Shopify B2B Is Booming: What 100%+ Growth Means for Brands in 2025

Written By Hunter Stevens

This past year has been a game-changer for wholesale ecommerce. Shopify’s B2B side is on fire: Q1 2025 alone saw a 109% jump in B2B Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) compared to last year. That kind of growth is a sign that something big is shifting. If you’re still handling wholesale through emails, spreadsheets, or outdated portals, this should be your wake-up call!

Shopify’s Big B2B Push

Shopify used to be focus on direct-to-consumer (DTC) only, but that’s quickly changing. Over the last year and a half, they’ve built an aggressive B2B offering. In fact, their B2B GMV has doubled (or more) for six quarters straight!

This isn’t just a short-term bump. Brands and retailers are clearly hungry for better wholesale tools that are faster, smarter, and more in line with how people shop today. Shopify’s meeting that market demand with their new suite of B2B-focused features.

What’s Making It Work

Shopify’s rolling out features that make life easier for brands and retailers:

  • Custom pricing and company profiles: Set up buyer-specific terms, permissions, and payment rules.

  • B2B checkout: Retailers can log in, see their pricing, view past orders, and order with just a few clicks.

  • ERP and headless integrations: Shopify now plays well with tools like NetSuite and other enterprise platforms.

  • Separate DTC and B2B sites: Brands can create clean, separate wholesale experiences with their own domains and themes.

These upgrades let Shopify support everyone from scrappy startup brands to full-scale enterprise operations. It’s starting to push out older B2B platforms that haven’t kept up, or that don’t have a deep enough integration with Shopify..

Why B2B Ecommerce Is Taking Off

Across the board, B2B ecommerce is booming, even outside of Shopify:

A new generation of buyers is behind this. These are people who’ve grown up with Amazon, mobile apps, and same-day shipping. They don’t want to call a rep or fax an order form. They want a DTC-like self-serve experience. And Shopify’s B2B tools help brands give it to them.

What This Means for Brands

If you’re still sending around order forms or leaning entirely on distributors to manage your wholesale accounts, you are probably leaving value on the table.

Here’s what this means:

  • More control and better margins: You don’t need to go through a distributor anymore to reach retailers.

  • DTC-style marketing works for wholesale too: Email flows, retargeting, upsells are all possible for B2B.

  • Orders happen faster: Shopify brands are seeing order cycles speed up thanks to automation.

  • You get real data: Know which retailers are buying, when, and what they’re looking at.

A Growing Ecosystem

Shopify’s core tools are just part of the picture. There’s a growing set of apps and services that make B2B even easier:

  • Vanik: Augments Shopify to automate reorders with smart emails and onboarding tools.

  • ShipStation: Enables high-volume fulfillment with centralized shipping and label generation

  • Shopify POS: Better inventory tracking and forecasting at each store location

With tools like these, brands can launch a modern wholesale experience without migrating to a clunky legacy platform.

What if I Don’t Have Shopify B2B but Still Want to Sell Wholesale?

Not every brand has Shopify’s B2B suite set up, and that’s okay. You can still run a streamlined wholesale program with a regular Shopify site. Tools like Vanik let you automate wholesale operations right on your existing Shopify site. Vanik imports your retailer information directly from Shopify and sends timely, custom reorder notifications to retailers to increase your sales.

Vanik gives you a price adjustor feature that dynamically applies retailer-specific pricing, so you can easily offer wholesale discounts without creating duplicate products or variants. You can also extend payment terms like Net 30 or Net 60, giving retailers flexibility to pay later, without needing custom invoicing or manual workflows.

Wrapping Up

Shopify’s B2B growth isn’t a fluke. Buyer expectations are changing fast, and brands that get ahead of the curve are going to win on speed and control.

If you’re already on Shopify for DTC, it’s easier than ever to expand into B2B. And if you’re still stuck on legacy systems or relying on distributors, now’s the time to re-think your B2B tooling.

And to learn more about how Vanik can help you streamline your retail retention strategies, set up time to talk with us. 

Hunter Stevens
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