Getting Started with Wholesale & B2B Pricing

What is ShipWave Wholesale?

ShipWave Wholesale is a complete B2B pricing system that lets you offer special pricing to different customer segments. You create customer groups (e.g. "Gold Tier", "Distributor"), assign pricing rules, and ShipWave automatically applies the correct discounts at checkout using a Shopify Function. There are no apps to install on your storefront—everything runs natively through Shopify's discount engine.

How it works

The wholesale system has five main components:

1. Customer groups — Segments of customers identified by Shopify customer tags. Each group can have its own default discount, order limits, net terms, tax-exempt status, and product locks.

2. Pricing rules — Override the group default discount for specific products, collections, or variants. Support percentage off, fixed amount off, or fixed price.

3. Volume tiers — Quantity-break pricing that automatically gives bigger discounts for larger orders (e.g. buy 50+ for 30% off).

4. Cart validation — A checkout extension that enforces order limits (minimum/maximum quantity, minimum order value, minimum weight) and product lock restrictions. If a customer's cart doesn't meet the group's requirements, they see an error message at checkout.

5. Discount function — A Shopify Function that reads your wholesale configuration and applies the correct discount in real time. Customers see their wholesale price on the cart and checkout pages.

Activating wholesale

Go to Admin → Wholesale and click Activate Wholesale. This creates a Shopify automatic discount powered by your wholesale function. Once activated, the system is live—any customer whose Shopify tags match a customer group will see wholesale pricing at checkout. If you want to test first, enable test mode before activating (see the test mode article).

Quick-start checklist

Go to Admin → Wholesale and activate the wholesale system.
Create your first customer group with a name, Shopify tag, and default discount.
Add any pricing rules to override the default for specific products or collections.
Optionally set up volume tiers for quantity-break pricing.
Tag your wholesale customers in Shopify with the group's tag.
Test the checkout to verify discounts are applied correctly.

v1 vs v2 configuration

ShipWave originally launched with a simpler wholesale system (v1) that used four hardcoded pricing categories. The current system (v2) supports unlimited customer groups with flexible pricing rules, volume tiers, shipping rules, net terms, and more. If you were using v1, you can migrate to v2 from Admin → Wholesale → Settings. See the migration article for details.

FAQs

Do my customers need to install anything?

No. Wholesale pricing is applied automatically at checkout through a Shopify Function. Customers don't need to install an app or use a special link. They just need to be tagged with the correct group tag in Shopify.

Can I use wholesale pricing with Shopify's other discounts?

Shopify allows one automatic discount at a time. If you have other automatic discounts active, you may need to convert them to discount codes. Wholesale pricing works alongside discount codes and Shopify Scripts.

Is there a limit to how many groups or rules I can create?

No. You can create as many customer groups, pricing rules, and volume tiers as you need. The system is designed to handle complex B2B pricing structures with hundreds of rules.

Getting started with wholesale & B2B pricing