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How Shopify decides a B2B buyer's price

How catalogs, B2B markets and direct catalog assignment decide what a company location pays in Shopify, including the three-catalog limit outside Plus.

Updated 2 min read

In Shopify B2B, prices belong to a company location, not to a customer. A location’s prices come from catalogs. Each catalog has a price list, which can set a percentage adjustment, fixed prices, volume pricing and quantity rules. B2B Desk doesn’t change how this works. It shows you the result and moves locations between markets for you.

The path to a price

  1. Does the location have a catalog assigned directly?Plus only

    YesThose catalogs apply. Market catalogs are ignored.

  2. Is the location in a B2B market?

    NoNo B2B prices. The buyer sees retail prices.

  3. Does that market have an active catalog?

    NoRetail prices.

  4. The location gets the market's catalog prices.

    In several markets with catalogs, Shopify charges the lowest price per product across them.

Shopify checks these in order for each company location. Price check in B2B Desk shows which branch a buyer lands on.

On Basic, Grow and Advanced

  • You can have up to three active B2B catalogs.
  • Catalogs reach company locations through B2B markets. A B2B market includes company locations, either all of them, by region, or a list of specific locations, and carries a catalog.
  • A location gets the catalog of the market it’s in. A location in no B2B market sees no B2B prices.

So the three catalogs are effectively your price tiers, and moving a location to another market is how you change its tier. On the Catalogs page, B2B Desk shows them as Catalog slots, such as “2 of 3 used”.

On Plus

You can have more catalogs, and you can assign catalogs to a company location directly. A catalog assigned directly takes precedence over the catalogs of the location’s markets. B2B Desk detects Plus and shows an Active catalogs table and an Assign catalog action instead of slots and markets.

When several catalogs apply

A location in more than one market with a catalog, or with several catalogs assigned directly, pays the lowest price per product across them. One product can come from one catalog and the next from another. The Catalogs page warns you about locations in several markets and names the catalog that wins.

Quantity rules and volume pricing

Minimums, maximums, order increments and volume pricing are set per product in a catalog’s price list, so they follow the same path. The Order Pad shows them on every row, and Shopify enforces them at checkout.

See it for one buyer

Price check shows what one company location pays for one product and explains why, for example “This location is in the B2B Cafés market, so it gets the Cafés wholesale catalog.”