Create Separate Retail & Wholesale Scenarios

Creating separate Retail and Wholesale Scenarios is a commonly used setup for Intuitive Shipping. Using customer tag conditions in your Scenarios, you can set up different shipping rates for different types of customers.

 

 

How It Works

To complete this setup, you’ll need two Scenarios - one for Retail and one for Wholesale.

This guide uses customer tag conditions to control which rates appear at checkout. Customer tags are available only on Shopify. If you’re using BigCommerce, choose another condition type, such as ‘customer group’.

Be aware that some quick pay services, like Apple Pay or Shop Pay, don’t pass customer tags to Intuitive Shipping.

If a tagged ‘wholesale’ customer uses a quick pay method that doesn’t send the tag, the condition will be ignored. In that case, Wholesale rates won’t be triggered, and Retail rates will be shown instead.

Some quick pay services, like PayPal, do pass customer tags and will work with this setup. Others, like Shop Pay, do not.

 

 

Add A Retail Scenario

This Scenario will activate shipping rates for any customer who is not a wholesale customer.

1. Click Shipping on the sidebar menu, then select Scenarios from the drop-down list.

 

2. Click the Create scenario button.

 

General Settings

1. Enter a Scenario title like ‘Retail'.

 

2. If you want the Scenario to be available right away, leave the Scenario status set to 'On'. If you want to test it first before making it public, set it to 'Test'. Remember to set it to 'On' once you've completed testing.

 

Conditions

1. Select Set restrictions.

 

2. Leave Condition match set to 'All conditions'.

 

3. Select the Customer tag condition tag (Shopify only). If you're using BigCommerce, select an alternative condition type that can distinguish customers, such as customer type.

 

4. Change the condition logic to does not equal.

 

5. Enter 'wholesale' - or whatever tag you use to identify wholesale customers - as the condition value (Shopify only). If you're using BigCommerce, select or enter a value that represents wholesale customers based on the alternative condition type selected in Step 3.

Any customer that doesn't have a ‘wholesale’ customer tag will get shipping rates from this Scenario at checkout.

 

Save Your Settings

1. Click the Save button to save your retail (non-wholesale) Scenario.

 

Add A Retail Shipping Method

1. Click the Create shipping method button to add a new shipping method for Retail (non-wholesale) customers. Some of the most common shipping methods are:

• Custom service - flat rates, rate tables, free shipping.
• Parcel service - real-time rates from carriers.
• Integration service - real-time rates from integrated services like ShipStation.
• Local delivery - distance-based rates.

 

 

Add A Wholesale Scenario

This Scenario will activate shipping rates for any wholesale customer.

To simplify the process, you can create a duplicate of your original non-wholesale Scenario, then make changes to suit your wholesale customers.

1. At the top of the retail (or non-wholesale) Scenerio's edit page, click Duplicate below the Scenario heading. This will create an exact copy of the original Scenario, including the shipping method.

 

General Settings

1. Change the Scenario title from ‘Copy of [original title] to something else, like 'Wholesale'.

 

2. If you want the Scenario to be available right away, leave the Scenario status set to 'On'. If you want to test it first before making it public, set it to Test.

 

Conditions

1. Change the condition logic to 'equals'.

 

2. Leave all other settings as-is.

 

Save Your Settings

1. Click the Save button to save your wholesale Scenario. You must save changes to the duplicate Scenario before you can edit the shipping method. 

 

Update The Wholesale Shipping Method

The shipping method shown in the ‘Shipping rates and services’ section of your wholesale (duplicate) Scenario is an exact copy of the original retail shipping method created in the previous steps. This happens automatically when you duplicate a Scenario. 

If you want your wholesale Scenario to use the same type of shipping method, it may be easier to edit the shipping method that was copied from the original by making minor changes.

For example, if you created a custom service shipping method with a rate table or flat rate cost, you can simply edit the cost fields in each rate row. Or, if your wholesale customers receive a set discount - such as 10% off or $5.00 off - you can leave the cost rows as-is and apply the discount using the cost adjustments in the optional settings at the bottom of the shipping method page.

Similarly, if you created a parcel service or integrated service shipping method that uses real-time rates from carriers, you can apply a discount to the carrier-provided rates using the same type of cost adjustments in the shipping method’s optional settings.

However, if your wholesale customers requires a different type of shipping method, you'll need to remove the shipping method that was duplicated with the Scenario and create a new one.

You cannot edit the duplicated shipping method if:

• Customer types use different parcel service carriers - e.g. Retail uses FedEx and Wholesale uses UPS.

• One customer type uses a custom service shipping method with a flat rate or rate table and the other uses a parcel service, freight service, integration service, or local delivery shipping method.

If editing isn’t possible, delete the copied shipping method and create a new one for your wholesale customers.

 

 

Learn more:

• Common setups
• Additional setups
• How-to guides
• Connect a carrier
• General info
• FAQ