B2B Online Store

What is a B2B online store?

A B2B online store is an online shop whose customers are other businesses rather than private consumers. Unlike a regular B2C store, it typically supports customer-specific pricing, negotiated discounts, bulk ordering, and payment on credit. Buyers often have to log in to a company account before prices and ordering become available.

Why does a B2B online store matter?

B2B trade plays by different rules than B2C: higher average order value, repeat reorders, and prices that depend on agreements and volume. A dedicated B2B store lets your business customers order themselves — with their own prices and payment windows — instead of phoning or emailing orders in. That cuts manual order handling and makes it easy to manage quantity discounts and a differentiated product catalog per customer.

Common use cases

• Customer-specific price lists. Each company or location sees its own negotiated prices after login.
• Quantity and tiered discounts. The price drops automatically at larger order sizes.
• Payment terms. Buying on credit with Net 15/30/60 days instead of paying at checkout.
• Hidden prices. Catalog and prices sit behind a login, so only approved business customers can see them.
• Reordering. Regular customers quickly reorder from previous purchases.

Shopify perspective

Shopify has B2B built in as part of Shopify Plus. There you create companies (company profiles) with associated contacts, locations, price lists (catalogs), and payment terms. Customers shop through a dedicated, login-protected B2B experience on the same storefront. If you run both B2B and B2C, you can control what each customer type sees using markets and catalogs. On plans below Plus, real B2B functionality requires a third-party app.