In our Scaling B2B on Shopify webinar, Galleon Supplies shared how it approached those challenges. Owner Tim Bench and General Manager Jason Caddy joined Holly from KnoCommerce and Kubix Operations Director Joe Brown to discuss what changed after moving to Shopify.
Their experience offers a practical lesson for wholesale businesses: useful improvements often start with a task customers or staff repeat every day. For Galleon Supplies, that meant giving buyers control over reorder reminders and removing manual work between checkout and the warehouse.
A lot has changed in a relatively short time for B2B on Shopify. When its native B2B features launched in 2022, they were exclusive to Shopify Plus. Since then, those capabilities have continued to develop, with core wholesale features now available across Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus plans.
That gives more merchants the opportunity to explore wholesale and grow their business in new directions. But for the people placing orders, what matters is often much simpler: how easy you make it to buy from you.
A trade customer buying cleaning supplies wants to check what they need, place an order and get on with their day. Making that straightforward takes work behind the scenes, especially when accounts, couriers and repeat purchases all follow different rules.
Why fixed subscriptions did not fit Galleon’s B2B customers
Galleon Supplies sells consumable hygiene products, so a subscribe-and-save model initially seemed sensible. Customers regularly needed more stock. Helping them replenish it should have made ordering easier.
But repeat demand did not mean predictable demand.
Tim explained that a business buying gloves, paper towels, blue roll and bin bags would use each product at a different rate. A busy period could increase demand for one item while other supplies lasted longer. Storage space and order quantities also varied between customers.
A fixed delivery schedule could not reliably reflect those differences. The challenge was helping buyers remember to check their stock while leaving them free to decide what they needed.
That distinction matters when planning B2B retention on Shopify. Before introducing a subscription, establish whether customers genuinely want the same products at regular intervals, or whether they would benefit more from a timely prompt to reorder.
Giving wholesale buyers control over reorder reminders
Working with Kubix and KnoCommerce, Galleon Supplies introduced a reminder journey built around the customer’s preferred timing.
Tim described a simple experience:
- The customer places an order.
- They are offered the option to choose when they would like a reminder.
- A reminder arrives at the chosen time.
- They check their supplies and decide what to order next.
The reminder does not commit the buyer to another purchase. They remain in control of the timing, products and quantities.
This addresses the uncertainty that made subscriptions awkward for Galleon’s trade customers. A buyer can choose a useful date without having to predict exactly how many cases of each product the business will consume.
For the office team, the resulting order follows the normal process. Jason explained that staff do not need a different workflow for orders prompted by a reminder. They arrive in the system ready to be handled like any other order.
That is a useful test for any retention idea: does it make life easier for the customer while remaining manageable for the people fulfilling the order?
Using post-purchase questions to improve the buying experience
Holly explained that brands often approach KnoCommerce to ask how customers first heard about them. Those answers can help businesses understand their marketing, but post-purchase questions can also reveal what buyers need next.
Galleon Supplies used that opportunity to ask about reorder timing. The answer had a clear purpose: it determined when the customer wanted a reminder.
For other wholesalers, the right question will depend on the decision they need to make. A business might ask what prompted a purchase or which products customers would like it to stock. Start with how the answer will improve the customer experience, then choose the question.
Holly also discussed using survey responses in Klaviyo to inform segmentation and follow-up messages. The wider lesson is to connect customer feedback to an action. Collecting more answers is only useful when the business can do something with them.
Automating the work between Shopify checkout and the warehouse
For Jason, one of the biggest operational improvements was the courier integration.
Previously, the team would upload a CSV to create a batch of shipping labels. As orders arrived during the working day, however, staff manually entered details into courier systems and decided how each order should be dispatched. Some went by courier; others needed a pallet network.
The team knew the process well, but every order still demanded attention.
With Shopify and Shiptheory connected, labels could be generated automatically and passed through to the warehouse within minutes.
Shipping automation needs your packing rules
The integration needed more than installation and a few basic settings.
Joe explained that the number of labels depended on the products and combinations in each order. One product might require one box, while another combination needed two or three. Kubix developed logic to tell Shiptheory how many labels were required.
This is where a warehouse walkthrough can be more useful than a feature list. Watch how the team packs a mixed order. Ask what changes when quantities increase, and which exceptions staff recognise without thinking about them.
Those decisions need to become part of the automated process. Otherwise, someone still has to interpret and correct the output.
Faster processing also changes how the office handles amendments. Jason noted that the team now needs to act quickly when customers call to change an order, because it may already have reached the warehouse. Automation should include a clear process for those exceptions.
Running DTC alongside B2B on Shopify
Alongside its wholesale operation, Galleon Supplies launched Loo and Behold, a direct-to-consumer brand selling bamboo toilet paper wrapped in artwork. Shopify supported a different buying experience for customers ordering for their homes.
Tim explained that the DTC operation had simpler payment requirements. Customers paid when placing an order, without the credit accounts, negotiated pricing and account administration involved in trade sales. Fulfilment also shifted from larger orders spanning multiple boxes or pallets to individual cases delivered to households.
Subscriptions suited this audience more naturally, too. A household buying one product could choose a delivery frequency around relatively consistent usage. That differed from Galleon’s B2B customers, whose mix of products and changing demand made fixed schedules less practical.
For businesses running B2B and DTC on Shopify, the lesson is to shape each journey around how its customers buy. The same subscription approach, payment process or delivery setup will not necessarily suit both audiences. Galleon’s experience shows why understanding those differences matters, even when the products come from the same wider business.
Preparing the data your trade customers rely on
Tim’s closing advice for businesses planning a B2B move to Shopify was to get their data organised.
He highlighted customer purchase history, delivery addresses and invoice addresses. A single business may have several of each, with orders linked to different places. Treating that as one undifferentiated customer record risks losing the detail that makes repeat buying work.
A useful preparation exercise is to select a few real accounts and trace how they trade. Include a straightforward customer and one with several locations or exceptions. Check whether the records accurately explain who orders, where goods go and where invoices belong.
Our Galleon Supplies Shopify migration case study explores the wider project and the operational requirements behind the move.
Where to start improving B2B on Shopify
Galleon’s experience points to a practical starting point: choose one recurring task that creates unnecessary effort, then follow it from the customer through to the team responsible for completing it.
That might be remembering to reorder, preparing shipping labels or finding payment information. Understand what makes the task difficult before choosing the technology, and test the exceptions as carefully as the usual process.
At Kubix, we help wholesale businesses connect their Shopify stores with the way they operate. As a Shopify Agency, we work across customer journeys, integrations and ongoing improvements to make buying and running the business easier.
If anything from the webinar sounds familiar, talk to us about your B2B workflow. We can explore where your team is spending time and what a more effective setup could look like.
.png)
