Personalized B2B Wholesale Pricing

Who this is for

Personalized pricing is worth setting up when one price list no longer describes how you sell. These are the usual signs:

• You sell the same products to retailers, distributors and VIP accounts, and each group expects a different price.
• Your team answers price requests by email or copies numbers from a spreadsheet into draft orders.
• You run a hybrid store where consumers buy at retail and trade buyers should see wholesale on the same product pages.
• You have negotiated contract prices for a handful of accounts that must be honored exactly.
• You want larger orders to cost less per unit without handing out a code to everyone.

Why this matters

Manual pricing has a cost that rarely shows up in a report. Every quote that waits on a sales rep is a buyer who may order from a competitor with a self-service portal. Every spreadsheet that drifts from your real prices turns into a credit note, an awkward call or a margin you did not plan to give away.

Buyers feel it too. A trade buyer who must request a price for each reorder soon looks for a supplier who shows prices after login. Showing the right price automatically is a small thing that makes reordering feel routine instead of a negotiation.

What it looks like by industry

• Beauty and personal care: a salon group sees a deeper discount on professional lines than a single-location salon does, all on the same product page.
• Food and beverage: a cafe chain gets a contract price per bag of coffee, and standard wholesale accounts get the published trade price.
• Industrial supplies: distributors see a tier price that drops once the cart passes a quantity you set, so your reps stop quoting by hand.
• Apparel and accessories: boutiques see wholesale on every size, and your direct-to-consumer shoppers still see the full retail price.

What Shopify covers natively, and where an app helps

Shopify now includes B2B on Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus. Native catalogs let you assign prices to B2B markets, with up to three catalogs on Basic, Grow and Advanced and unlimited catalogs on Plus. The comparison table in the Shopify B2B guide and Shopify's B2B features by plan page list the current details.

Native catalogs fit best when every wholesale buyer is a company with locations and you need three catalogs or fewer. An app helps when you also sell to retail shoppers on the same store, need more price groups than the catalog limit, or want to price by customer tag, by a single customer or by company location. BSS B2B Solution keeps its rules in the app, so it works alongside native B2B rather than replacing it. The wholesale pricing hub compares the options in more depth.

How to set up personalized pricing with BSS B2B Solution

The screenshots in the gallery above follow these steps on a demo store. The full walkthrough is in the custom pricing guide.

1. Tag your buyers

Add a customer tag such as wholesale-gold to each approved buyer in Shopify. If you collect applications with a registration form, the form can add the tag when you approve the account. Tags are matched case-insensitively and a buyer only needs one of the tags listed in a rule.

2. Create a Custom Pricing rule

In BSS B2B Solution open Custom Pricing and create a rule. Under Customers choose Customer tags and enter your tag. Other options are all customers, logged-in customers, not-logged-in customers, specific customers and company locations.

3. Choose the products

Apply the rule to all products, specific products or variants, collections or product tags. Start with one collection while you test, then widen the scope once the numbers look right.

4. Set the price adjustment

Pick the adjustment type, for example decrease in percentage, and enter the amount. Open the optional Exclusions and schedule section if some items should be skipped or the price should run for a limited period. Set a Priority between 0 and 99 if several rules can match the same buyer; the lower number wins, and rules in the same module are compared by priority and then by age.

5. Add quantity breaks if you want them

Create a Volume Pricing rule to add tiers by quantity. Tier prices stack on top of the Custom Pricing or Price List price, not on the original retail price, which is why the example below shows two steps.

6. Check the live status and test as a buyer

The rule page shows four checks: rule saved, rule enabled, module on, and the app embed active in your theme. Then log in with a test customer that carries the tag and open a product, a collection and the cart. Compare against a guest window to confirm the guest still sees retail.

Example: one product, three buyers

This is an illustration with made-up numbers, not a customer result. A candle has a retail price of $25.00. You create one Custom Pricing rule for the tag wholesale-gold that decreases the price by 20 percent, and a Volume Pricing rule that takes a further 10 percent off from 24 units.

The tier works on $20.00, not $25.00, so 10 percent off gives $18.00. If you would rather price a VIP account at an exact negotiated number, create a separate rule for that customer with a higher priority, and the contract price wins for them.

Works well with

• Wholesale price by customer tag for the simplest version of this setup.
• Tiered quantity break pricing to design the volume steps.
• Which B2B rule wins: rule priority when two rules could apply to one buyer.
• Hide wholesale prices from guest visitors with BSS B2B Lock, so the wholesale price is only shown to the people it was made for.

Terms used on this page are defined in the glossary: price list, customer tag and quantity break. For the broader picture, see the wholesale pricing hub.

Limits and common mistakes

• Price List and Custom Pricing do not stack. If a variant is covered by both, the Price List wins and Custom Pricing is skipped for it. Volume tiers then apply on that price.
• Priority only compares rules in the same module. A Custom Pricing rule does not compete with a Volume Pricing rule; they chain.
• Price List here is not a Shopify catalog. It is managed by the app, so it will not appear in Shopify's native catalog screens.
• Currency conversion is display-level. Fixed prices are stored in your store currency and converted at Shopify's rate. You cannot set a separate fixed price per currency.
• Automatic Shopify discounts do not work alongside Custom Pricing or Volume Pricing. Manual discount codes work only after you switch on the Shopify Discount option in Advanced Settings.
• Themes matter. The rules show prices through the app embed in your theme. Cart drawers and quick-view popups on some themes need a manual CSS selector, so test them.
• Wrong tag, wrong price. Check spelling and that the buyer is logged in. A buyer who is not logged in is a guest and sees retail.

Setup checklist

• Decide your buyer groups and one tag per group.
• Install BSS B2B Solution and turn on the app embed in your live theme.
• Tag a test customer and keep a guest window open for comparison.
• Create the first Custom Pricing rule for one collection and check the Make live status.
• Add a Volume Pricing rule if you want quantity tiers, and review the example math.
• Set priorities for any overlapping rules and any named contract accounts.
• Check product, collection and cart pages on desktop and mobile.
• Widen the scope to the full catalog and tag the real buyers.

Plans and requirements

BSS B2B Solution has a Free plan and paid plans: Essentials at $29 a month, Advanced at $49 and Platinum at $99, with a 10 percent discount for yearly billing. The Free plan includes one Custom Pricing rule, which is enough to test a tag-based price. Price Lists need Platinum, and targeting by company location needs Advanced or higher. Plan contents change, so confirm what you need on the BSS B2B Solution page before you subscribe.

You also need a theme with the app embed switched on. Ready to try it? Install BSS B2B Solution from the Shopify App Store and follow the checklist above.