Manufacturer D2C on Shopify without losing distributors

Many manufacturers in Surat and across Gujarat already sell through distributors and wholesalers, and now want a direct to consumer store as well. The hard part is not building the store. It is selling direct without upsetting the distributors who still move most of your volume. This guide covers how to set up one Shopify store for both channels, what Shopify's B2B features can and cannot do on each plan, and how to plan stock, pricing and the distributor conversation.

Shopify B2B, payment terms and location details were checked on 8 October 2026 against help.shopify.com (B2B features by plan, B2B overview, payment terms and locations pages). Prices and quantities in this article are illustrative examples, not market data.

Why do manufacturers worry about selling direct?

Because the distributor can see your store. A manufacturer who sells a fabric to distributors at a trade price and then lists the same fabric on its own website at full retail price is, in the distributor's eyes, competing with its own customers. That worry is reasonable, and it is the main reason good D2C plans stall inside manufacturing businesses.

The conflict usually shows up in four places:

• Price visibility. Anyone, including your distributors and their retailers, can open your D2C store and compare prices.
• Stock competition. A design that sells well online may run short just when a distributor wants to reorder.
• Different order shapes. Wholesale buyers order in bulk on credit. Retail buyers order small quantities and pay upfront or by cash on delivery.
• Brand story. If your brand has always been "available at good stores", a direct store changes how retailers see you.

None of these is a reason not to go direct. They are reasons to plan the setup before you launch, not after the first angry phone call.

Can one Shopify store handle both wholesale and retail?

Yes. Shopify calls this a blended store. Its B2B overview says that "if you operate a blended store, then you can create a market for all your B2B companies to offer a custom experience that's different from your D2C customers." Retail visitors see your normal storefront and prices. Wholesale buyers log in to a customer account linked to their company and see what you have set up for them.

In Shopify's B2B model, each buyer belongs to a company, and each company can have several company locations, such as a head office and a branch. Each company location can have its own payment terms, shipping address, catalogs, tax exemptions and checkout settings. Logged in buyers can view order history, reorder and submit draft orders.

Some manufacturers still prefer a separate store just for wholesale, for example when the trade catalogue is very different from the retail one or when a separate team runs it. For most, one blended store is simpler to run because products, stock and orders sit in one admin.

Do you need Shopify Plus for B2B?

No. Shopify's B2B features by plan page states: "You can use Shopify B2B on the Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Shopify Plus plans." Companies, net payment terms, quantity rules and quantity price breaks are listed on all four plans. The main differences are below.

The three catalog limit is the one that matters most for manufacturers. If you only need one wholesale price list, or a few tiers such as distributor, large retailer and small retailer, a non Plus plan can work. If every distributor has negotiated its own price, you will hit the limit quickly. We compare these routes in more detail in our post on running B2B without Shopify Plus.

How should you set wholesale rules on Shopify?

Start with the rules your sales team already uses on paper, then map each one to a Shopify feature. A typical manufacturer setup looks like this:

• Minimum order quantity. Use quantity rules to set a minimum, maximum and increment per product. As an example, a fabric sold by the metre could have a wholesale minimum of 25 and an increment of 5.
• Volume pricing. Use quantity price breaks so a larger order gets a lower unit price automatically, instead of your team editing each order by hand.
• Credit period. Shopify's payment terms page lists net 7, net 15, net 30, net 45, net 60 and net 90, plus "due on fulfillment" and a fixed date option for draft orders. Buyers can later log in, open the order and click Pay now.
• Who sees what. Use catalogs to control which products and prices each B2B market sees, keeping in mind the three catalog limit outside Plus.

Retail customers are not affected by any of this. They see the normal storefront, pay at checkout through your Indian payment gateway such as Razorpay, Cashfree or PayU, and never see the trade prices.

How do you split stock between wholesale and D2C?

Decide the split before launch and write it down. Two common approaches work well:

1. Allocate by production run. Set a share of each run aside for direct sales and treat the rest as wholesale stock. Review the split every quarter based on what actually sold.
2. Separate the ranges. Keep some designs online only and some wholesale only, with a smaller overlap. This avoids most stock clashes and also reduces price comparison.

Shopify can help with the tracking. Its locations help page describes a location as "any physical place where you sell products, fulfill orders, or stock inventory" and says you can "track inventory separately at each physical location." If your factory godown and your retail dispatch unit are different places, set them up as separate locations so each team sees its own stock. The number of locations you can add depends on your Shopify plan, so check yours before planning many.

Be careful about one thing: locations track where stock physically sits. They are not a simple switch that reserves stock for one sales channel. If you need strict channel reservation, plan it with your inventory or ERP system, or keep separate SKUs for the online range.

How do you price both channels without undercutting distributors?

There is no single right answer, but there are three patterns that manufacturers use, and each has a clear trade off.

Whatever you pick, avoid pricing your D2C store below what your retailers can afford to charge. That is the fastest way to lose distributor trust. Before fixing prices, work out the true margin on each channel after shipping, payment gateway charges and returns. Our guide on margin by sales channel walks through that calculation.

What changes in payments and fulfilment?

The two channels behave differently, so set them up as two clear workflows from day one.

• Retail orders are paid at checkout or by cash on delivery and usually ship through a courier aggregator in small parcels.
• Wholesale orders are often on credit, may be large and heavy, and often move through your existing transporter rather than a parcel courier.

Inside Shopify, separate them with order tags or a Shopify Flow rule so the dispatch team can filter them, and make sure your GST invoicing works for both. Wholesale buyers will expect a proper tax invoice with their GSTIN. If you use Tally, see our post on connecting Shopify to Tally for GST.

How do you tell existing distributors about the D2C store?

Tell them before launch, in person or on a call, not after they discover it. A clear message covers five points:

1. Why you are doing it. For example, to build the brand, test new designs and hear from end customers directly.
2. What stays the same. Their pricing, their credit terms and their role as your main volume channel.
3. How pricing works. Explain which of the three pricing approaches you chose, so nobody feels undercut.
4. What they get. Ideas include early access to new designs, a wholesale login for faster reordering, or online enquiries from their city passed to them.
5. When you will review it. Agree to look at the numbers together after a few months and adjust if wholesale is hurt.

A self serve wholesale login is often the easiest sell. Distributors can check stock, reorder and see past orders without calling your office, which many of them will welcome. For a real example of a brand moving from wholesale towards direct sales, see Joseph Ribkoff's shift to D2C.

What should a manufacturer track after launch?

Track a few numbers every month, by channel, so the debate with distributors and your own team is based on facts:

• Revenue and margin by channel. Is D2C adding new sales, or replacing wholesale orders?
• Distributor reorder pattern. Are your regular distributors ordering as often as before?
• Repeat purchase rate on D2C. One time buyers are expensive to acquire. Repeat buyers are what make direct sales worth it.
• Stock outs by channel. Any time one channel ran short because the other took the stock is a signal to revisit the allocation.

Review these every quarter and change one thing at a time, such as the split, the range or the prices, so you can see what actually worked.

Planning a D2C store alongside your wholesale business?

Free channel setup review. Get in touch or email hello@exactwhy.com with the subject "Manufacturer D2C Setup" and your current website URL if you have one. Tell us your Shopify plan, roughly how many wholesale price tiers you use and how you take wholesale orders today. We reply within 4 hours with a suggested store structure, which Shopify B2B features fit your plan, and the questions to settle before launch.

If you go ahead. We set up a blended Shopify store with B2B companies, catalogs, quantity rules and payment terms for your distributors, a retail storefront with Indian payment gateways, locations and order tags that keep both workflows separate, and the GST invoicing connection your accounts team needs.