B2B and DTC on Shopify: one store or two?
Shopify just brought native B2B to every plan. The real decision now is whether wholesale and DTC share one store or get separate ones — here's how to choose.
Plenty of brands sell two ways at once: direct to shoppers, and wholesale to the shops, distributors and trade buyers who stock them. For years, doing both on Shopify meant bolting on a separate wholesale app — or running an entirely separate platform for B2B and reconciling the two by hand.
That changed in 2026. Shopify now ships B2B natively, and as of this spring those features reach every plan, not just Shopify Plus. Companies, customer-specific catalogs, net payment terms and self-serve reordering are built in.
So the question is no longer can Shopify handle wholesale. Running B2B and DTC on Shopify is now an architecture decision: should your wholesale live inside the same store as your DTC, or in its own? Pick wrong and you’ll feel it every day — in pricing mistakes, theme compromises and tangled reporting. This guide breaks down both setups, when each one wins, and what we learned building exactly this for a real store.
What “B2B on Shopify” means in 2026
Native B2B on Shopify is built around companies — business buyers who log in and get an experience tuned to them. Out of the box you get:
- Company profiles with multiple buyers and locations
- Custom catalogs — bespoke product and price lists per buyer or segment
- Net payment terms (e.g. Net 30), deposits and draft orders for approval
- Volume pricing and quantity rules for case packs and minimums
- Self-serve reordering, vaulted cards and ACH (in the US)
The headline change this year: most of this is no longer Plus-only. Merchants on Basic, Grow and Advanced can now run companies, up to three catalogs and net terms; Plus adds unlimited catalogs, company- and location-level pricing, partial payments and deposit requirements. Shopify’s own B2B documentation has the current plan-by-plan breakdown.
It isn’t a gimmick, either. Shopify reports merchants using B2B see up to a 33% lift in self-serve orders within six months and up to 20% more frequent reorders — wholesale buyers, it turns out, would rather log in at 11pm than email a rep. (Shopify’s announcement covers the roll-out to all plans.)
With the capability settled, the real work is deciding where it lives.
Option 1: one blended store
Shopify calls running both audiences from a single store a blended store: one admin, one storefront, one pool of inventory. Your retail customers shop exactly as they do today. Wholesale buyers log into the same site and see their own catalog and pricing; everyone else sees nothing different.
It works well when:
- You sell largely the same products to both audiences
- You want one shared inventory pool and one source of truth
- The same small team handles merchandising, pricing and fulfilment
- B2B needs different rules (pricing, terms, minimums) but not a different brand
- You’d rather have one analytics and ops surface than two
The trade-offs: a single theme has to serve two very different shoppers, catalog and pricing logic gets denser as you add buyer types, and reporting blends retail and wholesale unless you segment it carefully. For most brands starting out, that’s a fair price for the simplicity — it’s faster to launch and cheaper to run.
Option 2: a separate B2B expansion store
On Shopify Plus you can spin up an expansion store: a second storefront that shares the backend — products, inventory and fulfilment — but is otherwise its own world, with separate design, pricing, promotions and checkout rules.
It works well when:
- Wholesale and retail need genuinely different storefronts or branding
- Pricing, catalogs or promo calendars diverge a lot
- You want approval flows and terms kept well away from the consumer experience
- Different teams own each side
- The wholesale operation is large enough to justify a second build
The upside is clean separation: fewer pricing collisions, a UX designed for buyers placing 200-line reorders rather than browsing, and the freedom to run a Black Friday sale on DTC without touching trade pricing. The cost is real, though — it’s Plus-only, it’s a second storefront to design, build and maintain, and it adds operational surface area.
How to choose
Here’s the short version:
| One blended store | Separate expansion store | |
|---|---|---|
| Plan | Any plan (native B2B) | Shopify Plus |
| Storefronts | One | Two (shared backend) |
| Branding / UX | Shared | Fully separate |
| Inventory | Shared | Shared |
| Best for | Same products, one team, one brand | Big divergence, separate teams, distinct brand |
| Effort & cost | Lower | Higher |
| Time to launch | Faster | Slower |
Default to one store if your wholesale is an extension of the same brand and catalog — most brands are here. Reach for two when B2B is big enough, different enough, or separate enough to deserve its own front door.
One warning: this isn’t a setting you flip later. Changing store type after launch means redoing most of the setup, so it’s worth getting right before you build. If you’re unsure, model how your team actually works day to day — not how the slickest demo looks.
What this looked like for Millésimes
We ran this exact decision building Millésimes, a fine-wine store on Shopify. It serves three audiences from one storefront: collectors buying direct, trade buyers through a gated For Professionals portal, and members in a VIP area — alongside En Primeur pre-orders and pricing in multiple currencies across English and French.
We kept it as a single, blended store. The catalog overlaps heavily — it’s the same cellar whether a restaurant or a collector is buying — inventory had to stay unified so nothing oversold across channels, and a small team needed one place to manage it all. The B2B difference is in the rules: who sees trade pricing, who pays on terms, what’s gated. That’s the tell-tale sign you want one store, not two.
The lesson that generalises: decide where B2B lives first, then design catalogs and gating around it. Retrofitting wholesale onto a store that was never planned for it is where the pain — and the budget — goes.
The takeaway
Shopify making B2B native, and now plan-wide, takes the hard part off the table. What’s left is an architecture call: one store that keeps things simple, or two that keep things separate. Choose for how your business actually runs and you’ll spend the next few years shipping orders instead of fighting your setup.
If you’re weighing it up for your own store — or you want it built properly the first time — see how we approach e-commerce or tell us what you’re building.
FAQ
Can I sell B2B on Shopify without Shopify Plus?
Yes. As of 2026, native B2B — companies, up to three custom catalogs and net payment terms — is available on Basic, Grow and Advanced. Shopify Plus adds unlimited catalogs, company- and location-level pricing, deposits and partial payments.
Will my wholesale prices be visible to retail customers?
No. B2B pricing lives in catalogs that only show to logged-in company buyers. Your regular customers see your normal retail prices and storefront — they never see trade pricing.
Can I switch from one store to two later?
Technically yes, but it’s costly. Changing store type means redoing most of your B2B setup, so treat it as an up-front decision rather than something to revisit.
Do I still need a third-party wholesale app?
Often not. Native B2B covers companies, catalogs, terms and self-serve ordering for most brands. Apps still earn their place for edge cases — complex tiered pricing, sales-rep-assisted ordering or niche ERP integrations.
How long does a Shopify B2B build take?
It depends on complexity, but adding a blended B2B layer to an existing store is usually faster and cheaper than standing up a separate expansion store. The catalog and pricing design — not the setup itself — is what takes the time.