w/ Samir Pradhan, VP of Product at Shopify
Shopify just opened up its foundational B2B features to all paid plans, not just Plus. Samir Pradhan, VP of Product at Shopify, joins the show to break down what merchants actually get: company profiles, up to three custom catalogs, quantity rules, ACH payments, vaulted credit cards, and 50+ features total, at no additional cost. We walk through the setup, talk about what stays Plus-only, and dig into why B2B was consistently a top three merchant request. Plus, 96% GMV growth for merchants already using these tools. If you've been avoiding wholesale or duct-taping workarounds, this is the episode.
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The Unofficial Shopify Podcast is hosted by Kurt Elster and explores the stories behind successful Shopify stores. Get actionable insights, practical strategies, and proven tactics from entrepreneurs who've built thriving ecommerce businesses.
Kurt Elster • 00:00.001
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Today on the unofficial Shopify podcast, I believe we've got uh some feature news to share from Shopify, from the mothership. Three and a half years ago, they launched the the Shopify B2B tools. And this is you know part of Plus. This is something we use regularly with you know some some of our larger clients. where they want to sell wholesale. They want to be able to sell to, you know, into retail larger accounts. It's very useful because you need to be able to offer those people custom pricing. Right. And you know, et cetera. Like there's a bunch of tool until you do it, you don't realize all the like the little workflow tools that you gotta figure out that go into it. And well, today, Samir Pradhan from Shopify is joining us to tell me, you know, what's new, what's changing. Samir, welcome to the show. Happy to have you.
Samir Pradhan • 01:58.439
Thanks, Kurt. I'm really excited to be here.
Kurt Elster • 02:01.399
Well I d I you know what I did not share your title. What do you do at Shopify
Samir Pradhan • 02:06.820
Well, you know, I joined Shopify actually pretty recently. So I joined in November of last year. And I'm here to help you know build all the tools that merchants need to grow their business. So think about the two largest needs that a lot of merchants have, you know, is generally like sourcing and selling. Like what should I have on my store? What should I have in my business to sell? And then how can I sell it? Where should I sell it? And um if you look at the spectrum um on on that, it's everything from advertising to messaging to you know, sourcing through B2B, sourcing through, you know, what we call the collective and and a variety of things. So just helping merchants grow their business through sourcing and and selling.
Kurt Elster • 02:49.260
You know, I do I we're not here to talk about collective, but like man, that's one of my favorite tools. I do love it. Shopify B2B, what is that tool sweet?
Samir Pradhan • 02:59.940
Well, you know, when a business wants to sell to a a customer, just you know, D to C Shopify has been great and has out of the box a variety of tools to do that. But when you look at the the primitives that are associated with selling to a company. Those traditionally haven't been included and available for all Shop-5 paid merchants. And so the two big ones there are this idea of companies and catalogs. Because when you're doing B2B, your customer is a company. And so having those primitives so that you can go and adjust pricing and adjust your discounts for those companies. Those are the type of tools. There's actually 50 different features, but the big two are just, you know, companies as customers and catalogs that you can associate with that.
Kurt Elster • 03:57.200
And catalogs are like that that's where our price lists live. That's how we do custom pricing. That's that's right.
Samir Pradhan • 04:03.760
You can do you discounts on top of that. Um but exactly right. Yeah, you can have, you know, think think like you know gold, silver, bronze in terms of uh catalogs and you can have them associated with um with different markets. And in fact we when we talk about the you know what we're doing Here we can talk about some of the nuances of what features are available. But that's exactly right. It's companies and catalogs. And then a bunch of other features just to make the workflows better.
Kurt Elster • 04:32.920
The but B2B to be clear this is a a plus exclusive feature. We gotta be on on the big plan
Samir Pradhan • 04:40.420
Well, I mean today we're you know we're excited to for the first time make these B2B features uh natively uh that were in Plus. Available to all non-plus paid subscribers or merchants as well. And so that's that's a big you know announcement from us. That's a it's a big thing that we're launching and we're super excited about it.
Kurt Elster • 05:04.420
It's huge. Cause I it I people regularly like, hey, I want to add wholesale or like they're already doing it via, you know, like we're sending invoices and we get or we give them a c a custom discount code. And they're like, all right, I want to scale this. I want like a proper B2B system. And that's when we say, all right, well, we have those tools, but you have to go to plus to do it, right? You know, jump from whatever plan you're on to the next one. The so B2B tools, this is on every plan now, not just plus.
Samir Pradhan • 05:32.639
Yeah, and look, the our goal with this is to really open up the foundations for what it takes for a merchant to start selling to other businesses. Uh and make that available to all paid merchants on Shopify. There's still reasons that you would graduate into plus for more complex workflows or features. Selling wholesale is such a big opportunity for merchants that today only do it D to C that, you know, just Alignment with the mission. We had to make it available so that we can just make commerce better for everyone, allow merchants to go and uh grow their businesses through that channel. It's a it's a really big opportunity and We want merchants to get started on the plan that they're already on.
Kurt Elster • 06:20.960
And so with uh is there is this included in the plan? This is an add-on cost?
Samir Pradhan • 06:26.120
Oh, it's it's included in the plan. Um there's no add-on costs. It's it's included in the plan.
Kurt Elster • 06:31.159
So this just becomes available when? Today?
Samir Pradhan • 06:34.139
Yeah, and in fact if you go to your um your admin, you know, you'll see customers you'll start seeing companies there. And that's kind of your sign that like, well, I can have companies as customers. And that's how you kind of get started with the whole thing. It's just there.
Kurt Elster • 06:50.980
So all right, breaking it down for folks who have not played with these features, catalogs is the the B2B equiv or I'm sorry. Companies is the B2B equivalent of a customer. And then I assign a customer to a company. And then the company I also assign, like, well, this is their pricing. And that's the catalog is my my price list. And I could either say, you know, I could go, all right, include all products, include just these specific products. We have different tiers. Um, and almost always they get named after rare metals. You know, like gold, silver, bronze, platinum, diamond. Right. That diamond's not a metal, but um And then like and then it's like 10, 50, 25 off. Or I could use a spreadsheet. I could do custom like unique pricing overrides in there. And then that way, like that, that custom pricing, that gated pricing, that's my B2B system. And so the b customer applies, logs in. And then they see their special pricing, they could just place their order. And it just simplifies the entire thing over, you know, the workarounds I would have been doing before without these B2B features.
Samir Pradhan • 07:53.900
That's exactly right. You know, the goal here is to basically have native features that allow you to sell wholesale. Um and that wasn't possible before you know we made this this available. And so the way that you would act on it is you'd basically go and say, well, I'm going to set up my company profiles, which are my my company customers, and that means you can have multiple contacts in there, you can put information about their locations, payment terms, et cetera. Now that you've got that, of course, when someone comes into your onto your store, they have to log in. That's how you gonna know, well, that's users from this company. Great. And then you set up your your catalogs. And with you know one of the points of differentiation between plus merchants and non-plus merchants from a B2B perspective is that non-plus merchants get up to three custom catalogs. So on those catalogs you can kind of put in your pricing, you can offer discounts. And typically what you do is you you assign those to, for nonplus, you assign those to markets. And from there, you know, you have companies that are assigned to these markets. Someone logs in, they start seeing the catalog that you've assigned them to. And so you can do volume pricing, you can do ACH bank transfers, you can do Vault credit cards, the whole nine yards.
Kurt Elster • 09:18.120
Wait, so I also get because those are other you know previous plus exclusive features were vaulted credit cards and ACH. I can get that That's expanded as well.
Samir Pradhan • 09:27.500
That's expanded as well. Yeah, so there's there's actually over fifty features that you get as part of this like, you know, B2B set of features. Um but the main two ones are, you know Companies and catalogs, the rest of them are are optional. But many folks will you know explore them and use them for their business. But uh to really get started, it's two things. Yeah.
Kurt Elster • 09:47.800
Yeah, it's companies and catalogs. And then the other there's also onboarding with it, which you know typically we use Shopify Forms and Shopify Flow. And you could really automate a lot of
Samir Pradhan • 09:58.640
That's right. And that's available. Yeah.
Kurt Elster • 10:00.720
Yeah. Yeah. That that's available. And then in flow, there's even templates. So it's like, all right, well, you know, it's a little intimidating. I actually like I don't write this stuff from scratch. In ShopFi flow, it's got the template to just set it up for me.
Samir Pradhan • 10:13.660
It's pretty cool. It's pretty cool.
Kurt Elster • 10:15.899
The yeah, I like it. Um Okay. So playing devil's advocate here, B2B on plus, that's a it You know, th that was a big reason for adopting and going to plus. And if we've removed that reason as to why you know merchants upgrade Well, I'm just I don't even know if you could share this with me, but like it how do you justify that internally?
Samir Pradhan • 10:39.519
Well, you know, we actually don't look at it as removing value from plus. We look at it as expanding access to B2B features for more merchants so they can get started growing their business and then grow into plus. Look, the reality is that you know we talk to merchants every year. There's a survey, and B2B features come up as a top three merchant request all the time So there's real merchant need, and that's regardless of which plan you're on. So merchants are asking for this. We look at the opportunity, you know, for someone who just sells a D to C to grow their business. Selling B2B, well, that's very aligned to our mission as well. It's a huge growth opportunity for these merchants. And At some point when you've got this channel really you know buzzing for your business and and it and it's working, there's reasons that you would naturally graduate into plus, and that's what we want.
Kurt Elster • 11:40.220
The you're absolutely right. You know, when we we talk to people who are migrating to Shopify from a different platform, um, of it always is like, hey B2B. You know, B2B is always in there as either either that's a requirement because we have that program now, or this isn't nice to have because it is on our radar. And so to see this as like this is just out of the box default available to you on every plan, man, you a lot of value created there, uh, a lot of time saved. You know, I there are just a lot of workarounds that we no longer have to use.
Samir Pradhan • 12:12.640
Yeah. Yeah, we hear that from merchants a lot.
Kurt Elster • 12:16.000
So it sounds like this you know, this decision was based a lot on actual merchant feedback. People saying like, hey, this this is the feature we want. We need these tools. Is That's the driving force here, which is like it would was overwhelmingly what people requested.
Samir Pradhan • 12:30.940
I mean totally like top three feature request every time we talk to merchants. Um and you know, merchants um tell us about the workarounds that they use and and they're convoluted. Right. And you think about like What is Shopify trying to do? It's trying to make commerce better, trying to make commerce easier, more accessible. Those workarounds are cumbersome, they fail at different points by the because you're stitching together spreadsheets and tools and and workflows and tribal knowledge. And the idea is you shouldn't have to Contort Shopify to do your business. Like that's the point of of the platform. And so what we wanted to do is just you know really just live up to what our merchants are asking for and say, great. the foundations to do business with another business, that's included now. Um and so, you know, we we um we we talked with one merchant, uh Dax IWare. And that's it's a it's a good example because Um they well, they're an IWER uh company and they used to sell D2C. Uh they kind of found out about the opportunity they had with with B2B at a trade show. And what became very clear to us from conversations with them is that they could have really used these features when they were getting started with B2B. Um they had a lot of workarounds, you know, it was painful to hear what what you know they had to go through. And I think that's, you know, that's why we did, right? Like merchants are asking for this. This is a huge opportunity. People are doing these workarounds that they shouldn't have to. Now they don't.
Kurt Elster • 14:07.820
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Samir Pradhan • 15:36.740
That's right. The the graduation path is super simple because it's it's all the native features. That's exactly right.
Kurt Elster • 15:41.700
Yeah. One of the things that I want to bring up, because I I think it a lot of people don't realize it. is in that Shopify theme editor, you know, which is where I love to spend my time given the chance, is uh B2B is a context. You could set the theme editor and say, all right, if someone is logged in as a customer, and in Shopify Liquid, that's a variable. You could do if customer. b2b And so, yeah, uh you can absolutely change the appearance of your website without having to run another one And have it be specific to um B2B people logging into your store, which I think is such a neat feature Because it, you know, another way to do wholesale is spin up an entirely separate store, which advantages and disadvantages there too, but rarely, you know, something I you want to start with. Uh yeah, definitely easier if you can to run it just in your own store and then use that context switching, which like, yeah, what a cool way to do it.
Samir Pradhan • 16:39.040
Kurt, I think you t I think you touched on something really important, which is A, you can customize the way your store appears for B2B customers in their when they're logged in, you know who they are. They can see that that catalog-based pricing. You can in theme editor kind of make these modifications. But I think I think even beyond that, I think the thing that you're touching on that that's super important is that behind the company is a real human. And you know, they want to shop and they want to have a great shopping experience as well. And think about how much you've invested in the online store that you have for your D2C business. Those improvements, that design, that sense of brand and and business that you've built just flows over. You don't need uh, you know, um specialized store that's just bare bones for B2B. It's actually a human in the other side and you want to give them a great shopping experience because they care about it actually.
Kurt Elster • 17:33.460
Okay, I want to walk through, you know, for people who've never played with this, I want to walk through workflow, through setting it up, right? Yeah. I have, I'm on Shopify. I have my successful D2C store. I have maybe, you know, a handful of existing. wholesale clients, but you know, we're just kind of doing things like they email me a purchase order and then I like go type in a draft order. You know, I'm I don't have like a proper setup here. So, you know, that this is launched today. These features are now available to everybody. Walk me through what that setup looks like.
Samir Pradhan • 18:04.020
Well, look, the the Main things you need to do to get started is you know go to admin, go to customers, and set up your companies. And then you can set up your wholesale buyers there. You'll create a catalog with your wholesale pricing and then assign those to markets. Um and then look this is the part that is really cool. You can you know sometimes like well how do I let the company that I'm doing business with know that they have an account? Well you can send them emails, you can send them invites through email Um that's like, hey, you've got you know an account on my store. Uh it's kind of it's kind of nice and official. They can click on it. Now they're you know they they're logged into your store. And that's it. You're selling B2B. Everything else you want to set up is optional on top of that.
Kurt Elster • 18:51.760
So just as like a customer gets order confirmation, you know, gets it like a various transactional emails from my store. There's a specific one for um for B2B customers, isn't there? And then obviously I could use flow and I can add, you know, more to it. But like out of the box. There's um there's B2B notification templates, aren't there? Yes.
Samir Pradhan • 19:13.460
Yes, there are. Yeah.
Kurt Elster • 19:14.980
That's right. The the other neat B2B feature that has popped up uh as part of catalog is quantity rules. Tell me about uh how these quantity rules work.
Samir Pradhan • 19:27.840
Well I think I think partly it'd be you know setting up your volume-based discounts. Um minimum maximum rules that you might have for your business. And those are all optional, but that's how I would look at it
Kurt Elster • 19:41.700
um like we worked with someone who sold plants. And so like, hey, if we're gonna sell plants, we gotta do it. It's like it it has to be in units of six because like it that's how they packed it. And so if you have those rules for a wholesale customer, okay, then we know our minimum is six and we gotta sell it in increments of six. And it just works like you set the rule, it just works in the theme. It's really cool.
Samir Pradhan • 20:03.240
I think the the b the biggest one for B2B of course is you can only buy this in units of ten or twenty. Um yeah. It's a it's a common problem by the way, in a completely side conversation common problem when we go to Costco we end up with packs of a lot and then I, you know, I get yelled at for for eating them too fast. Uh whatever I get. But yes, that that that's basically you're trying to configure your catalog um because you're selling with a B2B, you know, um You're selling with B2B packaging often or or constraints, and that's where you can set all that up.
Kurt Elster • 20:37.740
And those and those quantity break rules, I want that for regular customers. I do that's my feature request. I want those those B2B quantity rules. Just because it's so useful. And there's yeah, there's been a handful of times where I'm like, man, we could really use this here. Um
Samir Pradhan • 20:54.140
Yeah, and look, I think another another you know use case for these quantity rules is volume-based discounts, right? So I think having um volume discounts trigger different quantities. It's great. Adds flexibility to the way you do B2B business.
Kurt Elster • 21:10.080
And so our we we all get access to these features and then the limitation is just is number of sounds like the the limitation is number of catalogs I could create.
Samir Pradhan • 21:19.640
Yeah, so the bit what stays plus is basically this idea of individual customer-based you know pricing. Um because you have three catalogs uh or up to three catalogs And so, you know, the way this works is that you have a catalog assigned to a market, and then you have customers in that market. But if you want to do individual customer-level pricing. . That you know is a level of complexity for which you would use plus. Then there's um you know partial payments. and uh deposits. That's another plus only feature. You still have flexible payment terms, but you're collecting that payment in one shot, so to speak And then unlimited catalogs, because you have three catalogs for non-plus marching.
Kurt Elster • 22:13.100
So it sounds like to me I I have all the tools I need right now to get going with quite a robust wholesale system in my existing Shopify store. And then it really it becomes a natural upgrade to plus like you'll know it when you you hit those limitations. That's right. Because you're you're trying to set up more like just you naturally end up trying to set up more sophisticated things where like you know, you're getting bigger and bigger retailers and you're lucky maybe you get like a huge retailer. Well, okay, they end up negotiating their own special specific terms.
Samir Pradhan • 22:46.720
Hey, thrilled to have the deal, and then you know that becomes the point where that's a great reason to graduate the plus, isn't it?
Kurt Elster • 22:53.600
I mean this makes sense to me.
Samir Pradhan • 22:56.320
Yeah.
Kurt Elster • 22:56.779
Yeah. No, I so I I I get the logic and the rationale. Uh man, do the number of conversations that this Would have made uh life easier where we're just like, yeah, absolutely. You know, B2B easy to set up on Shopify. It was just in your plan. Oh, yeah. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah.
Samir Pradhan • 23:15.440
Thank you. That's we're excited about it. Yeah.
Kurt Elster • 23:18.480
From your perspective, is there an obvious first mistake people make when you they're like they're getting started and exploring B2B?
Samir Pradhan • 23:29.059
Well, look, I think that if I can tell you the story of my fitness journey, which hasn't happened yet. Uh that makes two of us. Yeah. It's it's because I think of of a very common mistake which is trying to do too much and too complicated of a setup too fast. Um, you know, I was I have a plan to hit the gym and Eat right and do all these things and I set it up so complex I didn't end up following it. Um but the but the lesson behind that actually is is quite transferable to a lot of things in life and I think for B2B customers as well, which is Look, start simple. You don't need all the complexity and the bells and whistles that you think you'd need or you might need eventually. Um, you know, get it going with uh a simple, understandable structure, um, which is why the foundational set of features that we're opening up, we think are a great way to get started. And then as you feel it, as you, you know, your business requires it, as your deals or your customer requirements get more complex, then start adding that comp you know that complexity.
Kurt Elster • 24:36.679
Uh if I wanted to do like the absolute the MVP, just get started with this. Assuming I've I've got my six my online store and it's successful and we're selling D to C I could just start with, hey, use Shopify form, you know, to make a page, link at my footer, and do like dealer application, retailer application, wholesale application, you know, some variation of that. And see what happens, you know. But if we get someone where we go, yeah, that is like I want them as a partner. I want, you know, to sell through them. Ah, now I I'm confident I already I have the tools. So now I could turn around and be like, all right, let's set up our price list. Let's figure this out and go from there.
Samir Pradhan • 25:11.940
Yeah, set them up as a company, get them assigned to a market, boom, there you are.
Kurt Elster • 25:17.140
And then, you know, once you've set up the first one, okay. Now subsequent ones, similar process, very easy to just get them going and started. And then, you know, like They'll yeah, they'll let you know. They'll make requests. They'll tell you like, hey, this is what we're looking for. This is what you could do differently. And it it'll expand and grow on its own. Absolutely.
Samir Pradhan • 25:36.559
I think it'd be so much delight here, you know, with me, with the team, with with Shopify overall, if people are are graduating into plus. Because their business is actually the point where they're doing so well that they're outgrowing the foundational features that we've made available. I mean that's that's a good problem to have, right? So uh it it's a it's a it's an easy graduation path meant so that you can get started. And then when when your needs require it there it is.
Kurt Elster • 26:02.179
So I I think the when your Starting a business, you know, and running a retail business is hard enough on its own, right? And then adding B2B into it, if you don't have the experience with it, it can be intimidating. Cause even though I think like fundamentally it's a lot of the same stuff, Suddenly there's it becomes intimidating with more more jargon and the like these enterprise technical terms. Yeah. Like, well, what terms are you giving me? Like, what the hell are you talking about? You know. Yeah. Maybe that's not a great example, but okay, if someone is like feeling too intimidated to try it but is curious about it, what do you say to them?
Samir Pradhan • 26:39.120
Well, look, I think, you know, um some of these terms, when you think about like B2B, like if you're new to this, it could seem a little bit intimidating. It's like Am I doing business with another business? What does that mean? You know, what what does it mean for me to set up a company? You know, it sounds very enterprising, but actually it's not. Um, you know, you're you're literally just saying, I have a customer. That's a company and it's very easy to set up where I talk, you know, set up my customers today. Um, and it's just uh a human on the other side. Um, and so what seems like it could be you know kind of scary uh is often just like me with my business doing business with another small business. And that's how I would grow the channels where I can sell. Um so I think you know just leaning into it and saying, well am I selling to you a user or am I selling to you a company and now I've just got ways to I've got primitives in Shopify that help me organize that, super easy to get started. Um you know when When when we look at the opportunity, by the way, um for for B2B, uh it's actually one of the largest opportunities for people who are selling only D2C right now. And um, you know, we I think last year I think there was like, you know, ninety six percent GMB growth uh for for merchants who were essentially using our our um B2B features um and 41% growth in the number of merchants that were um you know using these B2B features. And so that was all plus before. But now that opportunity, that growth is just available to so many more um so many more businesses and that's why we're making it open because actually it's not intimidating it's super easy to get started it's just the human on the other side and you can register the company that that they're with
Kurt Elster • 28:31.720
Hey, today's episode is sponsored in part by Zippify Plus because you've got enough to do as a business owner and marketer The last thing you need to be worried about is optimizing your upsells. But if they're not optimized, you're leaving up to twenty percent of your revenue on the table every single month. So be honest. Did you start a new batch of split tests on your upsells this week? Of course not. Real optimization requires constant attention, running tests, launching offers, reading reports, adjusting for sales. Your team's too busy for all that. Zippify Plus takes over your upsells completely. You get a dedicated team that builds, manages, and optimizes your upsells for you. They work with over a hundred Shopify Plus stores. Their average client sees $233,000 a year in extra revenue without lifting a finger. If you can't remember the last time you updated your upsells, go to zipify. com slash USP to book a free strategy call today. Their team will audit your store and show you exactly where you're leaving money on the table. No commitment required. That's zipify. com slash ZP. Because you've got enough to do without worrying about upsells too. Yeah, it's a good way of looking at it. Yeah, I think even I was thinking about it, you know, making it more complex than it needed to be at times. Yeah. And really it's like, all right, you're you're adding an extra layer of uh between, you know, the the customer and you and the form of the company and the price list, but really that's about it. Okay. I'm curious, you know, your thoughts on how this may impact or be perceived by Shopify partners like myself. who they specialize in B2B. Like recently on the show we heard from uh Dennis Dooley from UNCAP, who you that their Shopify partner long time. And that is all they do is like we build B2B businesses. I have built one B2B business on Shopify that we're very proud of, utility pipe supply. And so like there's just there's a lot of complexity and difficulty that comes along with it. Um So w how like for those people who live, sleep, eat, breathe it in the Shopify partner ecosystem, it what do you say to them?
Samir Pradhan • 30:42.540
Well, the way I look at it is that our job is actually to help these developers succeed. And the way that we're doing that is by expanding the market that they can serve. Um there's two ways to look at this. One is for you know just the overall partner ecosystem out there. Um you know the lack of B2B primitives for A lot of m Shopify merchants today meant that they can't have apps that rely on them. Um and you look at a messaging app, for example, right? Like what does it mean to message a customer versus a company that's a customer Well, the lack of those primitives make that app experience more complicated than it needs to be. And so now we're just expanding essentially the the addressable market of of businesses that sell B2B so that the broader app ecosystem can offer those B2B features. And then when it comes to you know those that are building B2B apps, I think The reality is that we can't offer everything that exists from a B2B workflow perspective because it is truly a large and complex space. The goal is of course as I mentioned to help people get started with by opening up the foundations. And actually we do a lot to bring our partners into the conversation. So we publish our roadmap. Tell them about our features so that they can build on top of them versus you know replicating them, for example. Um when we talk to merchants, we bring them into merchant conversations. Um we talk about them at editions. We even have a B2B app guide where we feature them. So I think this idea that B2B can be bigger uh on Shopify um can be more true now than ever before, partly because we're making these primitives available to more merchants uh than ever before
Kurt Elster • 32:34.519
Technical jargon can be exclusionary. And one term that has popped up more and more is primitive. Primitive used in the context of software. So for our non-developer friends, when we say primitive, what do we mean?
Samir Pradhan • 32:53.120
you know, a foundational um you know construct or a foundational element of your of your store. So you look at customers, if I say you have a customer primitive, it basically means It's a platform feature. Um, you know, you know that Shopify has a place for you to have your customers in there. There's a place for it to get store there's a place for you to interact with it that's a foundational platform feature so that's what I was referring to as a primitive now for more merchants you're gonna have the ability to have those companies be customers and that's a a new you know platform capability.
Kurt Elster • 33:32.120
And I yes, I view uh primitive as a unit of measure. You know, the s a small very small piece of software. You know, the the smallest bit. Maybe a unit functionality true grad.
Samir Pradhan • 33:44.360
Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right.
Kurt Elster • 33:45.800
Yeah, is primitive. Uh okay. Very helpful. You know I at the start of the show we mentioned Shopify Collective. I love Shopify Collective, you know, the system that essentially lets like two Shopify stores connect and one serve as a dropshipper for another and uh it really cool, easy-to-use thing. That To be that's a form of B2B. Is that would you agree?
Samir Pradhan • 34:08.600
I think I think it in many cases it absolutely is, right? Because it's it's someone saying, I have these products. Here's my price list. You know, you can sell these products that I have. Um, and so that is very much a form of B2B.
Kurt Elster • 34:25.480
You know, I'm st thinking out loud, I'm wondering like, oh, maybe there's an opportunity there. Like if I'm already on collective and now I have access to these B2B features and I can I could figure out, okay, who who's my number one through Shopify Collective. Uh maybe I could reach out to them and be like, hey, you know, maybe you're you're selling well with us. Maybe we can expand that. And you know, now we've got This wholesale offering.
Samir Pradhan • 34:49.600
Yeah, I think you're touching on on a core part of you know what could be. Um and uh and at some point we should we should talk about that. Um Um, but I I think this opportunity to basically help merchants on Shopify discover and connect with the businesses that they need to that they can sell through or to and therefore grow their business is is a huge opportunity for us. Um and you can think about the Oh it's almost a spectrum of how you can start. You sell, you know, I sell directly, or I sell through the collective, or I sell B2B. Well These are really just spectrums of being able to offer different quantities with different levels of certainty uh and predictability with how much I I sell at a time or who I'm selling to. Uh and there's a huge opportunity for us to make that and continue to make that easier for merchants and also for merchants who use these features to discover which other merchants they can be selling to.
Kurt Elster • 35:55.980
There's a word that I get used a lot in this space and on the show, democratization. And I would the phrase democratization of tools. Over time, as technology advances, often the barrier to entry gets lower, both in skill, time, and money. And in this case, you know, that's what we're seeing with uh the availability of B2B features. Right. Of being able to s you know expand our sales channels through our online store. And really it's like it's I'm on the same plan. I'm on the same platform. I, you know, the same skill set that I have learned using that software is going to apply to these because it's all, you know, in that one cohesive Shopify platform.
Samir Pradhan • 36:32.920
Exactly.
Kurt Elster • 36:33.940
Yeah. No, it it's just it's cool to have been around long enough to see these things evolve in this way.
Samir Pradhan • 36:39.780
Well, Kurt, I I guarantee you that I mean I think you'd know this too, that you're you're so much more of an expert on Trophy than I am because I'm I'm so relatively you know, when I when I knew I was coming to talk to you, I was like, I think I'm gonna end up learning more from him in this conversation uh just because how how many of these you've done and and your level of expertise. So that's that's great. I think you have been around through, you know, quite an evolution of how business is done online. And you're touching on something which is very important, which is how can how can the discovery and connection of new places to do business become easier and more available um because you know the way people buy where they buy it's getting more and more fragmented And it shouldn't be up to every merchant to relearn and refigure everything out. There's an opportunity for us to make that simpler for them. Because that's how commerce gets easier and better.
Kurt Elster • 37:33.960
Absolutely. Okay, that's a really good place uh to start wrapping this up. We gotta land this plane. If I'm just in my store, log in today, uh Catalogs and customers are the new features. That's realistically like where I'm getting started. But I probably maybe want to peruse help docs for it. I assume just the existing the Shop 5B2B Uh help docs, I can include those in the show notes and that's that's gonna guide us through it.
Samir Pradhan • 38:00.940
Absolutely. And and you can go to shopify. com slash news, uh which is our newsroom and and you'll see it there too.
Kurt Elster • 38:07.180
Okay Yeah, I'll all right I'll include that in the show notes and then it for you do you want uh do you want people to reach out to you?
Samir Pradhan • 38:15.920
Absolutely. You know, I'd be open to feedback from folks that are trying these features, that have ideas for what we can do, love to learn about their experience. LinkedIn, you can look me up. Um you'll see uh what appears to be a baby photo of mine or A photo from so long ago that I'm barely recognizable, so I might have to change that. But yes, uh please, you know, feel free to send me some some feedback there.
Kurt Elster • 38:42.120
Alright, so I'm gonna add you on LinkedIn and I'm looking for babyface Samir
Samir Pradhan • 38:45.859
You can't miss it. There's only one.
Kurt Elster • 38:49.380
Man. Okay. Uh Sabir Prada, thank you so much. Man, I'm excited. Well, I'm sure you aware you're aware, but wow, this uh this will create a lot of value, a lot of opportunity, and you know make a few people's lives easier with these tools.
Samir Pradhan • 39:05.559
Yeah, we hope so. Thank you, Kurt. Thanks for for having me on and and for having the conversation about this. Uh really appreciate it.
Kurt Elster • 39:12.680
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