Automating Success with Shopify Flow

When a new wholesale account is approved in Shopify B2B, someone has to manually open the company record, navigate to the catalog section, and assign the right catalog before the buyer can see correct pricing. For stores with a small number of accounts, this is a minor inconvenience. For manufacturers onboarding multiple new accounts per week across several pricing tiers, it is a consistent source of errors and delays.

When you extend Net 30 or Net 60 terms to a wholesale account, the clock starts on the invoice the moment the order is placed. For manufacturers running a dozen or more accounts on payment terms, tracking every due date manually is unsustainable. AR teams either maintain spreadsheets, rely on their ERP to send alerts, or discover overdue invoices only when reconciling at month-end.

This Shopify Flow workflow fixes that by automatically flagging any order from a customer with fewer than two previous orders. Those orders are tagged, held from automatic fulfillment processing, and sent to an internal review queue. Your team reviews, approves, and releases them. Everything else processes normally.

When you approve a new wholesale account, the approval itself is only half the work. The other half is making sure the customer sees the right catalog and pricing when they log in. A distributor should not see contractor pricing. An OEM account should not be browsing your standard wholesale tier. A high-volume buyer who qualified for preferred pricing should not be checking out at your base wholesale rate.

Approving a wholesale account is only the first step. What happens in the next few minutes is what determines whether that new customer places their first order quickly or goes quiet.

Not every order should go straight to fulfillment. For B2B manufacturers and wholesalers, a $500 order and a $50,000 order carry very different levels of risk.

This Shopify Flow workflow fixes that by building a structured applicant queue automatically. The moment a new wholesale customer registers, the workflow tags them, notifies your team, and sends the applicant a confirmation so they know their application is in progress. Every application is captured, routed, and tracked, without anyone having to manually manage a list.

This Shopify Flow workflow solves that by automating the first filter: email domain verification. The logic is straightforward: if a customer registers with a corporate email address (not a free provider like Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail), the workflow automatically approves them, tags their account, and sends a welcome email. If they register with a free email address, the workflow routes them to manual review instead.