United Textile is a Ferndale wholesale distributor — apparel, caps, winterwear, accessories. When I built the Shopify store, the problem was not “we need a website.” The problem was that a normal retail theme makes buyers work too hard. Case quantities hide in the description. Unit price is a mystery. Non-customers see pricing they should not see. Reorders feel like first-time shopping.
I customized the Shopify theme for wholesale operations: hidden pricing for anyone who is not logged in, a registration path that is not a generic account form, and collections that follow how retailers restock, not how a fashion lookbook is laid out.
What a wholesale Shopify store has to say out loud
- Case pack and unit economics, close to the price, not buried in paragraph four.
- Who can see pricing, and what a guest sees instead.
- Delivery expectations — for United Textile that included a free local-shipping threshold around $1,000 and next-day language for local buyers.
- Payment realities. Wholesale is not always a clean checkout. Sometimes the site has to tell the truth about invoices and terms.
Catalog work is the store
I moved about a thousand products from an offline inventory system onto Shopify and organized them into categories a buyer could actually shop. Keyword research went into titles and collection copy, not into a separate “SEO document” that never got pasted in. If a reseller is looking for wholesale knit caps in a case, the product page should say that.
I also treated images as part of speed. Heavy photos kill a B2B session on a phone in a warehouse. Fast, consistent images are merchandising.
Wholesale UX is confidence
Retail sites can get away with vibe. Wholesale sites cannot. A buyer is about to commit to a case. If the pack count is unclear, they email. If they email every time, you built a brochure, not a store. The United Textile storefront is built so repeat buyers can find, compare, and order without a scavenger hunt.
Registration is part of merchandising
If anyone can see wholesale pricing, you do not have a wholesale store. You have a retail store with case copy. I would rather a guest see a clear “register for wholesale pricing” path than a price that undercuts the reps. Hidden pricing is not unfriendly. It is how B2B Shopify stores stay honest.
