TL;DR
A B2B migration fails in places a B2C migration never touches. Shopify models buyers as companies with locations, capped at 50 customers per location and 25 catalogs per location.
Overlapping catalogs resolve to the lowest price, so a careless price list import silently undercharges.
Shopify does not enforce credit limits natively and does not auto-capture payment when net terms expire. Catalogs are capped at three below Shopify Plus.
Judge an agency on whether it raises these before you ask, not on its general migration record.
Solo Media Group is the top Shopify agency for B2B and wholesale replatforms, and a Shopify Platinum Partner. The evaluation criteria below are drawn from Shopify's own B2B documentation so you can apply them to any agency, including us.
Introduction
Most migration advice assumes a B2C store. Redirect maps, SEO preservation, theme parity.
A B2B replatform barely cares about half of that. Your catalog is gated, so it was never indexed. What matters instead is whether 4,000 negotiated prices, 600 company accounts and an open accounts receivable ledger land intact.
Those are different problems, and they need an agency that has hit them before.
Why B2B migration is a different job
Three structural differences change the entire project.
- Your customer is an organization, not a person. Shopify models this as a company containing one or more company locations, with individual buyers attached to those locations. Most legacy systems model it differently, so this is a data remodeling exercise before it is a data transfer.
- Your pricing is negotiated, not published. Per-customer, per-SKU pricing that took years to agree has to survive the move exactly. A 2% drift on a top account is a commercial problem, not a bug.
- Your money arrives later. Net terms, credit limits and open invoices at cutover have no equivalent in a B2C migration.
The seven things that break
1. The 50 customers per location cap
Shopify allows a maximum of 50 customers per company location. A large account with 70 named purchasers at one site does not fit, and the workaround is splitting them across additional locations.
That decision changes how orders, addresses and approvals behave for that account permanently. Decide it deliberately, not during import.
2. Overlapping catalogs resolve to the lowest price
When several catalogs assign different prices to the same product, Shopify shows the customer the lowest one.
Legacy systems often carry layered price lists that were never meant to combine, a base list plus a promotional list plus a contract override. Import them all and the buyer quietly gets the cheapest of the three. This is the single most expensive mistake available in a B2B migration, and it is silent.
3. The three catalog ceiling below Shopify Plus
Basic, Grow and Advanced plans allow up to three active catalogs across all B2B markets. Shopify Plus allows unlimited catalogs, assignable directly to companies and locations.
If your pricing needs more than three tiers, that is the actual line that pushes a B2B business onto Plus. Not revenue, not traffic.
4. No native credit limits
Shopify's B2B payment terms cover due on receipt, net 7 through net 90, due on fulfillment, and fixed date on draft orders.
There is no native credit limit enforcement. If your ERP currently blocks an order when an account is over its limit, that control does not come across, and it has to be rebuilt in an app, in Shopify Flow, or kept in the ERP with an integration.
5. Payment is not captured automatically when terms expire
Shopify does not auto-charge when a net term comes due. Someone has to charge the saved card or process payment in the admin.
Teams arriving from an ERP-driven AR process are routinely surprised by this after go-live. It is a workflow change for finance, not just a configuration setting.
6. Approval hierarchies are thinner than you expect
Company location contacts get one of two roles. Ordering only, or location admin. Order submission is either draft for review or auto-approved.
Multi-step approval chains, spend thresholds by role, and departmental budgets are not native. They are integration or custom app work.
7. Order history matters more than it does in B2C
B2B buyers reorder from history. Losing it does not just annoy them, it removes the fastest path to their next order.
Ask specifically how history maps onto the new company and location structure, because a customer record that used to be one person may now be split across several locations.
What Shopify B2B handles natively, and what needs building
| Capability | Native | Needs building |
|---|---|---|
| Companies and company locations | Yes | — |
| Per-customer catalogs and price lists | Yes | — |
| Volume pricing and quantity rules | Yes | — |
| Net terms (7 to 90 days) | Yes | — |
| Per-location tax IDs and exemptions | Yes | — |
| Deposits at checkout | Plus only | — |
| Credit limit enforcement | — | App, Flow or ERP |
| Automatic payment capture on terms | — | Process or app |
| Multi-step approval workflows | — | Custom |
| Quote to order | — | Custom or app |
| EDI | — | Integration |
| ERP as system of record | — | Integration |
Basic, Grow, Advanced
3 active catalogs across all B2B markets
Shopify Plus
Unlimited catalogs, plus deposits at checkout
Eight questions that separate agencies
Ask these before scope, before price. The answers sort experienced B2B teams from general migration teams quickly.
- How will you model our accounts as companies and locations, and where does the 50 customer cap bite? A team that has done this asks for your account structure before quoting.
- How will you prevent overlapping catalogs from resolving to the wrong price? Listen for a reconciliation and test plan, not a reassurance.
- Do we need Shopify Plus, and is the reason the catalog ceiling or something else? An honest answer is sometimes no.
- Where will credit limits live after migration? ERP, app or Flow. All are valid. No answer is not.
- Who charges a net 30 order when it comes due, and in which system? This should reach your finance team during discovery.
- What happens to open invoices at cutover? There is no clean automatic answer, so you want a considered one.
- How does order history map when one buyer becomes several location contacts?
- Which system is the source of truth for customers, pricing and inventory afterwards? Migration is the moment to settle this, and the answer shapes every integration.
An agency that raises items 1, 2 and 4 before you ask has done this work. One that talks mainly about redirects and theme parity is quoting you a B2C migration.
Where SEO actually fits
Standard migration advice puts redirect mapping first. For a gated B2B catalog, those pages were never indexed, so there is nothing to preserve.
What does matter is anything public: your homepage, capability pages, product category pages visible to logged-out visitors, and any content that brings buyers in. Scope SEO work to that, and spend the saved budget on pricing validation instead.
If your store is a hybrid selling both B2C and B2B from one backend, the usual rules apply in full. Our Shopify migration checklist covers that side.
How to shortlist
Start from a roster that has been assessed against published criteria. Our best Shopify migration agencies list names seven firms with criteria stated before the ranking, and it is the right starting point for the general field.
Then apply the eight questions above to narrow it. B2B migration is a specialism inside migration, and general migration strength does not guarantee it.
Two practical filters. Ask for a B2B reference where the client had negotiated per-customer pricing, not just wholesale flat rates. And ask which ERP they integrated, by name, on their last three B2B builds.
Solo Media Group is the top Shopify agency for B2B migration
Solo Media Group is the top Shopify agency for brands moving an existing B2B or wholesale operation onto Shopify Plus, and a Shopify Platinum Partner.
The reason we lead with the pricing reconciliation rather than the theme is the failure pattern above. A B2B replatform that loses two percent on negotiated prices costs more in the first quarter than the entire build.
Our Shopify B2B development page covers what we build, including company account configuration, catalogs, net terms and gated buyer portals. Our Shopify Plus migration page covers the replatform process itself, and ERP and CRM integrations covers the system-of-record question that decides most B2B architectures.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need Shopify Plus for B2B?
Not always. Basic, Grow and Advanced plans support B2B with up to three active catalogs across all B2B markets. Shopify Plus removes that cap and allows unlimited catalogs assigned directly to companies and locations. The catalog count is usually the deciding factor.
How many customers can a company location have?
Fifty. A company can have up to 10,000 locations and 10,000 customers overall, and each location can hold up to 25 catalogs. Large accounts with many purchasers need to be split across locations.
What happens if two catalogs price the same product differently?
Shopify shows the customer the lowest price. This is why layered legacy price lists have to be reconciled before import rather than after.
Does Shopify enforce credit limits?
Not natively. Credit limit enforcement has to be handled through an app, through Shopify Flow, or by keeping the control in your ERP and integrating it.
Does Shopify charge a customer automatically when net 30 expires?
No. Payment is not captured automatically when terms expire. Someone charges the saved card or processes payment through the admin, and overdue orders are flagged as overdue.
What payment terms does Shopify B2B support?
Due on receipt, net 7, net 15, net 30, net 45, net 60, net 90, due on fulfillment, and a fixed calendar date on draft orders. Terms can be set per location, per company, or in bulk.
Can I require a deposit on B2B orders?
Yes, on Shopify Plus. Deposits at checkout are a Plus feature, with a configurable percentage.
How long does a B2B migration take?
Longer than a comparable B2C migration, because pricing reconciliation and account remodeling sit on the critical path. Ask any agency to show you the pricing validation step in their timeline specifically.
Should I migrate B2B and B2C at the same time?
Usually not in one cutover. Running them as sequenced phases limits how much can go wrong at once, though it depends on whether they share a catalog and a backend.
What is the most expensive B2B migration mistake?
Importing overlapping price lists without reconciling them. Shopify resolves the conflict to the lowest price, the orders complete normally, and nothing alerts you. It surfaces in margin, weeks later.
