A retailer just emailed you asking for your Shopify wholesale pricing. You stare at the message for 10 minutes because you've never thought about it. You sell direct to consumers. Your margins are built for one-at-a-time orders. And now someone wants 200 units, and you have no idea what number to put in front of them.

Quote too high and they walk. Quote too low and you just sold 200 units at a loss after shipping and handling eat your margin. Shopify gave every merchant native B2B tools on April 2, 2026 — which means thousands of DTC brands are about to get this exact email for the first time. If you don't have a Shopify wholesale pricing framework before that inquiry lands, you'll either leave money on the table or torpedo your own profitability.

The 50% Rule: Where Every Wholesale Pricing Conversation Starts

The standard starting point in wholesale is simple: wholesale price = 50% of retail price. A product you sell for $80 on your site goes for $40 to a retailer. They mark it up to $80 (or close to it) in their store, and everyone makes money.

This works when your cost of goods is 25% or less of your retail price. That gives you a 50% margin on wholesale and leaves the retailer room to mark up. For a $80 product that costs you $20 to make, selling at $40 wholesale nets you $20 per unit — same dollar margin as DTC after you subtract the $15-$50 you spent acquiring that customer through ads.

The 50% rule breaks in three scenarios:

Low-margin products — if your COGS is 40%+ of retail, a 50% wholesale price leaves you with single-digit margins or a loss. You need to either raise retail prices first or offer a shallower wholesale discount (60-65% of retail).
Heavy or bulky items — shipping 200 units to a retailer's warehouse costs real money. If you're not factoring freight into your wholesale quote, your "50% margin" quietly becomes 30%.
Personalized or made-to-order products — wholesale assumes standardized SKUs. If each unit requires customization, your production costs at volume might actually go up, not down.

Before you quote anything, calculate your actual landed cost per unit: COGS + packaging + average shipping per unit at the order quantity they're requesting. If 50% of retail doesn't clear at least 20% net margin above that landed cost, adjust the discount or set a higher minimum order.

Set Minimum Order Quantities That Protect Your Time Without Killing the Deal

Every wholesale order has a hidden cost: the time you spend processing it. Picking, packing, and shipping a 10-unit order takes almost as much labor as a 100-unit order. If your wholesale MOQ is too low, you'll spend more time fulfilling small B2B orders than serving your DTC customers — and the per-unit economics won't justify it.

A useful formula: your MOQ should make the wholesale order worth at least 3x the average revenue of a DTC order. If your average DTC order is $65, your minimum wholesale order should be $195+ before you invest any operational time in it.

For most small Shopify merchants, that translates to:

6-12 units for products under $30 — enough to fill a single shipment box and justify the handling time.
3-6 units for products in the $30-$100 range — smaller quantities are fine because the dollar value per order is higher.
No MOQ for products over $100 — at this price point, even a 2-unit order at wholesale pricing is worth your time. Don't add friction.

Don't confuse MOQ with tiered pricing. MOQ is the floor — the minimum they have to buy. Tiered pricing is the incentive to buy more above that floor: 12 units at 50% off, 50 units at 55% off, 100+ units at 60% off. The tiers reward volume. The MOQ protects your time.

Use Shopify's B2B Catalogs to Keep Wholesale and DTC Pricing Separate

Shopify's B2B expansion to Basic/Grow/Advanced plans (as of April 2, 2026) lets you create up to 3 price-list catalogs. This is how you show different prices to different customer types without maintaining two stores or using clunky workarounds.

Set up your catalogs like this:

Catalog 1: Default (DTC) — your standard retail pricing. Every visitor sees this.
Catalog 2: Wholesale Tier 1 — 50% off retail, assigned to approved wholesale customers. This is your standard retailer pricing.
Catalog 3: Wholesale Tier 2 — 55-60% off retail, reserved for high-volume accounts or key retail partners. This gives you room to negotiate with your best buyers.

The 3-catalog limit on non-Plus plans is actually a healthy constraint. It forces you to keep your wholesale pricing simple instead of creating a dozen price tiers that nobody can follow — including you. If a retailer needs custom pricing beyond these three tiers, that's a conversation worth having on a call, not in a catalog.

One critical setup step: create a separate B2B customer group and require approval before anyone can access wholesale pricing. You don't want random shoppers stumbling into 50% off pricing through a shared link. Shopify's B2B access controls let you gate this with a company profile and approval workflow.

What Wholesale Payment Terms Should You Offer? (Start With Prepayment)

Always require prepayment for your first wholesale order from a new retailer. Full payment before you ship. DTC merchants get burned here more than anywhere else — a retailer asks for "net 30 terms," you agree because it sounds professional, then you ship $3,000 worth of product and wait 45 days for a check that should've come in 30.

You don't know their creditworthiness. You don't have a track record with them. Prepayment protects you.

After 3-5 successful orders with consistent on-time payment, you can consider offering terms:

Net 15 — payment due 15 days after delivery. Best for small retailers who reorder frequently.
Net 30 — the industry standard. Only offer this to retailers who've proven they pay reliably.
50% deposit + balance on delivery — a middle ground that covers your COGS upfront while giving the retailer some flexibility. This is especially smart if you're a COD merchant already managing cash flow delays.

Whichever terms you choose, put them in writing. A simple one-page wholesale agreement covering pricing, MOQs, payment terms, and return policy saves you from the "I thought it was net 60" conversation later.

Your Order Form Needs to Handle Two Customer Types

Once you're selling both DTC and wholesale, your checkout experience has to support two different buying behaviors. A DTC customer buys 1-2 units and wants a fast, simple checkout. A wholesale customer buys 50 units and needs quantity pricing displayed clearly, MOQ enforcement, and volume discount tiers visible before they add to cart.

Shopify's native B2B handles the catalog separation, but the product page experience is where it gets tricky. Your wholesale buyer needs to see their specific pricing on the product page itself — not discover it only at checkout. They need to see that ordering 12 costs $40/unit, 50 costs $38/unit, and 100 costs $35/unit, right there on the page.

EasySell's quantity offers and volume discount features handle this natively — you can display tiered pricing directly on the order form with quantity breaks that match your wholesale structure. The buyer selects a quantity, the per-unit price updates in real time, and MOQ rules prevent orders below your minimum.

How Do You Prevent Wholesale From Cannibalizing DTC Sales?

The biggest risk of wholesale isn't bad pricing — it's channel conflict. If your wholesale retailer sells your product at $60 and your own website sells it at $80, customers will buy from the retailer. You just lost a $80 DTC sale and gained a $40 wholesale sale.

Protect your DTC channel with a Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) policy. This is a written agreement that the retailer won't advertise your product below a set price — usually your retail price or close to it. MAP policies are standard in wholesale and most retailers expect them.

If you're selling products that are widely available, MAP is essential. If you're selling unique or custom products that aren't easily comparison-shopped, you have more flexibility. Either way, include it in your wholesale agreement before the first order ships.

Start With One Retailer and Prove the Model Before You Scale

Your first wholesale relationship is a test run. Pick one retailer, fulfill one order, see how the economics actually play out. Track the real numbers: actual landed cost per unit, time spent on the order, days to payment, and whether the revenue justified the margin you gave up.

If the numbers work, you now have a framework: a wholesale price list, a catalog setup, MOQ rules, and payment terms you've validated with a real order. Apply it to the next inquiry with confidence. If the numbers don't work — if you netted 8% after shipping and handling — adjust your pricing or your MOQ before you say yes to the next retailer.

Wholesale isn't for every product or every business. But if your customer acquisition costs keep climbing and a retailer is offering to put your product in front of their existing audience at zero ad spend, the math is worth running. Just run it before you quote.