WooCommerce Wholesale: Creating Separate Wholesale and Retail Storefronts

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Running both a retail and a wholesale business under one roof can feel overwhelming. You’ve got two audiences with very different needs: retail shoppers want quick, one-off purchases at full price, while wholesale customers expect bulk ordering, discounts, and maybe even exclusive products.

So how do you serve both without driving yourself (and your customers) bananas?

The answer: set up separate wholesale and retail storefronts in WooCommerce.

At Built Mighty, we help brands solve exactly this kind of challenge with custom WooCommerce builds and integrations. In this post, we’ll break down how you can give wholesale and retail customers their own tailored shopping experiences — all from the same WooCommerce site.

Why Separate Storefronts?

Keeping your wholesale and retail customers in the same shop can get messy fast. Imagine a retail shopper stumbling across your wholesale-only prices — confusing at best, frustrating at worst.

By creating separate storefronts, you can:

• Give each audience a clear experience – No more mixing wholesale bulk packs with single retail items.
  
• Protect your pricing strategy – Retail customers see full price, wholesale customers see their special deals.
  
• Offer exclusive perks – Think wholesale-only products, custom shipping methods, or net payment terms.
  

In short, everyone gets what they need — without stepping on each other’s toes.

Option 1: Use a Wholesale Plugin with Role-Based Access

If you want to keep things simple, the easiest route is a wholesale plugin that lets you hide and show products based on customer roles.

Here’s how it works:

• Retail customers – See the standard storefront with retail pricing.
  
• Wholesale customers – Log in and automatically see a wholesale storefront with different products or prices.
  

Plugins like:

• Wholesale Suite for WooCommerce
  
• WooCommerce Wholesale Prices Premium
  

…make this possible without needing to build a second site.

It’s a clean, all-in-one solution that works well if your product catalog overlaps between retail and wholesale.

Option 2: Create a Separate Wholesale “Portal”

Sometimes, your wholesale customers need a totally different experience — bulk ordering forms, custom pricing tiers, or even products retail shoppers never see.

In this case, you can create a dedicated wholesale portal within your site, like:

• yoursite.com/wholesale
  
• wholesale.yoursite.com
  

This portal can have its own login page, branding, and catalog. Once wholesale customers log in, they’re taken straight to their dedicated storefront.

We often recommend this approach for businesses with large wholesale catalogs or complex order processes. It keeps things neatly separated while still using WooCommerce as the engine behind both.

Option 3: Run Two Separate WooCommerce Stores (With Integration)

If your wholesale and retail operations are truly worlds apart, it might make sense to run two completely separate WooCommerce stores:

• Store A – Retail-focused, designed for casual shoppers.
  
• Store B – Wholesale-focused, built around bulk pricing, order minimums, and B2B workflows.
  

The catch? Managing two stores can get complicated. This is the most labor intensive option. That’s where integrations come in. With the right setup, you can:

• Sync inventory across both stores.
  
• Connect both stores to your ERP, CRM, or accounting system.
  
• Centralize order management so you’re not jumping between dashboards.
  

This option is best for businesses with high-volume wholesale and retail operations that need to scale independently. It would give you the ability to tailor the messaging, branding, and even the SEO towards the two separate groups. 

Things to Keep in Mind

Whichever approach you take, don’t forget to:

• Set up customer approval – Keep your wholesale storefront gated so only approved accounts can access it.
  
• Test the customer journey – Make sure retail shoppers never see wholesale prices and vice versa.
  
• Plan for growth – If wholesale is going to be a big part of your business, build with scalability in mind.
  

Final Thoughts

WooCommerce gives you plenty of flexibility to run separate wholesale and retail storefronts, whether that means role-based pricing, a custom wholesale portal, or even two fully integrated stores.

The best setup really depends on how different your audiences are and how much overlap there is in your products.

At Built Mighty, we’ve helped brands of all sizes set up wholesale storefronts that make life easier for their team and their customers. Whether you need a simple plugin setup or a fully custom multi-store integration, we’ve got you covered.