THE STORY
Schlechte Karten: When an unique sense of humor turns into a succesful brand
Have you ever felt tired of the daily reminder that you’ve got to try harder, stay healthier, and be happier? Do you sometimes find yourself deprived of energy toward constant improvements and just want to ease your mind and embrace your imperfect traits?
Meet Schlechte Karten – a brand which considers happiness curable, declares Facebook a place for boomers, calls Instagram a hub for questionable lifestyle tips, and even encourages customers to register for their “bad news.”
While the rest of the world is obsessed with toxic positivity and “living your best life,” this Leipzig-based creative brand has built an unique footprint by leaning into the opposite: it’s OK to be procrastinate, to not have a big dream, to be lazy and have no plan at all.
With the curative slogan “Happiness is curable” (Glück ist heilbar), their product line features demotivating desk calendars, ironic postcards, arts, scented candle and various accessories, that celebrate the mundane and the mediocre. Of course, these are just a humorous, harmless way to lift the weight of having to try your best all the time. Which is exhausting.
The uniqueness of their brand ideas, combined with well designs product made Schlechte Karten one of the most interesting brand that we’ve worked with.
Our products aren’t just meant to make you laugh, but also to offer a little bit of relief. Because we all know the feeling of not being enough, of being overwhelmed, or of no longer being able to cope with the constant pressure to improve.
With Schlechte Karten® (Bad Cards®), we celebrate giving up as a legitimate option – honestly, self-deprecatingly, and damn well designed.
About us – Schlechte Karten®
THE CHALLENGE
An unified system that cater to both B2B & B2C
With such unique core ideas, success was inevitable. Over the years, Schlechte Karten has sold thousands of “bad vibes” products and established their special footprints. Naturally, this leads to strong bonds with major bookshops and concept stores across Europe, nuturing long lasting business relationship & increase in bulk orders.
Schlechte Karten now faces a scaling problem: their Shopify Basic store need enhancement to handle the complexities of wholesale. They need a comprehensive system to handle their increasing B2B needs, from the most fundamental features like tiered pricing and tax displays to complex, custom requirements.
Another big challenge is to manage B2B and B2C customers efficiently without having to run two stores or manage parallel systems. any wholesale solution must integrate seamlessly into current operations rather than reinventing them
Building a professional B2B – B2C infrastructure that worked in the background will allow them to stay focused on creating brilliantly “uninspiring” products. That’s where BSS B2B Solution & BSS B2B Lock come into play.
USE CASE – 01
Build a cohesive B2B registration and B2B ordering process
To protect their brand integrity, Schlechte Karten needed to maintain a clear division between retail customers and wholesale partners. The Wholesale Registration Form module from BSS B2B Solution provided the perfect solution.
This module allows the team to vet B2B applicants through a streamlined process, ensuring every partner’s profile aligns with the brand’s unique identity before granting access to wholesale pricing. Every new B2B customers can simply request for access by filling a form for the view.
This allowed the brand to maintain their B2C customer buying experience undisturbed, while only requires B2B customers to do a few extra steps.
Once the form is submitted, reviewed, and approved by the Schlechte Karten team, B2B customers can log in to access exclusive pricing, tax exemptions, and other specialized benefits reserved specifically for wholesale partners
USE CASE – 02
Display custom pricing & taxes for B2B clients
Distinct pricing for B2B & B2C customers
Since the brand serves two distinct audiences, the store must dynamically display different pricing structures based on the user’s account type. By implementing the Custom Pricing module, Schlechte Karten created a ‘smart’ storefront that instantly adapts to the user’s identity.
When a verified retailer logs in, the website automatically switches to a streamlined Wholesale Mode. This enables the brand to assign specific, tiered price lists to different customer groups, ensuring that high-volume partners receive the rates they expect.
For example, the image below shows the clear distinction between standard retail pricing and the exclusive pricing revealed after login
Tax Display on Product/Collection/Checkout
Hand-in-hand with Custom Pricing, the Tax Display module solved the brand’s secondary challenge: tax transparency.
Historically, the standard Shopify checkout was a source of friction for business buyers who require Net prices to understand their true costs. Because standard Shopify settings often struggle to toggle tax displays between B2C and B2B segments on a single storefront, the team previously spent hours answering administrative queries about VAT.
With the BSS B2B Solution Tax Display module, this process is now entirely automated. While retail customers continue to see Gross prices (inclusive of tax), business buyers are presented with clear Net prices the moment they are authenticated.
The image below shows how the tax display adapts on the Product page:
And here is how tax display can be seen in Cart page
USE CASE – 03
Allow only selected customers to access wholesale contents
Registration form & Custom pricing is a clever and efficient way to separate B2B and B2C customers, but there’s more work to do. Some B2B-only URLs, product cards, collections… still at risk appearing for B2C buyers without proper implementation.
Schlechte Karten needed a way to decide who sees what, without having to maintain duplicate catalogs. Wholesale buyers should access gated products and collections only after approval, while direct consumers continue browsing as usual.
BSS B2B Lock is a brilliant solution for this specific needs. A few simple steps allows Schlechte Karten to easily config their wholesale storefront based on customer tags; restricting pages, product cards, and collection cards to approved wholesale accounts. They can control at will who and how can specific customers see the content they want.
For example, to view some content, customers are required to login:
This setup kept one clean storefront and remove the risk of B2C customers reaching unintended products or content that are tailored to B2B customers.
USE CASE – 04
Further customizations for a clean B2B checkout
Wholesale checkout often requires stricter control than B2C’s. Accelerated payment buttons such as PayPal, Apple Pay, or Google Pay can confuse wholesale buyers and create opportunities to bypass review steps.
The team requested a small but meaningful customization to remove accelerated checkout options for wholesale customers, while keeping B2C checkout unchanged. The task was supported immediately within hours by BSS B2B Suite team, allowing a cleaner and more professional checkout.
The buttons will show with customers that are not resellers
And when there’s a seller tag, these buttons will automatically disappear
THE IMPACT
A Dual-Stream Powerhouse: Seamless B2B Growth Without B2C Friction
The two powerful app from BSS B2B Suite successfully helped Schlechte Karten runs B2B business effficiently while keeping B2C workflows intact. After the implementation of BSS B2B Solution & BSS B2B Lock, managing wholesale integrated into daily store operations.
Impact shows up not only in numbers, but also in how the team can confidently approach wholesale expansion.
Here is what changed:
- Complete B2B experience running on Shopify Basic
- 50% increase in number of wholesale accounts through custom registration form in three months
- Free customizations delivered quickly, refining wholesale workflows
By automating the normally friction-filled tasks of B2B, Schlechte Karten has successfully bridged the gap between niche retail and large scale distribution. With the right tools from BSS B2B Suite, Schlechte Karten is a clear proof that you don’t need a complex enterprise setup to achieve massive B2B success. You just need the right solution.
