Most small brands fall into wholesale by accident. A shop emails asking about trade prices, you send a spreadsheet, they reply with what they want, you type it into your system as a manual order, raise an invoice in your accounting software, and thirty days later you work out whether they have paid.
It works, until it is six accounts. Then it is an afternoon a week, the price list has three versions in circulation, and you genuinely cannot remember whether the garden centre is on 30 days or 60.
The fix is not a second website. It is letting trade customers use your existing shop, while seeing entirely different prices.
How it fits together
Three pieces: the company, what they pay, and when they pay.
The company
Each wholesale customer is set up as a company rather than a person. That matters, because a business is not one person. A company holds its VAT number, as many locations as it has, each with its own address, and as many team members as it needs.
Team members get a role. Admins manage the account. Buyers just order. So the owner of a three-branch chain can have a buyer at each branch placing their own orders, without any of them being able to change the account.
A person can belong to more than one company, which sounds like an edge case until you meet the freelance buyer who orders for two different salons.
What they pay
Trade prices live in price lists. A list can set a fixed price, or a percentage off your retail price, and it can work at the product level or right down to individual variants, because sometimes the 5 litre trades at a different discount from the 500ml.
You attach a list to a company location. From then on, when their buyers log in, they see those prices. No code to type, nothing to remember to apply, no risk of a buyer being charged retail because someone forgot.
You can also restrict a list, so a particular range is only available to the accounts you want to have it. Useful when an exclusive is genuinely meant to be exclusive.
When they pay
This is the part that removes the most admin. Agree payment terms per company: Net 15, 30, 60 or 90 days, or due on receipt, due on fulfilment, or a fixed date.
Their orders then raise invoices automatically on those terms. Invoices sync to Stripe with a hosted payment link, so the buyer can pay by card from the invoice itself rather than arranging a transfer. And you get a view of what is open, what is paid and what is past due, without exporting anything.
What the buyer sees
They sign into your storefront like any other customer. Same shop, same product pages, same checkout. The difference is that the prices are theirs, and their account area shows their company's orders, their invoices with due dates, and a link to pay.
This is the bit that wins accounts. Buyers at small businesses are ordering from a dozen suppliers, and the ones they order from most are the ones where reordering takes ninety seconds at half past nine at night. A self-serve trade account beats a friendly email exchange, every time, on volume.
What this looks like in practice
A coffee roaster supplying twelve cafes. Each cafe is a company, on its own price list depending on volume, most on 30 day terms. Cafe managers reorder themselves on a Sunday night. The roaster stopped doing Monday invoicing entirely.
A skincare brand selling to salons. Salons see trade prices, the public sees retail, on the same product pages. A restricted price list covers the professional-size products the public should not be buying at all.
A homeware maker selling to a small chain of garden centres. One company, four locations, each with its own delivery address and its own buyer. Orders arrive tagged to the right branch, so nothing gets sent to head office by mistake.
A food producer with both a farm shop and trade customers. Retail runs as normal. Trade runs on 60 day terms because that is what the sector expects, and the invoice view means overdue accounts are visible rather than discovered.
Setting up your first trade account
- Create the company. Name, VAT number, locations, and the team members who will order, each as an admin or a buyer.
- Build a price list. If you are starting out, a straight percentage off retail is the simplest thing that works. Move to fixed prices per product when you need finer control.
- Attach the list to their location so their buyers see those prices automatically.
- Agree the payment terms and set them on the account.
- Invite the buyers. They set their own passwords and can order immediately.
- Watch the first order go through and check the invoice looks the way you want before you onboard the next five accounts.
Two things worth pairing with this. Free delivery for trade accounts is a single shipping rule using a condition on the customer. And a trade account number stored as a custom field on the company keeps your accounting reconciliation simple.
Pricing it honestly
A word of caution that has nothing to do with software. Wholesale margin is thinner than retail margin, and the mistake most makers make is setting a trade price by taking a percentage off retail without checking the number underneath it still pays them. Our guide to pricing handmade products works through the maths, and the rule of thumb it lands on is that your retail price needs to be roughly double your wholesale price for both to work.
Get that wrong and better software just helps you lose money faster.
The honest limits
Payment terms are a credit decision. Offering Net 60 to a business you know nothing about is lending them money. The software will track it faithfully. It will not tell you whether they are good for it.
Invoices sync to Stripe. That is how the hosted pay link works, which is the thing buyers actually like. Worth knowing when you plan your payments setup.
It is a trade counter, not an ERP. If you are running purchase orders, multi-warehouse allocation and demand forecasting for thousands of lines, that is a different class of system. This covers the extremely common case of a growing brand with a real and growing trade side.
Questions people ask about wholesale accounts
Can I show different prices to wholesale customers on the same shop?
Yes, and that is the core of it. You build a trade price list, either a fixed price or a percentage off retail, at product or variant level, and attach it to a company location. When that company's buyers log in they see their prices automatically on your normal storefront. The public sees retail on the same pages. There is no separate trade site and nothing for a buyer to type in.
Can wholesale customers pay on invoice rather than by card?
Yes. Agree terms per company: Net 15, 30, 60 or 90 days, or due on receipt, due on fulfilment, or a fixed date. Their orders raise invoices on those terms automatically. Invoices sync to Stripe with a hosted payment link, so buyers can also pay by card straight from the invoice if they prefer, and you get a view of what is open, paid and past due.
Can one company have several buyers with different permissions?
Yes. A company can have as many team members as it needs, each set as an admin or a buyer. Admins manage the account, buyers just place orders. A company can also have multiple locations with their own addresses, so a chain can have a buyer per branch ordering to their own address. One person can belong to more than one company.
Do I need a separate platform for B2B?
Not on Orbit. Company accounts, trade price lists, payment terms and invoicing are part of the platform, and trade buyers use the same storefront as everyone else. Elsewhere this is usually either a wholesale app at roughly £20 to £60 a month or a second B2B storefront costing considerably more.
The short version
Set each trade customer up as a company with its own buyers, give them a price list attached to their location, agree payment terms once, and let their orders raise invoices on their own. The buyers get to reorder at half nine at night without emailing anyone, which is what actually grows the account. Just check your wholesale prices still pay you before you send the invites.
What this saves you buying
On most platforms the things above arrive as separate paid apps. On Orbit they are part of the plan. Typical add-on prices, for comparison:
| What you would otherwise buy | Typical cost elsewhere |
|---|---|
| A wholesale or trade pricing app | £20 to £60 a month |
| A separate B2B storefront | £50 to £300 a month |
| Manual invoicing and chasing | two or three hours a week |
Third-party prices are indicative and move around. Check the vendor before you budget on them.