Start Your Shopify Wholesale Business

With Shopify, there are two ways you can run a wholesale business. One is through the Handshake marketplace (for US-based businesses only), and the other is by making a separate storefront to handle your Shopify wholesale channel transactions.

Shopify merchants who meet specific requirements are able to sell on the Handshake marketplace and connect with registered retailers. Once on the marketplace, your wholesale business is put in front of retailers who can contact and order from you. Order processing can be done via Shopify admin. As of the writing of this article, buying and selling on Handshake has no commission fees. So, if you meet the following requirements, you may want to grab this opportunity.

Selling Requirements

Your wholesale business needs to meet the following requirements to sell on the Handshake marketplace:

• US-based and currency in USD
• Compliance with Handshake Product Guidelines and the Handshake Terms of Service.
• Compliance with Handshake Photography Guidelines for product images
• Products compliance with the product categories listed on Handshake
• Active Shopify store with sales history (at least $1,000 USD in sales)
• Have at least one published product
• No reselling of other businesses’ products
• Enable a direct payment provider 
• Use a shipping rate with a US shipping zone

Getting Started with Handshake

If your business meets the aforementioned requirements and you wish to proceed with Handshake, the first step in your application is installing the Handshake sales channel in your Shopify admin.

To do this, first navigate to the Handshake for Suppliers page on the Shopify App Store. Select “Add app,” then “Add sales channel”. Read and check the necessary boxes (Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions).

The reviewing process for your application takes about 10-14 business days. You will receive an email within that time about whether you are qualified to sell on Handshake. You can also contact them at [email protected] if you run into any trouble or have questions. Once the platform grants you eligibility, you can set up your Handshake supplier profile.

Profile Settings

With Handshake, you can put up your own customised brand logo and header image. You can also add in a brand story, contact details, and shipping and return policies. Don’t forget to set your minimum order value and custom shipping rates for Handshake orders.

Wholesale Product Details

You need to set separate pricing for wholesale orders, since bulk orders do usually come cheaper. You might also want to show different product images and descriptions that will be more relevant and appeal more to wholesale customers.

Order Management

A really neat feature is the ability to set custom discounts for orders on Handshake. This means that you can tier the discounts based on quantity. That makes the process smoother, and you can also manage Handshake order fulfilment from your regular Shopify admin.

Wholesale stores can be created as separate, password-protected storefronts. If you prefer this option for your wholesale business, know that only Shopify Plus wholesale stores are allowed. If you are a Shopify merchant with a regular store, you can upgrade. Then, the wholesale business becomes a new storefront that is connected to the retail online store. From there, you can customise your pricing for wholesale buyers, process wholesale orders, and the like through your regular Shopify admin dashboard.

Create a Shopify Plus Wholesale Store

Much like with Handshake, you first need to add the Shopify wholesale channel to your Shopify admin. This automatically creates the new store for you to be able to sell wholesale.

Note that wholesale stores are not the same as the usual Shopify online store accounts. Customers can’t log into your wholesale business with an online store user account. Each wholesale buyer will need a special wholesale customer account using a valid email. You need to create their customer account under “Customers” from the Shopify wholesale channel. Then you need to select the customer account and send them a wholesale store account email invite.

You will want to create a wholesale price list before you open your new Shopify wholesale channel to the public. You can do this via the Wholesale channel. After titling the price list, you can also apply Tags to customers and set customised pricing rules for each one that is under the set tag. You can discount your products by entering a percentage amount that applies to all products. After you’ve done all of this, click Save to successfully connect your customers to the price list.

Testing the Wholesale Channel

Set up a dummy customer account to make sure that things are working properly on your storefront. Then send yourself an invite to see how it would look like from the customer perspective. Follow the account creation and sign in instructions. Once you are signed in to the wholesale store, you should be able to access all the wholesale products and view the special wholesale pricing. This means that every product should be discounted at the specified percentage you selected.

Create and submit a test order to make sure this process is also working perfectly. Check out using the dummy customer account, then log in with your seller credentials. Go to the admin dashboard and review the order.

Note that wholesale orders usually involve some additional communication with the customer. In these cases, you can use the “Reserve Items” option on draft orders to make sure that the inventory does not get sold to another customer during this process. When your customer is ready to make the actual purchase, add the correct shipping cost. (If you don’t, the default shipping value you have saved will be applied automatically.)

To invoice, simply open Drafts, select the test order and send the invoice. Make sure to set up and customise payment options for your wholesale customers in your Shopify admin. For a test order, you can simply mark the order as paid in the Drafts section. This is enough if you don’t want to test the actual picking, packing, and shipping process.

Testing order fulfilment is also a one-click process. Simply go to the order in Drafts, then click “Continue” to fulfil the order as if it were like any other order. Then, select Fulfilled.

If everything went smoothly, you’re ready to run your wholesale business for real.