B2B commerce & system integrations
Dealer onboarding, role-based pricing, quotation and approval flows, and data exchange between Shopify and CRM, ERP, supplier and inventory systems.
Selling to dealers and business customers on Shopify is rarely a matter of switching on a feature. Prices depend on who is logged in, orders need an approval before they are real, the product may be configured rather than picked, and the order has to reach an ERP or CRM with all of that information intact. I build these workflows on Shopify with custom apps and integrations, shaped around how the business actually operates.
How I work on it
B2B projects start with the process on a whiteboard: who applies, who approves, who sets prices, what the ERP expects to receive and when. Only then do I decide which parts live in Shopify’s own features, which in a custom app and which in middleware. I have built this kind of flow end to end on a Shopify storefront and worked with ERP and CRM vendor representatives on the data exchange, and I also have experience from manufacturing-side work in the same context — production processes, MES, user authorization and barcode flows exchanging data with Axapta. That background helps when the storefront is only one part of a larger operation.
02Who this is for
- Manufacturers and distributors that sell through an international dealer network and want dealers to quote, order and track on a storefront instead of over email and spreadsheets.
- Brands running Shopify next to an ERP (for example Microsoft Dynamics AX/Axapta) or a CRM, where orders, customers and shipping information have to move between systems.
- Stores that depend on a supplier system for stock, prices, order forwarding and tracking.
- Merchants selling the same inventory on Shopify, Amazon and Etsy who need inventory tooling that keeps the channels consistent.
03Problems I solve
- Dealer onboarding and authorization. Visitors register, submit a dealer application, and are approved by the brand — by email and from an admin page — before they see prices or can order. Unauthorized accounts see no prices and can request a quotation instead.
- Quotation → draft order → approval → order. Dealers build a quotation from the cart, save it to the store and download it as Excel. When ready, the quotation becomes a draft order that waits for the brand's approval. Approval turns it into a real order without the standard payment step.
- Account managers by country. The store manager assigns account managers to dealers from specific countries; each manager handles the applications and draft orders of their region.
- Dealers managing their own organization. Dealers add their own staff and their own customers, and place orders on behalf of those customers.
- Configured products in B2B orders. A 3D configurator (pCon on Babylon.js) on the product page produces a configuration and a price that do not exist in the catalog; the configured item is added to the cart at that price and the configuration data travels with the order to Axapta and the CRM.
- CRM/ERP data transfer. Custom apps that move orders and customer data to the back office and bring order and shipping status back into the storefront.
- Supplier and multichannel sync. Stock and price synchronization, order forwarding, cancellations and shipment tracking with a supplier system — including polling where the supplier offers no webhooks — and inventory tooling across marketplaces.
04Typical scope of delivery
- A custom Shopify app (embedded admin pages plus storefront integration) that holds the B2B logic: applications, roles, pricing visibility, quotations, draft orders, approvals, account-manager assignment.
- Storefront changes in Liquid and JavaScript so the B2B behavior is visible on product pages, cart and account pages.
- Process emails for applications, quotations, draft orders and approvals, sent from the brand's own mail domain.
- Integrations with ERP/CRM systems through their available interfaces, with configuration data and order details mapped explicitly.
- Supplier and inventory integrations as server-side Node.js services with logging and alerting.
- Documentation for store managers and account managers.
05Related work
Other services
- Shopify development & optimizationTheme and storefront development from your design files, platform migrations, subscription and app integrations, and performance work on existing stores.
- Custom applications & workflow automationCustom Shopify apps, Node.js services and scheduled integrations for the parts of an operation that no existing app covers.
Describe the store, the systems around it and what should change, and I will reply by email with questions and a first take on the approach.
Discuss your project