Do you need a full B2B wholesale ecommerce website or just a trade login?
If your trade customers mostly reorder the same products at agreed prices, a trade login on a well-built store is enough. If prices, approvals and deliveries vary customer by customer, you need a proper B2B wholesale ecommerce website with rules for each account.
A simple decision rule: count how many exceptions your order desk handles in a normal week. Special prices for one buyer, pallet mixes, split deliveries, orders held for credit checks, products only certain customers may see. A handful of exceptions fits a platform's built-in B2B features. Dozens, repeating every week, is a sign the logic belongs in code designed around your business.
Most UK wholesalers we speak to fall in between: a few price groups, some customer-specific deals, credit accounts for regulars, card payment for new or small accounts, and a need to sync with the accounts system. That middle ground is where Shopify or WooCommerce with sensible custom work often beats both a basic trade login and a large bespoke project.
- Few exceptions, standard prices: trade login on a store
- Price groups, credit accounts, accounts sync: B2B store on a platform
- Complex approvals, many warehouses, deep ERP rules: custom portal
Choose Shopify if you want a hosted platform with little server upkeep and your pricing fits its B2B model. Choose WooCommerce if you want full control of the code and hosting, or already run WordPress. Choose custom when neither can represent your pricing or ERP rules without constant workarounds.
Shopify offers native B2B tools such as company accounts, catalogues and payment terms, but which plans include which features has changed over time, so check Shopify's current UK plan comparison before deciding. WooCommerce reaches the same ground through extensions and custom code; it is flexible, but every extension is something to keep updated and compatible.
A custom portal costs more and takes longer, from US$900 and six to twelve weeks. In return there are no per-order platform fees, no app stack to renew, and the business rules sit in code you own. It is the right choice for a minority of wholesalers, and we will tell you honestly if you are not one of them. Our Shopify developer and WooCommerce developer pages go deeper on each platform.
How should trade account approval work on a wholesale website?
Keep the application short, check what matters to you, and approve quickly. A trade applicant who waits a week for a login phones a competitor instead.
A typical flow: the applicant fills in business name, company number or sole-trader details, VAT number if registered, delivery and invoice addresses, contact and expected spend. The site can check the format of the details automatically and flag incomplete applications. Your team approves in the admin panel and assigns a price group, payment terms and any product restrictions; the customer gets a welcome email with a login.
Some wholesalers approve card-paying accounts instantly and review only credit applications manually. Others keep everything manual. Either works; the site follows your rule. What we avoid is a public price list with no login at all when you have customer-specific prices, because the first customer to compare notes will notice.
Customer-specific prices, volume breaks and case quantities
Your pricing structure is the heart of a B2B wholesale ecommerce website. Map it exactly before any design work starts, because every later decision depends on it.
The common building blocks are a base trade price, price groups (for example independent retailers, chains, contract caterers), customer-specific overrides for key accounts, volume breaks that drop the unit price at set quantities, and promotional prices with start and end dates. Quantity rules sit alongside: sold only in cases of 12, minimum order of three cases, pallet quantities for heavy lines.
We document these rules in a pricing sheet you sign off, then test them with real customer examples: “Customer A, 7 cases of product X, on promotion, should pay this per unit.” Where your ERP or accounts system already holds the prices, the website reads them rather than duplicating them, which avoids the classic problem of the site and the invoice disagreeing.
- Base trade price per product
- Price groups for customer types
- Customer-specific overrides for key accounts
- Volume breaks at set quantities
- Case, minimum and pallet quantity rules
- Dated promotions with automatic expiry
Should a B2B wholesale website show prices excluding VAT?
For trade buyers, usually yes. Most VAT-registered business customers think in net prices, so a B2B wholesale ecommerce website normally shows prices excluding VAT, with VAT added clearly at the basket and on the invoice.
The build can show net prices to trade accounts and gross prices to anyone else, or offer a toggle. The basket and checkout show net, VAT and gross totals line by line, using the correct VAT rate for each product; rates themselves are set by HMRC, listed on GOV.UK's VAT rates page, and mixed baskets (standard-rated and zero-rated goods) must calculate correctly.
If you also sell to consumers on the same site, consumer protection rules apply to those sales, including the CMA's ban on drip pricing under the DMCC Act regime that came into force on 7 April 2025. That usually means separate display rules for retail visitors. Your accountant should confirm the VAT treatment of your products; we build the display and calculations to match their instructions.
How do credit terms and payment on account work online?
Approved accounts check out with “pay on account” instead of a card, up to a credit limit you set, and the order is invoiced through your accounts system on your agreed terms. New or small customers pay by card at checkout.
The site can show each customer their credit limit, current balance and overdue invoices where your accounts system exposes them, and put orders on hold automatically when an account is over its limit or overdue. Some wholesalers also let customers pay outstanding invoices by card from their account page, which helps cash flow.
Useful context from GOV.UK: if no payment date is agreed, a commercial payment becomes late 30 days after the customer receives the invoice or the goods are delivered, whichever is later, and businesses can claim statutory interest at 8% plus the Bank of England base rate on late business-to-business payments. Whether and how you use those rights is your decision; see GOV.UK's guidance on late commercial payments and take advice from your accountant or solicitor.
Connecting a B2B wholesale ecommerce website to Sage 200 or an ERP
Decide which system is the master for each type of data, then sync in one direction per item. Usually the ERP or accounts system owns customers, prices, stock and invoices, and the website owns orders until they are handed over.
Sage 200 and most ERPs offer an API or supported connectors, but what is available depends on the edition, version and whether it is hosted in the cloud or on your own server. The first step is a technical review with whoever supports your ERP today. We then map fields (customer codes, price bands, product codes, units of measure, VAT codes), agree timings (stock every few minutes, prices nightly, orders as they arrive) and build a sync with a visible log.
The log matters more than people expect. When an order fails to reach the ERP because a product code was changed, someone needs to see it the same morning, not at month end. We add alerts by email or WhatsApp for failures and a simple screen to retry them. For smaller wholesalers on Xero rather than an ERP, our Xero integration work follows the same principles.
- ERP to site: customers, price lists, stock levels, product data
- Site to ERP: orders, new account applications, delivery notes
- ERP to site: invoices, balances and credit status for account pages
- Both ways: a log of every sync, with alerts on failure
Quick order forms, CSV upload and reorder: what trade buyers actually use
Trade buyers are not browsing; they know what they want. The features that save them time are a quick order form (type a product code or name, enter quantity, next line), CSV or spreadsheet upload, one-click reorder from past orders and saved lists for regular orders.
On the B2B wholesale ecommerce website builds we deliver, the quick order form checks stock and quantity rules as each line is entered, so a buyer finds out that product X comes in cases of 12 before checkout rather than after. CSV upload accepts your product codes or the customer's own codes where you hold a mapping, and reports any lines it could not match.
Saved lists suit buyers with weekly routines: a café group's Monday order, a hardware shop's monthly restock. Customers with several sites can keep a list per site with separate delivery addresses. Where purchase orders still arrive by email as PDFs, we can add an AI step that reads them into draft web orders for your team to check, from US$600.
Product data for a wholesale catalogue
Clean product data decides whether a trade site is quick to use or a source of phone calls. Before building, audit what you hold: product codes, descriptions, pack sizes, units of measure, barcodes, dimensions and weights, images and any technical or safety documents.
Wholesale catalogues often carry several units per product (single, inner, case, pallet), each with its own code and price. The website needs to show these clearly and stop buyers ordering a unit you do not sell. Filters should match how buyers think: by brand, pack size, material or application rather than generic categories.
Data entry and cleaning is often the largest hidden task in the project. We can import from spreadsheets and your ERP, flag missing fields and suggest a structure, but only your team knows whether a description is accurate. Budget time for it, and treat it as an asset: the same clean data feeds marketplaces, price lists and your own staff.
Delivery rules for trade orders: pallets, routes and cut-off times
Trade delivery is rarely a single flat charge. Build the rules your warehouse already follows: free delivery above an order value, own-van routes on set days by postcode, pallet network charges for heavy orders, and collection from your depot.
The site can show each account its next delivery day based on postcode and order cut-off time, which removes a large share of “when will it arrive?” calls. Heavy or hazardous products can be flagged for pallet or specialist carriers. Customers with several sites choose a delivery address per order, and each address can have its own delivery day and access notes.
Where you use carrier software or a warehouse management system, orders pass to it through the same sync as the ERP. We keep delivery rules in one place so a change to a route day is made once, not in three systems.
Sales reps and ordering on behalf of customers
A good trade site supports your reps rather than replacing them. Reps can log in, pick a customer and place an order on their behalf at that customer's prices, so accounts get the same result whether they order online or through the rep.
For reps working at the customer's premises or in warehouses with patchy signal, a tablet app with offline ordering is worth considering; it stores orders and sends them when a connection returns. That is a separate build from US$600. Many wholesalers start with rep access on the website and add an app only when reps ask for it.
Reporting helps reps too: customers who have not ordered in six weeks, lines a customer used to buy and has stopped, and top accounts by value. We build these on your own data; our Power BI consultant page covers deeper dashboards.
SEO for a B2B wholesale ecommerce website with prices behind a login
Keep product and category pages public and indexable, and hide only the prices and ordering buttons for visitors who are not logged in. That way new trade buyers can find your range on Google while your pricing stays private.
Each public page should carry a proper description, specifications, pack sizes and a clear “Apply for a trade account” button in place of the price. Category pages describe the range in genuinely useful terms. We add product structured data where appropriate, XML sitemaps and Google Search Console, and make sure the login wall does not accidentally block search engines from the whole catalogue.
Honest limits: nobody can guarantee rankings, and B2B searches are lower in volume than consumer ones, so progress is measured in trade applications rather than traffic spikes. Ongoing work runs from US$150/mo a month, and our ecommerce SEO page covers catalogue structure in more detail.
Will AI search tools recommend my wholesale business?
They can recommend suppliers whose sites clearly state what they sell, to whom, and on what basis: “trade-only supplier of catering disposables to cafés and restaurants across the Midlands, next-day delivery on own vans”. Vague pages are harder for any system to quote.
We write a clear summary on the home page and key category pages, answer common trade questions (minimum order, delivery areas, how to open an account) in plain sentences, and keep details consistent with your Google Business Profile and directory listings.
No one controls what AI assistants say, so we treat this as a by-product of good content. Our AI search optimisation guide explains how to check how assistants describe your business.
Building your trade site with a team in India: what the first fortnight looks like
You work directly with the three developers doing the build. India is four and a half hours ahead of UK summer time and five and a half in winter, so we overlap with your working day from late morning, which suits order desks that are busiest first thing.
We work in English (and Hindi within the team), keep decisions in a shared board and run a preview site from the first week. ERP or accounts access is through credentials created in your own account for the project, never a staff member's login. Quotes and invoices come from India in USD, paid from a GBP account by Wise, bank wire or PayPal against milestones, and nothing is billed until you approve the written quote.
Your domain, platform account, hosting, code repository and any app subscriptions are in your name. We do not visit warehouses, handle product photography or act as your ERP support partner; we work alongside whoever supports your ERP today.
Days 1–5
Pricing sheet drafted with your team, ERP documentation reviewed with your ERP supporter, platform decision confirmed, product data audit started.
Days 6–14
Trade login and approval flow on preview, first price groups tested with real customer examples, sample product import from your ERP or spreadsheet.
Red flags when choosing a B2B ecommerce developer
Walk away from any proposal that takes a percentage of your trade orders, keeps the platform or code in the developer's name, or treats ERP integration as a single vague line. Those three problems are where wholesale projects go wrong.
Other warning signs: no questions about your pricing structure before quoting, a plan to duplicate prices on the website rather than read them from your system, no sync log or failure alerts, and a demo that only shows a consumer shop with a login bolted on. Ask to see how an order would fail and how you would know.
- Revenue share or per-order fees to the developer
- Platform account, hosting or code not in your name
- ERP integration quoted without reading its documentation
- Prices maintained in two places
- No sync log, alerts or retry screen
- Guaranteed rankings or sales figures
Worked example: a catering disposables wholesaler in the West Midlands (hypothetical)
Say a wholesaler near Wolverhampton supplies cafés, takeaways and contract caterers with packaging and cleaning products: around 1,800 product lines, 350 active trade accounts, three price groups plus special prices for twenty key accounts, own-van delivery on set days and Sage 200 for accounts. Most orders arrive by phone, email and PDF.
The plan: a B2B wholesale ecommerce website on Shopify or WooCommerce from US$750, chosen after checking which fits the price structure with the least custom code. Trade applications with manual approval for credit accounts and instant approval for card payers. Prices and stock read from Sage 200; orders written back with customer codes. Net prices on every page, VAT at the basket, delivery day shown by postcode and cut-off.
Buyers get a quick order form, saved weekly lists and CSV upload. Emailed PDF purchase orders are read into draft orders for the order desk to confirm, from US$600. Public product pages stay indexable with prices hidden. This describes a typical scope, not a real client or result.
B2B wholesale ecommerce website: launch checklist
Test each of these with real customer examples before inviting your trade accounts.
- Five real customers' prices match what the invoice will say
- Case, minimum and pallet quantity rules enforced at entry
- Net, VAT and gross totals correct on mixed-rate baskets
- Pay on account respects credit limits and holds
- Orders reach Sage 200 or your ERP with the right codes
- Sync failures raise an alert and can be retried
- Quick order, CSV upload and reorder tested by a real buyer
- Public pages indexable, prices hidden when logged out
- Invoices from your accounts system carry the details GOV.UK lists
- Domain, platform, hosting and code accounts in your name
GOV.UK sets out what every invoice must include, such as a unique number, both parties' names and addresses, the supply date and the amounts, and says VAT invoices must be used when you and your customer are both VAT registered; those invoices normally come from your accounts system, and the site passes it the right data. For first-year running costs, see our UK ecommerce website cost guide.