If your eCommerce retail business is on the up-and-up you’re looking for the next growth opportunity, expanding into wholesale online may be perfect for you.
Maybe you’ve been considering ways to widen your customer base or perhaps other businesses have wanted to purchase from you. Selling wholesale online let’s you move easily from retail to wholesale without exorbitant capital or high risk.
Shopify is a global leader in eCommerce. They are known for their affordable, easy-to-use and adaptable eCommerce solutions. Many first time commerce founders start their retail journey on Shopify. Even if you do not have a Shopify store, you can set one up in no time.
Shopify comes with a number of useful features, with a lot of options for customization.
If you are a Shopify users, and you have decided to tap into the wholesale market, we have two different options for you to consider.
The last thing you want is for your retail customers to accidentally stumble across your wholesale store and try to place orders. Your wholesale store should be an exclusive platform only accessible to other businesses that have already been approved by you.
As such you ideally want to create a separate, password-protected store as an add on to your online store. Although this is the preferred method please note it is only available for Shopify Plus plans.
Sell using Shopify Plus (Prices start from $2,000/Month)
Shopify Plus is great for merchants who are considering going straight into wholesale or expanding into wholesale on a large scale and require more automation and customisation. With Shopify Plus you can automate your wholesale processes from signup to checkout. Implement wholesale specific pricing, automated account signups, order review controls and more.
Some key features that are available on a standard Shopify plan that are critical to a wholesale business include:
The ability to customize prices and give frequent customers distinct discounts is crucial to retaining a loyal wholesale customer base. Shopify allows for discount codes to be created and applied to a customer’s cart for both retail and wholesale.
By using Shopify’s discount code functionality you can also create orders on behalf of your customers. Based on an interested customer's enquiry, you can create a draft order and use discount codes to enforce minimum order quantities, absorb shipping costs and more.
Download dedicated wholesale apps on the Shopify app store that allow you to send invoices using the payment provider that powers your Shopify store or send a customised invoice email to allow your customer to pay you using alternative payment methods, such as via bank transfer. You can also use the apps to mark invoices and paid or partially paid as you receive payments.
If you want to keep your retail and wholesale stores including backend operations separate, then opening a separate store is a good option. With Shopify you can open multiple stores with the same account and what's more, integrate those stores to other supply chain solutions so that you will have one source of truth operationally. If you are a Shopify Plus user you can create this new store as part of the Shopify Plus Expansion store functionality.
TradeGecko complements Shopify perfectly by providing an end-to-end wholesale management solution that allows you to automate your entire supply chain ecosystem. With TradeGecko backing up your Shopify store you can enjoy:
For a wholesale store that is built on best-in-class inventory management and supply chain capabilities, TradeGecko’s native B2B eCommerce platform is an attractive option. The B2B eCommerce platform is fully customisable, not just to your needs as a wholesaler but to the needs of each of your customers.
The B2B eCommerce platform allows you to create custom price lists, for each buyer, sell in multiple currencies and have granular visibility into stock availability. Moreover, your buyers can pay for orders immediately with TradeGecko Payments, an inbuilt payment processor. TradeGecko also provides you with actionable insights, with features like the inventory valuation summary and profitability by product report.
Whether it be through Shopify, Shopify Plus or TradeGecko’s B2B eCommerce platform, selling wholesale online is calculated risk with potentially high returns. The important thing is to choose a platform that suits your business needs and the needs of your buyers and integrates seamlessly with the rest of your supply chain processes and solutions.
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