Running B2B and D2C from One Shopify Plus Store

A homeware brand with a trade customer base of 150+ interior designers, architects, and boutique hotels was running two separate Shopify stores — one for retail, one for trade. The duplication was painful: product updates had to be made twice, orders from each store reported separately, and the customer service team had no way to look up a trade customer's order history in the retail store admin.

The Brief

Consolidate both stores into a single Shopify Plus store that served both segments without compromising the experience for either. Trade buyers should see trade prices, have access to the full commercial catalogue (including items not available at retail), and be able to order on Net 30 terms. Retail customers should see nothing of the trade infrastructure.

Technical Architecture

We used Shopify Plus's native B2B features for the trade segment: Company accounts with location-specific pricing, payment terms, and catalogue visibility. The retail store ran on the standard Shopify customer model with no changes visible to end consumers.

Catalogue Segmentation

Approximately 200 SKUs were trade-only — commercial-grade products not sold at retail. We used Shopify's B2B product visibility controls to restrict these to authenticated trade accounts. A retail visitor browsing the site would never see these products; a logged-in trade buyer would see them seamlessly integrated into the standard collection navigation.

Pricing Structure

Three trade price tiers were configured: standard trade (40% off RRP), preferred partner (48% off), and key account (negotiated fixed pricing). Price lists were assigned at the Company level, with individual contacts inheriting the Company's tier. Prices updated automatically when RRP changed — eliminating the annual price list spreadsheet that had previously required two days of manual work.

Results

• Operations overhead reduced: annual price list update from 2 days to 2 hours
• Trade order processing time reduced by 55%
• Zero customer complaints during or after migration
• Trade revenue grew 28% in the first year post-consolidation