Introduction
Shopify Plus is no longer just for brands that sell directly to customers. It will quickly become one of the best scalable B2B eCommerce solutions by 2025.
Companies are looking for solutions that can manage intricate wholesale demands without being hard to use as global B2B internet sales expand (over $19 trillion in 2024, on track for $47 trillion by 2030).
Shopify Plus has now ticked these things off. It has the same simple UI and capacity to grow in the cloud as enterprise-grade platforms.
Shopify is known for its unique features that are created particularly for B2B selling. Shopify Plus has everything that today's wholesalers need, from custom pricing to interfaces with other systems. wholesalers require, from bespoke pricing to backend integrations.
What Modern B2B Buyers Expect
With many platforms and options to choose from, B2B buyers’ expectations have increased; they want something more than a simple order form. Successful B2B eCommerce solutions must address several key expectations and pain points:
Hyper‑Personalized Catalogs
- Beyond “Your Price”: Today’s buyers expect not just their negotiated rates, but product recommendations, related accessories, and volume‑savings bundles tailored to past orders.
- Why It’s Critical: B2B personalization drives 30% higher average order values in B2B, yet fewer than 10% of portals go beyond basic pricing customization.
Self‑Service Analytics & Reporting
- On‑Demand Spend Visibility: Give buyers dashboards showing their year‑to‑date spend, open invoices, and delivery performance.
- Why It’s Critical: 58% of procurement teams think that not being clear about costs makes reorders take longer, and they won't call your person every time they need a quick update.
Guided Selling & ROI Calculators
- Interactive Decision Tools: Add "Which pump fits my facility?" wizards or "Projected ROI over 12 months" calculators directly in the catalogue.
- Why It’s Critical: Complex buyers spend 20% more when they can model cost savings and performance in a portal, yet only 5% of sites offer built-in calculators.
Real‑Time Inventory Transparency
- Multi‑Location Stock Views: Show actual stock levels (with lead times) across fulfilment centres, and even reserve inventory for critical customers.
- Why It’s Critical: B2B companies can lose up to $1 million a year in sales because of unexpected backorders. Real-time data cuts that risk.
AI‑Driven Reorder Suggestions
- Smart Reminders: Use purchase‑pattern AI to prompt “Your last order of 500 widgets was 45 days ago, ready to reorder?”
- Why It’s Critical: Automated reminders boost repeat‑order rates by 25%, yet only a fraction of B2B portals leverage ML for proactive reorders.
Streamlined Approval Workflows
- Adaptive Routing: Order routes that change based on rules (for example, “All orders over $50,000 go to finance, orders of safety gear go to compliance”).
- Why We Need It: Automated routing cuts approval times by 40% compared to email chains.
Flexible Payment & Credit Management
- What it is: Credit limits and invoice due dates that adjust based on a customer’s order history and payment record.
- Why We Need It: Flexible terms keep orders moving during peak seasons and reduce billing disputes.
Mobile‑First Wholesale Experience
- On‑Site & In‑Field Ordering: A sales rep or facility manager can scan a part barcode with their phone, add it to the cart, and submit a PO from anywhere.
- Why it matters: More than half of B2B product searches start on mobile; slow or clumsy mobile sites cost sales.
Compliance, Security & Audit Trails
- Embedded Compliance Checks: For regulated industries (pharma, aerospace), automatically flag restricted SKUs, require document uploads, or enforce export controls.
- Why It’s Critical: Non‑compliance fines can reach tens of thousands per incident, and buyers need portals that enforce rules, not just list products.
Omnichannel Integration
- Unified Experience: Whether buyers start on chat, an email, or in the portal, their cart, quotes, and order history follow them seamlessly.
- Why It’s Critical: 84% of B2B buyers want the same cross‑channel ease they get in B2C. Fragmented experiences drive them back to reps or to competitors.
Reveation Labs offers expert B2B eCommerce consulting to drive growth and digital transformation.
B2B eCommerce Solutions on Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus has transformed itself to meet B2B requirements, making it a strong contender among scalable eCommerce platforms for wholesale. It introduces a host of B2B features and integrations that address the needs outlined above:
Shared Company Accounts
- Multiple Logins, One Account: You can set up a single “company” profile that dozens of employees log into, each with their own username and password.
- Role Controls & Approvals: Decide who can browse, who can order, and who signs off. For instance, a purchasing agent places the order, and a manager gets an automatic alert to approve it.
Custom Pricing & Payment Terms
- Tiered Discounts: Offer volume or loyalty discounts automatically. Buy 100 units? Get 5% off. Buy 1,000? Get 10% off.
- Net Terms & Invoicing: Let trusted customers pay on terms (e.g., Net 30) instead of upfront credit‑card payment. Shopify can send them an invoice and remind them when it’s due.
Easy Reordering & Subscriptions
- One‑Click Reorders: Buyers see a “Reorder” button for past purchases, making repeat buying as fast as a single click.
- Auto‑Ship & Subscriptions: Set up regular shipments (weekly, monthly, quarterly) so customers never run out of stock.
Flexible “Headless” Front‑Ends
- Brand‑Built Portals: Use Shopify as the engine but build a completely custom storefront, on your domain, with your own look and feel.
- Mobile Apps or Portals: If your clients prefer an app or a specialized portal, you can still power it with Shopify’s backend for orders, inventory, and pricing.
Built‑In Checkout for Wholesalers
- Company‑Aware Checkout: The checkout recognizes the customer’s contract pricing, any purchase order number they need, and applies tax‑exempt status if eligible.
- Special Shipping Rules: Enforce minimum order sizes, limit carriers, or hide certain methods for specific customers, all in the regular Shopify checkout.
Seamless Back‑Office Sync
- ERP & Inventory Integration: Keep your stock levels and prices in sync with systems like NetSuite or Microsoft Dynamics, so you never oversell or run manual updates.
- Automated Workflows: Set up simple “if this, then that” rules (using Shopify Flow) to, say, notify finance when a big order comes in or tag orders for special handling.
You get a single platform that handles both consumer‑facing stores and complex wholesale operations. No more patching together separate portals, manual price spreadsheets, or custom billing systems. Shopify Plus gives you:
- A unified customer experience
- Faster launch of new B2B channels
- Reduced manual work and fewer errors
Shopify Plus isn’t just a B2C platform retrofitted for wholesale – it’s now B2B eCommerce solutions in its own right, with the feature set to prove it. The combination of Shopify’s ease-of-use with these powerful B2B capabilities enables companies to launch robust wholesale portals quickly and cost-effectively.
Successful eCommerce implementation on Shopify Plus enables B2B brands to streamline operations, enhance customer experience, and scale faster with advanced automation & integrations.
Real B2B Use Cases on Shopify Plus
These features aren’t just theoretical – many organizations are already leveraging Shopify Plus as their B2B online store platform. Here are a few quick examples across industries:
Brooklinen’s Hospitality & Trade Program
- Self‑Serve B2B Portal: Replaced manual phone orders with an online store that lets hospitality buyers place bulk orders themselves, freeing up 80% of the team’s time to focus on customer relationships rather than data entry.
- DTC‑Level Experience for B2B: Mirrored their consumer site’s look and feel, while surfacing contract-specific prices and payment options, so wholesale clients get a familiar, frictionless shopping journey.
- Automated Back‑Office Tasks: Used Shopify Flow and built‑in B2B tools to automate order confirmations, reorder reminders, and account management, cutting manual admin work and reducing errors.
Hightower’s Custom Quote & ERP‑Driven Furniture Portal
- Interactive Self‑Service Quotes: Launched a custom app where designers configure and submit quotes directly within the site, no more email chains, so 80% of orders start with self‑service, yet still hand off to project managers when high‑touch follow‑up is needed.
- Unified PIM & NetSuite Sync: Integrated Shopify Plus with an internal PIM and NetSuite ERP, creating a single source of truth for product data and inventory, which slashed manual catalog updates and eliminated duplicate entries.
- Scalable, Future‑Proof Platform: Migrated from a static catalog to a fully scalable B2B storefront, giving Hightower the infrastructure to roll out new products, pricing tiers, and UX enhancements in days instead of months.
613 Originals’ End‑to‑End Shopify Plus + PACE ERP Integration
- Centralized Catalog & Real‑Time Sync: Consolidated 6,000+ SKUs into Shopify’s native catalog and built a Node.js middleware for sub‑5‑second updates between PACE ERP and Shopify, driving error rates below 0.2% and eliminating overnight batch delays.
- Dramatic Time & Cost Savings: Cut administrative reconciliation (previously ~10 hrs/week) and monthly data‑export tasks (8 hrs/month) to near zero, while decommissioning legacy servers and reducing hosting costs by 30%.
- Accelerated Release Cycles & Agility: Transitioned from three‑week deployments on legacy systems to two‑day sprints on Shopify Plus, enabling rapid launches of new B2B pricing models, promotions, and workflow automations.
Final Thoughts
Shopify Plus has grown into a true B2B platform. It offers the scalability, security, and ease-of-use of Shopify’s infrastructure, now paired with wholesale-centric features like custom B2B catalog management, account hierarchies, and integrations.
In the vast competitive industry of B2B eCommerce solutions, Shopify Plus proves that a cloud-hosted, user-friendly platform can also handle enterprise B2B needs.
Businesses that once felt forced toward clunky, expensive “enterprise” commerce systems may find that Shopify Plus now gives them the best of both worlds, a scalable eCommerce platform that is agile and feature-rich enough for B2B.
Not sure if Shopify Plus fits your needs? Get a free Shopify B2B Fit Audit. Engage with our team to evaluate your requirements and see if Shopify’s wholesale capabilities align with your business goals.
Shopify Plus in 2025 is not just for D2C brands – it’s a powerful B2B solution that just might be the right fit to fuel your company’s next phase of growth.
Reveation Labs is a leading Shopify Plus Development Company helping brands build, scale, and succeed with Shopify Plus.
