Shopify is a renowned, complete e-commerce platform that many businesses can benefit from. Whether you are launching your first B2B company, or want to provide Shopify Trade Orders on your existing B2C store, Shopify offers an impressive array of benefits for a compact platform that is user-friendly for managing and developing businesses.
Occasionally, Shopify Trade Orders need to go above and beyond what’s available and may need additional unique functionalities to be added.
Merchants selling B2B have found the Shopify Trade Orders functionality to be a useful one, but vastly improved when their specific requirements can be added in. This is when we would develop a bespoke solution to tie into their existing Shopify store. Shopify's Wholesale Order functionality is only available to merchants on Shopify Plus ($2000/month). Our solution is available to merchants on all Shopify plans from $29/month & up.
Shopify Trade Orders is a unique solution for trusted trade customers to be able to purchase inventory through traditional means while bypassing the checkout and payment steps. It is also one of the best processes to allow wholesale purchases for your customers with a Shopify Store. The functionality can be added to a normal B2C store with an alternative view/pricing section for logged in trade customers.
Whitby & Co are a well-established outdoor adventure company, situated in the UK, that is home to the most iconic international brands for outdoor accessories and equipment. As a first point distribution centre to independent retail stores, large national chains, online stores, and industrial markets such as the military and emergency services, Whitby & Co provide essential goods to a whole range of sectors.
Whitby & Co came to us looking for a bespoke solution to their trade customers. Commonly, wholesale businesses will sell either from their existing consumer store or from a separate B2B store. Whitby & Co decided on a separate B2B portal and wanted their B2B customers to be able to pay a reduced business price through this.
Another issue was that B2B customers needed to be able to place an order on Whitby & Co’s account without payment, as payment would be invoiced separately on a pre-agreed rate. Not only that, but Whitby & Co also wanted to make sure they could offer price-based shipping deals, and also handle multiple currencies, allowing them to target multiple markets, without any issues.
Inspira created a solution in the form of a custom app to help Whitby & Co solve these problems and allow seamless B2B trade.
The new solution required that they tagged their B2B customers as ‘trade’. When trade customers logged in, they were able to see their special trade price designed for them. A trade checkout was then created, which allows the trade customers to place an order without payment (due to pre-agreed rates)and the app creates the order in the Shopify admin, ready to fulfil, but with payment marked as 'pending'. Because of this, Whitby & Co is then able to manage payments from trade customers based on their prior agreements without any interruption.
Having this bespoke solution means that Whitby & Co are able to transform the experience of their B2B trade into a seamless transaction between trade customers and their business.
