Shopify B2B Setup: How to Choose Between a Blended vs. Dedicated Store

Shopify’s business-to-business (B2B) capabilities continue to improve and offer a competitive alternative to legacy B2B ecommerce platforms.

There are different ways for retailers to set up and architecture a B2B offering on Shopify. Choosing the right format is key for delivering a seamless experience for your wholesale customers, without compromising your direct-to-consumer (DTC) strategy.

One of these decisions is whether to create a dedicated B2B store, exclusively focused on wholesale customers, or a blended store, which serves both DTC and B2B shoppers.

This article will explore both of these Shopify B2B setups in more detail, with considerations to help you make an informed choice about which format is right for your business.

What is a blended or dedicated B2B setup on Shopify?

Blended store

A blended store approach on Shopify Plus allows you to serve both your DTC and B2B customers through a single storefront. There is a simplicity to this route that is appealing to many retailers, eliminating the need to manage multiple storefronts and inventories.

However, this simplicity has its tradeoffs, including limited data segmentation, shared customer experiences, and reduced customisation options. While the customer experience can be personalised for B2B customers using the customer.b2b liquid variable, certain elements cannot be separated between B2B and DTC customers.

Dedicated B2B store

To overcome these limitations, retailers might instead opt for a dedicated B2B expansion store, where more granular control can be taken over the customer experience for your wholesale audience.

By following this route, elements such as notifications, abandoned cart emails, inventory, out-of-stock settings and shipping rates can be customised between audiences.

Comparing blended & dedicated B2B Shopify stores

With these distinctions in place, let’s look at how they translate into some areas of wholesale business functionality.

1. Companies

For B2B ecommerce, the architecture of companies and locations hugely impacts how your business manages customer relationships and ordering processes.

In a blended store, all company profiles are managed within a single admin interface, which simplifies administration but limits segmentation capabilities.

Conversely, with a dedicated B2B Shopify store, businesses can group customers according to companies, with each company able to have multiple locations. This gives businesses more control, allowing separate catalogs, payment terms, checkout options, and shipping addresses to be applied to each location.

Moreover, distinct permission models or approval workflows can be enabled for different customer segments. This separation allows for more specialised customer management but requires maintaining multiple admin interfaces.

2. Admin management

A key distinction between these two store formats is the admin experience. In a blended store, all customers, orders and prices are managed from a single admin. The benefit of this is an efficient backend experience, with all data being instantly shared between B2B and DTC stores.

In contrast, a dedicated store requires maintaining separate admin interfaces for B2B and DTC operations. While this creates additional administrative overhead, it provides complete separation of business data, inventory management, and reporting.

This separation can be particularly valuable for larger organisations that need distinct analytics and operational workflows for their wholesale and retail channels.

3. Store branding

Similarly to admin management, the branding for a blended store is duplicated across the B2B and DTC experiences. This means that while you can customise certain elements of the B2B experience using customer.b2b liquid, the overall brand identity, design elements, and a user experience and user interface (UX/UI) remain largely consistent across both channels.

With a dedicated store, you have complete freedom to create distinct brand experiences tailored to each audience. This allows for specialised messaging, different visual identities, and UX/UI optimised for the unique needs of wholesale buyers vs DTC shoppers.

B2B stores often benefit from more streamlined, function-focused designs with prominent bulk ordering features, while DTC stores can maintain consumer-friendly aesthetics with lifestyle imagery and promotional content.

Choosing which of these is important to you should be a key aspect of deciding which approach to pursue for your B2B store on Shopify.

4. Catalogs with custom pricing

Pricing management is a critical aspect of B2B ecommerce, and Shopify Plus offers robust catalog features for both store types.

B2B Catalogs in Shopify Plus allow retailers to customise the products and pricing offered to wholesale customers. You can control product availability by creating catalogs that include all or specific products and apply various pricing rules. Some key features of B2B catalogs include:

• Custom catalogs: Select which products or variants to include in the catalog, and assign them to a company’s location.

• Custom pricing: Set overall percentage adjustments (price increases or decreases) or apply fixed prices to specific products.

• Quantity rules: Define quantity increments, minimum order quantities, and maximum order quantities to control how many items B2B customers can purchase.

• Volume pricing: Offer price breaks based on the quantity purchased, allowing customers to receive discounts for bulk orders.

In a blended store, these catalog features apply only to B2B customers while maintaining standard pricing for DTC customers.

With a dedicated store, these catalogs can be managed independently from DTC pricing structures, allowing for completely separate pricing strategies for wholesale channels. This separation enables businesses to implement more complex B2B pricing models without affecting retail customers.

Additionally, Shopify Plus allows you to sell in multiple currencies through Shopify Payments, either by setting specific prices for each currency in the catalog or by using automatic or manual exchange rates. This can be applied to both a blended or a dedicated store.

5. Payment terms

B2B ecommerce relies on being able to offer flexible payment options to their wholesale customers. Shopify Plus provides robust payment term capabilities that differ between blended and dedicated store setups.

In a blended store, payment terms can be applied to B2B customers while maintaining standard immediate payment requirements for DTC customers. This allows you to offer Net terms (e.g., Net 30), due on fulfillment options, or deposit requirements exclusively to your wholesale buyers without affecting your retail customers’ checkout experience.

With a dedicated store, you have complete control over payment terms that are specifically designed for B2B transactions. This separation allows for more complex payment structures and approval workflows that might be confusing or unnecessary in a DTC environment.

6. Draft orders

Draft orders are another key function for online wholesale. Shopify allows businesses to manually create orders for B2B customers who place orders outside of an online store, such as via phone or email. These orders reflect the specific prices, payment terms, and checkout options assigned to the customer’s company and location.

In a blended store, draft orders can be created for both B2B and DTC customers, but with different options available based on customer type. For B2B customers, draft orders will automatically apply the appropriate company-specific pricing and payment terms.

With a dedicated store, draft orders are exclusively tailored to B2B workflows, potentially including approval processes, custom line item options, and specialised shipping arrangements that wouldn’t be relevant in a DTC context.

How to decide between a blended or dedicated approach

There is no one-size-fits-all approach for a business, which is why knowing the distinctions between blended and dedicated B2B Shopify setups before starting this process is important. We recommend assessing what your business requirements are and aligning your approach with these.

For B2B ecommerce, the decision between a blended or dedicated store approach should be based on the following factors:

• Business complexity: If your B2B operations involve complex pricing structures, approval workflows, or customer hierarchies that differ significantly from your DTC business, a dedicated store might be the better choice. This separation allows for specialised features without compromising the DTC experience.

• Resource availability: A blended store requires fewer resources to maintain since you’re managing a single storefront and inventory. If you have limited development and operational resources, this approach can be more manageable. Dedicated stores, while offering greater customisation, require additional resources for maintenance, updates, and managing separate inventories.

• Data segmentation needs: If you require separate reporting and analytics for B2B and DTC channels, a dedicated store provides cleaner data segmentation. This is particularly important for businesses where wholesale and retail operations are managed by different teams or departments.

• Customer experience priorities: Consider the degree of differentiation needed between your B2B and DTC shopping experiences. A blended store is suitable when B2B customers require only minor adjustments. However, if wholesale buyers need features such as quick reordering, approval workflows, company-specific catalogs, or different navigation and ordering tools, a dedicated store is likely the best setup to create these tailored experiences.

How Swanky can support your Shopify B2B setup

Deciding how to approach your Shopify B2B setup can be daunting. It requires having an in-depth understanding of both Shopify’s B2B functionality and your business requirements and existing digital architecture.

Swanky’s team is well-versed in balancing this at the discovery stage of a project. We combine our knowledge of B2B on Shopify with our clients’ immediate and long-term needs to design, build and optimise compelling ecommerce solutions that accelerate digital growth.

To hear more, get in touch with our team today.