As a Shopify store owner, you know the struggle of moving slow-selling inventory and attracting bulk buyers. But what if you could turn this challenge into an opportunity? Shopify’s wholesale discounts and promotions are key. Implementing wholesale discounts and promotions strategies can significantly boost sales, attract bulk buyers to your Shopify store, and clear out inventory faster.
Shopify wholesale discounts and promotions are special pricing strategies that allow merchants to offer bulk buyers lower prices based on order quantity. These discounts can be set up using built-in Shopify features or third-party apps to encourage larger purchases, boost sales, and improve customer loyalty.
According to Statista, Applying a Shopify wholesale discount can be a game-changer for your e-commerce business. This strategy is designed for large orders, particularly in the B2B sector, a massive $12.2 trillion market in 2019.
In this guide, we’ll walk through how to create Shopify wholesale discounts and promotions, the 2 main types of Shopify wholesale discounts, and how to calculate wholesale deals, and introduce you to the best Shopify automatic discount app to manage your discount strategy.
Let’s dig in.
Offering discounts and promotions for your wholesale customers and order management on Shopify, there are two main ways to do it: Shopify’s built-in features and Shopify apps.
Here’s a detailed look at both options:
Shopify provides built-in tools to help merchants create wholesale discounts without needing third-party apps. These features work best for businesses using Shopify Plus or handling small-scale wholesale orders.
If you’re using Shopify Plus, you can create a dedicated Wholesale Channel, which allows you to:
Even if you’re not using Shopify Plus, you can still offer wholesale discounts using Shopify’s discount codes feature.
If Shopify’s built-in features fail to meet your needs, you can use third-party discount apps to automate and customize your wholesale pricing. These apps offer more flexibility, advanced pricing rules, and better customer segmentation.
Below, we’ve explained a best Shopify automatic discount app to solve your wholesale discount and promotion issue and boost your sales.
DiscountRay allows merchants to create and offer discounts to their potential customers.
By using the quantity or volume discount feature, you can easily apply discounts per variant to encourage large-quantity purchases, thus increasing your sales.
You can set discounts differently for specific products, tags, customers, types of products, or collections using this feature.
With the variants’ fixed price, you can manually set quantity-based discounted prices for each variant to match different order sizes. You can apply individual discounts by using this feature.
Not clear yet? Watch our detailed guide on how to apply variants discounted prices in Shopify.
Scheduling discounts is one of the most useful things for Shopify merchants. You can save time by scheduling your discounts at your preferred time for special days, occasions, etc.
You can restrict discounts only to B2B customers. The discount can be assigned by Customer tag or Specific customers. Targeting the loyal customers is now one click away.
Customize your store view as per your taste. You can choose the product view from our display style feature, list, or table view—whatever suits your store most.
Offering wholesale discounts in your Shopify store can be executed through two primary strategies: Quantity (Volume) Discounts and Tiered Pricing. Both methods encourage larger purchases by providing customers with cost savings. Here’s a straightforward explanation of each:
This strategy offers customers a discount when they purchase a certain number of the same product. The more they buy, the more they save on each item.
For example:
This approach is simple and directly rewards customers for buying in bulk.
Tiered pricing sets different price levels based on the quantity purchased, with discounts increasing as customers reach higher tiers. For instance:
This method encourages customers to buy more to reach the next discount level, benefiting both the customer and the business.
Calculating wholesale discounts and promotions in your Shopify store involves setting prices that are attractive to bulk buyers while ensuring your business remains profitable.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you navigate this process:
Begin by researching your target audience and competitors. Identify where your products fit in the market—are they budget-friendly, mid-range, or premium? Understanding this helps you align your pricing strategy with customer expectations and market standards.
Calculate the total cost to produce each product.
This includes:
Decide on the profit margin you aim to achieve for wholesale transactions. Wholesale profit margins typically range between 15% and 50%, depending on the industry and product. A common practice is to ensure your wholesale price is at least double your production cost, securing a 50% margin.
Use the following formula:
Retailers purchasing your products will add their markup to determine the selling price to consumers. To maintain consistency and competitiveness, consider suggesting a retail price using:
Retail Price = Wholesale Price ÷ (1 – Retailer’s Desired Profit Margin)
If the retailer desires a 50% margin:
Retail Price = $28 ÷ (1 – 0.50) = $28 ÷ 0.50 = $56
Encourage larger orders by offering tiered discounts.
For Example:
These incentives can boost sales volume and strengthen relationships with wholesale customers.
Shopify offers built-in features and apps to manage wholesale pricing.
Create discounts based on order quantity or purchase amount directly in your Shopify admin panel.
For advanced features like automatic tiered pricing and customer-specific discounts, consider apps such as Wholesale Pricing Discount. This app allows for personalized pricing strategies and integrates seamlessly with your Shopify store.
Market conditions, production costs, and customer preferences can change. Regularly assess your pricing strategy to ensure it remains competitive and profitable. Adjust discounts and promotions as needed to align with your business goals and market dynamics.
Offering wholesale discounts and promotions on Shopify can be a great way to increase sales, attract bulk buyers, and build long-term relationships with wholesale customers. However, as well as its advantages, it also comes with some challenges.
Let’s break it down:
Wholesale discounts make your store more appealing to bulk buyers who want to purchase in large quantities at a lower cost. When buyers see attractive discounts, they are more likely to place higher-value orders, boosting their sales volume.
With quantity-based discounts or tiered pricing, customers are incentivized to buy more to save more. For example, if a store offers:
Customers are more likely to increase their order size to reach the next discount level, leading to higher revenue per transaction.
Offering special discounts to repeat wholesale buyers can help build VIP customer loyalty in eCommerce. When businesses see that they can consistently get better pricing from your store, they are more likely to continue buying from you rather than switching to competitors.
If your competitors are not offering wholesale discounts, you gain an edge by providing better pricing options. Even if competitors have similar products, your discounted bulk pricing can attract more B2B customers to your Shopify store.
Wholesale discount pricing encourages bulk sales, helping you move inventory faster. This is especially useful if you have seasonal products or excess stock that you want to sell before launching new collections.
Shopify allows merchants to automate wholesale pricing and discounts through built-in tools and third-party apps. This means you don’t have to manually apply discounts for each order—everything can be set up to run smoothly and efficiently.
While discounts increase sales volume, they also reduce profit per unit. If not carefully planned, you could end up selling large amounts of products at a price too low to be profitable.
Solution
Always calculate your costs and profit margins before setting up discounts.
Make sure that even with bulk discounts, you’re still making a healthy profit.
Frequent or heavy discounts can harm your brand’s perceived value. If customers get used to always receiving discounts, they may hesitate to buy at full price, making it harder to sell at standard rates.
Solution
Use discounts strategically—offer them only for wholesale buyers or during special promotions instead of all the time.
Managing different discount levels, customer groups, and pricing structures can become complex, especially if you have many products and customers.
Solution
Use Shopify’s Wholesale discount Pricing Apps (like DiscountRay, Wholesale Club, or Bold Custom Pricing) to automate and manage different pricing levels efficiently.
Some retail customers may try to take advantage of wholesale discounts by pretending to be wholesale buyers. This could lead to lost revenue if individuals buy at lower wholesale prices and resell for profit.
Solution
Use customer verification methods, such as requiring a business tax ID or minimum purchase requirements for wholesale pricing access.
Not every Shopify store is suited for wholesale pricing. If you sell custom, handmade, or luxury products, offering wholesale discounts may reduce exclusivity and harm your brand image.
Solution
If your products are high-end, consider offering exclusive deals instead of deep wholesale discounts.
Finally, Shopify wholesale discounts and promotions isn’t just about offering discounts—it’s about smart pricing that maximizes sales while maintaining profitability. It can boost sales, attract bulk buyers, and help clear inventory, but they need to be carefully planned to avoid hurting profit margins and brand value. If used strategically, they can be a powerful tool for business growth on Shopify.
Moreover, you can get help from the Shopify discount app mentioned above and offer your discounts or promotions accordingly to maintain your ground value.
Shopify offers you several ways to sell to wholesale customers. Shopify wholesale is a great way to try wholesale for the first time. It’s also a terrific option if your business already has wholesale operations. With Shopify wholesale, you can streamline and simplify your wholesale order processes.
This strategy involves offering lower prices when customers’ purchase quantity increases. It incentivizes customers to buy more products to get the deals, increasing businesses’ sales and revenue.
Wholesale pricing is what you charge retailers who buy products in large volumes. Product prices are cheaper than retail because wholesalers rely on economies of scale to make money. The goal of wholesale pricing is to earn a profit by selling goods at a higher price than what they cost to make.
Engage your audience on social media. With billions of active monthly users, social media platforms are one of the best places to start promoting your Shopify store. You can use social media to promote your brand for free (organically) or use their built-in paid advertising options.
While the percentage range will vary depending on the product, wholesalers will usually make between 15% and 30% in profit, while retailers may typically make between 20% and 50% profit on the wholesale price when selling goods to consumers.
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