, and an optimised checkout that’s built for speed and high conversions.

Hosting that just works

Hosting, security, and updates are all handled by Shopify. You don’t need to worry about downtime because your server decided to take the afternoon off.

Plays nicely with your existing systems

Got a CRM, ERP, or warehouse management system you can’t live without? Shopify’s API and huge app ecosystem make integration painless.

Popular CRMs like HubSpot, Salesforce, and Zoho CRM all have tried-and-tested Shopify integrations, so your sales team can see order history, track leads, and manage accounts without jumping between systems.

Whether it’s syncing live stock levels, pulling through customer-specific pricing, or automating fulfilment, you can usually hook it up.

For ERPs, platforms like NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics 365, SAP Business One, and Brightpearl by Sage all connect directly or via middleware tools, meaning your product data, inventory, and order workflows stay in sync automatically.

Traditionally Magento has ruled the roost here, but Shopify’s maturity means your online store isn’t a standalone island, it’s now a seamless part of your wider operations, keeping data consistent and saving your team a ton of manual admin.

Shopify is excellent for SEO

Shopify’s SEO tools give you everything you need to rank well on Google.

Out of the box, you get all the basics covered, in editable meta titles and descriptions, alt text for images, clean URLs, automatic sitemaps, and mobile-friendly themes.

It also handles all the boring but important stuff in the background, like fast loading speeds, SSL certificates, and a clean site structure.

If you want to go deeper, Shopify has plenty of SEO-focused apps and integrations for things like advanced schema markup, 301 redirects, and blog optimisation. There’s a host of good SEO apps that give you the equivalent of something like Yoast for WordPress sites, and two that we frequently use and recommend are SearchPie and Booster. Go for the paid editions though.

The main thing to know is this: Shopify gives you a strong foundation for SEO, but the platform alone isn’t a magic bullet. You’ll still need good content, strong product descriptions, and a plan for building links, but the tech side definitely won’t hold you back.

What other B2B features does Shopify have?

Shopify has features that make B2B selling so much easier:

• Customer-specific pricing and payment terms
• Restricted product visibility for different accounts
• Dedicated wholesale storefronts alongside your retail site
• Easy reordering from past purchases and saved carts for repeat orders
• Quick order forms, volume discounts, and minimum/maximum quantities for bulk buying
• Multi-location inventory management and advanced wholesale reporting
• Custom shipping rates, including freight, pallet, and click-and-collect options
• Self-service account management so customers can update details and track orders

These tools cover everything from pricing and ordering to shipping and account management, giving you the flexibility to run B2B and B2C side by side without the chaos. Some are available natively in Shopify Plus whilst others can be acheived via apps.

Can Shopify manage wholesale pricing for different customer groups?

Absolutely – and it’s one of the big reasons more B2B businesses are moving to Shopify.

Out of the box, standard Shopify is geared towards a single pricing structure, but there are a few ways to handle wholesale or tiered pricing depending on your setup:

1. Shopify Plus

If you’re on Shopify Plus, you can create company profiles with their own price lists, order minimums, and tailored product visibility. That means you can have Customer A seeing one set of prices, Customer B seeing another, and both ordering through the same site.

2. Wholesale / Custom Pricing Apps

If Plus isn’t in the budget, there are excellent apps (like SparkLayer or Wholesale Pricing Discount) that let you set customer tags and assign different discounts or price levels to them. It’s a bit more manual, but still a smooth experience for your buyers.

The result?

Your retail and trade customers each see the right products at the right price – no awkward “email us for a trade quote” or clunky spreadsheets. It’s all in one place, easy to manage, and simple for your customers to order from.

Can it scale as we grow though?

Yes. Shopify can comfortably handle growth without turning into a technical nightmare. Whether your catalogue expands, you add new warehouses, or you start selling into multiple regions with different tax rules, the platform is built to cope.

You can manage large product ranges, complex inventory setups, and multiple sales channels from the same dashboard. And because Shopify handles the hosting and infrastructure, you don’t need to worry about site speed or downtime as traffic and order volumes increase.

When you’re ready to add new functionality like subscriptions, bundles, or even moving into B2C alongside wholesale, it’s just a case of enabling the right features or apps, not rebuilding your entire site.

It’s as future-proof as you can get

Shopify isn’t sitting still. They’re constantly adding new features, improving performance, and staying ahead of how people buy online. You’re not buying into something that’ll be outdated in three years, you’re joining an ecosystem that’s only getting stronger.

Future-proofing isn’t just about tech, though, it’s also about offering the buying experience your customers expect, from how they pay to how they order.

Flexible payment options for B2B buyers

One of the big differences between B2B and B2C is how payments work. Your trade customers might be on 30-day terms, prefer to pay via bank transfer, or want to place an order with a purchase order number rather than a credit card.

Shopify Plus makes this easy as you can set custom payment terms for different customers, automatically send invoices, and track when payments are due.

Of course, you can still accept all the usual card payments and digital wallets, and Shopify even supports fully integrated crypto payments through its Coinbase stablecoin integration.

If you’re not on Plus, you can still use apps like Invoicify, or Wholesale Gorilla to create invoicing workflows, enable bank transfer payments, and handle purchase orders without a messy manual process.

Selling globally with multi-language and multi-currency support

If you’ve got international customers, Shopify makes going global far less painful than you might think. You can display prices in different currencies, show the right taxes for each region, and even offer local payment methods, all without running separate stores for every country.

On Shopify Plus, you can go further by creating dedicated storefronts per region, each with local language, currency, and product mix. This means your German customers see prices in euros, your US customers in dollars, and your UK buyers in pounds, all with the correct tax rules applied automatically.

How does it compare to other ecommerce platforms?

For years, B2B ecommerce has been dominated by platforms like Magento (now Adobe Commerce), SAP Commerce Cloud, and BigCommerce. They’ve traditionally been seen as the “serious” choice for wholesale, with built-in features for complex pricing, bulk ordering, and ERP integrations.

Magento in particular has been the go-to for large-scale B2B projects, offering deep customisation, but that flexibility often comes at a cost in longer build times, heavier ongoing maintenance, and a need for dedicated developers just to keep things running smoothly.

Shopify has closed the gap in recent years.

With Shopify Plus, you get many of the same B2B capabilities but without the heavy technical overhead. You can get a store live faster, manage it with a smaller team, and still scale as your business grows.

This doesn’t mean platforms like Magento don’t have their place. If you need extremely niche, complex functionality that’s deeply tied into a legacy tech stack, it can still be a solid option. But for many B2B businesses today, Shopify offers 90% of the capability with a fraction of the hassle.

What does it cost?

Shopify comes with three different subscription models for businesses:

• Grow – £65 per month
• Advanced – £344 per month
• Plus – starting at around $2,300 USD per month (approx. £1,704 GBP)

For most of our clients, we recommend the Advanced plan, which comes with 15 staff accounts and supports multiple storefronts. While the lower subscription tiers like Advanced (and even Grow) don’t include Shopify’s built-in B2B features, it’s still entirely possible to create a full-featured B2B store using a collection of third-party apps (similar to plugins).

These apps can add wholesale pricing, gated access, tiered discounts, and other trade-specific tools, but they do come with extra monthly costs, take longer to set up, and will require ongoing maintenance to keep everything working smoothly.

Shopify Advanced + Apps

With the Advanced plan, you can achieve a fully functional B2B store by adding several specialist apps for features like wholesale pricing, tiered discounts, customer-specific catalogues, gated access, and order forms.

Pros

• Lower monthly subscription cost
• Flexibility to choose, replace, or remove apps over time
• Suitable for simpler or smaller-scale B2B needs
• Ability to trial features individually before committing

Cons

• Reliance on multiple third-party apps for core business operations
• Longer development time due to integration and testing of several apps
• More complex long-term maintenance and support management

Shopify Plus

Shopify Plus includes all essential B2B functionality natively – such as tiered pricing, customer-specific catalogues, net terms, and gated access, without the need for third-party apps.

Pros

• All core B2B tools built in and fully supported by Shopify
• Faster time to launch, potentially cutting weeks off development
• Lower ongoing maintenance with fewer moving parts
• Enterprise-level support and account management

Cons

• Significantly higher monthly subscription cost
• Cost advantage only realised if full B2B features are required
• May still require some third-party apps for non-core features

Final thought

If you’re still taking B2B orders by email, over the phone, or through a portal that looks like it hasn’t been updated since 2008… you’re creating unnecessary friction for your customers.

Modern buyers expect the same speed, simplicity, and transparency in their work purchases as they get when shopping online at home. If you don’t give it to them, someone else will.

Shopify lets you deliver that experience – a fast, reliable, and flexible store that works for your customers and your team, without months of custom development or a never-ending stream of maintenance headaches. All the tools you need to sell B2B online are right there, ready to grow with you.