Shopify + SparkLayer B2B Integration
SparkLayer layers wholesale ordering onto your existing Shopify store: customer-specific price lists, order pads, minimums, and payment terms. The honest reason it matters is that it delivers most of Shopify B2B without moving to Plus.
- mode:
- Bidirectional
- latency:
- Near real-time
- maturity:
- Production-tested
what syncs
What syncs, which way, and how fast
Every row is a real data flow with a real trigger. The frequency column is what you should expect in production, not a best case.
Products
- dir:
- Shopify → SparkLayer
- frequency:
- Near real-time
Reads your existing catalogue. No duplicate product records, which is the main advantage over a separate wholesale store.
Pricing
- dir:
- Shopify / ERP → SparkLayer
- frequency:
- Near real-time
Price lists per customer or group, percentage or fixed. Can be driven from ERP contract pricing rather than maintained twice.
Customers
- dir:
- Bidirectional
- frequency:
- Near real-time
B2B accounts carry price list, minimums, and payment terms. Multiple buyers per company each get their own login.
Orders
- dir:
- SparkLayer → Shopify
- frequency:
- Near real-time
Becomes a normal Shopify order, tagged wholesale, so existing ERP and fulfillment integrations need no changes.
Inventory
- dir:
- Shopify → SparkLayer
- frequency:
- Near real-time
Uses Shopify inventory directly. If stock is wrong in Shopify it is wrong in SparkLayer: fix the upstream sync first.
Payment terms
- dir:
- SparkLayer → Shopify
- frequency:
- On order
Net terms orders come through as pending payment for invoicing, rather than requiring card capture at checkout.
architecture
How it actually works
SparkLayer is an app plus a JavaScript layer on your theme, not a separate storefront. Its architectural strength is that wholesale orders exit as ordinary Shopify orders, so nothing downstream needs to change.
SparkLayer app + theme layer
Injects B2B UI into your existing theme: order pads, price lists, quantity rules. Requires theme integration work, and this is where most of the implementation effort actually goes.
Shopify Admin API
Reads catalogue and inventory, writes orders. SparkLayer holds B2B pricing and rules while Shopify stays the commerce record.
Customer tagging and access
Wholesale customers are tagged in Shopify to gate access and assign price lists. Simple, and the thing most often misconfigured in DIY installs.
ERP price list feed (optional)
Where it gets genuinely useful: contract pricing pushed from your ERP into SparkLayer so wholesale prices are never maintained in two places.
Existing order pipeline
Because orders are standard Shopify orders, your ERP integration, 3PL, and notifications keep working untouched. That is the whole point.
failure modes
What breaks, and what happens when it does
Every integration fails eventually. The difference between a good one and a bad one is whether it fails safely and tells you.
Theme conflicts break the order pad
The B2B interface renders badly or not at all on a heavily customised theme.
handling
SparkLayer injects into your theme, so custom cart drawers and AJAX carts are the usual culprits. We test against your actual theme early rather than assuming the demo behaviour, and isolate the cart interaction where needed.
B2C and B2B pricing leakage
A retail shopper glimpses wholesale pricing, or a wholesale buyer is charged retail.
handling
Access is gated on customer tags and validated server-side, never on client-side visibility alone. We test both logged-out and wrong-tag states explicitly, since this is the failure with real commercial consequences.
Price list drift from the ERP
Wholesale prices in SparkLayer no longer match the ERP contract.
handling
Either the ERP feeds price lists automatically, or a single owner maintains them manually with a defined cadence. Half-automated pricing is the state that reliably produces invoice disputes.
Minimums and increments fighting the cart
Buyers can bypass case quantities or order minimums at checkout.
handling
Quantity rules are enforced at cart validation, not only in the UI. Client-side-only enforcement is trivially bypassed and shows up as unfulfillable orders.
Net terms orders confusing fulfillment
Warehouse staff see pending payment and hold shipments that should ship.
handling
Terms orders are tagged distinctly and fulfillment rules updated to release on approved terms rather than payment capture. A process fix as much as a technical one.
field mapping
A real slice of the mapping
This is an abridged B2B account → Shopify customer mapping, shown so you can sanity-check it against your own system.
B2B account → Shopify customer
shopify → sparklayer
customer.tagssparklayer.price_listDrives pricing
customer.idsparklayer.account_idcompany.namesparklayer.companyorder.tagssparklayer.order_typewholesale
line_item.quantitysparklayer.pack_sizeValidated at cart
order.payment_termssparklayer.terms
SparkLayer holds B2B rules while Shopify holds the commerce record. Exact tagging depends on your existing customer structure.
implementation
Timeline and cost
typical duration
3 to 6 weeks
included in scope
- SparkLayer setup and theme integration
- Price lists, minimums, and pack size rules
- Customer account structure and access gating
- Net terms configuration and fulfillment rules
- B2B and B2C separation testing
- Buyer-facing guide and internal training
what moves it up
- ERP-driven contract price list automation
- Complex approval or multi-buyer hierarchies
- Heavily customised theme requiring cart rework
- Migration of an existing wholesale customer base
- Multi-currency or multi-region wholesale pricing
questions
Questions buyers actually ask
Do we need Shopify Plus to use SparkLayer?
No, and that is the main reason to choose it. SparkLayer runs on any Shopify plan and delivers customer-specific pricing, order pads, minimums, and payment terms without Plus. If wholesale is a meaningful share of revenue but not large enough to justify the Plus uplift, this is usually the right answer.
How is SparkLayer different from native Shopify B2B?
Native Shopify B2B is Plus-only and built on first-party company and catalogue objects, so it integrates more deeply and suits large or complex wholesale operations. SparkLayer is an app layer on any plan, faster and cheaper to deploy, with rules living in SparkLayer rather than Shopify. Choose native B2B if you are already on Plus; choose SparkLayer if you are not and do not want to move for this alone.
Do wholesale orders flow into our ERP automatically?
Yes, because SparkLayer writes ordinary Shopify orders. Any existing ERP integration, 3PL connection, or notification flow picks them up with no changes, just a wholesale tag to branch on. This is the single biggest practical advantage over running a separate wholesale store.
Can wholesale prices come from our ERP contract pricing?
Yes, and we recommend it whenever contract pricing already exists. Price lists can be fed from the ERP so wholesale pricing is never maintained twice. Manual maintenance works at small scale, but past a few dozen accounts drift between ERP contracts and storefront pricing becomes inevitable.
Will SparkLayer work with our custom theme?
Usually, but theme integration is where the implementation time goes. SparkLayer injects UI into your existing theme, so custom cart drawers and AJAX carts commonly need adjustment. We test against your real theme in week one instead of discovering conflicts near launch.
How do we stop retail customers seeing wholesale prices?
Access is gated on Shopify customer tags and validated server-side, not just hidden in the UI. We explicitly test logged-out and incorrectly-tagged states, because client-side-only gating is the failure mode with genuine commercial consequences.
shopify + sparklayer
Add wholesale without moving to Plus
Tell us your wholesale volume, account count, and whether contract pricing lives in an ERP. We will tell you whether SparkLayer or native B2B is the cheaper path.