Scale your B2B distribution past PDF pricelists.
You're running a dealer / wholesale / retail-partner / showroom network on Shopify and the PDF pricelist workflow is your operational ceiling. 30 partners is manageable; 60 is painful; 100+ is impossible. Apimio's Trade Portal replaces the email + PDF pattern with branded private portals per partner, scoped catalog subsets, live data from Catalogue Hub, and multi-format export. Catalogue Hub + Store Sync + Quality Guard support the catalog side. The dealer network scales past ops capacity for the first time.
Three common B2B network setups
B2B networks come in distinct flavors. Pick the closest match.
Multi-channel brand with dealer network
D2C + 20-50 dealers + showroom buyers
$15M–$80M ARR. Direct via Shopify + a B2B channel of dealers, showrooms, retail partners, and independent specialty stores. Currently emailing PDF pricelists quarterly. The network is growing slower than demand because ops can't onboard partners fast enough.
Start your 14-day free trial →Distributor / wholesaler with multi-line catalog
Selling 5+ brands into 50+ buyer relationships
$30M–$150M ARR. Distributor model — carrying multiple brand catalogs + selling into 50+ retailer relationships. Each buyer wants curated catalog access with their tier pricing. Currently maintaining per-buyer CSV exports. Each new buyer takes 2 days of ops time to set up.
Start your 14-day free trial →Brand with interior-design or specialty-trade program
D2C + trade-tier program for designers / specialty trades
$10M–$50M ARR. D2C core + a trade-tier program selling to interior designers, contractors, salons, aestheticians, or other specialty professionals. The trade program is a growth lever but currently bottlenecked on portal access for each new designer.
Start your 14-day free trial →The four B2B distribution failure modes
B2B networks at scale fail in the same four ways. Each caps the network growth + erodes partner trust.
B2B failure mode
What Apimio does about it
PDF pricelist emails fail at scale
The quarterly PDF pricelist email goes to 50 partners. Half open it. Of those, half print it and pin it to a wall (it goes stale immediately). The other half order from last quarter's version. Stale-pricelist orders are common, requiring sales to do order-correction calls instead of relationship-building.
Trade Portal · branded per-partner private URLs
Each partner gets a private URL (your domain, your brand identity, CNAME-supported white-label). They open the URL, optionally enter an access code, see your live catalog scoped to their agreement. The PDF email is gone. The portal becomes the source partners trust.
Per-partner onboarding is 1–2 days of ops time
New partner agreement signed. Ops sets them up: curated catalog list, wholesale pricing tier, MOQs, lead times, export format. Compile + email a "welcome" pricelist. 1–2 days of work per partner. Multiply by 30+ new partners per year and the network scaling is throttled by ops capacity.
Adding the next partner = 5 minutes
New partner agreement → Trade Portal scope rules (SKU list / collection / tag / vendor) + wholesale tier pricing (via Catalogue Hub override) + access code (optional) + portal URL generated. Send the URL to the partner. They open it like a website. 5 minutes total, not 1–2 days.
Partner-specific catalog customization is spreadsheet hell
Partner A carries product lines X, Y. Partner B carries Y, Z. Partner C carries Z only at trade pricing. Maintaining per-partner CSV exports across 50+ partners means 50+ spreadsheets that drift apart from the master catalog. Each product update means 50+ pricelist updates.
Live data from Catalogue Hub — no spreadsheets
Trade Portal reads from Catalogue Hub in real time. Any product update — price, new SKU, discontinued line — surfaces in every partner's portal within seconds. No per-partner CSV maintenance. No spreadsheets drifting apart. The "single source of truth" becomes operationally real.
No visibility into partner activity
You sent the PDF. Did partner X open it? Did they export the data into their POS? Did they order from the new collection? You don't know. Sales calls become "have you got the new pricelist?" instead of "I see you've been browsing the spring line — let me walk you through what changed."
Per-portal activity audit + dealer scorecards
Every partner interaction captured: who opened the portal, what they browsed, what they exported, in what format, at what time. Over months a partner scorecard emerges — which partners are active, which are stale, where the relationship needs attention. Sales conversations become data-driven.
Five Apimio surfaces for B2B at scale
B2B distribution lean on Trade Portal as the primary surface, with Catalogue Hub + Store Sync + Quality Guard + Apimio AI supporting.
Trade Portal · the primary B2B surface
Per-partner branded URLs (CNAME white-label). Per-partner catalog scope + wholesale tier pricing. Live data from Catalogue Hub. Multi-format export per partner (CSV / Excel / Shopify-import / POS shape). Per-portal access codes + audit log + activity scorecards.
Catalogue Hub · canonical record + per-store overrides
One canonical record per SKU. Per-store override layer captures wholesale-tier pricing without duplicating SKUs. Per-partner pricing tiers operate via the override layer. The PIM foundation Trade Portal reads from.
Store Sync · multi-store coexistence
Many B2B-network brands also run D2C Shopify stores. Store Sync handles the multi-store side via webhook + durable queue + Plus Org Admin native. Trade Portal complements the dedicated B2B Shopify store with branded per-partner surfaces.
Quality Guard · partner-trust enforcement
Wholesale partners trust the catalog data more than retail customers do — they're reselling it. Quality Guard's gate ensures every product reaching a partner's portal has dimensions, materials, alt text, descriptions per category. Partner-trust erosion from data gaps stops.
Apimio AI · partner-facing content at scale
Wholesale partner portals benefit from rich product copy + alt text + specs for their downstream sales workflows. Apimio AI generates from canonical attributes + brand voice. Translations into partner locales. Content quality at the partner-facing layer becomes a competitive advantage.
Monday through Friday — B2B operations
B2B operations on Apimio look different from the email + PDF workflow.
Monday: B2B activity review
Open the Trade Portal scorecard dashboard. See which partners were active last week, which exported new data, which are stale. Email the stale ones. The Monday standup picks up where Friday left off — informed by data, not anecdote.
Tuesday: new partner onboarding
Sales signed two new partners. Trade Portal config: scope rules (SKU list, tag), wholesale tier pricing (Catalogue Hub override), optional access code, generate URL. Send to the partner with a 1-line "here's your portal" email. Total: 10 minutes per partner.
Wednesday: catalog update propagation
New product launches arrive. Catalogue Hub holds the canonical records. Quality Guard validates them. Store Sync writes to D2C stores. Trade Portal updates every partner's scoped view in real time — no per-partner pricelist email blast required.
Thursday: partner relationship calls
Sales reads the per-portal scorecard before the calls. "I see you've been browsing the spring collection — let me walk you through what changed." Calls become consultative, not pricelist-chasing. The activity data informs which partners need attention.
Friday: weekly close + reporting
Per-portal activity exports for the sales team. Per-partner scorecard updates. Audit log captures every flip from Sale Scheduler's weekend promo. The week closes with all the data the next-quarter QBRs need.
Week-by-week outcomes — B2B network on Apimio
Apimio bundle vs DIY B2B distribution stack
Most B2B brands assemble PDF email + PIM + B2B portal app + manual spreadsheets. The honest comparison.
PDF email + manual | B2B portal app + PIM | One platform Apimio bundle | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Branded per-partner URLs (CNAME white-label) | |||
| Live data from canonical PIM | |||
| Per-partner pricing tier (no SKU dup) | |||
| Multi-format export per partner | |||
| Per-portal activity + scorecard | |||
| New partner onboarding time | 1–2 days | 30–60 minutes | 5–10 minutes |
| No-friction partner experience (no account) | Email PDF | ||
| Typical monthly cost | Internal time | $3k–8k (multi-tool) | From $499/mo (Growth) |
Questions from teams scaling their B2B network
A dedicated B2B Shopify store handles checkout + payments + customer accounts for B2B transactions. Trade Portal complements it by giving each partner a branded private URL with curated catalog scope + multi-format export — the browse + spec data + export experience that B2B Customer Accounts don't cover. Many brands run both: the B2B store handles the order; the Trade Portal handles the browse + spec workflow.
Yes — each partner type can have its own portal template. Wholesalers see the full catalog with bulk pricing + MOQs + lead times. Retail partners see curated catalogs at retail-tier wholesale prices. Designers see trade-tier prices with spec-heavy product data. Salons see professional subsets at salon-pro pricing. Each partner type's template defines scope rules + pricing tier + export shape.
International partners get locale-aware portals — per-locale pricing in local currency, per-locale catalog content (title, description, SEO, regulatory fields) via Catalogue Hub's Markets-native layer. The international partner experience matches the home-market experience operationally. New international partners onboard at the same 5-minute cadence.
Trade Portal is browse + export-focused. Partners typically place orders via your dedicated B2B Shopify store, via email-to-quote, or via their own order-management system after exporting the catalog data. For brands that want order-placement directly through the portal, integration with Shopify B2B Customer Accounts is supported as a custom block per portal.
Each portal is private — partner A cannot see partner B's URL or pricing. Per-partner pricing tiers via Catalogue Hub override layer ensure each partner sees only their agreement's prices. Optional access codes add a second gate. Audit logs show every access for security review.
Yes — scope rules per portal can be: a SKU list, a collection, a tag, a vendor line, a category, a custom saved query, or any combination. Wholesale-only products can hide from retail-tier partners. Exclusive products can show only to one partner. Geographic restrictions (region-exclusive lines) supported.
Block / unblock a portal without deleting the partner config — so the URL stops working without losing the agreement history. Audit log persists. Reactivating is one click. For complete removal, delete the portal and the URL 404s; agreement history retained for compliance.
Per-partner pricing tiers via Catalogue Hub's override layer handle the standard tier-pricing model (wholesale-1, wholesale-2, distributor, designer-trade, etc.). For volume-discount tiers (price drops at quantity thresholds), the volume rule is typically configured on the order-placement side — either via Shopify B2B Customer Accounts or via your dedicated B2B store. The portal shows the partner-tier base prices; volume-discount math happens at checkout.
Scale your B2B network past PDF pricelists
Install Apimio, configure your brand identity, spin up the first partner portal in 5 minutes. The 14-day trial includes the full B2B stack — Trade Portal, Catalogue Hub, Store Sync, Quality Guard, Apimio AI. No credit card required.