It is a familiar setup for brands in Dubai, Riyadh and Jeddah: the retail store runs on Shopify, but wholesale lives somewhere else. Trade buyers get an Excel price list, send orders on WhatsApp or through an enquiry form, and someone on the team types them into Shopify by hand.
It works while volumes are small. As the number of trade buyers grows, it becomes the slowest part of the business — prices go out of date, orders get copied wrongly, and buyers cannot reorder without messaging you.
Option 1: Shopify's built-in B2B features
Shopify has native B2B features — company accounts, price lists, payment terms and quantity rules — mainly aimed at Shopify Plus stores. If you are already on Plus, start here: check what is included before paying for anything else.
Option 2: a public wholesale app
The Shopify App Store has several wholesale apps that add trade pricing, tiered discounts and order forms. They are a good fit when your terms are standard — one discount per customer group, simple minimums — and you are happy to work the way the app works.
Option 3: a custom wholesale portal
A custom app makes sense when your wholesale terms are specific to your business, for example:
- Prices per buyer or per country, not just per group.
- Minimum quantities by size run or colour, common in fashion and uniforms.
- Logo, embroidery or private-label requests attached to the order.
- A quote or pro-forma PDF that the buyer's purchasing department needs before paying.
- Arabic and English for buyers across the Gulf.
Whichever option you choose, the goal is the same: trade orders should land in Shopify like any other order, so stock, invoices and reports stay in one place.
How to decide
Write down how a wholesale order happens today, step by step, and how many hours it takes your team each week. If a built-in feature or public app covers those steps, use it. If the steps that take the most time are exactly the ones no app handles, that is where a custom portal pays for itself.
Want to know what would make sense for your business? Tell us how things work today — we reply in writing within one business day, with the right questions and a first idea of scope and price.