Wholesale ecommerce is selling to other businesses online: retailers, installers, galleries, contractors. They buy from you repeatedly, in quantity, on terms you have agreed with them. The storefront can look much like a consumer shop. What sits behind it works differently, because every assumption a retail checkout makes, such as one public price, payment by card and "sorry, out of stock", is wrong for a trade buyer.
This guide goes through the eight things that change when you move from selling to consumers to selling to trade. For each one it covers the decision you will have to make and, so you can compare, what our own platform does about it. If you want the wider argument for why B2B and D2C need different systems at all, we have written that up separately in B2B vs D2C ecommerce. This piece is the practical checklist.
The Eight Changes at a Glance
| Area | Retail assumption | Trade reality |
|---|---|---|
| Who can buy | Anyone with a card | Approved accounts only |
| Price | One public price | A price list per customer group |
| Payment | Card at checkout | On account, against a credit limit |
| Quantity | Any number from one | Minimums, case packs, minimum order values |
| Ordering | Browse and discover | Reorder known lines fast |
| Out of stock | Block the sale | Take the order and fulfil it later |
| Source of truth | The shop | The ERP |
| After the order | A receipt email | Invoices, balances, statements |
1. Trade Login and Account Approval
A consumer shop wants as little friction as possible between visitor and basket. A trade site usually wants the opposite: somebody has to decide that this business is a genuine stockist before it sees trade prices or places an order. The decision you have to make is who approves new accounts and how quickly. If an application sits unanswered for a week, the retailer will order from somebody else.
On our platform, sign-up approval is a per-store setting: when it is on, new applications wait as pending until staff approve or reject them, and staff are notified when one arrives. A business that is already a customer in your ERP can be recognised at sign-up and skip the approval queue. That matters more than it sounds, because on day one of a new trade site most of the people signing up are customers you already know.
2. Customer-Group Price Lists
Trade pricing is negotiated, and it varies. A garden centre chain, an independent and an overseas distributor might each pay a different price for the same item, and the sales team already quotes them from the ERP. The site has to show each buyer their own price, and that has to be the price the ERP will invoice.
Our platform holds prices per customer group, with retail prices as a separate list that anonymous shoppers see. For Brightpearl, SAP Business One and Caliq, price lists are imported from the ERP through our integration hub, so nobody maintains them twice. The price list also decides what a buyer can see: a product with no price for a buyer's group does not appear for them, which means a restricted range is managed where the prices already live.
One question to ask any vendor is what happens to an account that has not been given a price group yet. The safe answer is that it sees retail pricing, or nothing, and somebody is told. The unsafe answer is that the system quietly picks a list for it.
3. Credit Accounts and Payment Terms
Most established trade customers do not pay by card. They order on account and pay against an invoice on agreed terms. The checkout still has to answer two questions: is this customer allowed to order on account, and do they have room within their credit limit?
Pay on account is a checkout option, and the order is checked against the customer's available credit before it is accepted. Credit-limit enforcement can be switched off per store where a business prefers to handle overruns by phone. On Brightpearl, account balances for customers on credit terms are refreshed from the ERP, so the balance the buyer sees reflects invoices and receipts your accounts team has already posted.
Part of this is deliberately left out. The platform can hold a customer's payment-term days, but it does not chase overdue accounts or block orders because an invoice is late. Credit control stays with your finance team and your ERP. Be wary of any ecommerce system that offers to run it for you as well.
4. Minimum Order Quantities and Case Packs
Trade buyers buy in the units you ship: a case of twelve, a carton of six, never three. Many suppliers also set a minimum first order or a minimum order value. If the site accepts quantities your warehouse won't pick, someone has to phone the customer and change the order, and that is a poor first impression for a new portal.
Our platform supports a minimum order quantity per product variant, a pack size that makes the basket accept only whole multiples, and a minimum order value per store. Minimum-quantity enforcement is a store setting, so a retail store on the same catalogue can switch off trade minimums, and on Brightpearl the trade minimum can come straight from the ERP.
5. Quick Order and Reorder
Consumer sites are designed around discovery. Trade buyers mostly know what they want. They are restocking last month's lines, often from a list, and the best trade site is the quickest route from that list to a confirmed order.
The platform has a quick-order screen for entering several products and quantities at once, reorder from a previous order, and optional markers that show a buyer which products they have bought before. None of it is glamorous. It is simply what makes buyers stop phoning in their orders.
6. Backorders
In retail, an out-of-stock item is a lost sale. In wholesale, a buyer will often order stock that is not in yet and expect it to ship when it lands, especially for seasonal ranges. Before you choose a platform, decide whether each store takes backorders and who gets told when the expected date slips.
Out-of-stock ordering and backorder tracking are per-store settings. Backordered lines are recorded on the order and shown in the buyer's account, and customers and staff can be emailed when a backorder's status or expected date changes. We cover the stock side in more depth in multichannel inventory management for wholesalers.
7. The ERP Is the Source of Truth
This is the biggest change, and it sits behind all the others. On a consumer site the shop can be the master record. For a wholesaler, stock, prices, customers, credit and invoices already live in the ERP, and a website that keeps its own competing copy will disagree with it within a week. So the most important question to put to a wholesale ecommerce platform is how it stays in step with your ERP, not what the storefront looks like.
What has to match between the ERP and the trade site
| Data | Where it should live | What goes wrong if it drifts |
|---|---|---|
| Account and trade pricing | Your ERP | The buyer sees one price online and is invoiced another, and stops trusting both. |
| Credit limit and balance | Your ERP | An account over its limit keeps ordering online, or a good customer is refused because the site holds last week's balance. |
| Stock | Your ERP | The site shows stock that has already gone to a phone, rep or counter order. This is the classic cause of the "it said in stock" call. |
| Orders | Created online, then held in your ERP | Web orders are retyped by hand, late and with errors, and the warehouse never sees them in its normal queue. |
| Invoices and history | Your ERP | Buyers email your office for copies that should be self-service. |
The rule behind the table: one system is authoritative for each item, and the other reads from it. For a wholesaler that is nearly always the ERP, and the website should hold as little of its own truth as possible.
On a store set to take stock from the ERP, the platform displays the ERP's quantities and filters on them, but never makes its own reservations against them. The warehouse then works from one set of numbers, which removes the main cause of overselling. We run maintained connectors for Brightpearl, SAP Business One and Caliq, plus Shopify, Faire, Blue Alligator and structured file feeds. Anything else is scoped as bespoke work. How the connection is built, and what it costs to run, is covered in what ERP integration is and on our ERP integration page.
8. Invoices After the Order
A consumer gets a receipt and is done with you. A trade buyer's accounts person needs invoices, and if they can't find them online they will email your office for copies. On a trade site, invoices matter as much as the order.
Invoices from Brightpearl, SAP Business One and Caliq are imported so buyers can view them in their account, and a store can be set to show only ERP-raised invoices rather than generating its own. Where a store enables it, buyers can also pay outstanding invoices online by card. If you would rather send a pro forma before goods ship, pro forma invoice is available as a payment option.
Where to Start
Settle these in order, because each one depends on the one before:
- Your ERP connection. Which records move, in which direction, and how often. Every other item on this list reads from it.
- Your trading rules. Price groups, minimums, credit, backorders. Write them down as they actually work today, not as the price list says they should.
- Your buyers' habits. How many reorder from a list, how many order through a rep, how many want invoices online.
- The storefront. Last, and usually the easiest part.
If you are shortlisting platforms now, our wholesale ecommerce platform page sets out the questions we would ask any vendor, including us. What a B2B ordering platform has to handle covers the day-to-day buyer and rep side. For the options side by side, including the cheaper ones, see the five ways UK wholesalers run B2B ordering.
When You Don't Need Any of This Yet
If you have a dozen trade accounts, one or two price tiers and card payment suits all of them, a consumer platform with a wholesale add-on may well be enough. It will be cheaper than a dedicated trade platform. We have said the same about Shopify for B2B. The picture changes when price groups multiply, when most orders go on account, or when the ERP stops agreeing with the website. At that point the eight areas above stop being features and become the day-to-day work of running trade orders.
If that is where you are now, book a discovery call. We will start from your ERP and your trading rules, and if we are not the right fit we will tell you.
Wholesale Ecommerce: Common Questions
What is wholesale ecommerce?
Selling to other businesses online, typically retailers and trade buyers who order repeatedly, in quantity and on agreed terms. The storefront can resemble a consumer shop, but it runs on trade rules: approved accounts, price lists per customer group, ordering on account, minimum quantities and backorders.
What is the difference between wholesale and D2C ecommerce?
D2C assumes one public price, card payment and a first-time visitor. Wholesale assumes a known account with negotiated prices, credit terms and a history of reordering the same lines, and it depends far more on the ERP, because that is where those prices, terms and stock already live.
Do trade customers have to be approved before they can order?
Usually, yes, and on most trade sites it is a setting. New applications wait for staff approval before trade prices are shown. Customers who already trade with you can often be recognised from the ERP and approved straight away.
How do trade prices work on a wholesale ecommerce site?
Each customer belongs to a customer group with its own price list, ideally synchronised from the ERP so the site and the sales team quote the same figure. Anonymous visitors and retail shoppers see a separate retail list, or no prices at all.
Can a wholesale site take orders for items that are out of stock?
It depends how you trade, which is why it should be a setting rather than fixed behaviour. Many wholesalers accept backorders, record the outstanding quantity against the order, and notify the customer when stock or the expected date changes.