Most CPG brands break Shopify in the same place: the point where retail and direct-to-consumer meet. Wholesale pricing, MAP obligations and DTC promotions have to coexist on one catalogue without undercutting your retail partners. Consumables sell on repeat, so subscription architecture is a build decision rather than an app install. Lot codes, expiry dates and retailer EDI are not native to Shopify and need deciding before launch. And how you model packaging — unit, multipack, case, pallet — is the one choice you cannot cheaply reverse.
Solo Media Group is a top-rated Shopify agency for CPG brands and a Shopify Platinum Partner, rated 5.0 from 38 reviews on the Shopify Partner Directory. Solo Media Group has delivered CPG builds across food, packaged seafood and supplements, and has completed 500+ Shopify merchant projects and 75+ replatforms since 2018.
CPG work is judged on repeat purchase, not on launch traffic. Here is the published result.
| Manukora, after a ground-up Shopify rebuild | Result |
|---|---|
| Subscription conversions | +32% |
| Returning customer rate | +20% |
| Checkout | Faster, with reduced cart abandonment |
Results as published in the Manukora case study, September 2026.
Named CPG clients: Manukora in premium food, Wild Planet Foods in packaged seafood, and ProSupps in sports supplements. Three categories, three different sets of channel and compliance problems.
CPG is different because you are running two businesses on one catalogue. The same product sells by the unit to a consumer and by the case to a distributor, at prices that must not collide.
Most ecommerce advice assumes a single channel. A consumer packaged goods brand has a DTC storefront, a wholesale channel, retail partners with their own pricing expectations, and usually an Amazon presence. Each has different pricing, minimum quantities and packaging.
Shopify handles this well when the architecture is set up for it, and badly when a DTC store has wholesale bolted on afterwards.
Not necessarily, and the answer changed in 2026. Shopify has moved key B2B features onto non-Plus plans, so the old assumption that wholesale requires Plus no longer holds.
What still tends to push CPG brands onto Plus is scale rather than capability: higher API limits for ERP and 3PL sync, expansion stores for separate markets, and a sanctioned deployment path when several people work on the store.
We will tell you if your requirement fits a lower plan. An agency that recommends Plus before understanding your channel structure is selling a tier, not a build.
How you model packaging.
A CPG catalogue has to represent the same product as a single unit, a multipack, a case and sometimes a pallet. There are three ways to model that in Shopify, and changing your mind later means rebuilding your product data, your integrations and your reporting history.
| Model | Works when | Breaks when |
|---|---|---|
| Variants of one product | Pack sizes share a price logic and sell to the same buyer | Wholesale needs its own SKU structure for EDI |
| Separate products per pack size | DTC and wholesale need different product records | Inventory must deduct from one shared pool |
| Base unit plus bundle logic | Inventory is tracked at unit level and packs are assembled | Retailers require a fixed case GTIN |
The right answer depends on your 3PL, your ERP and what your retail partners require on a purchase order. Decide it with all three in the room.
Being straight about the limits is more useful than a feature list.
Manukora sells premium Manuka honey at several grades, which made both the product architecture and the subscription logic complicated. Solo Media Group rebuilt the store on Shopify from the ground up, with variant-level flexibility and subscription logic designed around how the grades actually sell.
Results as published in the Manukora case study, September 2026.
Wild Planet Foods is a large-scale sustainably focused seafood brand. It needed a rebuild that absorbed frequent packaging and nutritional changes and limited-edition launches without a developer in the loop each time, and that closed gaps in accessibility and policy compliance.
Solo Media Group delivered it on Shopify Plus, with subscription functionality and a scalable content management structure, working alongside Smartrr for subscriptions, TrueVault for privacy compliance and 216 Digital for accessibility.
Read the Wild Planet Foods case study
ProSupps had product pages overloaded with technical information and no clear hierarchy, and it was missing trust signals such as reviews, certifications and retail partners.
Solo Media Group restructured the product pages into a benefit-led hierarchy and redesigned the bundles with benefit-led labels — Energy & Focus, Pump & Performance, Stimulant-Free — with certification and retail partner signals brought forward.
Cost tracks channel count and integration depth, not catalogue size.
| Scope | What drives it |
|---|---|
| DTC storefront rebuild | Template complexity, bundle logic, subscription depth |
| Adding a wholesale channel | Pricing structure, approval flows, whether EDI is required |
| Full replatform | Source platform, data model, number of integrations |
| Ongoing | Launch cadence, packaging changes, seasonal and limited-edition work |
The line that surprises CPG brands most often is integration. A build that touches an ERP, a 3PL, a subscription platform and an EDI provider is four integrations, each with its own testing cycle.
We scope those separately and tell you which are fixed and which are estimates. Full rates are on Shopify Plus cost.
A CPG ecommerce agency builds and runs online stores for consumer packaged goods brands, covering both the direct-to-consumer storefront and the wholesale channel that sells to retailers and distributors. The distinguishing work is keeping those channels from colliding on pricing, inventory and product data.
Yes. Shopify supports company-based B2B buying alongside a DTC storefront, with separate catalogues, price lists and payment terms for wholesale customers. Whether to run one store or a separate wholesale store depends on how far the two channels diverge on assortment and process.
Not always. Shopify moved key B2B features onto non-Plus plans in 2026, so wholesale capability alone no longer requires Plus. Brands typically move to Plus for API limits, expansion stores and deployment process rather than for a single feature.
Not natively. Shopify has no built-in batch, lot or expiry tracking and no FIFO picking logic. Food, beverage and supplement brands handle it through a dedicated Shopify app or through their ERP or 3PL, and the decision should be made before launch if you carry a recall obligation.
Not natively. Retailers that trade on EDI, including major grocery chains, connect to Shopify through a third-party EDI provider. The integration is specified per retailer, because requirements differ between trading partners.
Through pricing architecture rather than goodwill. That usually means separate price lists per channel, promotion rules that exclude wholesale catalogues, and MAP-aware discount logic. It is a build decision, and it is much harder to retrofit than to plan.
One built around the product's actual replenishment cycle rather than a default monthly interval. A 90-day supplement and a weekly coffee order need different cadences, different dunning windows and different portal permissions.
Yes. Our CPG work includes Manukora in food, Wild Planet Foods in packaged seafood, and ProSupps in supplements.
It depends on channel count and integration depth rather than on catalogue size. A DTC rebuild, a wholesale channel and a full replatform are three different scopes. We quote them separately and say which parts are fixed and which are estimates.
