Want to make B2B buying on Shopify feel effortless? This guide shows you exactly how to build a customer-only portal with custom catalogs, tiered pricing, and one-click approvals—no plugins that break, no coding headaches.
What is a Shopify B2B ordering portal?
A B2B ordering portal in Shopify is a private, login-only storefront unique to each wholesale buyer. A few things to know:
- Companies can open their unique accounts and see the catalogs and payment terms/price lists assigned to them
- Companies can assign different roles to team members in the portal (buyer and approver)
- You can assign a different team member to handle each separate company account
- All the data for the customer remains isolated and secured
- They are the fastest alternative to speed up reorders
Who needs B2B ordering portals?
Every B2B business that wants to get the best out of Shopify B2B will want to offer an ordering portal to its buyers. Plus, over 75% of B2B buyers in 2025 are willing to switch suppliers for a better digital experience.
A figure too high not to do all you can to improve your UX.
The prerequisites to have
Before getting into the guide, you need to have the following:
- You must be on Shopify Plus to access companies, price lists, and catalogs
- B2B on Shopify is enabled
- Ensure new customer accounts are enabled
A good tip is to ensure your product data is organized with unique SKUs and variants.
Step 1 - Set up a new company
The first step is to set up a new company from the Shopify dashboard. The instructions below will take you to the new company page dashboard, where all information is already filled in.
Step 2 - Create locations
A company needs at least one location, as all the orders, catalog, price lists, and payment terms are linked directly to the location, not the company. You could save the company without adding a location, but you wouldn’t be able to add any of the former to it.
If a company has multiple locations, you need to assign the above to each of them.
Step 3 - Assign company user (customers)
Once you have created a location for the store, you can assign company users to it. These are from the buyer’s side and can take up different roles:
- Ordering only: can view catalogs and place orders
- Location admin: approves orders
Once you enter their data, an automated email will be sent to them with an invitation to access the portal.
The login flow for users
There are two scenarios to consider here.
-
For Invited buyer: You sent the Invite email → the set password → lands on the portal with the assigned catalog/prices.
- For New buyer: They request access (via form) → the team internal review → Company + user created → welcome email → login.
You can automate the login flow
There are options to automate the login flow with some dev work.
- Manual: Add a ‘request access’ button on the welcome page above (or anywhere on your site) that takes you to a form created with the Forms app.
In this case, you should request all the relevant information we mentioned above for each company, along with a link to each company's website and notes.
- Automated: Using Shopify Flow, you can automate the process of receiving a new submission if there’s internal approval needed. Whenever a request with the tag ‘whosale-reuqest’ comes through, Flow creates a new company page and user and assigns a default catalog and price.
If this is what you are after, a call with our dev team can guide you through how we’ve applied it in the past and the impact it had.
Step 4 - Catalogs and price lists
Each company portal can be tailored to receive all the negotiated terms on products and prices. This is Shopify Plus’ superpower for increasing repeat purchases.
First, let’s build a product catalog for a company following the instructions in the image below. Unlike collections, where prices, payment terms, and quantity rules are set at the product level, catalogs allow for each product to appear with different parameters in every catalog.
Besides price lists for each company, assign company rules on quantity and volume pricing for each catalog. In the example above, we set the following rules:
- Customers must purchase at least 4 units and can buy up to 12 units.
- For orders of 9 units or more, the price per unit drops to $12.00.
- Orders between 4 to 8 units will be priced at the standard price of $39.99.
The table below will help clear up any confusion between collections and catalogs, if there still is any.
| Collections | B2B Catalogs | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Grouping products for navigation or merchandising (e.g., “Winter Sale”, “New Arrivals”).) | Grouping + controlling which products and pricing a specific business customer (company/location) can see & buy. |
| Pricing control | No: Collections do not by themselves change prices; they simply group products. | Yes: Catalogs let you apply “overall adjustment” (percentage) + fixed override prices + quantity/volume rules. |
| Assignment | Collections are assigned to storefront navigation or product listings for all customers. | Catalogs are assigned per company location (or per B2B customer context), so each business might see a different catalog and pricing. |
| Quantity/volume rules | Typically not built-in via collections (requires apps/customisation) | Yes — built-in B2B catalogs, you can set quantity rules & volume pricing for products in the catalog. |
The final step is to assign a catalog to a company's location.
Catalog pricing (price lists) vs quantity rules vs volume pricing
| What it does | Where it applies | Set in | Example use | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Catalog pricing | Sets fixed or %-adjusted prices per company/location | Entire catalog (product/variant level) | Products → Catalogs → Manage products & pricing | Company A sees SKU X @ $8.90; Company B @ $9.50 |
| Quantity rules | Controls order limits (min/max/increments) | Product or variant within a catalog | Products → Catalogs → Product → Quantity rules | Must buy ≥ 6 units, in multiples of 6 |
| Volume pricing | Applies tiered unit prices by quantity | Product or variant within a catalog | Products → Catalogs → Product → Volume pricing | 1–9 = $10 • 10–49 = $9.50 • 50+ = $9 |
In other words
- Catalog pricing defines who pays what.
- Quantity rules define how much they can buy.
- Volume pricing defines how the price changes with quantity.
Step 5 - Assign payment terms for each company
B2B buyers have very different needs from D2C buyers. Payment terms are essential for every company to streamline the checkout process.
You can assign different payment terms to each company dashboard, as shown below.
What do buyers see?
The front end of an ordering portal is straightforward and to the point. For each location, there is one section dedicated to order history and one section that takes buyers to the shop where the catalogs assigned to them are listed.
Ordering portals and store architecture for Global B2B
If you’re store is selling internationally, you can tailor the buyer’s experience based on locations in two ways.
- Use Expansion stores and create a separate store for each.
Expansion stores are traditionally used by big merchants who require complete operational independence and often separate legal entities for each location. In practice, this means having a separate website for each location, with its own B2B catalogs and ordering portals.
- Use Shopify Markets and manage everything in one platform.
As of lately, Shopify markets allows for managing multi-entity, multi-currency, and market-specific catalogs within one storefront. In practice, this means you can assign catalogs with different prices to different locations from the same dashboard.
Markets and catalog management are often preferred as they reduce duplication while maintaining localization flexibility.
Wrapping up - Get the best out of Shopify Plus
Setting up an ordering portal is a start, but there's much more that Shopify Plus offers for new and established merchants. It takes getting to know what your store needs first, then matching the correct set of tools.
ERPs, multichannel marketing tools, checkout customization, and full automation come next. There’s much to implement, but perhaps you don’t need to do all.
You could save precious time and costs by having an experienced partner on your side who knows exactly where your money is best invested and where the ROI is higher.
