B2B online store: customer pricing, quotes and reorders

Many companies that sell to other companies still take orders by email, by phone or on a scanned purchase order. The salesperson re-keys, customer service checks the negotiated price in a spreadsheet, the invoice goes out two days late. A B2B online store does not remove that work by magic, but it takes out the repetitive part: the part where the customer already knows what they want.

This guide describes what a B2B store must be able to do, what the platforms offer and what decides success, for a company of 20 to 500 people. It is part of our ecommerce articles.

Why business buyers order online

A buyer renewing an order of consumables does not need a meeting. A Gartner survey measures it:

The same study adds a nuance: buyers seek a seller’s input for decisions that need context, such as whether a product really fits their company. So the B2B store does not replace salespeople. It takes the repetitive orders and frees their time for the conversations where they count: a new range, a project, a negotiation.

What a B2B store must be able to do

• Show each customer’s prices. After login, the buyer sees their negotiated prices, volume discounts and the catalogue that concerns them, not the public price list.
• Respect their payment terms. Payment at 30 or 60 days, on invoice, with a purchase order number: the card is only one method among others. The fees of each payment method are compared in our article on the real fees of Stripe, PayPal and Shopify Payments.
• Handle the trade’s quantities. Sold by the box, minimum order, price tiers.
• Turn a quote into an order. Without anyone re-keying the lines.
• Reorder quickly. Take a past order, adjust it, send it.
• Welcome several buyers per account. With, if needed, a spending limit and approval by a manager.

A search that understands product codes counts double in B2B: buyers often type an item number rather than a name, which our article on online store search covers.

Customer pricing: catalogues and price lists

This is the function that sets a B2B store apart from a standard one. On Shopify, the overview of B2B features describes customer companies, each with its delivery locations, to which you assign catalogues: lists of products and prices specific to that customer or to a group. The Basic, Grow and Advanced plans allow up to three active catalogues, Shopify Plus an unlimited number, and you can add volume price breaks and quantity rules (sold in multiples of ten, minimum per order).

Three catalogues are enough for price grids by customer type (reseller, key account, distributor); they are not enough for prices negotiated customer by customer. This point often decides the plan, or the platform.

Quotes: when the price is negotiated

Many B2B sales still go through a quote: an unusual volume, a custom product, a specific lead time. The goal is to avoid re-keying between the accepted quote and the order.

Shopify handles this step with draft orders: the merchant can require a customer to go through a review before confirmation, lock the proposed prices, reserve the stock and send an invoice from the draft. Medusa, an open source platform, publishes an official starting point for B2B that includes customer company management, per-employee spending limits, approval workflows and quote negotiation with messaging.

Repeat orders: restocking in a few clicks

A business customer often orders the same thing, at the same pace. On Shopify, a logged-in buyer can repeat a past order: all the items return to the cart, ready to adjust before sending. The rest happens in the relationship:

• The reminder at the right time. An email when the usual restock is due, built like the repeat-purchase messages in our guide to store emails.
• The cart left in progress. A B2B buyer often prepares an order in several sittings; the reminder follows the rules of our guide to abandoned cart reminders, in a professional tone.
• Monitoring. The weekly figures detailed in the five numbers to track every week can also be read per customer: one who no longer orders at their usual pace deserves a call.

The link with the ERP: prices, stock and invoices

In a B2B company, negotiated prices, stock and invoicing rarely live in the store. They come from the ERP or the management software, and the store must reflect them faithfully. The quality of that synchronisation decides customer trust: a wrong price or stock shown as available when it is not costs more than an order by email. The principles are those of our article on inventory sync across your store, marketplaces and shop.

On the customer side, the single record that brings together orders, invoices and support exchanges is described in our article on the single customer view.

One store or two, and what Google sees

Shopify lets you sell to consumers and businesses in the same store, or open a B2B-only store. The shared store shares the catalogue and the search rankings; the separate store simplifies rules and display. Either way, decide what stays public:

• Product pages can remain visible to search engines, with full specifications and without business prices, following our article on the product page that converts.
• Negotiated prices stay behind the login.
• Reviews from business customers, when they exist, reassure as much as in B2C: see our article on customer reviews.

A catalogue of several thousand items is prepared before opening, with AI under human control, as our article on a catalogue of thousands of products describes. For customers in several countries, language, currency and tax questions follow our guide to the multilingual, multi-currency store.

Shopify, Medusa or something else

For price grids by customer type, payment terms and repeat orders, Shopify covers the essentials, within each plan’s catalogue limits. Medusa makes sense when commercial rules go beyond the frame (multi-level approval, many prices negotiated customer by customer, logic specific to your trade) and a team can keep the platform alive. The three-year calculation is in Shopify or Medusa: which to choose for an SME?. Before adding a B2B app to an existing store, do the sums described in our article on the cost of Shopify apps; and if the platform no longer keeps up, leaving Shopify without losing your SEO can be prepared.

Other sales channels remain open: professional marketplaces and Amazon raise the margin and dependency questions covered in our article on Amazon alongside your own store, and distributing the catalogue on Google follows our guide to preparing your store for Google Shopping and what makes a Google Shopping campaign rise or sink. On the operations side, the speed of a heavy catalogue (what a second costs in sales) and the cost of returns (a hidden cost to manage) matter as much as in B2C. Finally, automated buying agents are starting to visit stores: what to make of them is in websites are closing the door on AI agents.

Where to start

List your twenty most active business customers and what they order: their prices, their terms, their pace. If most of them reorder the same products on the same terms, a B2B store will save them time from the first month. Then check where prices and stock come from, and how they will reach the store. Our ecommerce service starts with this assessment, before choosing the platform.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. Shopify Help, B2B features (new tab)help.shopify.com
2. Shopify Help, quantity rules and volume pricing (new tab)help.shopify.com
3. Medusa, B2B Starter (new tab)github.com