Shopify B2B Sales Rep Ordering: Placing Orders for Buyers

Can a sales rep place a B2B order for a customer in Shopify?#

Yes. A staff member creates a draft order, picks the buyer and the company location the order is for, and Shopify applies that company's prices, payment terms and checkout options. The rep can set a custom price on a line when a negotiated price differs from the catalog, add the buyer's PO number, and either collect payment or send an invoice.

That is all in Shopify's own help article on B2B draft orders (help.shopify.com, fetched 2026-10-13), and it works on every paid plan. So the real question for a distributor is not whether a rep can order for a customer. It is how to run rep ordering so it does not become a second, separate business sitting next to your online store.

This post is for the inside sales manager, GM or owner at an industrial or MRO distributor already selling on Shopify, where some buyers order online and others still call their rep.

Why rep ordering is still most of the order desk#

In distribution, buyers call their rep because the rep knows the account, remembers what the branch ordered last spring, and can make a judgment call on a price. Those reasons are not going away. What can go away is the rep doing data entry for orders the buyer could have placed alone. The goal is a desk where reps spend their time on the orders that need a person, and buyers handle the routine reorders themselves, with both landing in the same place.

If you have already started moving phone and email orders online, rep ordering is the other half of the same job: deciding which orders stay with a person and making sure those orders are not invisible to everyone else.

How does rep ordering work with company pricing and payment terms?#

The setting that matters most is the company location, not just the company. In Shopify B2B, a company can have several locations, and each location can carry its own catalog, payment terms and checkout settings.

When a rep creates the draft order and selects the location, Shopify does the rest. Per its draft orders article (fetched 2026-10-13):

• Prices reflect the catalog pricing for that company location, including volume pricing where you have set it.
• Payment terms are set automatically from the company location if the location already has terms.
• A custom line price is available when you need to quote a negotiated price that differs from the company's catalog pricing.
• PO numbers can be added to the draft from the admin.
• Deposits on draft orders with payment terms are available only on the Shopify Plus plan.

Two habits keep this clean. First, always pick the location, not just the company. The terms and catalog follow the location, so a rep who keys the Houston branch's order under the Dallas location gets Dallas pricing and Dallas terms. Second, treat a custom line price as a deliberate exception, not the normal way to price. If a rep is overriding catalog prices on most lines, the catalog is wrong, and fixing it once beats fixing it on every call.

Plan matters too. Shopify's B2B features page (fetched 2026-10-13) says that on the Basic, Grow and Advanced plans you can assign up to 3 active catalogs across all your B2B markets, and that on Shopify Plus you can create unlimited catalogs and assign them directly to specific company locations. If your contract pricing does not fit in three catalogs below Plus, reps will end up hand-pricing lines, and that is worth knowing before you build a rep process around it. For more on the draft order itself as a quoting tool, see what draft orders cover for B2B quotes.

How do you limit which accounts a rep can see?#

Shopify's B2B features page describes sales staff permissions: you can give each staff member a set of permissions that restricts their access to only the company records assigned to them. The same page notes that some permission levels might be limited on non-Plus plans, so check what your plan supports before you design around it.

Scoping reps to their own accounts does two useful things. It keeps one rep from accidentally ordering under another rep's customer, and it makes the account assignment explicit. If nobody can say which rep owns an account, the permission screen will make you decide.

Pair account scope with a written limit on how far a rep can move a price alone, and who signs off beyond that. Our post on who can cut a price walks through setting those limits against a margin floor.

Worked example: a rep keys a phone order for a branch#

A purchasing lead at the Tulsa branch of a regional mechanical contractor calls their rep. They need 40 of the 6205-2RS sealed bearings they always order, and 10 of a gearbox they buy a few times a year. On the gearbox, they mention a competitor's price and ask whether the rep can do better on this order.

Here is the order done cleanly in Shopify:

1. Pick the company, then the Tulsa location. Tulsa's catalog and its payment terms come with it. If Tulsa carries different terms from the head office, the draft follows Tulsa.
2. Add the 40 bearings at catalog price. No override. If a volume break applies at 40, the catalog already handles it.
3. Handle the gearbox as the one exception. The rep checks how far they can go on their own, sets a custom line price inside that limit, and notes why on the order. If the ask is beyond their authority, it goes to the manager before the rep says yes.
4. Add the buyer's PO number. The buyer's accounts payable team will match the invoice against it.
5. Send the invoice or collect payment. On terms, the invoice goes to the buyer and the payment terms from the location apply.

Notice what happened. Of two lines, one needed a person and one did not. The bearings are the same order Tulsa places most months. That line is the self-serve candidate.

When should a buyer move from rep-placed orders to self-serve?#

Look at what a buyer orders through their rep and sort it into two piles.

Repeat orders of the same lines. Same SKUs, similar quantities, contract prices that do not change call to call. These are the orders a buyer can place alone, and Shopify gives them tools for it natively: B2B customer accounts with their own pricing, easy reorders that duplicate a past order, and quick order lists on the product page, all listed on Shopify's B2B features page (fetched 2026-10-13).

Orders that need a judgment call. A negotiated price, a project order with unusual quantities, a substitution because a part is out, a rush. These stay with the rep, and they should.

Moving a buyer to self-serve is a conversation, not a switch: next time you need the usual bearings, order them online at your price, and call me for anything unusual.

One condition makes this work: everyone sees one record. If the rep cannot see what the buyer ordered online, the rep calls to check, the buyer gets annoyed, and both habits stop working. Because rep-placed drafts and self-serve orders both end up as Shopify orders on the same company location, the order history can stay in one place. Keep it there. Do not let reps keep a side spreadsheet of "their" orders.

Where Copiara fits#

Shopify covers the rep's draft order well. Where distributors still lose time is the negotiated part of the call, which tends to live in the rep's email, and the gap between "I'll check and get back to you" and an order.

Copiara's quoting desk is being built for that: a buyer's request, each negotiation round and a margin floor the server enforces stay on one record, and the accepted quote is placed in Shopify with the agreed prices locked. On the buyer's side, Copiara adds quick order that matches each line by SKU or product name (a buyer can paste a list or upload a CSV), and saved lists that hold items and quantities but never a price, so each reorder is priced at that day's contract price. Buyers sign in once, with the store's own login. For more, see the wholesale layer for Shopify stores and the quoting desk and buyer approvals.

Copiara is a Shopify app in early access. It is not yet on the Shopify App Store, and nobody can install it or subscribe yet.

FAQ#

Do I need Shopify Plus for reps to order for customers? No. Shopify's B2B features page says Shopify B2B is available on all plans, and draft orders for a company location work without Plus. Deposits on draft orders and direct catalog assignment to company locations are Plus only, and some sales staff permission levels might be limited on non-Plus plans.

Can a rep set a custom price on a B2B order? Yes. Shopify's draft orders article describes setting a custom price on a line item when you need to quote a negotiated price that differs from the company's catalog pricing.

Do payment terms apply to rep-created orders? Yes. If the company location already has payment terms set, Shopify sets the draft order's payment term from the location automatically.

Can I require every B2B order to be reviewed as a draft first? Yes. Shopify lets you require that orders from a company location are submitted as drafts for review. Those buyers see a Submit for approval button at checkout, and the orders wait in your Drafts page until you accept them.

A rep's time is for the exceptions#

Rep ordering on Shopify works once the basics are in place: the right location, catalog prices first, clear limits on custom prices, and one order history. Then the repeat orders move to self-serve, and your reps spend their calls on the orders that actually need them.

If you run a wholesale distributor on Shopify and your rep orders and online orders still live in different places, get early access.