Business to Business (B2B) describes any transaction where the buyer is another business rather than an individual consumer — a manufacturer selling components to another manufacturer, a distributor selling wholesale to a retailer, or a software company selling to another company's procurement team. It's the largest slice of ecommerce by transaction value: Grand View Research puts the global B2B ecommerce market at roughly $28 trillion in 2026, growing at close to 21% a year through 2033, and by most estimates B2B ecommerce is several times larger than B2C once every industry that sells to other businesses — not just consumer brands with a wholesale arm — is counted. For a Shopify brand, though, B2B usually means something more specific: selling directly to retailers, distributors, or other companies through company accounts, custom pricing, and payment terms, on top of (or instead of) a consumer storefront.
B2B is the umbrella term; D2C and wholesale sit underneath it as distinct models, and the three get conflated often enough that it's worth being precise:
Operationally, B2B buying looks different from D2C at almost every step: larger order sizes, negotiated or tiered pricing instead of a fixed retail price, payment on Net 30/60/90 terms rather than at checkout, and — most consequential for how a store gets built — a buying committee instead of a single impulse buyer. A junior buyer often builds the cart, a manager approves it, and accounts payable settles the invoice weeks later; three people, three points where an order can stall. That's a fundamentally different design problem than a D2C checkout optimized for a single person completing a purchase in one sitting.
Two trends are pushing B2B buying online faster than most sellers have adapted to. First, scale: B2B ecommerce is not a niche channel — by most estimates it dwarfs B2C by transaction value once manufacturing, distribution, and wholesale trade are included alongside branded ecommerce. Second, buyer preference: Gartner's 2025 B2B buying research found 61% of B2B buyers now prefer a rep-free buying experience for at least part of the purchase, and the same research showed buyers already split their research and purchasing activity roughly evenly between self-service tools and sales reps rather than defaulting to a phone call. A buyer who expects to configure pricing, check stock, and submit a purchase order without talking to a salesperson is a buyer who expects the same self-service experience a B2C storefront already gives them — company accounts, saved pricing, and reorder tools, not a PDF price list and a fax number.
A common misconception is that B2B requires Shopify Plus. It doesn't — company accounts, customer-specific catalogs, price lists, and net payment terms are available starting on Shopify's Basic plan; Plus mainly raises the ceiling (unlimited catalogs instead of three, deposits and partial payments, more granular permissions) rather than being the only way in. The tradeoff worth knowing before enabling it: B2B turns off Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Amazon Pay at checkout, along with subscriptions and local delivery — and in a blended store selling both B2B and D2C, that affects D2C customers too, not just wholesale accounts. Full plan-by-plan breakdown, pricing, and setup steps are in our guide to B2B on Shopify.
The decision that shapes everything downstream is whether B2B lives inside the D2C store or in a separate one. A blended store keeps one catalog and one inventory pool, but it hands the checkout tradeoff to consumers too. A second store isolates that, at the cost of syncing products and stock twice. Settle price tiers, terms, and minimum order quantities with finance before any of it gets built — that sequencing is most of Shopify wholesale and B2B setup, and it is what keeps selling across multiple channels from becoming two stores that disagree.
.png)
.png)
