This post is part of a series that goes over the basics of Wholesale Club. If you’re new to selling wholesale, or just new to the Wholesale Club app, you’re in the right place! Check out the rest of the series here.

While order minimums are rare in B2C stores, they are extremely common in the wholesale world. It’s expected that retailers will buy in larger quantities than a regular shopper, so order minimums are the norm. Let’s talk about different kinds of minimums, how they work, and how they’re set up in Wholesale Club.

What are order minimums?

An order minimum sets the lowest amount that a wholesale customer can buy at one time. There are different kinds of order minimums:

• • The minimum total dollar value of an order
  • The minimum total number of items in an order
  • A per-item minimum
  • A per-product line or collection minimum

It’s up to each wholesale business to determine what kinds of minimums make sense, if any at all.

How do order minimums work?

If you’re going to use order minimums, you get to decide how they’re set up, and who they apply to. They can be very granular or very general, depending on what is ideal for your business. For example:

• • You could sell your products in cases of 12, so that wholesale customers must buy a minimum of 12 of any product.
  • You could set a cart minimum of $500 so that a customer can’t check out unless their cart exceeds $500.
  • You could set a minimum number of products from various categories or collections that must be purchased at a time.

Beyond the specific set up, there are some other considerations when it comes to minimums:

• • If you opt to require minimums, you may also want to offer samples for new customers. This way, a customer can test your product without having to commit to the minimum right off the bat.
  • Another way to assist new customers is to create a recommended “first order” that meets your minimum and also sets up retailers with an ideal range of your products.
  • If you set cart minimums, you should consider the number of products a retailer would need to purchase to reach that minimum. Just do the math and make sure your minimums would seem reasonable to your customers – you don’t want to create unnecessary barriers to purchase.
  • You can always adjust your minimums over time. If you’re just starting out and trying to build up wholesale clientele, it may be wise to keep your minimums to a minimum!

Why would a business set order minimums?

There are a few reasons why you may want to require order minimums. The primary reason is the amount of work it takes to manage, prepare, and ship a wholesale order. If you have a wholesale sales team working with customers, and warehouse staff who pack and ship orders, it may not be worth your time to have those employees working on small value orders. Setting order minimums ensures that each wholesale order is worth the cost and effort required by your business.

A business also may want to require minimums if they offer product lines that are best represented by collections of products. It may be important to your brand that consumers are able to purchase all of your products from a retailer, not just a selection of products. Or maybe you provide merchandising materials, such as shelving for your products, and that material is designed to present your products in a specific way. How retailers sell your products can be closely aligned with the minimums you require!

There is also the element of convenience. If your products are packaged in quantities of 12, it’s much easier to sell them that way! You can design your minimums to maximize the profit and efficiencies of your business.

How do order minimums work in Wholesale Club?

Wholesale Club enables Shopify merchants to create minimums that must be met before a wholesale customer can place an order. You can set minimums by cart quantity or cart value, or by quantities of collections, products, and/or variants.

Cart minimums have the following options:

• • Total quantity of products
  • Total value before wholesale discounts
  • Total value after wholesale discounts

Wholesale Club allows you to set different minimums for different customer tags, so you can get really specific with your minimums. You can also require multiples for minimums, if you want your product purchased in specific quantities, such as 10-packs, or cases of 12.

If a customer tries to place an order that doesn’t meet minimum requirements, they’re shown a message in the cart and cannot check out until minimums are met.

Order Minimums Resources

To see the Order Minimums feature in action, check out the Wholesale Club demo store. You can also read more in our Help Center, or check out the video below!

Not using Wholesale Club yet? Head to the Shopify App Store to install now!

This blog post is brought to you by Liz, Orbit’s Marketing Generalist.