Playceholdr builds B2B and wholesale ecommerce for brands, distributors and trade suppliers across New Zealand and Australia.
We work on Shopify Plus and BigCommerce, covering account based pricing, trade ordering, quoting, credit terms and the integrations that connect a store to the systems already running the business.
Most B2B ecommerce projects are not really website projects. They are attempts to move a set of manual ordering processes onto something customers can use themselves, without breaking how the business actually operates.
Wholesale businesses rarely start with a design problem. They start with a sales team taking orders by phone and email, spreadsheets of customer specific pricing, credit terms tracked outside any system, and an ERP that holds the real inventory and account data.
A trade store has to sit on top of all of that without pretending it does not exist.
That means the important questions come early and they are mostly not visual. How are accounts structured when a single customer has six buyers across four sites. Which price does a given buyer see and where does that price come from. What happens when a customer is over their credit limit. Which system is the source of truth for stock, and how quickly does the store need to know about it.
Get those decisions right and the interface becomes relatively simple. Get them wrong and no amount of design work will make the store usable for the people it was built for.
The hardest part of a B2B build is almost never the storefront.
B2B buyers are not browsing. They are placing a repeat order, checking whether something is in stock, chasing an invoice or getting a price approved before end of month.
The features that matter reflect that:
Company accounts with multiple buyers. Buyers, approvers and account managers under one company, with different permissions and visibility.
Customer specific pricing. Price lists, contract pricing, volume breaks and negotiated rates applied automatically rather than looked up by a rep.
Fast reordering. Order history, saved lists, bulk entry by SKU and CSV upload. A buyer reordering forty lines should not be clicking through a catalogue. Where the ordering interface itself is the priority, that is ecommerce website design work rather than an account or pricing exercise.
Quotes and approvals. Quote requests, negotiated pricing and internal approval steps before an order is submitted.
Payment and credit terms. Net terms, credit limits, purchase order references and invoice visibility.
Minimum order quantities and pack sizes. Enforced at the point of ordering, not corrected afterwards by a person.
Not every business needs all of these. Part of the work is deciding which ones genuinely change how customers order and which are complexity your team will end up maintaining for nothing.
We work across both platforms and the honest answer is that the right one depends on how complex your account structures and pricing actually are. If the project is primarily about implementation rather than account structure, that work sits under Shopify development.
Shopify Plus includes native B2B functionality: company profiles, multiple buyers per company, per company catalogues and price lists, payment terms and B2B specific checkout. For brands that already run DTC on Shopify, or that want wholesale and retail operating from one platform, it is usually the cleaner path.
It suits businesses where the pricing logic is structured rather than deeply negotiated, and where the ordering process does not depend on heavy quoting or approval chains.
BigCommerce is often the better fit where the account hierarchy, quoting or pricing complexity goes beyond what native Shopify B2B handles comfortably. Corporate account structures, buyer roles, quote workflows and invoice portals are well supported, and the platform is generally more flexible around catalogue and pricing configuration.
It tends to suit distributors and trade suppliers whose ecommerce requirements look more like a replacement for a rep led ordering process than an extension of a consumer store.
We are not tied to either platform. If you are choosing between them, the useful conversation is about your account structure, pricing rules and ERP, not a feature comparison table.
Plenty of brands sell to both trade customers and consumers, and the two often end up on separate platforms by accident rather than by decision.
Sometimes that separation is right. More often it creates duplicated catalogues, inventory that disagrees with itself and two sets of content to maintain.
We work through where the two sides should share infrastructure and where they genuinely need to diverge: catalogue and product data, inventory, customer accounts, pricing, content, and the experience each type of customer sees when they land on the site. The goal is one operation with two front doors, rather than two businesses pretending to be one.
In most B2B businesses the ecommerce store is not the system of record. The ERP is.
That makes integration the part of the project most likely to determine whether it succeeds. We have built integrations across ERP, inventory, accounting and fulfilment systems, including NetSuite, and the approach is the same each time: work out what actually needs to sync, in which direction, and how often.
Usually that includes products and pricing, customer and account data, inventory levels, orders, and invoice or payment status. Rarely does it include everything, and trying to sync everything is a common way to make a B2B build slower and more fragile than it needs to be.
We also plan for what happens when the integration fails, because at some point it will. Orders should not disappear because an ERP was down for twenty minutes.
Wholesale and DTC operating from a single Shopify Plus store, integrated with NetSuite. The work covered account structures, trade pricing and the operational workflows behind how orders reach the business, alongside the consumer facing store.
Working through Shopify B2B, BigCommerce and the alternatives against your actual account, pricing and integration requirements.
Company accounts, multiple buyers, permissions and approval workflows.
Customer specific pricing, contract rates, volume breaks and the rules that decide which price a buyer sees.
Reordering, saved lists, bulk and CSV ordering, order history and account self service.
Quote requests, revisions and approval steps before an order is placed.
Connecting the store to ERP, inventory, accounting and fulfilment systems, including NetSuite.
Shared catalogue, inventory and content across trade and consumer customers where it makes sense to combine them.
Moving businesses off phone, email and spreadsheet ordering without disrupting existing customer relationships.
Yes. Shopify Plus includes native B2B functionality covering company accounts, multiple buyers, per company price lists, payment terms and a separate B2B checkout. It handles a substantial range of wholesale requirements without third party apps. Where it tends to reach its limits is deeply negotiated pricing, complex approval chains and unusually layered account hierarchies.
Neither is better in general. Shopify B2B usually wins where you already run DTC on Shopify and want both sides of the business on one platform with structured pricing rules. BigCommerce usually wins where account hierarchies, quoting or pricing configuration are more complex. The decision should come out of your account structure, pricing logic and ERP requirements, not a feature list.
Often yes, and on Shopify Plus it is usually the better outcome. One catalogue, one inventory source and one set of content, with different pricing, experience and checkout depending on who is logged in. It is worth separating them when the product ranges, operations or brands genuinely differ rather than just the customer type.
Yes. We build integrations with ERP, inventory, accounting and fulfilment systems, including NetSuite. The work starts by defining what needs to sync, in which direction and how frequently, because the most common cause of a slow or fragile B2B build is trying to sync more than the business actually needs.
Buyers are assigned to a company account, and that account is linked to a price list or set of pricing rules. When a buyer logs in they see their own pricing across the catalogue, including contract rates and volume breaks. Pricing can be maintained in the platform or driven from the ERP, and which of those makes sense depends on where your pricing is currently managed and how often it changes.
You might be moving off manual ordering for the first time, replacing a trade portal that customers avoid using, adding wholesale to an existing DTC business, or deciding which platform can actually handle how your pricing works.
We can take a project from requirements and platform selection through design, build and integration, or work alongside an internal team where the scope is narrower.
The first step is understanding how your customers order today and what is getting in the way.
