Why B2B Prices Differ: Shopify Catalog Rules and Acceptance Checks

When a B2B buyer first sees a price, it may differ from the price they later encounter after changing their company's location or reviewing an old quotation. The website's calculation of these prices depends on several factors, such as the buyer, company location, product variant, quantity, market, and transaction state. Just because the displayed numbers appear identical on different pages does not guarantee that the underlying pricing rules are correct.

Consider a hypothetical commercial lighting brand that supplies dealers with various light specifications and negotiated quotes. The brand's pricing rules consider quantities, configurations, and workflows, but these examples are not based on any real client case or actual merchandise quotation.

Shopify offers a Markets feature that allows businesses to manage different catalogs for various markets, currencies, and channels. When viewing a product's price, the buyer can choose to "View as" a specific market. The image from Shopify Markets demonstrates the "View as" market selector and a product price list, but it does not represent an actual customer's experience or confirm that the buyer received those prices.

To properly compare prices between different conditions, it's essential to specify all relevant details, such as the company, current location, product variant, quantity, market, and selected currency. Additionally, there are various pricing components to consider, including the base unit price, quantity-based tiered prices, the cart's subtotal, and the final checkout amount, which includes additional costs. These figures serve different purposes and cannot be treated as interchangeable.

When investigating pricing discrepancies, it's crucial to connect the current situation to its corresponding records, including the buyer, location, product specifications, and the page where the price appeared. This approach helps development reconstruct the purchasing conditions instead of attempting to diagnose an isolated number.

Before diagnosing any issues, sales should provide a detailed log of the buyer's context, including company, location, product specifics, and the exact page where the price was viewed. Development can then reconstruct the specific purchasing conditions, which will aid in identifying the appropriate rules to apply.

When setting up a B2B store, it's essential to base the design on the capabilities of the actual store. Extensive direct assignments to company locations without first checking the plan and Markets version can lead to an implementation that the store cannot utilize effectively. Basic, Grow, and Advanced store plans currently support up to three active catalog assignments across all B2B markets combined.

The Plus plan supports more B2B market catalogs and direct catalog assignments to individual companies or company locations.

When comparing catalog prices, Shopify also allows sellers to apply an overall percentage adjustment to standard products and set fixed prices for specific variants. These two pricing methods do not always combine, as a fixed price will override the overall adjustment for the affected product. Therefore, it's essential to check the fixed-price configuration before concluding that an interface failed to update.

In summary, B2B pricing differences arise from a combination of buyer, company location, product specifications, quantity, market, and transaction state. To accurately diagnose and resolve pricing discrepancies, it's crucial to examine all relevant factors, including store plan, Markets version, catalog assignments, and fixed-price configurations.