B2B pricing usually starts off relatively straightforward. At SparkLayer, we see a lot of our merchants building several price lists to start with, offering various rates for larger customers, loyal buyers, and new accounts, for example.
As order volume and customer bases grow, though, that simplicity disappears. Pricing tiers multiply, and there are more accounts to keep track of - often manually. For Shopify merchants selling B2B, this process isn’t scalable and is prone to human error. This is where Shopify Flow becomes invaluable.
We’ll be sharing how to leverage Shopify Flow and SparkLayer to automate pricing tier changes and order-based promotions - without custom development work or time-consuming admin.
Managing B2B pricing by hand
Most B2B merchants don’t set out to manage pricing manually. The issue isn’t the pricing strategy itself, but the lack of automation behind it.
It often starts with sales teams reviewing their accounts to check that accounts have the right pricing assigned to them. Customers might hit a spend or time milestone, and their price list is adjusted to reflect their order history.
This can be easy to manage manually at first, but it isn’t scalable and can quickly get out of hand. Customers who should be on new pricing stay on outdated rates, and their online experience no longer matches the offline conversations they’ve had with their sales rep. Teams spend more time checking numbers and reconciling accounts rather than selling and growing the business.
And, worst of all, your buyers don’t benefit from being loyal or spending more with you. In a world of increasingly competitive B2B offers, this is crucial to staying ahead.
Leverage your customer data
If you’re using Shopify for your B2B and adding on SparkLayer, you’ll already have data on your customer base - including lifetime spend. This automatically updates each time an order is paid.
Shopify Flow provides a way to react to changes in this data as they happen - in real time. When a customer spends over a certain amount of money with you - either per order or overall - Shopify Flow updates their customer record.
From there, SparkLayer can apply the new, correct pricing rules on the storefront without any additional steps. A lot of brands using SparkLayer typically start with something like this:
- Tier 1 for new customers
- Tier 2 for regular, loyal customers placing high-volume orders
- Tier 3 for long-term and strategic customers
Each tier is represented by a Shopify customer tag and assigned to a Customer Group within SparkLayer. The tags themselves are simple, but they become powerful when they’re updated automatically and used consistently across pricing rules.
Once those tags are in place, they act as the connection point between Shopify Flow and SparkLayer.
How Shopify Flow and SparkLayer manage automation
Shopify Flow works on a simple logic model - when something happens (like an order being paid), conditions are verified (that they have hit a certain threshold and are still assigned their initial Customer Group tag), and an action is triggered (assigned a new Customer Group tag, and its respective order rules).
Shopify Flow decides when a customer changes tier, while SparkLayer controls what that change means for the buyer experience - and on the storefront.
SparkLayer reads your Shopify customer data, including the tags, and uses it to determine what pricing, quantity rules, and ordering options a customer sees once they log in.
When Flow updates a tag, SparkLayer reflects that change automatically. That means your team don’t have to manually create and share discount codes with relevant accounts, saving valuable time.
Enhancing the buyer experience
From the buyer’s perspective, nothing about the process feels automated. They place their orders as usual and, over time, their spending increases. Then one day, they log in and notice their prices are better than before, have access to free shipping, or can pre-order when they couldn’t previously.
This has all happened automatically, with no need for back-and-forths via emails or long calls with sales reps. Instead, they’re rewarded for their loyalty in a way that works for them - and for you.
Use SparkLayer to incentivise repeat orders and boost AOV
Equally, you can use this as an incentive to increase spend or orders placed through you. You can let buyers know in advance how far away they are from spending a certain amount with you, and let them know what they’ll be rewarded with when they reach that threshold.
You might choose to offer different prices based on their order history with you, or grant free shipping without a minimum spend. You’re in control of their experience, and they have a better overall buying journey - all without the need for time-consuming manual interventions. Customers feel recognised, and pricing improvements feel earned rather than negotiated.
Of course, you can add additional touchpoints to this process to ensure your buyers understand what’s changed and why. Automate emails congratulating them on placing X number of orders with you, or being a loyal customer for Y number of years. Use these emails to explain what they can expect to have changed, and why it benefits them.
Re-engage inactive accounts via promotions with Flow
This is also a strong tactic to re-engage with inactive customers. For example, if a buyer who usually orders once a month hasn’t placed an order for 5 weeks, let them know that their next order will take them into a new tier of buying with you.
You can build this automation so that they get notified in real-time when this happens, meaning their expectations will be met, and they won’t have to awkwardly chase you to ask for the agreed discount.
Why this works in B2B
Automating pricing tiers based on spend removes a lot of friction behind the scenes. It replaces manual, reactive decisions with clear rules and triggers, while reducing admin for your teams. From a customer perspective, changes happen in real-time.
Just as importantly, it scales easily. Whether you’re managing a small number of wholesale accounts or hundreds, the same logic applies without additional overhead. Your team can schedule reviews of your automations to check in, rather than setting aside hours each week to manually review account details.
Start with scalable foundations
In terms of getting started, we’d suggest building two or three pricing tiers - this tends to be enough for a lot of our merchants in the early stages. Clear, mutually exclusive tags help avoid confusion later on and set you up with good foundations to scale with.
Testing is crucial! Running a Flow with a lower spend threshold is an easy way to confirm everything behaves as expected before rolling it out fully. Use a test account to process fake orders and make sure the tags all update correctly. Once the basics are working, the setup can evolve naturally.
You can then think about adding additional rules around order frequency or combining tiers with region or customer types. There might be some accounts you want to exclude from these automations - strategic accounts that require more hand-holding from your team, for example.
Overall, though, because everything is driven by Shopify data and tags, your evolving automations within Flow can be layered in without reworking your entire setup.
Automating B2B pricing tiers doesn’t need to be complicated. By using Shopify Flow to manage customer groups and SparkLayer to apply pricing and ordering rules, you can turn lifetime spend, repeat orders, and AOV into a system that scales as you do.
Learn more about Shopify Flow and deploy SparkLayer’s ready-made templates - or speak to our Support team for more information on getting started.