Shopify Questions, Answered

Shopify questions

Questions I get by email, in the forums or on a first call, answered in the first two sentences. The ones worth a thousand words live on the blog.

Pricing and quotes

How much does a Shopify B2B portal cost?

There is no honest headline figure, because the real range is enormous: the same catalog can be two weeks of work on your current theme or a months-long project with an ERP integration. Four specific things decide the price, and a quote that arrives without asking about them is not a quote.

What should I ask a Shopify developer before hiring them?

Six: which live stores can I visit and what exactly did you do on them; which part of this needs no apps; which plan does this leave me on; how do you hand over the code and where does it live; what happens when something breaks in three months; and which of the things I asked for do you recommend I skip?

Do I need an app to sell B2B on Shopify?

No. B2B features are native on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Shopify Plus plans: companies, locations, catalogs with their own prices, quantity rules and volume pricing all ship with the platform. An app is only needed for what the native model does not cover, and the first job is working out which part that is.

Can I have a different price for each customer in Shopify?

By customer tier, yes, and without Shopify Plus: up to three active B2B catalogs each with their own price list. A negotiated price account by account, natively, needs Shopify Plus, because it is the only plan that can assign a catalog directly to a company or one of its locations.
How do I hide prices from visitors who are not wholesale customers?

With a Liquid condition on customer.b2b? around every price, stock badge and buy button. The rule is that if the visitor is not a logged-in B2B customer, the price must not reach the HTML: hiding it with CSS or JavaScript does not count, because the price is still in the page source.

Can I use Shopify Functions without Shopify Plus?

Only the ones that ship inside a public App Store app. A Function written specifically for your store lives inside a custom app, and only stores on Shopify Plus can install custom apps containing Shopify Functions.

Can I customise the Shopify checkout?

Yes, but within specific limits. You can change the logo, colours, fonts and block order from the editor, add content and fields with extensions at the allowed points, and change discounts, shipping and payments with Functions. What you cannot do is freely reorder the checkout steps or lay it out like a normal page.

Can I update a Shopify theme that has been customised?

It depends where the changes live. If they are in new sections and files of their own, the update is viable and only the contact points need reviewing. If they are scattered inside the theme’s original files, updating means redoing each change one by one, and that is a project rather than an update.
Do I need a new theme to sell B2B on Shopify?

No. A wholesale portal can be built on the theme you already have, a paid one included: the catalog price arrives at the theme already resolved, and access is decided with a Liquid condition on customer.b2b?. What is usually needed is front-end work on that theme, not starting over.