--- title: Shopify B2B setup before you invite trade customers description: A Shopify B2B setup checklist for the weeks before your first trade invite. Companies, catalogues, accounts, terms and test orders, in order. slug: shopify-b2b-setup date: 2026-10-08 updated: 2026-10-08 service: b2b faqs: - question: How do I set up B2B on Shopify? answer: Create your trade customers as companies with locations, then build catalogues for their products and prices. Turn on customer accounts, set payment terms and test orders as a buyer. Only then send the access invitations. - question: Do B2B customers need a password on Shopify? answer: No. B2B uses the current customer accounts, and buyers sign in with the email linked to their company location. Shopify sends them a six-digit code each time, so there are no passwords to reset. - question: How many B2B catalogues can I have without Shopify Plus? answer: Basic, Grow and Advanced allow up to three active catalogues across your B2B markets. Plus allows an unlimited number. If most accounts have their own negotiated prices, that difference usually decides the plan. --- The first week of a new trade channel tells you a lot. When buyers log in and see the right prices, they reorder and tell their colleagues. When they see retail prices or a card-only checkout, they pick up the phone. Most of the calls we see trace back to setup, not to Shopify. So what should you set up on Shopify before you invite trade customers? Six things, in this order. Companies and locations, catalogues, customer accounts, payment and shipping, the storefront, then test orders as a real buyer. Send the invitations last. ## Why does the order matter? Each step depends on the one before it. A catalogue is assigned to a company, a market or a location. Payment terms sit on the location. A buyer can only sign in once they're linked to a company location. Skip ahead and you end up redoing work, or worse, inviting buyers into a half-built store. Shopify's own [blended store checklist](https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/b2b/getting-started/blended-store-checklist) follows the same shape. We'd treat it as the minimum and add a few checks of our own. ## Step one: companies and locations In Shopify, a company is the organisation you sell to. A location is each business or site that orders from you. Each location can carry its own tax ID, tax exemptions, addresses, pricing and payment terms. - Map your real accounts first. A group with five shops might be one company with five locations, or five companies. Ask how they're invoiced. - Bring existing trade customers across properly. If they already exist as customers, Shopify's built-in tool migrates their details and order history to companies. - Use a bulk import for anything beyond a handful. Shopify supports creating companies in the admin, by import or through the API. - Decide whether orders need review. Some locations can be set to submit orders as drafts so your team checks them first. If your ERP holds the customer list, this is the moment to agree which system owns it. Two sources of truth is the most common wholesale problem we fix. ## Step two: catalogues and prices Catalogues decide which products and prices each buyer sees. On Basic, Grow and Advanced you get up to three active catalogues across your B2B markets. Shopify Plus allows an unlimited number, which suits account-specific pricing. - Build catalogues around how you actually price. Trade, distributor and key account is a common three. - Set quantity rules and volume pricing where you need them. Case sizes and minimums belong here, not in a note on the product page. - Hide trade-only products from retail shoppers. Our method for [hiding products from the Shop app](/insights/how-to-hide-products-from-the-shopify-shop-app-b2b-safe-method) covers one gap people miss. If you're still weighing plans, our guide to [Shopify B2B without Plus](/insights/shopify-b2b-without-plus) sets out what each one includes. ## Step three: customer accounts and sign-in B2B needs the current version of customer accounts. Shopify is clear that legacy accounts can't be used for B2B customers and orders. In a blended store you can keep legacy accounts for retail shoppers, but plan to move on. Legacy accounts [are deprecated](/insights/shopify-legacy-customer-accounts-deprecated). Buyers sign in with the email linked to their company location and get a six-digit code by email. That removes password resets, which is a real saving for a sales team. Inside the account, buyers can view order history, pay, track orders, request returns and reorder from a past order. Brand the sign-in and account pages before launch. It's the first screen every trade buyer sees. ## Step four: payment, shipping and tax Payment and shipping settings apply to all customers by default. Trade buyers usually need something different. 1. Set payment terms on each location, such as 30 days after invoice. Add manual methods like bank transfer if you take them. 2. Check shipping rates for trade order sizes. A pallet rate and a parcel rate are different conversations. 3. Use Checkout Blocks to hide, rename or reorder methods for B2B buyers, or to set minimum and maximum order limits. 4. Sort tax. Selling to European businesses often means reverse charge VAT, which is where [VAT number validation at checkout](/insights/shopify-vat-number-validation-checkout) helps. ## Step five: the storefront trade buyers see Shopify's free themes from version 11.0 show quantity rules and volume pricing automatically. Stores on Horizon also get [native B2B in the storefront](/insights/shopify-horizon-theme-b2b). You can add a quick order list in the theme editor. A custom theme needs code for each of these. Think about how buyers reorder. Most trade orders are the same list as last time. On [Fáilte Foods](/work/failte-foods) we built a favourites list so customers could save and reorder with ease. Onboarding rose by over 500% after launch, and conversion sits above 30%. ## Step six: test as a buyer, then invite Log in as a test customer, or use the view option on a company location to see the store as that buyer. Place real test orders. Check prices, terms, shipping, tax and the confirmation email for each catalogue. Then send the access invitations from the admin. Customise the email first. Tell buyers what's changed, how to sign in and who to call if something looks wrong. Start with a small group of friendly accounts, fix what they find, then invite the rest. Your sales team matters here too. Shopify lets staff take orders and manage accounts for the locations they look after. Give them access before launch so they can help buyers through the first order. ## Getting it right first time We set up wholesale on Shopify from a first trade catalogue to Shopify Plus with an ERP underneath. See how we approach [B2B commerce on Shopify](/services/b2b). If you're about to invite trade customers, [book a B2B review](https://calendar.app.google/ZiyqCtwHo1qSboN36). We'll walk through your setup with you and flag anything to fix before buyers log in.