Selling Through Trade Accounts: What Actually Works
Offering account-based purchasing for trade customers, with agreed pricing and payment terms.
Marcus Adeyemi
The key figures
- Account pricing
- customers see negotiated prices
- Credit terms
- invoices replace card payment
- Reordering
- past orders drive most trade purchases
- Approvals
- larger customers have internal approval steps
Why this is worth getting right
Trade buyers order repeatedly and expect account pricing, credit terms and fast reordering.
Do this, not that
Do
- Support account-specific pricing
- Offer fast reordering from order history
- Handle credit terms and invoicing properly
- Support multiple users per account
- Provide statements and payment tracking
Don’t
- Trade customers using consumer checkout
- Pricing negotiated by email only
- Single logins shared across a company
- No visibility of outstanding invoices
When to bring in help
Our advice Bring in help when trade customers dominate revenue.
Where this comes from
- Shopify Help Center — B2B
- Internal Revenue Service — Business taxes
The figures and practices above come from the sources listed.
Working on something like this?
We take on E-commerce Development work for teams who want it done once, properly. Tell us what you are building and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right studio for it. Start a project.
Where to go next
Spotted something wrong? Report an error on this page. We correct on the page and say what changed.
