Shopify isn’t just a platform for selling directly to consumers. Shopify’s user-friendly tools work well for building B2B websites. Whether you’re a new entrepreneur with a great niche idea or an experienced store owner looking to add business clients, the right Shopify B2B apps make the process easier from start to finish. This guide can help you find cost-effective and smart solutions for your store.
How Can Shopify B2B Apps Help Your Business?
Pairing Shopify with app integrations is a smart move for full B2B ecommerce and hybrid B2C/B2B stores for several reasons.
User-Friendly Functionality for B2B
One of the biggest benefits of Shopify apps is that they add features to your store without requiring any code editing. A few clicks are all you need to install and set up apps, and from there, you can customize the controls from your main dashboard.
Not only does this help you avoid making unintended changes that break your site, but it also helps you avoid headaches. If you’re like most B2B store owners, your experience is in sales, marketing, and customer service, not computer programming.
Simplified B2B for Solopreneurs
Many online B2B platforms are geared toward large enterprises with dozens or hundreds of employees. But the beauty of ecommerce models like dropshipping and B2B wholesale on Shopify is that you don’t need a large headcount to bring in profits. B2B apps make your store easy to run and endlessly scalable, even if you’re going the lone wolf route.
Better yet, many cutting-edge apps add automation features that minimize your time investment. From email marketing to order fulfillment, your business keeps going in the background.
Wholesale Tools
Outside of the $2,500-a-month Shopify Plus plan, Shopify sites aren’t configured for wholesale out of the box. You have access to payment processing, customer accounts, saved payment methods, and order tracking, but not specialized pricing.
Shopify B2B wholesale apps change things. From tiered discounts to quotes, a completely customized wholesale website is in the palm of your hand — no Shopify Plus subscription required.
Lower Website Development Costs
There are a few alternatives to Shopify for website development, such as WordPress, OroCommerce, and BigCommerce; however, these options often come with high setup, design, and maintenance costs. Third-party development firms typically charge $6,500 to $15,000 for a small business site or $15,000 to $50,000 for mid-sized businesses.
Shopify gives you the foundational tools you need to run a B2B store, even if you’re on the $19.99 a month Basic Plan. From there, you can choose a few apps for extra B2B functionality out of a library of 4,000 small business-friendly tools.
That way, you stay within budget but still get a high-quality site that works the way you want and provides an excellent customer experience.
What Are the Best Shopify Apps for B2B Ecommerce Stores?
The features you need for B2B depend on your target customer, market, business model, and products. Shopify has thousands of apps, but that doesn’t mean you need a huge stack to get the results you want. Pick and choose the right tools for the job and save time and money. Here are some powerful Shopify apps to help ecommerce stores.
1. Wholesale Pricing Now: Add Total Wholesale Functionality to Shopify
Wholesale Pricing Now is one of the best B2B Shopify apps for wholesale stores, and it’s not hard to see why. This app pairs easy-to-use features with precise controls for volume-based pricing:
- Group Pricing Tags: Place customers in categories that determine their discount level and net terms, making wholesale pricing a breeze for new and existing clients.
- Item-Level Customization: Set different wholesale prices for individual items or product categories, with all discounts correctly applied at checkout automatically.
- Per-Account Pricing Options: Welcome new customers with special pricing, offer loyalty perks, or treat your VIP clients to unique terms.
- Tier-Based Discounts: You can also set up discounts to incentivize larger orders, with greater savings as volume increases.
- No Discount Codes: With Wholesale Pricing Now, your B2B customers never have to mess around with discount codes. They simply log in and see their correct prices automatically.
This Shopify B2B app is perfect for wholesale stores that need to juggle a large variety of products, such as repair parts. Wholesale Pricing Now doesn’t need to use duplicate variants for B2C and B2B customers, which reduces your site’s complexity so pages work properly even if you have a lot of different items.
2. Brightpearl: Outsource Your B2B Store’s Operations
Are you a solopreneur with big ideas for B2B but not enough capital to handle the heavy lifting? Brightpearl may be the solution you need to serve business customers without needing to hire a large team.
This app integrates with Shopify ecommerce stores and provides third-party logistics, order fulfillment, warehousing, purchasing, and inventory management services — even returns. You can focus on customer acquisition, relationship building, marketing, and site management without the hassle of running day-to-day operations.
3. Bulk Discount Now: Increase AOV by Showing B2B Clients How Much They Can Save
Shopify generally calculates discount pricing at checkout, which is fine for accuracy but not the best for your bottom line. Discounts are a powerful motivator, but they lose some punch if customers don’t see them until the end of the transaction. Bulk Discount Now solves this problem by displaying discount information in real time, as customers browse.
This app provides flexible pricing tools for B2B stores. You can configure discounts based on purchase volume, bulk orders, or special offers. Apply your chosen pricing storewide, to specific items, or highlighted collections, all in just a few minutes.
4. Locksmith: Sell to Different Audiences With Hidden Inventory Pages
One of the most common questions from ecommerce store owners is whether Shopify can support “walk-in” products for consumers and wholesale quantities for B2B simultaneously. There are a few workarounds for this, from purchasing Shopify Plus ($2,500 a month) to opening a separate Shopify store (another $19, $49, or $299 a month).
Locksmith is an alternative that lets you “lock” certain products, store pages, collections, or site areas behind an account login. That way, you decide who sees what.
Wholesale clients can view high-volume products and pricing. Regular consumers can still buy the same goods in one-off purchases. This app is also helpful for Shopify stores that sell to very different audiences, such as residential customers and commercial clients.
5. Pre-Order Now: Manage Stock Shortages and Pre-Order Expertly
Distributors and manufacturers are all too familiar with the dreaded “out of stock” or “backordered” notifications on invoices. The last thing you want is to lose a potential client or miss the opportunity for a sale because supplies are low. Fortunately, Shopify B2B apps like Pre-Order Now can keep customer engagement high and offer excellent customer service while they wait.
Pre-Order Now doesn’t just add pre-order messaging for product launches and temporary stock vacancies. It helps you get started processing quotes and keep track of orders that need to be fulfilled. Accept partial payments smoothly, give loyal customers a special pre-order discount, and send back-in-stock notifications automatically.
6. O:Request a Quote & Hide Price: Give Clients Quotes
If your products allow a high degree of customization for each client, displaying rigid pricing on product pages isn’t the best option for you or the customer. How can you bypass the checkout process and turn clicks into custom quotes instead?
“O:Request a Quote” changes some or all of your product pages to support lead forms like “Request a Quote” or “Call for Price.” You receive a notification immediately and can follow up to complete the sale.
7. Catalog Maker by EasyCatalog: Design Your Own Product Catalog Professionally
Not all B2B industries need a “print” catalog, but for parts manufacturers, equipment vendors, commercial distributors, and wholesalers, detailed catalogs are practically essential. Catalog Maker by EasyCatalog helps teams of any size put together professional-level PDF catalogs, complete with inventory, linesheets, images, QR codes/barcodes, and shapes. Automation tools speed up the process so you don’t need to enter every variable or specification by hand.
8. Order Printer Pro: Customize and Send PDF Invoices Quickly
When it comes to invoicing, few Shopify B2B apps have as many four- and five-star reviews as Order Printer Pro. This simple app helps you design and generate branded invoices from your Shopify admin quickly and easily, either one at a time or in bulk. For there, the app automatically delivers the document to your customer’s email address. This app also works with quotes.
9. Easy Appointment Booking App: Streamline Your Consulting Services
Some B2B companies do more than sell products online; they also offer expert consulting services, remote support, and even in-house technical services. For example, an IT business may sell cybersecurity solutions but also provide network monitoring, virtual CISO, and IT maintenance services.
Can you run this type of business on Shopify? Absolutely, with a few app integrations. Easy Appointment Booking App adds consultations, appointment tracking, and Google Calendar booking functionality to your site.
Business clients can schedule appointments on your portal and connect via Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and other platforms. The app also supports automatic email reminders.
10. MS Barcode Labels & Generator: Create SKUs for Your Entire Inventory
Manufacturers, 3PL organizations, distributors, and other businesses that handle their own warehousing operations can benefit from barcode integrations with their Shopify store. MS Barcode Labels & Generator is a no-nonsense app that does exactly what it says: helps you design, create, and print out barcodes and other stock-keeping units.
This app is compatible with Shopify product pages and purchase order integrations, so you can import product details or auto-generate new barcodes. It works with UPC, GTIN, EAN, and similar formats.
11. PageFly Landing Page Builder: Boost Conversions With Data-Driven Landing Pages
Unlike sales-focused product pages, B2B landing pages revolve around generating and nourishing leads. They show potential clients why your products are the best, highlighting features, benefits, testimonials, or case studies.
Whether your B2B company relies on organic search rankings to connect with customers or paid ads, the quality of your landing pages matters for conversions. PageFly’s A/B testing tools and templates help you optimize your landing pages to get clicks, engage visitors, and convince leads to take the next step.
12. Simprosys Google Shopping Feed: Advertise Directly to Decision-Makers in Google Shopping
Google Search Ads offer more possibilities for B2B merchants than in the past. For example, instead of requiring users to click on a link and browse through a product catalog like with traditional paid Search, you can display your best-selling products directly in Google Shopping, such as:
- Vehicle replacement parts
- Manufacturing equipment, parts, and systems
- Construction supplies and equipment
- High-tech data center cables, IT accessories, and bulk supplies
- Metal pipes and beams
- Security cameras, fire detectors, alarms, and electrical components
The items you want to feature show up front and center with an image, description, pricing information, and ratings/reviews. This makes it more likely for you to get clicks and leads from purchasing managers.
Simprosys Google Shopping Feed lets you update ad product details quickly, such as price changes or stock status, instead of making individual changes to every listing. It’s also compatible with Microsoft Bing Shopping Ads and Audience Campaigns, Facebook Shop, Google Performance Max, and other ad platforms. That way, you can coordinate all ad channels from one spot.
What B2B Integrations Does Shopify Support?
There’s more to running a company than managing your website. B2B apps can also simplify accounting, payroll and taxes, search optimization, advertising, CRM, and business operations. Here are a few popular software platforms that can integrate with Shopify:
- Oracle NetSuite and Infor M3 ERP (enterprise resource planning)
- QuickBooks and Xero
- Facebook and Instagram
- Google and YouTube
- Klaviyo (CRM and email marketing)
- UPS, DHL, and FedEx-certified shipping
Shopify also offers app features that work equally well for B2C and B2B, such as trust badges, recently viewed products, marketing analytics, and order tracking.
What B2B Shopify Apps Do You Need?
Think of Shopify apps as plug-and-play tools for your store. They can fill any gaps between your current store capabilities and the features that you want. The best B2B apps for Shopify are the ones that elevate the user experience for your customers and help you win valuable leads and clients.
At Website on Demand, we can help you find B2B solutions for your industry and unique goals. Join over 20,000 Shopify merchants who trust Website on Demand apps. Start your free trial today and see how quickly you can turn browsers into buyers.
