Generic e-commerce platforms are built for a simple model: one product, one price, every customer pays the same.
That works perfectly for selling t-shirts to consumers. It falls apart completely when you're selling wholesale.
How Wholesale Pricing Actually Works
If you run a wholesale operation, your pricing probably looks something like this:
Customer-specific pricing: Your biggest accounts have negotiated rates. Customer A pays $45 per unit, Customer B pays $52, Customer C is still on the old price list at $48.
Volume breaks: Buy 10, pay list price. Buy 100, get 10% off. Buy 1,000, we'll talk.
Category discounts: Some customers get 15% off electrical but pay full price for plumbing. Others have different margins on different product lines.
Contract pricing: Annual agreements with locked rates, regardless of what happens to your costs.
Promotional stacking: Trade promotions, early payment discounts, loyalty rebates—sometimes all applying to the same order.
Price lists by customer tier: Retail, trade, premium trade, distributor—each seeing completely different numbers.
This isn't complexity for its own sake. It's how wholesale relationships work. Long-term customers earn better rates. Volume commitments get rewarded. Different channels have different margins.
Why Generic Platforms Can't Handle This
Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce—they're all built on the same assumption: products have prices, customers pay those prices.
The Workarounds Start Stacking
When wholesalers try to force these platforms to handle B2B pricing, they end up with:
Apps on top of apps: A discount app, a customer group app, a tiered pricing app, a quote request app. Each adds cost, complexity, and potential failure points.
Duplicate products: Creating "Product A - Trade" and "Product A - Distributor" with different prices. Now you're managing multiple SKUs for the same physical item.
Manual price overrides: Staff adjusting prices on every order because the system can't calculate them correctly. Defeats the purpose of self-service.
Offline negotiations: "Call for pricing" on everything because the website can't show the right number. You've built an expensive digital catalogue, not an ordering system.
The Hidden Costs
Beyond the obvious frustration, bad pricing systems cost real money:
Margin leakage: Customers getting discounts they shouldn't. Old promotional pricing never getting removed. Volume breaks applying when they shouldn't.
Order errors: Manual price adjustments mean manual mistakes. Invoices that don't match quotes. Credits issued to fix billing problems.
Staff time: Someone has to manage all those workarounds. Price updates that should take minutes take hours across multiple systems.
Lost sales: Customers who can't see their pricing don't order online. They call, email, or just order from someone else.
What Wholesale Pricing Systems Actually Need
The answer isn't more plugins. It's a system designed for B2B from the start.
Customer-Level Pricing
Every customer should have a price book—their specific prices for every product. When Customer A logs in, they see their prices. When Customer B logs in, they see theirs.
This isn't a discount off list price. It's their actual price, stored against their account, displayed as the default.
Flexible Pricing Rules
The system should handle:
- Percentage discounts by category
- Fixed prices per product per customer
- Volume breaks with multiple tiers
- Contract pricing with date ranges
- Promotional pricing that stacks (or doesn't) with other discounts
And someone non-technical should be able to manage these rules without calling a developer.
Price Inheritance and Overrides
Most customers might follow a standard price list with specific overrides. The system should handle:
- Default price list by customer tier
- Customer-specific overrides where needed
- Product-specific overrides within that
- Promotional overrides with expiration dates
One customer might have 200 specific prices and inherit the rest from their tier's default list. The system should handle that without duplicating data.
Real-Time Calculation
When a customer adds items to cart, the price should be right. Not "request a quote," not "price calculated at checkout," not "subject to confirmation."
The complexity happens in the background. The customer just sees their price.
ERP Sync
Prices change in your ERP or accounting system. Those changes should flow to the ordering portal automatically. Not via manual export/import, not via someone remembering to update both systems.
When you update Customer A's prices in your ERP, their portal prices should update within minutes, not days.
The Build vs. Buy Question
You have three options:
1. Keep Fighting Generic Platforms
Stack more apps, create more workarounds, accept the limitations. This works if your pricing is simple enough or your volume is low enough that manual intervention is sustainable.
2. Enterprise B2B Platforms
Tools like Salesforce B2B Commerce, SAP Commerce, or Oracle can handle complex pricing. They're also six-figure implementations with 12+ month timelines. Right for large enterprises, overkill for most wholesalers.
3. Purpose-Built Ordering Portals
A custom ordering portal built around your specific pricing model. Your rules, your logic, your ERP integration. Not forcing your business into someone else's assumptions.
This is what we build at Artigence. Not generic e-commerce with B2B bolted on, but ordering systems designed for wholesale from day one.
Signs Your Current System Is Costing You
- Staff spending hours on price updates that should be automated
- Customers calling to confirm prices instead of ordering online
- Order errors caused by wrong pricing requiring credits and adjustments
- Margin analysis showing unexplained discrepancies
- Sales reps manually quoting because the system can't show the right price
- Multiple "pricing" apps with overlapping (and conflicting) functionality
If you're nodding along, your generic e-commerce platform has become a liability, not an asset.
What Good Looks Like
A wholesale customer logs in. They see their products at their prices. They add to cart, see accurate totals including any volume breaks, and check out. The order flows to your ERP with correct pricing already applied.
No calls. No manual adjustments. No "we'll confirm pricing" emails.
Your staff spends time on exceptions, not routine orders. Your margins are protected by systems, not vigilance. Your customers order more because ordering is easy.
That's what purpose-built wholesale systems deliver.
Struggling with pricing in your current platform? Book a call and we'll look at whether a custom ordering portal makes sense for your operation.
