Shopify Wholesale Pricing Guide

Setting up wholesale pricing in Shopify means solving two problems at once: calculating trade prices that protect your margin, and keeping those prices separate from what regular customers see. Get either wrong and you either undercut your margins or accidentally show retailers your retail prices, which doesn't build confidence. Here's how to think through both.

How wholesale pricing works

Wholesale pricing is a discount off your retail price (RRP) extended to retailers who buy in volume to resell. The discount has to be deep enough to give retailers a margin — typically they need to mark up the trade price by at least 100% to reach an RRP that works in their stores. That means your trade price is usually 40–60% below RRP.

The margin you're left with at trade price — after cost of goods, shipping, and any trade discounts — is your wholesale margin. Run these numbers before you publish a price list:

• Cost of goods (what you pay to make or buy the product)
• Wholesale price (what the retailer pays you)
• Wholesale margin = (wholesale price − cost) / wholesale price

A sustainable wholesale margin is usually 40–60%. Below 30% and most businesses struggle to cover overheads.

Common wholesale pricing structures

• Flat percentage off RRP. Simplest. One rule for all products. Easy to explain and to update.
• Tiered by volume. Better pricing at higher order volumes. Rewards your best accounts but adds admin complexity.
• Category-based. Different discounts for different product types — useful when margins vary significantly across your range.
• Account-specific. Custom pricing for individual retailers, usually larger accounts. Powerful, but requires careful management to avoid inconsistency.

Keeping retail and wholesale prices separate in Shopify

Shopify's native pricing model has one price per product variant. Wholesale pricing approaches on Shopify include:

• Manual calculation. Calculate trade prices offline and include them on a price list you send separately. Your Shopify store shows retail; buyers order via a separate process.
• Shopify Markets or B2B. Shopify's B2B features (available on certain plans) let you create customer-specific price lists applied when logged-in wholesale accounts shop. Requires higher Shopify plans.
• Price list apps. A separate tool that takes your Shopify catalogue, applies a discount rule, and outputs a price list — PDF, CSV, or live link — for buyers to reference when ordering.

What to include in your wholesale terms

Prices don't stand alone. Every wholesale price list needs terms alongside it:

• Minimum order quantity (MOQ). Per order, per product, or per case.
• Payment terms. Net 30, prepayment required, credit card on account.
• Lead time. How long from order to delivery.
• Returns policy. What happens if something arrives damaged or doesn't sell.

A price list without terms isn't a wholesale offer — it's a price suggestion. Terms turn an inquiry into a relationship.