The price a store visitor sees may differ from the price agreed with a business customer. A purchasing employee may prepare an order without authority to approve it. If that describes your operation, asking for “a retail store with wholesale prices” will not accurately specify what you need to buy.
B2B ecommerce begins with the commercial relationship: which company is buying, who orders on its behalf and what may that person see and request? Write these rules before selecting a platform or comparing designs. A plugin labelled B2B does not establish that it covers your operational details or is included in the proposed service.
Build the example around a company with two locations
In a fictional example, a packaging distributor sells to businesses. One customer has two locations, each with a delivery address. An employee can prepare an order, but confirmation requires an authorized approver. Some products sell by the carton, and some customers have agreed price lists. These are example assumptions, not a recommended policy for every business.
Draw the relationship between company, locations and people. Does each employee see location orders or all company orders? Who adds or disables a user? What happens to permissions when an employee moves between locations? Separating these questions avoids a shared account whose actions are difficult to attribute during review.
Six sections for the quotation brief
| Section | Prepare | Developer explains |
|---|---|---|
| Company account | A sample company, locations and differently authorized users. | Registration, verification and access management. |
| Catalogue and price | Products, a price list and its customer assignments. | Visibility before and after login and approval of changes. |
| Quantity and unit | Selling units, multiples and required limits. | Validation in the cart and in imports if included. |
| Approval | Preparers, approvers and exceptional cases. | When an order becomes eligible for fulfillment. |
| Commercial settlement | Payment methods and terms approved by your organization. | Technical scope and dependencies on another system. |
| Integration | Sources of prices, stock, accounts and orders. | Update timing and boundaries of manual work. |
For each section, identify available configuration, an extension, an integration or custom work requiring investigation. Request the component name, plan and recurring charges where the proposal depends on them. A category name alone cannot establish feature availability on a particular platform.
Quotation or purchase order?
Is the customer submitting products for negotiation or confirming a purchase under known terms? At which step is stock reserved or an order sent to fulfillment? Name states in terms the team understands, and define what happens when quantities change or a commercial quote expires before approval.
In the packaging example, a customer might request a quotation for an unpriced product rather than buy it directly. Do not automatically reserve goods through that path unless you approve that policy. Also ask whether reordering uses current prices or a previous snapshot requiring review. A “buy again” button should not silently decide this.
References reveal decisions to settle
Shopify documentation distinguishes the company, its location and the individual buying on its behalf. Adobe Commerce describes a purchase order flow that may involve roles and approval rules before conversion to an order. These concepts help specify requirements; they do not mean both products offer identical features or include them in every package.
Define your organization's deferred-payment and approval limits, if any, who approves them and which system validates them. This article recommends no credit terms or tax rules: those require specialist and commercial decisions. The developer should explain the technical implementation and how it handles a validation result or its absence.
An acceptance session with two users and two companies
Prepare two test companies with different lists, plus a preparer and approver in one company. Open the same product in both accounts and check pricing and permissions. Create an order with a quantity inconsistent with the agreed unit, correct it and submit it for approval. The outcome should be clear at each step.
Change an item in the pending order under the agreed policy, then test the effect on approval and fulfillment. Finally, review the order in the responsible system and the other location's visibility boundaries. Record starting data and outcomes: a successful purchase using only an administrator account does not test the purchasing employee's experience.
For the general foundation, consult the store order cycle and implementation scope. When requesting a B2B store from Nextwave, attach the six-section brief and commercial relationship example. These inputs connect estimation to selling rules rather than page counts alone.
Concept sources
Shopify's companies and customers guide and Adobe Commerce's purchase order flow were opened on 3 November 2026. The latter states an 8 October 2026 update. The example and table are analytical aids, not a client case, feature-availability guarantee or platform endorsement.
