From Showroom to Shopify

For years, Shopify's bread and butter has been Direct-to-Consumer (DTC). But if you're a brand balancing DTC with a wholesale business, or thinking about launching one, it's time to take a closer look at Shopify’s dramatically improved B2B offering. It’s no longer an afterthought or workaround. It’s an out-of-the box solution that finally speaks wholesale’s language.

Shopify B2B: Built for the Way Wholesale Works Today

Shopify has spent the last year overhauling its B2B features, and the result is a platform that covers what wholesale brands (and their retail buyer customers) actually need:

• Purchase Orders (POs) and Net Terms: Manage POs directly from your Shopify Admin, with net terms already built in.

• Company-Specific Catalogs and Pricing: Tailor product visibility and wholesale pricing for retail account or pricing tiers.

• Discount & Order Rules: Set unit and dollar minimums, quantity breaks, and account-specific discounts without clunky third-party tools.

• Personalized Storefront: The Trade theme is designed specifically for wholesale, optimized for buyers who want to place quick reorders or browse new lines efficiently.

• Unified Analytics: See DTC and B2B data in one place—so you can actually understand your top performers across channels and customer types.

• Built to Scale: Enterprise? No problem. Build your storefront via custom Liquid, Headless, or API connections tailored to your exact needs.

All this on top of Shopify’s core strengths: lightning-fast storefronts, scalable architecture, and the flexibility to create highly customized buyer experiences.

Why This Matters (and Why I'm Writing About It)

I spent the first 15 years of my career in wholesale sales. From pounding the pavement with samples to running sales teams and managing showroom partnerships, I worked with major retailers like Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale’s, Saks, Anthropologie, and hundreds of specialty boutiques across the U.S.

I’ve also sat inside the brand’s four walls at Diane Von Furstenberg, Milly NY, Splendid, and Paper Crown by Lauren Conrad, where I saw how seasonal production timelines, EDI requirements, and last-minute shipping windows shape everything. Designing a great product was only ever the first step.

And when I launched my own direct-to-retail clothing line and produced for Anthropologie, I learned (the hard way) how much logistics and timing matter, and how little room there is for error in wholesale.

So when I moved into the eCommerce agency world six years ago, I wasn’t sure that experience would translate. Back then, digital-first brands weren’t thinking about wholesale. The tools weren’t there. Buyers were still faxing POs (yes, really). And Shopify just wasn’t built with wholesale in mind.

They want to reorder from their phones while walking the sales floor. They want personalized recommendations based on their store’s buying history. They want to log in, see their terms, their catalog, their pricing—and submit an order in minutes, not hours.

If part of that process can be automated? Even better.

Wholesale Is Still a Growth Channel—But Only If You Modernize

In-store retail isn't dead. But the brands winning today are the ones who make it easy for retailers to buy the way they want to buy. That means ditching the dated PDF catalogs, the endless back-and-forth emails, and (shocker!) the fax machine.

Shopify’s B2B platform now gives brands the tools to deliver that modern experience—without needing to bolt together three or four external systems.

If you’re still operating wholesale through legacy platforms or hacked-together portals, it may be time to rethink your tech stack.

Let’s Talk

At Bear Group, we’ve helped brands build Shopify B2B storefronts that not only function better, but sell better. Whether you're replatforming, redesigning, or just want to explore what’s possible, we’d love to hear your goals.

Let’s talk.