What is a wholesale ordering portal?
A signed-in storefront where approved trade buyers order at their own negotiated pricing, drawing from the same catalog your retail site uses. It replaces the email-and-spreadsheet ordering most B2B sellers start with.
Can wholesale and retail share one catalog?
Yes, and they should. The product record is the same; what varies per account is visibility, price and minimums. Splitting the catalog is what creates the reconciliation work most sellers assume is unavoidable.
Can different buyers have different prices for the same product?
Yes. Pricing resolves per account, so tiers, volume breaks and per-account overrides coexist. We model that derivation explicitly before building, because changing it later re-prices history.
How do buyers get approved?
Approval is a state your team sets on the customer account from the admin, after whatever verification your business requires. No second account is created — the same login simply starts seeing trade pricing.
Can we hide products from the public entirely?
Yes. Visibility is a function of the signed-in account, so a trade-only item does not render and is not present in the public page source until an approved account signs in.
Do trade buyers pay differently from retail?
Usually, which is why payment methods are configuration rather than code. Invoicing and terms can be enabled for trade accounts without touching the retail checkout.
