March 29, 2024

How To Create An E-Commerce Wholesale Website In Less Than 24 Hours

Creating a wholesale ecommerce website within a short period of time can be a difficult task for most business owners that belong to a non-technical background. There are many factors involved in creating an e-commerce site customized specifically for retail and wholesale customers such as custom pricing, product variants, shipping costs, net payment terms, and much more. However, there are some good tools available in the market that you can use and build a running wholesale e-commerce website with ease. 

In this article, we will show you how to start your own ecommerce wholesale website in less than 24 hours. Just follow the steps mentioned in this article and your wholesale e-commerce website will be up and running to sell your products in bulk in no time.

What is Wholesale E-commerce?

E-commerce wholesale is the business model in which products are sold to customers in bulk at a discounted price. This type of ecommerce is usually found in industries where businesses need to purchase large quantities of goods, such as food and beverage, cosmetics, and clothing.

Benefits of selling wholesale on an e-commerce website

Business owners can expect maximum profits when selling retail and wholesale from the same e-commerce website. There are many other benefits such as: 

  1. Potential to reach a larger set of audience or customers than running your wholesale business from a physical store.
  2. You will also have enough time to manage or maintain your inventory and product pricing if you’re selling wholesale on an e-commerce website.
  3. And, perhaps most importantly, you will be able to sell your products at a lower cost than if you were selling them retail.

What are the platforms to build your wholesale e-commerce website?

Now that we have covered what wholesale ecommerce is and some of the benefits of starting a wholesale website, let’s take a look at some of the platforms you can use to build your site.

Here are the 5 most popular platforms for building an ecommerce website:

  1. Shopify
  2. WooCommerce
  3. Magento
  4. Prestashop
  5. Drupal
  6. Custom software

All of these platforms (except custom-built software) are easy to use and have a wide range of features and apps/plugins to choose from. However, Shopify is the most widely used platform to run e-commerce businesses that offer comparatively more feasibility to customize an ecommerce store according to your needs.

So, in this article, we’ll discuss how to build a wholesale e-commerce website on the Shopify platform and using the 3rd party apps offered by Shopify app developers and partners.

Steps to create a wholesale e-commerce website on Shopify

Now that you know what wholesale ecommerce is and some of the benefits of starting a wholesale website, let’s take a look at how you can start your own wholesale site on Shopify in less than 24 hours.

Step 1: Sign up at Shopify and Choose a Plan

If you don’t already have a Shopify account, you can create one by going to shopify.com and create one. You can select one of these pricing plans:

  1. Basic Plan – $29/month
  2. Shopify Plan – $79/month
  3. Advanced Plan- $299/month

If you are just starting out, we recommend choosing the Basic Shopify plan.

You can also try the 14-day free trial offered by Shopify to try and test the platform’s features.

Step 2: Choose your Domain Name and connect it to Shopify

After you have logged in to your new Shopify account, you will be prompted to enter some basic information about your stores such as your store name, address, and time zone.

You will also need to choose a domain name for your store. If you don’t have a domain name already, don’t worry! Shopify offers a free .myshopify domain for all new stores. Simply enter the name you would like for your domain shop into the box and Shop

Step 3: Add a theme and customize your store

Now it’s time to add a theme and customize your store. A theme is a pre-designed template that you can use to control the overall look and feel of your website.

Shopify offers both free and paid themes. There are over 50+ free themes to choose from.. If you can’t find a free theme that you like, there are also many high-quality paid themes available.

Once you have found a theme, simply click on the “Install Theme” button and it will be added to your site. Then, click on the “Customize Theme” button to begin customizing your store.

Step 4: Add your wholesale products to your store

The fourth step is to add your wholesale products to your store. To do this, you will need to log in to your Shopify admin and go to the “Products” tab. From here, you can add new products or import existing products from a CSV file.

If you are adding new products, you will need to enter basic information about each product such as the name, description, price, and images. You can also set up variants for each product (such as size or color) and specify whether the product is available for wholesale or not.

You can also create a separate collection for your wholesale products so that they are easy to find on your website. To do this, go to the “Collections” tab in your Shopify admin and click “Create collection”. From here, you can give your collection a name (such as “Wholesale Products”) and add products to it.

Step 5: Install the Wholesale Pricing Discount app

The fifth step is to install the Wholesale Pricing Discount (WPD) app from the Shopify App Store. There are many different apps available, but we recommend the Wholesale Pricing Discount app by Wholesale Helper.

This app allows you to set up different tiers of discounts for your wholesale customers based on how much they spend in your store.

For example, you could offer a 20% discount for orders over $500 and a 30% discount for orders over $1000. 

Once the app is added to your store, click on “Install app” and follow the instructions mentioned in the app dashboard in Shopify Admin.

e-commerce wholesale website

Step 6: Configure Shipping Rates

The sixth step is to configure your shipping rates. You will need to go to the “Shipping” tab in your Shopify admin and set up your shipping zones, rates, and methods.

A shipping zone is a geographic region that you ship orders to. For example, you could have a shipping zone for the Middle East, United States, Asia, and Europe.

Shipping rates are the charges that you apply to orders based on the shipping destination and method. For example, you could charge $15 for standard shipping to the United States and $25 for Express shipping to Canada.

Step 7: Configure Payments

The seventh and final step is to configure your payments. You will need to go to the “Payments” tab in your Shopify admin and select which payment methods you want to offer on your wholesale ecommerce website.

You can configure to accept payments via credit card, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and more. We recommend offering multiple payment methods so that your customers can choose their preferred method at checkout.

Once you have configured your payments, you are ready to launch your wholesale website!

Step 8: Don’t forget to market your wholesale store

Now that you have launched your wholesale website, it’s time to start marketing it! There are many different ways that you can market your stores such as social media, email marketing, Google Ads, and more.

We recommend starting with social media since it is a quick and easy way to reach your target audience. Create social media accounts for your business on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Then, start sharing content about your products and store on a regular basis.

You should also create an email list so that you can stay in touch with your customers and let them know about new products or promotions. Read this complete guide on Shopify marketing.

Summing Up

Setting up a wholesale e-commerce website is not an easy task for any non-technical professional or business owner. However, with the help of an e-commerce platform like Shopify and its plethora of 3rd-party apps, anyone can create a wholesale online business and sell their products to B2C as well as B2B buyers at the same time. We hope that the steps mentioned here for creating a wholesale e-commerce website helped you with the process.

Happy wholesaling! 🙂