--- title: "The Hybrid Store: A Guide to Running B2B and B2C on One Admin" description: "The wholesale business is already hiding inside your DTC store; the only thing missing is the configuration." url: "https://humanafterall.ca/insights/the-hybrid-store-b2b-and-b2c-one-admin/" language: "en" markdown_index: "https://humanafterall.ca/api/md/index.md" --- ## TL;DR Global B2B eCommerce is around $36 trillion and roughly 80% of B2B buying now starts digitally, while most DTC teams still handle bulk pricing and net terms over email. Running both from one admin is a configuration project — company accounts, per-company pricing, quantity rules — not a rebuild. ![The Hybrid Store: A Guide to Running B2B and B2C on One Admin](https://humanafterall.ca/images/insights/heroes/the-hybrid-store-b2b-and-b2c-one-admin.webp) The newsletter What to do Monday. Articles like this one, twice a month. 2,050+ operators read it. Two emails a month. Unsubscribe in one click. Share [](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fhumanafterall.ca%2Finsights%2Fthe-hybrid-store-b2b-and-b2c-one-admin%2F)[](mailto:?subject=The%20Hybrid%20Store%3A%20A%20Guide%20to%20Running%20B2B%20and%20B2C%20on%20One%20Admin&body=https%3A%2F%2Fhumanafterall.ca%2Finsights%2Fthe-hybrid-store-b2b-and-b2c-one-admin%2F) The short version Global B2B eCommerce is around $36 trillion and roughly 80% of B2B buying now starts digitally, while most DTC teams still handle bulk pricing and net terms over email. Running both from one admin is a configuration project — company accounts, per-company pricing, quantity rules — not a rebuild. ![](https://humanafterall.ca/images/insights/substack/the-hybrid-store-b2b-and-b2c-one-admin/the-hybrid-store-b2b-and-b2c-one-admin-1.webp) ### You probably have more B2B demand than you think. The accounts emailing for a “bulk price.” The distributor who wants Net 30 instead of a card. The retailer asking for a standing reorder. Most DTC teams handle that over email and manual invoices and never call it a channel. #### It’s a channel. It’s just not turned on. And what’s behind it isn’t small. Global B2B eCommerce is around $36 trillion in 2026, growing close to 14.5% a year, several times larger than B2C. Roughly 80% of B2B buying now starts digitally. Your wholesale buyers research and reorder without a sales call. They want a login, their own pricing, and a reorder button. #### **Here’s what changed. The capability stopped being exotic.** Your platform should let you run wholesale and direct-to-consumer from one admin. Company accounts with multiple buyers and locations. Per-company pricing and catalogs. Quantity rules, payment terms, tax exemptions. A self-serve portal where buyers reorder against their own pricing. One catalog, one inventory pool, two ways of selling. In practice, that’s Shopify doing it natively today, and in 2026 it opened those B2B features beyond its enterprise tier. If your platform can’t, face that honestly. Bolting B2B onto a system that wasn’t built for it usually costs more in apps and upkeep than moving to one that handles it natively. Sometimes the cheaper path is a replatform, not another plugin. The technology isn’t the hard part anymore. The configuration is. Below is the order I run it in. Skip steps and you end up with a support queue instead of a channel. ## 1\. Size the demand before you build anything Pull your last 90 days of inbound. Count every request for bulk pricing, net terms, or a manual reorder your team handled off-platform. Put a rough revenue number on it. That number is your B2B business today, before you’ve configured a thing. It also tells you how much to invest in doing this right. ## 2\. Model the buyer, not the product A B2B account isn’t a consumer login with a discount attached. A company has locations. Locations have buyers. Buyers have permissions, and someone signs off on the order. That’s what Company Accounts is for, so build it that way from day one. The trap: treating a company like a single shopper. The day a second buyer from the same account needs access, a flat setup breaks. ## 3\. Lock pricing before you touch a setting Decide your pricing on paper first. Price Lists handle fixed prices, percentage discounts, and volume tiers per company or location. But the platform only mirrors what you feed it. If your tiers don’t match the contracts your sales team actually signed, you launch with pricing nobody agreed to. Map the real agreements. Then configure. The newsletter · Twice a month Get the next one before LinkedIn does. Real B2B commerce implementations. PIM, ERP and eCommerce integrations that work. What to do Monday, in your inbox. 2,050+ operators. Unsubscribe in one click. ## 4\. Encode the buying rules This is where B2B stops behaving like DTC. Quantity Rules enforce case packs, minimums, and increments, so nobody orders 7 of something that ships in 12. Payment Terms set Net 30, Net 60, and PO collection at checkout. Tax Exemptions get handled at the company and location level. Leave these as consumer defaults and your buyers notice on the first order. ## 5\. Treat the portal as the product Customer Accounts is the part your buyers actually live in. Order history, invoices, saved reorder lists, team management, new orders placed against their negotiated pricing. Built right, it pulls your reps out of manual order entry so they sell instead of type. The trap: shipping the platform’s bare default and calling it a portal. Walk it the way a buyer reorders, or it won’t get used. ## 6\. Migrate clean, then soft launch Dirty data is the number one reason activations stall. Migrate companies, customers, and pricing agreements, then validate every record before anyone logs in. Roll out to 5 to 10 wholesale accounts first. Let them surface the edge cases. Fix those. Then go wide. ## The pattern underneath all six **None of this is really about the platform.** The wins in a B2B activation don’t come from new software. They come from clean product data and buying rules that match how the business actually sells. A PIM feeding accurate specs. Pricing that lines up with the contracts the sales team negotiated, not tiers someone invented in a settings screen. Get what sits underneath right and the channel runs. Get it wrong and no platform saves you. The order matters because each step leans on the one above it. Pricing assumes you’ve modeled the buyer. Rules assume the pricing is real. The portal assumes the rules hold. Migration assumes all of it is correct. Get the sequence right and the channel mostly runs itself. If you’re already on a platform that does this natively, you don’t need to rebuild. For most DTC merchants it’s a configuration project measured in weeks, not quarters. Start with step one this week. Pull the 90 days. See what’s already knocking. ## Questions I get on this FAQ How do I know there is real B2B demand? Pull the last 90 days of inbound and count every request for bulk pricing, net terms or a manual reorder your team handled off-platform. That revenue number is your B2B business today. What is the most common configuration mistake? Treating a company like a single shopper. A company has locations, locations have buyers, buyers have permissions — model that from day one or the setup breaks the day a second buyer needs access. Do we have to replatform? Only if your platform can't do this natively. Bolting B2B onto a system that wasn't built for it usually costs more in apps and upkeep than moving to one that handles it natively. RA Rudy Abitbol Moved from L'Oréal and Club Med campaigns to running B2B eCommerce at Sonepar and a $30M medical distributor. Now advises $5M–$1B distributors and manufacturers on product data, Shopify B2B and AI search. Montréal. [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rudyabitbol/) [Newsletter](#newsletter) [Also published on the newsletter](https://b2becommerce.substack.com/p/the-hybrid-store-a-guide-to-running) ## More on _Shopify B2B._ [All 7 articles →](https://humanafterall.ca/insights/?topic=shopify-b2b) [ Shopify B2B ### Shopify Plus vs OroCommerce for B2B eCommerce (2026) OroCommerce is B2B-native by design; Shopify Plus caught up natively and wins on ecosystem, cost and available talent. Aug 24, 2026 · 11 min read ](https://humanafterall.ca/shopify-vs-orocommerce-b2b/)[ Shopify B2B ### Shopify Plus vs Salesforce Commerce Cloud for B2B eCommerce (2026) GMV pricing versus a flat fee, native B2B, ERP integration and developer supply — from a team that has run both platforms. Aug 24, 2026 · 12 min read ](https://humanafterall.ca/shopify-vs-salesforce-commerce-cloud-b2b/)[ Shopify B2B ### Shopify Plus vs BigCommerce for B2B eCommerce (2026) Shopify Plus vs BigCommerce for B2B, compared by an agency that shipped production B2B on both — including BigCommerce with SAP. Jul 13, 2026 · 14 min read ](https://humanafterall.ca/shopify-vs-bigcommerce-b2b/) Shopify B2B ## Want this built with your team? Company accounts, contract pricing and hybrid B2B/DTC on one admin. [See the service →](https://humanafterall.ca/platform-integration/) Scope, timeline and what your team owns at the end. ## FAQ ### How do I know there is real B2B demand? Pull the last 90 days of inbound and count every request for bulk pricing, net terms or a manual reorder your team handled off-platform. That revenue number is your B2B business today. ### What is the most common configuration mistake? Treating a company like a single shopper. A company has locations, locations have buyers, buyers have permissions — model that from day one or the setup breaks the day a second buyer needs access. ### Do we have to replatform? Only if your platform can't do this natively. Bolting B2B onto a system that wasn't built for it usually costs more in apps and upkeep than moving to one that handles it natively.