ChatGPT answers, unedited

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I’d optimize for two separate things:

1. Multi-store scalability — launching and operating many independent storefronts without duplicating your infrastructure.
2. Native B2B primitives — companies, buyer users, catalogs, customer-specific pricing, quantity rules, net terms, quotes/POs, etc.

My shortlist

I'd start with BigCommerce

For your particular agency model, BigCommerce is probably the platform I'd investigate first.

Its Multi-Storefront architecture lets multiple storefronts operate from one backend, with separate branding/domains/products/pricing while maintaining centralized administration. BigCommerce explicitly supports combining Multi-Storefront with its B2B Edition. BigCommerce BigCommerce

The B2B side is particularly relevant for wholesale:

• Company accounts
• Multiple buyers/users
• Customer-specific pricing
• Price lists
• Quotes
• Purchase orders/invoices
• Net payment terms
• Shared shopping lists
• Buyer portal
• B2B functionality available across storefronts BigCommerce BigCommerce

That combination maps nicely onto an agency where you might have:

Agency
│
├── Client A
│   ├── Wholesale Store
│   └── 3 customer price tiers
│
├── Client B
│   ├── Wholesale Store
│   └── 12 customer catalogs
│
├── Client C
│   ├── US Store
│   └── EU Store
│
└── Client D
    └── Dealer Portal

The important distinction is that BigCommerce's Multi-Storefront is multi-store, rather than you having to architect your own entire multi-tenant commerce layer.

Shopify Plus is the other serious contender

Shopify Plus has become substantially more attractive for B2B. Shopify now has native B2B functionality including companies/company locations, catalogs, customer-specific pricing, volume pricing, quantity rules, payment terms and buyer permissions. Shopify Help Center Shopify App Store

Plus becomes particularly interesting when you need customer-specific catalogs at scale: Plus supports unlimited B2B catalogs and direct assignment to companies/company locations, whereas the lower plans have a three-active-catalog limit across B2B markets. Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center

I'd lean Shopify Plus when your agency already has strong Shopify expertise or clients specifically want the Shopify ecosystem. I'd lean BigCommerce when wholesale/B2B is the central requirement across your client portfolio.

One architectural caveat

If by "multi-tenant" you mean:

"We want to build our own SaaS where every client is a tenant, provision stores automatically, isolate their data, and give each client their own admin."

That's somewhat different from simply running multiple stores.

In that case I'd evaluate:

Headless commerce + your own tenant layer

                 Your Agency Platform
                         │
             ┌───────────┴───────────┐
             │                       │
          Tenant A                Tenant B
             │                       │
       ┌─────┴─────┐          ┌─────┴─────┐
       │ Storefront │          │ Storefront │
       └─────┬─────┘          └─────┬─────┘
             │                       │
        Commerce API            Commerce API
             │                       │
       ┌─────┴─────┐          ┌─────┴─────┐
       │ Catalog   │          │ Catalog   │
       │ Pricing   │          │ Pricing   │
       │ Orders    │          │ Orders    │
       └───────────┘          └───────────┘

That gives you considerably more control, but you're also taking responsibility for tenant isolation, provisioning, billing, authentication, migrations, and much more of the commerce stack.

So my practical recommendation: build your agency's reusable components/infrastructure around BigCommerce Multi-Storefront + B2B Edition, and keep your agency layer relatively thin. That lets you standardize deployment across clients without committing yourselves to maintaining a commerce engine.

If you tell me roughly how many stores you expect (10 / 50 / 500+), whether each client needs a completely separate catalog/database, and whether you want headless, I can lay out the architecture I'd use—including tenant provisioning, repo structure, CI/CD, theming, and how I'd compare BigCommerce vs Shopify Plus for it.

For an agency building many wholesale/B2B stores for different clients, I’d optimize for more than just “best B2B features.” You want repeatable implementation, tenant isolation, centralized agency operations, APIs, multi-storefront support, and low ongoing maintenance.

My recommendation: BigCommerce B2B Edition

BigCommerce would be my first platform to evaluate for your agency model.

Its combination of B2B Edition + Multi-Storefront + headless/API capabilities maps unusually well to an agency building multiple wholesale properties. BigCommerce explicitly supports multiple storefronts from a single account, with different brands, regions, and segments, while B2B Edition adds corporate accounts, quoting, sales-rep functionality, shared shopping lists, and invoice functionality. BigCommerce BigCommerce BigCommerce

How I'd think about the options

The important distinction is that BigCommerce gives you a lot of B2B machinery without requiring you to build the commerce engine yourself. Its B2B offering includes company/account management, quoting, invoice portal, sales-rep tools, and buyer portals, while Multi-Storefront allows multiple storefronts to be managed from the platform. BigCommerce

Why I'd pick BigCommerce for an agency

I'd structure your agency offering around a repeatable commerce blueprint rather than treating every client as a bespoke build:

Agency
│
├── Shared implementation framework
│   ├── Theme / component system
│   ├── B2B UX patterns
│   ├── ERP integration layer
│   ├── Customer/account model
│   ├── Analytics
│   └── Deployment tooling
│
├── Client A
│   ├── Storefront
│   ├── Catalog
│   ├── Customer groups
│   ├── Price lists
│   └── ERP
│
├── Client B
│   ├── Storefront
│   ├── Catalog
│   ├── Customer groups
│   ├── Price lists
│   └── ERP
│
└── Client C ...

That lets you build the integration and UX layer once, while client-specific data/configuration lives separately.

BigCommerce also explicitly positions its Multi-Storefront architecture around adding brands, geographies and channels without cloning an entire store, which is useful if a client eventually has multiple brands/regions. BigCommerce

Shopify Plus is the other serious contender

Shopify is worth considering if your agency prioritizes speed, ease of administration, storefront quality, and a large app ecosystem over extremely sophisticated wholesale workflows.

Shopify B2B now supports company accounts/locations, customer-specific catalogs, quantity rules, volume pricing, payment terms and customized buyer experiences. Shopify Shopify

On Plus, catalogs can be created without the standard-plan catalog limit and assigned directly to company locations. Shopify Help Center

The tradeoff is that once your clients start demanding things like complex RFQ/negotiation, sophisticated approval chains, requisition workflows, or unusual procurement logic, you'll generally end up supplementing Shopify with apps/custom development. Current platform comparisons identify this as an area where BigCommerce/Adobe have deeper native B2B functionality. Elogic Commerce

When I'd use Adobe Commerce instead

Adobe Commerce makes sense if your agency specializes in large distributors/manufacturers with highly customized business rules.

Its B2B feature set is particularly deep: company hierarchies, negotiated quotes, approval workflows, requisition lists, shared catalogs, credit limits, and payment-on-account workflows are among the capabilities commonly cited as native strengths. Elogic Commerce

But there's a significant agency tradeoff: you're taking on much more engineering and platform-operations responsibility. That's excellent when customization is the product; less attractive when your business model is "launch 20 similar wholesale sites efficiently."

The architecture I'd recommend

For your use case, I'd separate tenant management from commerce.

Layer 1 — Commerce platform

BigCommerce B2B handles:

• Products/SKUs
• Pricing
• Customer companies
• Buyer accounts
• Orders
• Checkout
• Quotes
• Payment terms
• Storefronts
• Inventory

Layer 2 — Your agency platform

Build a thin internal platform around it:

• Client/tenant provisioning
• Configuration management
• ERP mappings
• Product-feed mappings
• Integration credentials
• Feature flags
• Theme configuration
• Deployment/version management
• Monitoring
• Client-specific overrides

Then make your integrations configuration-driven rather than fork-driven.

For example:

tenant:
  id: client_123
  platform: bigcommerce

pricing:
  source: erp
  customer_specific: true

inventory:
  source: netsuite

orders:
  destination: netsuite

features:
  quotes: true
  quick_order: true
  sales_rep_portal: true

That becomes much more scalable than maintaining:

client-a-codebase
client-b-codebase
client-c-codebase
...

One important distinction

If by multi-tenant you mean:

"We want one SaaS application where our agency manages hundreds of independent wholesale businesses, each with their own catalog, customers, pricing and storefront."

That's different from:

"We want to build 20 independent ecommerce stores using the same technology."

For the first scenario, I'd investigate a true commerce-as-a-service/composable architecture more seriously. BigCommerce itself has been expanding into Commerce-as-a-Service and distributed storefront scenarios, including architectures intended to support large networks of storefronts. BigCommerce BigCommerce

For the second, BigCommerce B2B Edition is probably the sweet spot.

My shortlist

• BigCommerce B2B Edition — strongest starting point for a repeatable wholesale-agency practice.
• Shopify Plus — strongest alternative if rapid implementation and merchant UX are your priorities.
• Adobe Commerce — use when B2B business logic/customization is unusually complex.
• commercetools — consider when you have a substantial engineering team and deliberately want a composable commerce platform; it gives much more architectural freedom but requires substantially more implementation. Elogic Commerce

If you tell me (1) how many stores you expect to launch per year, (2) typical client size/GMV, (3) whether they use NetSuite/SAP/Dynamics/etc., and (4) whether each client needs its own isolated store or you want a shared SaaS, I can map out the recommended multi-tenant architecture and agency tech stack in more concrete terms.

I'd structure your agency offering around a repeatable commerce blueprint rather than treating every client as a bespoke build:

Agency
│
├── Shared implementation framework
│   ├── Theme / component system
│   ├── B2B UX patterns
│   ├── ERP integration layer
│   ├── Customer/account model
│   ├── Analytics
│   └── Deployment tooling
│
├── Client A
│   ├── Storefront
│   ├── Catalog
│   ├── Customer groups
│   ├── Price lists
│   └── ERP
│
├── Client B
│   ├── Storefront
│   ├── Catalog
│   ├── Customer groups
│   ├── Price lists
│   └── ERP
│
└── Client C ...

That lets you build the integration and UX layer once, while client-specific data/configuration lives separately.

BigCommerce also explicitly positions its Multi-Storefront architecture around adding brands, geographies and channels without cloning an entire store, which is useful if a client eventually has multiple brands/regions. BigCommerce

Shopify Plus is the other serious contender

Shopify is worth considering if your agency prioritizes speed, ease of administration, storefront quality, and a large app ecosystem over extremely sophisticated wholesale workflows.

Shopify B2B now supports company accounts/locations, customer-specific catalogs, quantity rules, volume pricing, payment terms and customized buyer experiences. Shopify Shopify

On Plus, catalogs can be created without the standard-plan catalog limit and assigned directly to company locations. Shopify Help Center

The tradeoff is that once your clients start demanding things like complex RFQ/negotiation, sophisticated approval chains, requisition workflows, or unusual procurement logic, you'll generally end up supplementing Shopify with apps/custom development. Current platform comparisons identify this as an area where BigCommerce/Adobe have deeper native B2B functionality. elogic.co

When I'd use Adobe Commerce instead

Adobe Commerce makes sense if your agency specializes in large distributors/manufacturers with highly customized business rules.

Its B2B feature set is particularly deep: company hierarchies, negotiated quotes, approval workflows, requisition lists, shared catalogs, credit limits, and payment-on-account workflows are among the capabilities commonly cited as native strengths.

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I’d make bigcommerce.com + B2B Edition the default platform I evaluate first.

Why BigCommerce fits an agency model

The important distinction is that you want multi-storefront + B2B, not merely a platform that has wholesale pricing.

BigCommerce gives you:

• Multi-Storefront: multiple brands, regions, or storefronts managed from one backend. Each storefront can have its own branding, domain, settings, and experience. BigCommerce BigCommerce
• B2B Edition: company accounts, buyer roles, quotes, invoices, payment terms, shopping lists, and a buyer portal. BigCommerce
• Company hierarchies: parent companies, subsidiaries, departments, etc., with role-based permissions. This is particularly useful for sophisticated wholesale customers. BigCommerce
• Per-storefront B2B configuration: B2B can be enabled and configured separately for individual storefronts, including buyer portal, login, quotes, shopping lists, and translations. BigCommerce
• Headless/API support: useful if your agency builds custom React/Next.js storefronts or reusable frontend components. BigCommerce BigCommerce

That combination makes it a good fit for building a repeatable agency architecture rather than reinventing the commerce backend for every client.

How I'd rank the main options

BigCommerce vs. Shopify Plus

This is probably the decision you'll encounter most often.

Shopify Plus has become substantially more compelling for B2B. Shopify now provides native companies, company locations, catalogs, quantity rules, payment terms, and other B2B functionality, while Plus adds unlimited B2B catalogs and direct catalog assignment to individual companies/company locations. Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center

So I'd choose Shopify Plus when:

• The client already uses Shopify.
• They have a strong DTC component alongside wholesale.
• They want the Shopify app ecosystem.
• Your agency wants to maximize developer availability and ease of implementation.
• Their B2B requirements aren't unusually complex.

I'd lean BigCommerce when:

• Wholesale/B2B is the primary business model.
• You need lots of storefronts/channels.
• Customers have complicated organizational structures.
• You expect custom integrations and headless builds.
• You want B2B functionality to be a first-class part of the architecture.

BigCommerce explicitly supports companies operating across multiple storefront channels, including assigning users to particular channels. BigCommerce

The architecture I'd use as an agency

I wouldn't create a totally independent technical stack for every client.

I'd build a repeatable commerce accelerator:

                    Agency
                       │
          ┌────────────┴────────────┐
          │                         │
   Shared frontend              Shared services
   components / design          ERP / CRM / PIM
          │                         │
    ┌─────┼─────┐             ┌─────┼─────┐
    │     │     │             │     │     │
 Client A B     C             ERP   CRM   PIM
 Store   Store Store
    │     │     │
    └─────┴─────┘
          │
   BigCommerce B2B
          │
  Companies / Users
  Catalogs / Pricing
  Quotes / Orders
  Payment Terms
  Permissions

The client is the tenant at the commerce level, while you maintain a reusable application/integration layer.

For example, your agency could have standardized modules for:

• Customer/company onboarding
• Customer-specific pricing
• Contract catalogs
• Minimum order quantities
• Tiered pricing
• Sales-rep workflows
• Quote requests
• PO/net terms
• Approval workflows
• ERP synchronization
• Product/PIM synchronization
• Reordering
• Account dashboards
• Custom checkout
• Analytics

Then each client gets configuration and extensions rather than an entirely new implementation.

One important caveat

If by multi-tenant you literally mean one application/database where dozens or hundreds of unrelated merchants are tenants, that's different from BigCommerce's multi-storefront model.

If you're building a SaaS platform for wholesalers, I'd consider a composable architecture such as commercetools or potentially a custom commerce service. If you're an agency deploying separate stores for separate clients, BigCommerce is much more attractive because you don't need to build and operate the commerce infrastructure yourself.

My recommendation: standardize your agency around BigCommerce B2B Edition for B2B-first clients, while keeping Shopify Plus as your second approved stack for clients where Shopify's ecosystem/DTC strengths are more valuable. This gives you a scalable two-platform strategy without forcing every client into the same technology. BigCommerce BigCommerce

I’d standardize your agency on BigCommerce B2B Edition. It’s particularly well suited to an agency building many wholesale stores because it combines Multi-Storefront + native B2B rather than requiring a lot of custom infrastructure. BigCommerce BigCommerce

• Multi-tenant-ish architecture: multiple branded storefronts managed from one backend. BigCommerce
• Strong B2B primitives: companies, roles, permissions, customer-specific pricing/catalogs, quotes, POs, invoices and net terms. BigCommerce BigCommerce
• Complex account hierarchies: parent companies, subsidiaries and departments are supported. BigCommerce
• Headless/API-friendly: useful for creating your own reusable agency storefront framework. BigCommerce
• Good agency economics: build reusable integrations/components once, then deploy them across clients.

Runner-up: Shopify Plus if your clients prioritize ease of use, DTC+B2B convergence, and Shopify's ecosystem. Its B2B capabilities have expanded substantially in 2026, but BigCommerce is the better fit when B2B complexity and multi-store architecture are central. shopify.com help.shopify.com

If by “multi-tenant” you mean one application/codebase where each client is a truly isolated tenant, rather than multiple storefronts under a commerce account, the architecture recommendation changes somewhat.

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I’d optimize for repeatable implementation + tenant isolation + native B2B primitives, not just raw ecommerce features.

My recommendation: BigCommerce B2B

bigcommerce.com is probably the best default platform for your agency.

It gives you a strong SaaS foundation while exposing enough APIs/headless capability to build a standardized agency architecture. Its B2B functionality includes:

• Company/account hierarchies and buyer roles
• Customer-specific catalogs and pricing
• Price lists and bulk ordering
• Purchase orders and credit/payment terms
• Quote workflows and approvals
• Buyer portals
• Reordering/shared lists
• Headless/API support
• Multi-Storefront, allowing multiple storefronts to be managed from one BigCommerce backend. BigCommerce BigCommerce

That combination is particularly attractive when you're effectively building a "commerce platform factory" rather than one bespoke store.

How I'd rank the options

The important distinction: multi-store ≠ multi-tenant

If by multi-tenant you mean:

"We want one agency-controlled platform/codebase where Client A, Client B and Client C are isolated tenants, each with their own catalog, customers, pricing, branding, integrations and admins."

I'd not try to force BigCommerce or Shopify into being your SaaS tenancy layer.

Instead, I'd architect:

                    AGENCY PLATFORM
                          │
              ┌───────────┴───────────┐
              │                       │
        Tenant / Client A       Tenant / Client B
              │                       │
        BigCommerce Store       BigCommerce Store
              │                       │
       B2B catalog/pricing      B2B catalog/pricing
              │                       │
          ERP / PIM / EDI         ERP / PIM / EDI

Then build your own agency control plane above the commerce platforms:

Agency Control Plane
│
├── Tenant management
├── Provisioning
├── Theme/configuration
├── Feature flags
├── Client admin
├── Integration credentials
├── Deployment/versioning
├── Analytics
└── Billing / usage
        │
        ├── Client A → Commerce tenant
        ├── Client B → Commerce tenant
        └── Client C → Commerce tenant

This gives you genuine tenant isolation without turning the commerce engine itself into a multi-tenant SaaS application.

When I'd choose Shopify Plus instead

shopify.com is my second choice—and potentially the better choice if your agency prioritizes implementation speed and merchant usability.

Shopify now has substantial native B2B functionality: companies/company locations, catalogs, customer-specific pricing, quantity rules, volume pricing and payment terms. Plus removes the catalog limitations that exist on lower plans. Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center

I'd choose Shopify Plus when your clients tend to be:

• Wholesale brands that also have DTC
• Marketing-heavy brands
• Smaller/mid-sized manufacturers
• Clients who want their internal team to manage the store themselves
• Clients where minimizing custom backend development matters

I'd choose BigCommerce when the business is more traditionally B2B—distributors, manufacturers, wholesalers—with complicated buyer hierarchies, procurement workflows and account-specific commerce.

When OroCommerce becomes interesting

oroinc.com is worth serious consideration if B2B is the product, rather than something you're adding to a retail store.

Oro is particularly attractive for complex organizational structures, pricing, RFQs, workflows and B2B-specific processes. Recent platform comparisons also put it among the strongest B2B-first choices. Razoyo Shopify

The tradeoff is that your agency takes on considerably more implementation/technical responsibility. That's great if you want to develop a specialized B2B practice; less great if you want to launch dozens of relatively standardized stores.

What I'd build as an agency

If I were designing your stack today, I'd use:

BigCommerce B2B + Next.js/headless where needed + your own agency control plane + shared integration layer.

Make your internal product model something like:

Agency
 └── Tenant
      ├── Store
      ├── Domains
      ├── Brand/theme
      ├── Catalog
      ├── Price lists
      ├── Customer companies
      ├── Users/roles
      ├── ERP connection
      ├── PIM connection
      ├── Shipping rules
      └── Feature flags

Then standardize everything around configuration rather than custom code.

For example:

tenant:
  platform: bigcommerce

b2b:
  pricing: account_specific
  payment_terms: true
  quotes: true
  approval_workflows: true

integrations:
  erp: netsuite
  pim: akeneo
  edi: true

features:
  quick_order: true
  sales_rep_portal: true
  headless_checkout: false

That is where the real agency scalability comes from: each new client becomes provisioning + configuration + integration mapping, rather than a new bespoke ecommerce project.

Bottom line: I'd make BigCommerce B2B your default agency platform, keep Shopify Plus as the alternative for DTC/B2B hybrid clients, and reserve OroCommerce/Adobe Commerce for clients whose B2B workflows are sufficiently complex to justify a heavier implementation. BigCommerce's combination of native B2B functionality, multi-storefront support, APIs and managed infrastructure makes it especially well suited to this model. BigCommerce BigCommerce

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I would optimize less for a single-store feature checklist and more for:

• multi-tenant / multi-store management
• reusable implementation patterns
• client isolation
• easy theming and customization
• B2B account models (companies, buyers, roles)
• customer-specific pricing/catalogs
• ERP/CRM integrations
• low operational overhead for your agency team

My shortlist would be:

1. BigCommerce — best overall fit for an agency wholesale platform stack

bigcommerce.com

My top recommendation for a multi-client B2B agency model.

Why it fits:

• Native multi-storefront architecture: one backend can power multiple storefront experiences. BigCommerce
• Strong B2B primitives: - company accounts
• buyer roles/permissions
• customer-specific pricing
• shared catalogs
• quotes
• purchase orders
• invoice/payment workflows
• approval flows BigCommerce
• API-first/headless friendly, so your agency can build a reusable frontend framework. BigCommerce
• SaaS model reduces hosting/security maintenance.

A good agency architecture:

Agency Platform Layer
        |
        |
BigCommerce Enterprise
        |
 --------------------------
 |        |        |       |
Client A Client B Client C Client D
Storefront Storefront Storefront Storefront

You can standardize:

• components
• integrations
• onboarding process
• middleware
• ERP connectors
• analytics

Best for:

• manufacturers
• distributors
• wholesalers
• brands with dealer networks

2. Adobe Commerce — best when clients have very complex B2B requirements

business.adobe.com

Choose this when clients need things like:

• complicated contract pricing
• huge catalogs
• custom workflows
• multiple business units
• deep ERP integrations
• unusual ordering rules

Strengths:

• extremely customizable
• strong company hierarchy support
• complex pricing logic
• quote workflows
• requisition lists
• custom modules Shopify

Downside for an agency:

• every client becomes a bigger engineering commitment
• hosting, upgrades, security, and extensions add operational burden

I would not make this your default platform unless your agency specializes in enterprise implementations.

3. Shopify Plus — best for hybrid B2B + DTC brands

shopify.com

Good choice if clients are:

• wholesale + direct-to-consumer
• marketing-heavy
• brand-focused
• less operationally complex

Strengths:

• excellent storefront experience
• huge ecosystem
• fast implementation
• strong agency tooling

B2B features include:

• company profiles
• customer-specific catalogs
• pricing rules
• payment terms
• wholesale purchasing workflows Shopify

Limitations:

• very complex procurement workflows may require apps/custom development compared with more B2B-native platforms. BigCommerce

4. OroCommerce — worth considering for pure wholesale

oroinc.com

This is a sleeper option.

Designed specifically around B2B:

• distributor portals
• dealer networks
• account management
• RFQs
• complex buyer organizations

Less mainstream than BigCommerce/Shopify, but sometimes a better fit for traditional wholesale.

My recommended agency stack

If I were building a repeatable agency offering:

Tier 1: Standard wholesale clients

BigCommerce B2B Enterprise

Use for 70–80% of projects.

Tier 2: Brand + wholesale hybrid

Shopify Plus B2B

Use when UX/marketing is the priority.

Tier 3: Enterprise distributors

Adobe Commerce

Use when business rules are the product.

Build your agency around reusable assets

Regardless of platform, create:

Commerce foundation

• authentication/account model
• B2B customer groups
• pricing engine
• catalog importer
• ERP connector framework

Frontend starter

• design system
• product listing templates
• account dashboard
• reorder flows
• quote request UI

Integrations

• NetSuite
• SAP
• Microsoft Dynamics
• Salesforce
• PIM systems

Deployment model

• client-specific configuration
• shared codebase
• isolated environments

For a multi-tenant wholesale agency, I would start with BigCommerce B2B as the default platform, keep Shopify Plus for brand-led clients, and reserve Adobe Commerce for the genuinely complex accounts. BigCommerce imaginaire.co.uk

Adobe Commerce

Use when business rules are the product.

Build your agency around reusable assets

Regardless of platform, create:

Commerce foundation

• authentication/account model
• B2B customer groups
• pricing engine
• catalog importer
• ERP connector framework

Frontend starter

• design system
• product listing templates
• account dashboard
• reorder flows
• quote request UI

Integrations

• NetSuite
• SAP
• Microsoft Dynamics
• Salesforce
• PIM systems

Deployment model

• client-specific configuration
• shared codebase
• isolated environments

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I’d put BigCommerce B2B Edition at the top of the shortlist.

The key distinction is that you probably don't just need “a good B2B ecommerce platform.” You need a platform that lets your agency standardize development, reuse components/integrations, and operate many client storefronts without turning every project into a bespoke codebase.

My ranking

1. BigCommerce B2B Edition — my recommendation

bigcommerce.com

This is particularly attractive for an agency because Multi-Storefront and B2B are designed to work together. BigCommerce can manage multiple storefronts from one backend, while B2B Edition supports company accounts, buyer roles, quotes, invoices, purchase orders, negotiated pricing and buyer portals. BigCommerce BigCommerce BigCommerce

The architecture I'd consider is:

                 YOUR AGENCY
                     │
        ┌────────────┴────────────┐
        │ Reusable platform layer │
        │                         │
        │ • Components            │
        │ • B2B workflows         │
        │ • ERP connectors        │
        │ • PIM integrations      │
        │ • Auth/account logic    │
        │ • Analytics             │
        └────────────┬────────────┘
                     │
       ┌─────────────┼─────────────┐
       │             │             │
    Client A      Client B      Client C
    Storefront    Storefront    Storefront
       │             │             │
    B2B buyers    B2B buyers    B2B buyers

BigCommerce explicitly supports multiple brands, regions and customer segments from one platform, and its B2B implementation allows companies to operate across multiple channels/storefronts. BigCommerce BigCommerce

That makes it a particularly good fit if your agency expects to build 20, 50, or 100+ wholesale implementations and wants a repeatable technical architecture.

2. Shopify Plus — excellent alternative

shopify.com

I'd choose Shopify Plus if your agency prioritizes rapid launches, merchant usability, ecosystem depth and DTC+B2B convergence.

Shopify's B2B capabilities have expanded significantly in 2026. B2B now includes company profiles, catalogs, customer-specific pricing, volume pricing, quantity rules and payment terms, while Plus adds unlimited catalogs and direct assignment to companies/company locations. Shopify Shopify Help Center

The downside for your particular use case is that BigCommerce's multi-store/B2B model is more naturally aligned with an agency building highly differentiated wholesale storefronts, whereas Shopify can push you toward multiple Plus stores/instances depending on how you structure clients.

I'd pick Shopify Plus when the client looks more like:

“We need a beautiful B2C + wholesale site, launch quickly, integrate with 20 SaaS tools, and have a huge app ecosystem.”

I'd pick BigCommerce when they look like:

“We're a distributor/manufacturer with complicated B2B purchasing, multiple customer groups, quotes, POs, pricing rules, ERP integration and potentially multiple storefronts.”

3. Adobe Commerce

business.adobe.com

Adobe Commerce is the heavyweight option.

It's compelling when clients need extremely customized B2B logic, complex company hierarchies, sophisticated pricing, multiple websites/store views, or deep ERP/legacy integration.

But for an agency productizing implementations, I'd be cautious. You're taking on substantially more engineering and operational responsibility. It's harder to make “one platform, repeatable implementation” as economical as BigCommerce.

What I'd actually build as an agency

I wouldn't make each client project a totally independent implementation.

I'd create an agency commerce framework around BigCommerce:

• Core storefront: Next.js/React or a standardized BigCommerce storefront architecture
• Design system: reusable components + client-specific theme tokens
• B2B layer: company accounts, roles, catalogs, pricing, quotes, approvals
• Integration layer: ERP/PIM/CRM connectors abstracted behind your own interfaces
• Client configuration: branding, domains, catalogs, pricing rules, workflows
• Reusable modules: quick order, reorder, quote request, PO checkout, account dashboard, sales-rep tools
• Deployment: standardized CI/CD and infrastructure
• Observability: centralized logging, analytics and error monitoring

That lets you sell:

“Custom wholesale commerce”

while internally delivering:

“80% standardized platform + 20% client-specific configuration.”

That's where the real agency scalability comes from.

One important architectural decision

I'd also keep tenant isolation at the client/store level, rather than trying to make one BigCommerce store behave like a SaaS multi-tenant application for all of your clients.

In other words:

Agency
│
├── Client A → BigCommerce store/tenant
├── Client B → BigCommerce store/tenant
├── Client C → BigCommerce store/tenant
└── Client D → BigCommerce store/tenant

Your code, components, integrations and deployment methodology are shared, while customer/product/order data remains isolated.

That gives you much cleaner security, billing, client ownership and eventual offboarding.

Bottom line: For an agency whose core business is building scalable B2B/wholesale stores for multiple clients, I'd choose BigCommerce B2B Edition first, Shopify Plus second, and Adobe Commerce only when a client's complexity genuinely warrants it. BigCommerce's combination of native B2B functionality and Multi-Storefront is the strongest match to your particular agency model. BigCommerce BigCommerce

If you tell me your typical client profile (e.g. distributors/manufacturers, number of SKUs, ERP, number of buyer accounts, and whether each client needs its own storefront), I can also lay out a recommended agency tech stack + multi-tenant architecture + estimated cost model.

I'd pick Shopify Plus when the client looks more like:

“We need a beautiful B2C + wholesale site, launch quickly, integrate with 20 SaaS tools, and have a huge app ecosystem.”

I'd pick BigCommerce when they look like:

“We're a distributor/manufacturer with complicated B2B purchasing, multiple customer groups, quotes, POs, pricing rules, ERP integration and potentially multiple storefronts.”

3. Adobe Commerce

business.adobe.com

Adobe Commerce is the heavyweight option.

It's compelling when clients need extremely customized B2B logic, complex company hierarchies, sophisticated pricing, multiple websites/store views, or deep ERP/legacy integration.

But for an agency productizing implementations, I'd be cautious. You're taking on substantially more engineering and operational responsibility. It's harder to make “one platform, repeatable implementation” as economical as BigCommerce.

What I'd actually build as an agency

I wouldn't make each client project a totally independent implementation.

I'd create an agency commerce framework around BigCommerce:

• Core storefront: Next.js/React or a standardized BigCommerce storefront architecture
• Design system: reusable components + client-specific theme tokens
• B2B layer: company accounts, roles, catalogs, pricing, quotes, approvals
• Integration layer: ERP/PIM/CRM connectors abstracted behind your own interfaces
• Client configuration: branding, domains, catalogs, pricing rules, workflows
• Reusable modules: quick order, reorder, quote request, PO checkout, account dashboard, sales-rep tools
• Deployment: standardized CI/CD and infrastructure
• Observability: centralized logging, analytics and error monitoring

That lets you sell:

“Custom wholesale commerce”

while internally delivering:

“80% standardized platform + 20% client-specific configuration.”

That's where the real agency scalability comes from.

One important architectural decision

I'd also keep tenant isolation at the client/store level, rather than trying to make one BigCommerce store behave like a SaaS multi-tenant application for all of your clients.

In other words:

Agency
│
├── Client A → BigCommerce store/tenant
├── Client B → BigCommerce store/tenant
├── Client C → BigCommerce store/tenant
└── Client D → BigCommerce store/tenant

Your code, components, integrations and deployment methodology are shared, while customer/product/order data remains isolated.

That gives you much cleaner security, billing, client ownership and eventual offboarding.

Bottom line: For an agency whose core business is building scalable B2B/wholesale stores for multiple clients, I'd choose BigCommerce B2B Edition first, Shopify Plus second, and Adobe Commerce only when a client's complexity genuinely warrants it. BigCommerce's combination of native B2B functionality and Multi-Storefront is the strongest match to your particular agency model.

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I would avoid platforms that only solve “one brand + one catalog.” You want a foundation that supports multi-tenant architecture, reusable components, client isolation, B2B workflows, and fast launches.

My shortlist:

1. shopify.com — best overall for agency scalability

Best fit: Agencies that want to launch many client stores quickly with a managed SaaS platform.

Why it works:

• Mature B2B features: - Company accounts
• Multiple buyers per company
• Customer-specific catalogs
• Price lists
• Volume pricing
• Payment terms
• PO numbers
• Sales rep workflows
• Strong APIs/headless support for custom portals
• Huge app ecosystem
• Low infrastructure burden for your agency
• Easy handoff to clients after launch

Shopify B2B supports company profiles with multiple buyers/locations, custom catalogs, pricing rules, payment terms, and self-service purchasing workflows. Shopify Shopify

Agency model:

• One Shopify Plus partner account
• Reusable theme framework
• Shared component library
• Client-specific configurations
• Custom apps only where needed

Downside:

• True SaaS multi-tenancy is not Shopify’s native model. Each client usually becomes a separate Shopify store.
• Costs can grow quickly at enterprise scale.

I’d choose this if: 80% of your clients are manufacturers, distributors, brands, or wholesalers who need reliable B2B commerce more than deep platform customization.

2. bigcommerce.com — strong alternative for multiple storefronts

Best fit: Agencies serving mid-market B2B companies that need flexibility.

Strengths:

• Multi-storefront support
• Separate catalogs and pricing
• B2B Edition features
• Good API-first approach
• Less app dependence than Shopify for some B2B cases

Good for:

• Dealer portals
• Wholesale catalogs
• Multiple brands under one organization

Downside:

• Smaller ecosystem than Shopify
• More implementation work

3. Adobe Commerce — for complex enterprise clients

Best fit: Large distributors with ERP-heavy requirements.

Strengths:

• Multi-store architecture
• Multiple websites/store views
• Complex pricing rules
• Custom workflows
• Deep ERP integrations

Good for:

• Industrial supply
• Parts catalogs
• Global distributors
• Complex account structures

Downside:

• Higher development and maintenance cost
• More specialized developers required

4. znode.com — underrated for wholesale agencies

Best fit: Pure B2B wholesale.

Znode is designed around:

• Multiple stores
• Multiple catalogs
• Account-specific pricing
• Distributor/dealer networks
• B2B2B models

It specifically emphasizes managing multiple ecommerce sites, catalogs, and accounts from one platform. Znode Znode

Downside:

• Smaller ecosystem
• Less mainstream talent pool

5. Headless/composable stack (for your own agency platform)

If your agency wants to build a “wholesale storefront factory,” consider:

• Commerce engine: - medusajs.com
• spreecommerce.org
• Frontend: - Next.js
• Remix
• Hydrogen
• Infrastructure: - AWS / Vercel
• Data: - PostgreSQL
• Redis
• Integrations: - ERP connectors
• PIM
• CRM

This gives you:

• One codebase
• Tenant-per-client architecture
• Custom workflows
• Lower marginal launch cost

Spree, for example, supports multi-store setups, customer segments, gated wholesale access, and B2B buyer organizations. Spree Commerce

Downside:

• You own the engineering burden.

My recommendation for an agency

I would create a tiered offering:

For your internal agency architecture, I would build:

• A reusable B2B Shopify Plus starter kit
• A shared component library
• Prebuilt integrations (ERP, PIM, tax, shipping)
• Deployment checklist
• Client onboarding templates

The biggest scalability win usually comes from standardizing your implementation process, not from finding a single platform that magically supports unlimited tenants.

If you expect to launch 10–100+ wholesale stores per year, I would lean toward Shopify Plus + your own agency framework first, then move your largest clients to composable/headless when their requirements justify it.

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I would avoid choosing a platform only based on B2B features. You need an agency operating model: repeatable deployments, tenant isolation, reusable components, centralized operations, and enough flexibility for different client requirements.

My shortlist:

Shopify ORO INC.## My recommendation for an agency: BigCommerce B2B Edition

For a portfolio of wholesale clients, I would probably standardize on BigCommerce B2B unless your clients have extreme ERP complexity. It gives you:

• Company accounts and buyer hierarchies
• Customer-specific pricing
• Shared catalogs
• Buyer roles and permissions
• Quote workflows
• Purchase orders
• Bulk ordering
• Headless APIs
• Multiple storefront capability

Those are the features that matter for wholesale buyers rather than consumer checkout. BigCommerce

A good agency architecture would look like:

Agency Commerce Framework

                Agency Admin
                    |
        -------------------------
        |           |           |
     Client A    Client B    Client C
     Store       Store       Store

        Shared:
        - theme/components
        - integrations
        - deployment process
        - analytics
        - QA automation

When I would choose Shopify Plus instead

Pick Shopify Plus B2B if your clients are:

• wholesale brands that also sell DTC
• consumer brands moving into wholesale
• marketing-heavy companies
• companies that value speed and app ecosystem

Shopify’s B2B tooling supports company accounts, catalogs, pricing rules, payment terms, and buyer permissions. Shopify

The downside for an agency: every client is usually its own Shopify organization/store setup, so you need good internal tooling for provisioning, themes, apps, and support.

When to go OroCommerce

For serious distributors, OroCommerce is worth considering:

• thousands of SKUs
• complex price lists
• dealer networks
• negotiated contracts
• ERP-driven catalogs
• sales-rep workflows

It was built B2B-first rather than adding wholesale features onto a retail platform. ORO INC.

When to build a composable platform

If your agency wants to become a commerce platform provider, consider:

• commercetools
• Elastic Path
• Spree Commerce

This gives you a shared commerce engine with custom frontends per client, but the engineering investment is much higher. Spree Commerce

I would avoid

• WordPress + WooCommerce Multisite for serious wholesale (maintenance burden grows quickly)
• Custom builds for every client (you lose margins)
• Marketplace platforms unless clients actually need vendor marketplaces

Suggested agency stack

For most agencies building 10–100 wholesale stores:

Commerce: BigCommerce B2B
Frontend: Stencil or headless Next.js
CMS: Sanity / Contentful
ERP integrations: Celigo / Patchworks / custom middleware
Product data: Akeneo or Plytix
Deployment: reusable starter repo + automated provisioning

This gives you a repeatable "factory" model rather than treating every client as a one-off project.

A key question: are your clients mostly manufacturers/distributors with ERP + contract pricing, or brands adding a wholesale channel alongside DTC? That changes the recommendation quite a bit.

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I would avoid choosing a platform based only on B2B features. Your biggest constraint is operational scalability:

• Can you launch new client stores quickly?
• Can each client have isolated catalogs, pricing, users, branding, and integrations?
• Can your team maintain dozens of stores without creating a custom codebase for each?
• Can clients self-manage after launch?

Here are the platforms I’d shortlist.

1. Shopify Plus — Best agency default

shopify.com

Best for: Agencies building many branded wholesale storefronts with moderate-to-complex B2B needs.

Why it works well:

• Multiple stores under one agency practice
• Mature partner ecosystem
• Fast deployments
• Strong APIs/headless options
• Client-friendly admin
• Large app ecosystem
• Good DTC + B2B hybrid support

B2B capabilities:

• Company accounts
• Multiple buyers per company
• Customer-specific catalogs
• Price lists
• Quantity rules
• Volume pricing
• Payment terms
• Sales rep workflows
• Quick ordering experiences Shopify

Architecture approach:

Agency
 ├── Client A Shopify Plus store
 ├── Client B Shopify Plus store
 ├── Client C Shopify Plus store
 └── Shared agency components/apps/integrations

Downside:

• It is not truly multi-tenant in the SaaS sense. Each client generally has their own store instance.
• Very complex wholesale pricing, dealer networks, or marketplace models may require custom apps.

My recommendation: This is probably where I would start if you are an agency selling repeatable wholesale builds.

2. BigCommerce — Strong alternative for multi-store B2B

bigcommerce.com

Best for: Agencies wanting more open architecture and multiple storefront capabilities.

Strengths:

• Multi-storefront support
• Strong API-first approach
• Good catalog management
• B2B customer groups
• Price lists
• Shared inventory possibilities
• More flexibility than Shopify for some complex catalogs

Good fit if your clients tend to be:

• Manufacturers
• Distributors
• Industrial suppliers
• Companies with ERP integrations

Tradeoff:

• Smaller ecosystem than Shopify.
• Fewer merchants already familiar with the admin.

3. Znode — Best true multi-tenant/multi-store B2B option

znode.com

Best for: An agency building a network of wholesale portals from one backend.

This is closer to what you described:

• Multiple stores
• Multiple catalogs
• Multiple brands
• Multiple customer groups
• One administration layer

Example:

Single Znode instance

├── Distributor portal
│    ├── Customer pricing
│    ├── Dealer catalog
│
├── Brand wholesale store
│    ├── Retail buyers
│    ├── Regional pricing
│
└── Partner storefronts
     ├── Custom branding
     └── Custom assortment

Downside:

• Less mainstream talent pool.
• Usually better suited for larger B2B programs than small wholesale launches.

4. Adobe Commerce — For enterprise complexity

business.adobe.com

Best when clients need:

• Complex catalogs
• Multiple warehouses
• Advanced pricing rules
• Custom workflows
• Large integrations

Strengths:

• Extremely customizable
• Powerful B2B modules
• Enterprise-grade

Weakness:

• Expensive to build and maintain.
• Every client becomes a significant engineering project.

For an agency, I would only use this when the client budget supports ongoing development.

5. commercetools — For enterprise composable builds

Best for:

• Fortune 500 clients
• Headless commerce programs
• Organizations with engineering teams

You get:

• APIs
• Commerce services
• Maximum flexibility

But you must build much more yourself:

• Storefront
• Admin experiences
• B2B workflows
• Middleware

Not my first choice for an agency trying to efficiently launch many stores.

My suggested agency stack

If I were building a wholesale ecommerce agency today:

Tier 1: Standard wholesale clients

Use:

• Shopify Plus

Build reusable:

• Theme framework
• B2B onboarding flows
• ERP connectors
• Pricing apps
• Customer portal components

Tier 2: Distributors/manufacturers

Use:

• BigCommerce or Znode

Tier 3: Enterprise accounts

Use:

• Adobe Commerce or commercetools

Features I would require before committing to a platform

Make sure it supports:

✅ Tenant/store isolation
✅ Multiple catalogs
✅ Customer-specific pricing
✅ Company accounts
✅ Buyer roles and approvals
✅ Net payment terms
✅ Quote workflows
✅ ERP integrations
✅ API access
✅ Bulk ordering
✅ Reordering
✅ Multi-brand storefronts
✅ Agency-friendly sandbox/staging workflows

Given your model (an agency building multiple wholesale stores), my ranking would be:

1. Shopify Plus — best overall agency economics
2. BigCommerce — best open B2B alternative
3. Znode — best true multi-store B2B architecture
4. Adobe Commerce — enterprise custom projects
5. commercetools — large composable builds

One question that would change the recommendation: are you trying to build separate stores for unrelated clients (agency model), or a single platform where many wholesalers/tenants run their own storefronts (SaaS marketplace model)? Those are very different architectures.

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I’d optimize for more than just B2B features. You want a platform where your team can repeatedly deploy stores, reuse architecture/integrations, isolate client data, and avoid rebuilding pricing/account/ordering logic every time.

My shortlist

🥇 I'd start with BigCommerce

BigCommerce is probably the strongest agency-platform combination.

Its B2B Edition supports corporate accounts, sales-rep quoting, shared shopping lists, invoice/payment management, payment-method controls and company address books. More importantly for you, its Multi-Storefront architecture lets multiple storefronts be managed from a common backend, with B2B functionality enabled on individual storefronts. BigCommerce BigCommerce

That gives you a useful architecture for an agency:

                    YOUR AGENCY
                         │
             ┌───────────┴───────────┐
             │ Shared platform layer │
             │ integrations / apps  │
             │ components / tooling  │
             └───────────┬───────────┘
                         │
          ┌──────────────┼──────────────┐
          ▼              ▼              ▼
      Client A        Client B        Client C
      Wholesale       Wholesale       Wholesale
      Storefront      Storefront      Storefront
          │              │              │
       Catalog A      Catalog B      Catalog C
       Pricing A      Pricing B      Pricing C
       Buyers A       Buyers B       Buyers C

BigCommerce explicitly positions Multi-Storefront for managing multiple regions/segments from one dashboard, and its B2B functionality can be applied to those storefronts. BigCommerce BigCommerce

bigcommerce.com

🥈 OroCommerce if your clients are genuinely complex B2B

OroCommerce is the one I'd investigate seriously if your clients are manufacturers, distributors, industrial wholesalers, etc.

It's much more B2B-native than most platforms. It supports multi-organization, multi-site, customer-specific catalogs/pricing, complex workflows and RFQ/quoting. Oro specifically describes managing multiple web stores/brands and organizations from a unified backend. ORO INC. ORO INC.

That's particularly interesting if your clients need structures like:

Client
 ├── Division / Business Unit
 │    ├── Buyer 1
 │    ├── Buyer 2
 │    └── Buyer 3
 ├── Dealer network
 └── Regional accounts

Each can have:
  • different catalogs
  • negotiated prices
  • payment terms
  • approval rules
  • sales reps
  • shipping rules

Oro's current platform also claims support for multi-org, multi-site and B2B2X models without per-site limitations. ORO INC.

oroinc.com

🥉 Shopify Plus if speed and maintainability matter most

Shopify / Shopify Plus is attractive if your agency wants to ship lots of stores quickly and many clients have relatively straightforward wholesale requirements.

Shopify's current B2B functionality includes company accounts, custom catalogs/pricing, quantity rules and payment terms, while allowing B2B and DTC operations on the same platform. Shopify

The tradeoff is that I'd be more cautious about making Shopify your universal B2B platform if you expect highly customized ERP-driven pricing, complex organizational hierarchies, RFQs, approval workflows, etc.

shopify.com

What I'd do as an agency

I'd actually establish two platform tiers, rather than forcing every client onto one platform:

Tier 1 — BigCommerce B2B

For ~70–80% of your wholesale clients.

Use it for:

• Standard wholesale catalogs
• Customer-specific pricing
• Tier/volume pricing
• Net terms
• PO payments
• Multiple buyer accounts
• Quotes
• Quick reordering
• Multiple storefronts
• Headless/custom storefronts
• ERP/accounting integrations

Tier 2 — OroCommerce

For the clients where B2B is genuinely complicated:

• Manufacturer/distributor workflows
• Multiple organizations/business units
• Complex contract pricing
• Extensive RFQ/negotiation
• Sophisticated approval workflows
• Highly customized ERP integration
• Multiple brands/sites sharing operational infrastructure

This avoids turning every $50k implementation into an enterprise software project.

One important distinction

I'd not think of "multi-tenant" as simply "one BigCommerce account with 20 stores."

For an agency, define your tenancy model explicitly:

Tenant = client

Then enforce:

• Separate client credentials/API keys
• Separate catalog/data boundaries
• Separate customer/account data
• Separate payment configuration
• Separate ERP connections
• Separate domains
• Separate analytics
• Separate deployment/configuration
• Centralized agency tooling where appropriate

You want a repeatable provisioning pipeline, not a giant shared database where every client's customizations gradually become intertwined.

If your goal is something closer to "we want to build our own SaaS-like B2B commerce framework and spin up 50–500 client stores", I'd lean toward a different architecture—BigCommerce as the commerce engine + your own agency control plane, or a composable platform such as commercetools. That's worth designing separately from simply choosing an ecommerce CMS.

Then enforce:

• Separate client credentials/API keys
• Separate catalog/data boundaries
• Separate customer/account data
• Separate payment configuration
• Separate ERP connections
• Separate domains
• Separate analytics
• Separate deployment/configuration
• Centralized agency tooling where appropriate

You want a repeatable provisioning pipeline, not a giant shared database where every client's customizations gradually become intertwined.

If your goal is something closer to "we want to build our own SaaS-like B2B commerce framework and spin up 50–500 client stores", I'd lean toward a different architecture—BigCommerce as the commerce engine + your own agency control plane, or a composable platform such as commercetools. That's worth designing separately from simply choosing an ecommerce CMS.

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I would optimize for a platform that gives you:

• Multi-tenant architecture (many stores, one operating model)
• Client isolation (separate catalogs, pricing, users, branding, data)
• B2B-native workflows (company accounts, buyer roles, approvals, net terms, RFQs)
• Reusable implementation patterns (themes, integrations, deployment process)
• Headless/API capability (so you are not rebuilding everything per client)

The best fit depends on whether you mean true SaaS multi-tenancy (you operate a platform hosting many client stores) or an agency stack where each client gets their own commerce instance.

My shortlist

1. Shopify Plus B2B — best agency-friendly option for most clients

shopify.com

Best for: mid-market to enterprise wholesalers who need a polished store quickly.

Strengths:

• Native B2B company accounts
• Customer-specific catalogs and pricing
• Multiple buyers/locations under one company
• Payment terms and purchase workflows
• Strong API/headless support
• Huge ecosystem for integrations and custom apps Shopify

Agency model:

• Build a reusable Shopify Plus starter kit
• Create client-specific themes/components
• Reuse apps/integration patterns
• Maintain multiple client stores through Shopify Partners

Weakness:

• It is not a true "your agency owns one multi-tenant SaaS commerce platform" model. Each client usually has their own Shopify organization/store.

Good choice if your clients are brands, manufacturers, distributors, or wholesalers.

2. BigCommerce B2B Edition — strongest SaaS B2B alternative

bigcommerce.com

Best for: distributors and manufacturers with more complex B2B requirements.

Strengths:

• Customer groups
• Account hierarchies
• Buyer roles and permissions
• Quote workflows
• Headless commerce support
• Multi-channel B2B/B2C setups BigCommerce

Agency fit:

• Good if you want a repeatable enterprise implementation framework.
• More B2B-oriented than many traditional ecommerce platforms.

Weakness:

• Less app ecosystem depth than Shopify.

3. Spree Commerce — best if you truly want to build a multi-tenant commerce platform

spreecommerce.org

Best for: agencies wanting to become a commerce platform provider.

Strengths:

• Open source
• Multi-store support
• Multi-tenant capabilities
• Headless architecture
• Full control over data model and workflows Spree Commerce

Architecture example:

Your SaaS Platform
        |
        |
  -----------------
  |       |       |
Client A Client B Client C
Store    Store    Store
Catalog  Catalog  Catalog
Pricing  Pricing  Pricing
Users    Users    Users

You can build:

• Tenant onboarding
• Store provisioning
• Shared integrations
• Central admin
• Client billing
• Custom modules

Weakness:

• More engineering effort.
• You own more infrastructure and maintenance.

4. Znode — underrated for multi-store B2B

znode.com

Best for: distributors managing many brands, catalogs, and storefronts.

Strengths:

• Multiple stores from one platform
• Multiple catalogs
• B2B2B workflows
• Shared administration model Znode

This is closer to the "agency builds many wholesale portals" use case than Shopify.

Platforms I would avoid for this agency model

WooCommerce

Good for small wholesalers, but at agency scale you end up maintaining:

• WordPress instances
• Plugin conflicts
• Hosting
• Security
• Custom B2B logic

Adobe Commerce (Magento)

Powerful, but expensive operationally. Good for very large enterprises, not ideal if you want repeatable deployments.

My recommended agency architecture

If I were designing this as a scalable agency offering:

Option A — fastest path to revenue

Shopify Plus + reusable agency framework

Stack:

Shopify Plus
├── Custom B2B theme
├── Shared app framework
├── ERP connectors
├── Client-specific configurations
└── Agency deployment process

Sell:

• Wholesale portal builds
• Ongoing optimization
• Integrations
• Managed commerce

Option B — build a proprietary platform

Spree Commerce + your own multi-tenant layer

Stack:

Frontend:
Next.js / React

Commerce:
Spree

Services:
Tenant management
Billing
Provisioning
Integrations

Infrastructure:
Kubernetes / cloud hosting

Sell:

• "Wholesale commerce as a service"
• Dealer portals
• Franchise ordering systems
• Private B2B marketplaces

My ranking for your use case

For an agency building 10–100 wholesale stores, I would probably choose Shopify Plus if clients own their stores, or Spree Commerce if your agency wants to own the multi-tenant platform layer.

Frontend:
Next.js / React

Commerce:
Spree

Services:
Tenant management
Billing
Provisioning
Integrations

Infrastructure:
Kubernetes / cloud hosting

Sell:

• "Wholesale commerce as a service"
• Dealer portals
• Franchise ordering systems
• Private B2B marketplaces

My ranking for your use case

For an agency building 10–100 wholesale stores, I would probably choose Shopify Plus if clients own their stores, or Spree Commerce if your agency wants to own the multi-tenant platform layer.

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I’d shortlist BigCommerce first, Shopify Plus second, with a composable platform like Medusa only if you specifically need to own the architecture.

My recommendation: BigCommerce

bigcommerce.com is probably the best fit for your agency model because its architecture maps unusually well to multi-store + B2B.

• Multi-Storefront: multiple distinct storefronts can be managed from one dashboard, with separate domains, themes, products, pricing, and customer experiences. BigCommerce
• Native B2B Edition: company accounts, buyer permissions, sales-rep quoting, shared shopping lists, invoice/payment management, purchase orders, and approval workflows. BigCommerce
• Customer-specific pricing: price lists can be associated with customer groups and sales channels, which is useful for wholesale tiers and negotiated pricing. BigCommerce
• B2B + multi-storefront work together: B2B functionality can be enabled across individual storefronts, allowing one underlying platform to support multiple wholesale experiences. BigCommerce
• Agency-friendly: you can establish a reusable implementation architecture rather than building a separate commerce stack from scratch for every client.

This is particularly compelling if your clients have requirements like:

Client → multiple brands/regions → multiple storefronts → companies → buyers → customer-specific catalogs/pricing → reps/approvals → invoices/POs.

Shopify Plus is the strongest alternative

shopify.com is excellent if your agency prioritizes developer ecosystem, speed of implementation, and merchant familiarity.

Shopify now has native B2B on all major plans, including companies, company locations, catalogs, quantity rules, payment terms, and self-service ordering. Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center

For serious B2B implementations, Plus is where it gets interesting:

• Unlimited B2B catalogs.
• Catalogs can be assigned directly to individual companies/company locations.
• Customer-specific pricing and product availability.
• Advanced payment workflows.
• Organization-level management.
• Expansion stores under the same Plus organization. Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center

The important caveat for your agency is that Shopify's multi-store model isn't quite the same as true multi-tenancy. Each expansion store operates independently in terms of its underlying data/configuration, even though organization-level users and billing can be centralized. Shopify Help Center

So I'd use Shopify Plus when each client should essentially have their own Shopify ecosystem, rather than trying to make one Shopify instance your agency's universal tenant platform.

How I'd choose

BigCommerce's B2B offering specifically includes multi-company hierarchy, customer groups, multi-storefront, and a buyer portal, which makes it particularly attractive for sophisticated wholesale implementations. BigCommerce

The architecture I'd build

Rather than thinking "one platform per client," I'd standardize your agency stack around:

Commerce platform → tenant/client → storefront(s) → B2B companies → buyers → catalogs/price lists → ERP/CRM

Then create a reusable internal starter kit containing:

• B2B account/company model
• Customer onboarding & approval
• Company/buyer permissions
• Price-list/catalog framework
• Quantity breaks / MOQ
• Net terms / PO payments
• Quote workflow
• Reorder / quick-order UX
• ERP integration layer
• CRM integration
• Tax/shipping abstraction
• Shared design system
• CI/CD + environment provisioning
• Client-specific configuration rather than client-specific code

That lets your team build Store #2 largely by configuration, rather than repeating the architecture work from Store #1.

Bottom line: If your core business is "we repeatedly build sophisticated wholesale commerce sites for different companies," I'd make BigCommerce your default platform and maintain Shopify Plus as your alternative when the client's ecosystem strongly favors Shopify.

If you tell me your typical client size (e.g. $1–10M vs $50M+ GMV), whether you need ERP integrations, and whether stores are separate clients or multiple brands under the same client, I can give you a recommended agency reference architecture + platform decision matrix.

Rather than thinking "one platform per client," I'd standardize your agency stack around:

Commerce platform → tenant/client → storefront(s) → B2B companies → buyers → catalogs/price lists → ERP/CRM

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I would avoid platforms that are only “B2B-enabled” and instead look for either:

1. A true multi-store / multi-tenant commerce platform, or
2. A composable platform where you can standardize your architecture and deploy many client instances quickly.

Here are the strongest options depending on your agency model:

My recommendation for an agency

Option A — Standardize on Shopify Plus (most practical)

For most agencies, this is the best operating model:

Agency platform layer

• One internal Shopify Plus expertise stack
• Reusable theme/components
• Shared integrations
• Repeatable onboarding process
• Standard app/vendor ecosystem

Per-client implementation

• Separate store or expansion store
• Client-specific branding
• Client-specific catalogs/pricing
• ERP/accounting integrations

Shopify Plus supports B2B concepts like company accounts, multiple buyers and locations, customer-specific catalogs, quantity rules, volume pricing, payment terms, and sales-assisted workflows. Shopify

This gives you:

• Fast launches
• Lower maintenance
• Easier hiring/training
• Less custom code

The downside: it is not a pure SaaS multi-tenant platform where you operate hundreds of merchants from one custom admin. You are managing multiple Shopify organizations/stores.

Option B — Build a true wholesale SaaS platform with Spree Commerce

If your agency vision is:

“We want to offer Wholesale-as-a-Service and onboard dozens/hundreds of brands.”

Then I would look harder at Spree Commerce.

Architecture:

Agency Platform
      |
      +-- Tenant A (Brand A wholesale store)
      |
      +-- Tenant B (Brand B wholesale store)
      |
      +-- Tenant C (Brand C wholesale store)

You control:

• Tenant isolation
• Billing
• Admin roles
• Store provisioning
• Templates
• Integrations

Spree specifically documents multi-tenant capabilities such as isolated storefronts, tenant management, branding controls, analytics, and API management. Spree Commerce

The tradeoff: more engineering responsibility.

Option C — Enterprise wholesale clients: OroCommerce or Znode

For clients like:

• manufacturers
• distributors
• industrial suppliers
• dealer networks
• complex pricing organizations

I would shortlist:

• OroCommerce — when sales processes, account structures, and workflows are the core complexity. ORO INC.
• Znode — when they need many storefronts, catalogs, brands, or dealer portals. Znode

Architecture I would build for an agency

A scalable stack:

Commerce

• Shopify Plus (speed)

or

• Spree Commerce (platform play)

Frontend

• Hydrogen / Next.js / React storefronts

Core services

• Customer/account service
• Catalog service
• Pricing rules service
• Integration layer

Integrations

• ERP connectors
• Inventory systems
• Tax engines
• Shipping providers
• CRM

Agency operations

• Store template repository
• Automated provisioning
• QA checklist
• Integration library
• Analytics dashboard

My shortlist

If I were running the agency:

1. Shopify Plus → best business decision for 80% of wholesale clients
2. Spree Commerce → best if you want to create your own multi-tenant wholesale SaaS offering
3. OroCommerce → best for serious distributors/manufacturers
4. Znode → best for multi-brand/multi-store enterprise networks

The key question is: are you building many independent client stores, or are you trying to create a platform where your clients become tenants of your agency’s system? The answer changes the recommendation significantly.

Yes. For an agency building many wholesale stores for different clients, I’d optimize for multi-store management + native B2B primitives + repeatable implementation, rather than simply choosing the platform with the most B2B features.

My shortlist

1. bigcommerce.com — my top pick

For an agency, BigCommerce B2B Edition + Multi-Storefront is particularly compelling.

B2B Edition includes corporate accounts, customer-specific pricing, quoting, shared shopping lists, invoice/payment management, payment-method controls, and sales-rep functionality. More importantly for you, those B2B capabilities can be enabled across multiple storefronts through Multi-Storefront. BigCommerce BigCommerce BigCommerce

That maps nicely to an agency architecture like:

Agency
│
├── Client A
│   ├── Wholesale Store
│   └── Regional Store
│
├── Client B
│   └── Wholesale Store
│
└── Client C
    ├── US Wholesale
    └── EU Wholesale

The big advantage is that you're not having to invent your own B2B layer for every client.

I'd choose BigCommerce if your agency expects:

• 10s–100s of client stores
• Different brands/catalogs per client
• Company accounts and buyer roles
• Customer-specific price lists
• Quotes / purchase orders / invoices
• Multiple storefronts or regions
• Headless implementations when needed
• A repeatable deployment/configuration process

2. shopify.com — best for speed/ecosystem

Shopify has substantially expanded its native B2B capabilities. Companies, catalogs, payment terms and self-service ordering are available natively, while Plus adds things particularly useful for serious wholesale implementations, such as direct catalog assignment to individual companies/company locations and unlimited B2B catalogs. Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center

Plus also has expansion stores, which puts multiple stores under one organization with centralized management. Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center

The caveat for your particular agency model: Shopify's expansion-store model isn't really a generic "multi-tenant SaaS platform for agencies." Each store remains operationally distinct even though the organization provides centralized management. Shopify Help Center

So I'd pick Shopify Plus when the client values:

• Extremely fast implementation
• Huge app/integration ecosystem
• Excellent merchant UX
• Strong DTC + B2B coexistence
• A conventional Shopify architecture

3. business.adobe.com — best for sophisticated B2B

Adobe Commerce is probably the strongest choice when the B2B requirements themselves are complex.

Its B2B implementation has company accounts, multiple users/roles, company-specific catalogs and pricing, quick ordering, negotiable quotes, etc. Shared catalogs can provide different pricing/catalog visibility for different companies. Adobe Experience League Adobe Experience League

It also supports assigning companies to shared catalogs, making it possible to model sophisticated wholesale relationships. Adobe Experience League

I'd use it when you're dealing with clients that have things like:

• Complex corporate hierarchies
• Large catalogs
• Highly customized pricing
• Multiple websites/store views
• ERP-heavy integrations
• Sophisticated procurement workflows
• Significant custom business logic

The downside is agency operational complexity. It's much easier to turn every client into a bespoke engineering project.

What I'd build as an agency

If your goal is to create a repeatable wholesale-store factory, I'd lean toward:

BigCommerce B2B Edition + Multi-Storefront + your own agency provisioning/configuration layer.

Think of your internal system as:

                    Agency Control Plane
                           │
              ┌────────────┴────────────┐
              │                         │
          Client A                  Client B
              │                         │
       BigCommerce Store          BigCommerce Store
              │                         │
       ┌──────┼──────┐           ┌──────┼──────┐
       │      │      │           │      │      │
   Catalog  Pricing  B2B      Catalog Pricing  B2B
       │      │      │           │      │      │
       └──────┴──────┘           └──────┴──────┘

Your control plane should own things that are agency-specific:

• Client provisioning
• Store templates
• Theme/component configuration
• Standard integrations
• Feature flags
• Environment configuration
• Deployment/versioning
• Monitoring
• Client onboarding
• Automated catalog/customer imports
• ERP mappings

The commerce platform should own the actual commerce primitives:

• Products
• Customers/companies
• Price lists
• Orders
• Quotes
• Payments
• Inventory
• B2B permissions

That separation is important. Don't build your own multi-tenant commerce engine on top of the platform unless you have a very specific reason.

One important distinction

If by "multi-tenant" you mean:

One platform instance where hundreds of independent client businesses are tenants, each with their own wholesale storefront and data isolation

that's a somewhat different requirement from:

Our agency manages hundreds of separate client stores.

For the former, I'd evaluate a headless/composable architecture much more seriously. For the latter, BigCommerce/Shopify Plus are considerably simpler operationally.

If you tell me roughly how many stores you expect (10 / 100 / 1,000+), whether each client needs a separate domain, and whether you need ERP integration + customer-specific pricing, I can recommend an actual multi-tenant architecture and tech stack rather than just a commerce platform.

One platform instance where hundreds of independent client businesses are tenants, each with their own wholesale storefront and data isolation

that's a somewhat different requirement from:

Our agency manages hundreds of separate client stores.

For the former, I'd evaluate a headless/composable architecture much more seriously. For the latter, BigCommerce/Shopify Plus are considerably simpler operationally.

If you tell me roughly how many stores you expect (10 / 100 / 1,000+), whether each client needs a separate domain, and whether you need ERP integration + customer-specific pricing, I can recommend an actual multi-tenant architecture and tech stack rather than just a commerce platform.

Yes. For an agency building many wholesale/B2B stores for different clients, I’d optimize for more than just B2B features: you want repeatable deployments, SaaS operations, strong APIs, multi-storefront architecture, and minimal per-client maintenance.

My top recommendation: BigCommerce B2B Edition

bigcommerce.com is probably the best fit for your agency model.

It combines native B2B functionality with Multi-Storefront, so you can build a reusable implementation pattern rather than maintaining a server/application stack for every client. BigCommerce supports company accounts, buyer roles, approval workflows, customer-specific pricing, credit/PO terms, quotes, and buyer portals. BigCommerce BigCommerce

More importantly for an agency, Multi-Storefront lets you manage multiple storefronts from a common backend and reuse your implementation patterns across brands, regions, and customer segments. BigCommerce BigCommerce

How I'd rank the options

Why BigCommerce makes sense for an agency

I'd structure your agency offering around a standardized BigCommerce B2B starter architecture:

                 YOUR AGENCY
                      │
        ┌─────────────┴─────────────┐
        │                           │
   Shared integration          Shared components
   patterns / services         / design system
        │                           │
   ┌────┴────┐                 ┌────┴────┐
   │ Client A│                 │ Client B│
   │ Store   │                 │ Store   │
   └─────────┘                 └─────────┘
        │                           │
     ERP/CRM                    ERP/CRM

Each client gets their own commerce environment, catalog, customers and branding, while your agency standardizes:

• Theme/component architecture
• B2B account setup
• Customer groups and pricing
• ERP integration patterns
• Product/catalog synchronization
• Search
• Tax/shipping
• Payments
• Analytics
• Deployment process
• QA and monitoring

That distinction is important: I wouldn't try to put unrelated clients into one shared tenant/database just to achieve "multi-tenancy." Let the commerce platform provide the tenant/store isolation, while your agency provides the multi-client operating layer.

BigCommerce also exposes APIs for B2B companies and users, which gives you room to build your own onboarding/admin tooling around the platform. BigCommerce

When I'd choose OroCommerce instead

oroinc.com becomes very attractive if your clients tend to be serious distributors/manufacturers with complicated procurement.

Oro is built specifically around B2B and supports multi-brand sites, customer-specific catalogs, workflows, quoting, complex account structures and multiple storefronts from one instance. ORO INC.

I'd choose it if your typical client says things like:

"Every customer has a different catalog and price list, buyers need approval chains, sales reps need to order on behalf of customers, and our ERP controls basically everything."

That's where Oro's B2B-first architecture can justify the additional implementation complexity.

Adobe Commerce is the "maximum control" option

business.adobe.com is another strong choice if you're targeting large manufacturers/distributors with highly customized requirements.

Its multi-site architecture allows multiple brands/sites to be managed centrally, with shared infrastructure and integrations while allowing site-specific configurations. Adobe Business

The tradeoff is agency economics: you're taking on substantially more infrastructure, upgrade, security and development responsibility. That's great if you're selling $200k+ enterprise implementations, but less attractive if your goal is to launch dozens of $20–75k stores.

One important distinction

If by "multi-tenant" you mean:

"We want one platform where our agency can create a new wholesale store for Client A, Client B, Client C, etc., with each client isolated but provisioned from the same codebase."

Then I'd actually consider building an agency control plane around BigCommerce, rather than looking for a platform that natively calls itself multi-tenant.

For example:

Agency Control Plane
│
├── Client onboarding
├── Store provisioning
├── Theme/config deployment
├── Integration configuration
├── Feature flags
├── Monitoring
└── Client billing/admin
        │
        ├── BigCommerce Store A
        ├── BigCommerce Store B
        ├── BigCommerce Store C
        └── BigCommerce Store N

That gives you the scalable business model you're really after: one agency platform/process, many independently operated client stores.

My recommendation

Start with BigCommerce B2B Edition + Multi-Storefront + a reusable agency starter architecture.

Move up to OroCommerce when B2B workflow complexity becomes the differentiator, and Adobe Commerce when clients need extreme customization/integration control.

If you tell me roughly how many stores you expect to launch per year, typical client revenue, ERP systems (NetSuite/SAP/Dynamics/etc.), and whether each client needs a separate backend, I can map out the architecture I'd use for the agency—including tenant isolation, repos, CI/CD, integrations, and how I'd price the service.

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I would optimize for a platform that gives you:

• repeatable deployments (templates, components, integrations)
• tenant/client isolation
• strong B2B primitives (company accounts, buyer roles, pricing rules)
• API/headless flexibility
• low operational burden across many stores

The best choice depends on whether you mean one platform instance hosting many client stores or a standardized stack where each client gets their own store. For an agency, I’d rank them like this:

1. BigCommerce — best overall agency-friendly B2B SaaS choice

bigcommerce.com

Best fit: agencies building many mid-market wholesale portals.

Why it works well:

• Native B2B capabilities: - company accounts
• buyer roles and permissions
• customer-specific pricing
• price lists
• quote workflows
• purchase orders
• invoice/payment workflows
• SaaS hosting means fewer maintenance headaches.
• Strong APIs for custom storefronts.
• Easier to create repeatable client implementations than highly customized enterprise platforms. AFCommerce ORO INC.

Agency architecture:

Agency
 ├── Client A store
 │    ├── Catalog
 │    ├── Price lists
 │    ├── ERP integration
 │    └── Custom frontend
 │
 ├── Client B store
 │    ├── Catalog
 │    ├── Wholesale rules
 │    └── Custom frontend

This is probably my default recommendation if you expect dozens of wholesale clients.

2. Shopify Plus — best for brands that need B2B + DTC together

shopify.com

Best fit: clients who sell both retail and wholesale.

Strengths:

• One ecosystem for DTC + wholesale.
• Excellent merchant usability.
• Huge app ecosystem.
• Strong storefront customization options.
• Good for agencies that want a standardized delivery process.

B2B features include:

• company accounts
• customer-specific catalogs
• negotiated pricing
• payment terms
• multiple buyers per company. Shopify

Tradeoff:

• It is more commerce-platform-first than wholesale-platform-first.
• Very complex distributor workflows may require apps or custom development.

3. OroCommerce — best for serious wholesale/distributor clients

oroinc.com

Best fit: manufacturers, distributors, B2B-only businesses.

Strong points:

• Built specifically around B2B.
• Complex account structures.
• Contract pricing.
• Buyer organizations.
• Sales workflows.
• ERP-heavy environments.

This is the platform I’d consider for clients with:

• thousands of SKUs
• multiple warehouses
• dealer networks
• negotiated contracts
• complex procurement flows. ORO INC.

Tradeoff:

• More implementation effort.
• Smaller ecosystem.
• Requires stronger technical expertise.

4. Adobe Commerce (Magento) — for enterprise custom builds

business.adobe.com

Best for:

• very large catalogs
• global businesses
• complex integrations
• highly customized workflows

Pros:

• Extremely flexible.
• Powerful B2B modules.
• Can model almost any business process.

Cons:

• Expensive.
• Higher maintenance.
• More difficult to make into a repeatable agency product. ORO INC.

My recommended agency stack

For most agencies, I’d build around two tiers:

Tier 1: Standard wholesale clients

Use:

• BigCommerce
• Headless frontend (optional)
• Shared agency components
• Common ERP connectors
• Reusable B2B modules

Tier 2: Enterprise wholesale clients

Use:

• OroCommerce or Adobe Commerce
• Dedicated implementation
• Custom integrations

Things I would avoid for your use case

WordPress + WooCommerce as the default

It can work, but at agency scale you inherit:

• plugin conflicts
• security maintenance
• hosting complexity
• inconsistent client environments

Fully custom commerce builds

They become expensive to maintain when you have 10–50 clients.

If I were building an agency practice today, I would probably standardize on:

1. BigCommerce B2B for 70–80% of wholesale clients
2. Shopify Plus for B2B + DTC brands
3. OroCommerce/Adobe Commerce for enterprise distributors

That gives you a repeatable delivery model without boxing yourselves into a platform that cannot handle complex wholesale requirements. ORO INC. elogic.co

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I’d make BigCommerce B2B Edition the default platform to standardize on.

bigcommerce.com is particularly well suited to an agency model because you get a managed SaaS platform, strong B2B primitives, multi-storefront capabilities, and APIs that let you build your own reusable agency layer.

My shortlist

Why I'd choose BigCommerce

1. Multi-storefront is a first-class concept.
BigCommerce can run multiple storefronts from one backend, with separate branding, domains, catalogs, pricing, themes, etc. That is very attractive when your agency wants a repeatable architecture rather than maintaining a completely independent stack for every client. BigCommerce

2. The B2B model is actually substantial.
B2B Edition has native concepts for Companies, company hierarchies, users/roles, customer groups, quotes, invoices, payments and shopping lists. Its company hierarchy can represent things like parent corporations, subsidiaries, franchises and locations. BigCommerce BigCommerce

3. It is API-friendly enough to build your own agency platform on top.
BigCommerce exposes both management APIs and B2B GraphQL storefront APIs. You can therefore create a reusable "Agency Control Plane" rather than rebuilding admin functionality for every client. BigCommerce BigCommerce

4. Headless is an option without making it mandatory.
You can ship conventional BigCommerce storefronts for simpler clients and use a headless architecture for clients with more demanding UX/integration requirements.

The architecture I'd use

I'd avoid thinking of each client as a completely bespoke ecommerce application.

Instead:

                    YOUR AGENCY PLATFORM
                           │
             ┌─────────────┴─────────────┐
             │                           │
      Client/Tenant A              Client/Tenant B
             │                           │
      BigCommerce Store            BigCommerce Store
             │                           │
      ┌──────┼──────┐             ┌──────┼──────┐
      │      │      │             │      │      │
   Storefront B2B  ERP          Storefront B2B  ERP

Then build reusable agency components around it:

• Tenant provisioning — create/configure a new client store from a template.
• Theme/design system — common component library with client-specific branding.
• B2B configuration — company accounts, customer groups, price lists, payment terms, roles.
• Integration layer — ERP, inventory, tax, shipping, CRM, PIM.
• Deployment/configuration tooling — push common configuration across clients.
• Agency admin — see all client stores, integration status, deployments, errors, etc.
• Reusable apps — anything BigCommerce doesn't handle exactly the way your clients need.
• Observability — centralized logging, API monitoring and integration alerts.

The important architectural distinction is: the BigCommerce store is the commerce tenant; your platform is the agency orchestration layer.

That gives you a much better scaling model than trying to create one giant database/application that directly contains all of your clients.

When I'd pick Shopify Plus instead

shopify.com would be my second choice—and possibly the first if your clients are B2B + DTC hybrids.

Shopify has made B2B considerably stronger, including company-specific catalogs, payment terms, customized buyer experiences and B2B/B2C operation from the same admin/store. Shopify

I'd choose Shopify Plus when:

• Clients also have significant DTC sales.
• Merchant usability is a major priority.
• You want access to Shopify's enormous app/partner ecosystem.
• B2B requirements are relatively conventional.
• Your agency wants to optimize for speed of implementation.

I'd lean BigCommerce when wholesale is the center of gravity and requirements involve more sophisticated company structures, pricing, quoting, purchasing and integrations.

When I'd go Adobe/Oro instead

For a client with extremely complicated B2B operations—multi-level organizations, highly customized workflows, massive catalogs, sophisticated ERP processes, etc.—I'd consider business.adobe.com or oroinc.com.

But I wouldn't standardize your agency around them unless your average client actually needs that complexity. You take on substantially more implementation/maintenance responsibility.

My recommendation

If I were designing your agency's platform strategy today:

Default: BigCommerce B2B Edition
Alternative: Shopify Plus for B2B/DTC-heavy clients
Enterprise exception: Adobe Commerce / OroCommerce
Highly custom composable exception: commercetools

The key is to standardize on one primary platform + one reusable agency architecture, rather than trying to make every client's store its own technology stack.

BigCommerce's combination of multi-storefront + native B2B + company hierarchies + APIs + SaaS operations makes it particularly compelling for the model you're describing. BigCommerce BigCommerce BigCommerce

If you tell me roughly how many stores you expect (10 / 50 / 500+), whether each client needs their own BigCommerce account, and whether you're building headless, I can lay out the exact multi-tenant agency architecture, provisioning model, database boundaries, Git/repo strategy, and pricing/licensing implications I'd use.

The important architectural distinction is: the BigCommerce store is the commerce tenant; your platform is the agency orchestration layer.

That gives you a much better scaling model than trying to create one giant database/application that directly contains all of your clients.

When I'd pick Shopify Plus instead

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I’d optimize for more than just “best B2B features.” You want a platform that lets your team standardize development, reuse integrations/components, isolate clients cleanly, and launch new stores quickly.

My recommendation: BigCommerce

bigcommerce.com would be my default platform for an agency specializing in B2B/wholesale.

Its B2B capabilities are unusually native: customer-specific pricing, catalogs, customer groups, company hierarchies, buyer permissions, quotes, invoices, and a customizable buyer portal. It also supports multi-storefront, which is particularly interesting for an agency operating multiple client storefronts. BigCommerce BigCommerce BigCommerce

Why I'd pick it for an agency

BigCommerce specifically supports customer groups with custom pricing/catalogs/permissions, multi-company hierarchies, and multi-storefront functionality. BigCommerce

The architecture I'd use

I wouldn't build each client's store as a completely independent codebase.

I'd create an agency commerce platform around BigCommerce:

                    Agency Commerce Layer
                           │
          ┌────────────────┼────────────────┐
          │                │                │
       Client A          Client B         Client C
          │                │                │
     BigCommerce       BigCommerce      BigCommerce
          │                │                │
       ERP/CRM          ERP/CRM          ERP/CRM

Then maintain a shared codebase/package ecosystem:

/packages
  /b2b-components
  /product-grid
  /quick-order
  /account-portal
  /quote-request
  /customer-pricing
  /checkout
  /search
  /analytics
  /integrations

/stores
  /client-a
  /client-b
  /client-c

Each client gets configuration + branding + custom modules, rather than a forked application.

That gives you a much better scaling model:

80% shared platform + 20% client-specific configuration/customization

rather than:

100% custom build × every client.

Shopify Plus is the strongest alternative

shopify.com would actually be my choice if your agency prioritizes speed of implementation, merchant usability, and a huge app ecosystem over extremely sophisticated wholesale requirements.

Shopify's current B2B system supports companies/company locations, catalogs, customer-specific pricing, quantity rules, volume pricing, payment terms and self-service purchasing. Shopify Help Center Shopify App Store

The important distinction is that Plus becomes much more compelling for your use case because it removes some of Shopify's B2B limitations: Plus provides unlimited B2B catalogs and direct catalog assignment to individual companies/company locations. Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center

I'd choose Shopify Plus if your typical client looks like:

• $5–50M wholesale business
• Relatively straightforward pricing rules
• Wants a polished storefront quickly
• Needs ERP/CRM integrations but not an enormous amount of custom business logic
• Wants their internal team to manage the store themselves
• Values Shopify's ecosystem and merchant experience

Adobe Commerce if your clients are genuinely complex

business.adobe.com is the option I'd reserve for your enterprise/high-complexity tier.

Think:

• Thousands of SKUs
• Complex contract pricing
• Multiple subsidiaries
• Sophisticated account hierarchies
• Heavy ERP integration
• Complex approval workflows
• Multiple countries/entities
• Extensive custom business rules
• Very large catalogs and transactional volumes

It's extremely capable, but I'd hesitate to make it your agency default. You're taking on significantly more implementation and operational complexity for every client.

One other platform worth evaluating

commercetools.com is worth considering if your agency wants to build a serious composable commerce practice.

It's much more of an API-first infrastructure platform than an out-of-the-box storefront system. That's attractive if you're building your own reusable frontend, services, pricing engine, PIM integrations, etc., but it's probably overkill if your objective is simply to launch lots of wholesale stores efficiently.

My agency platform strategy

I'd actually offer clients three tiers:

1. Standard B2B → BigCommerce

Your default. Build reusable components, integrations and templates around it.

2. Fast/simple B2B → Shopify Plus

For clients where merchant UX, speed and ecosystem matter more than deeply customized B2B logic.

3. Enterprise B2B → Adobe Commerce / composable

For clients whose requirements justify the additional engineering investment.

That gives your sales team a clean qualification framework rather than forcing every client onto one platform.

The key question

If you're expecting to build 10, 50, or 100+ wholesale stores, I would optimize the decision around your agency's reusable architecture, not which platform has the longest feature checklist.

If you tell me your typical client profile (number of stores, SKUs, ERP, pricing complexity, expected GMV, and whether each client needs its own domain/storefront), I can design a concrete multi-tenant agency architecture and recommend BigCommerce vs Shopify Plus vs Adobe Commerce for it.

That gives your sales team a clean qualification framework rather than forcing every client onto one platform.

The key question

If you're expecting to build 10, 50, or 100+ wholesale stores, I would optimize the decision around your agency's reusable architecture, not which platform has the longest feature checklist.

If you tell me your typical client profile (number of stores, SKUs, ERP, pricing complexity, expected GMV, and whether each client needs its own domain/storefront), I can design a concrete multi-tenant agency architecture and recommend BigCommerce vs Shopify Plus vs Adobe Commerce for it.

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I’d shortlist BigCommerce B2B Edition and Shopify Plus B2B. My default choice would be BigCommerce if B2B is the core requirement.

My recommendation: BigCommerce B2B Edition

bigcommerce.com is particularly well suited to an agency model because it gives you a fairly standardized B2B foundation while leaving plenty of room for custom storefronts and integrations.

Key capabilities include:

• Customer/company accounts with buyer roles and permissions
• Customer-specific catalogs and pricing
• SKU-level price lists
• Company hierarchies and multiple buyers
• Quotes, invoices and approval workflows
• Reordering and bulk ordering
• Multiple storefronts from a shared backend
• Open APIs for ERP, CRM, PIM and custom integrations
• Headless/composable options when clients need highly customized UX BigCommerce BigCommerce BigCommerce

The multi-storefront capability is particularly interesting for an agency: BigCommerce explicitly supports localized storefronts with different domains, currencies and languages while allowing accounts/products to be managed across storefronts. BigCommerce

Where Shopify Plus fits

shopify.com would be my #2 choice, and potentially #1 if your agency already has a strong Shopify practice.

Shopify Plus B2B has excellent native concepts for:

• Companies → locations → buyers
• Buyer permissions
• Customer-specific catalogs
• Customer-specific pricing
• Net terms
• Quantity/volume rules
• PO numbers
• Self-service purchasing and reordering Shopify App Store Shopify

It also has expansion stores, which lets a Plus organization manage multiple stores under centralized billing/users. However, each expansion store remains independently configured/data-separated, so I wouldn't treat it as a true "one multi-tenant wholesale application" architecture. Shopify Help Center

How I'd choose

BigCommerce's B2B offering specifically emphasizes corporate accounts, quotes, invoices, buyer approval workflows and extensibility through APIs. BigCommerce

One important architectural distinction

If by "multi-tenant" you mean:

"We want one SaaS application where our agency operates 50–500 independent client wholesale stores from one admin/codebase."

Then I would not automatically choose either platform's standard multi-store functionality.

I'd consider a composable/headless architecture where you establish a reusable agency "B2B commerce framework":

Agency platform
→ tenant/client
→ storefront
→ companies/buyers
→ catalogs
→ price lists
→ orders
→ ERP/PIM integrations

Then each client gets its own domain, branding, catalog, pricing rules and integrations while your agency maintains one common implementation.

For that model, I'd rank the options:

1. BigCommerce B2B Edition — best balance of native B2B + multi-storefront + APIs.
2. Shopify Plus — best if your agency is already deeply invested in Shopify and clients value its ecosystem.
3. Custom/composable commerce — best when your tenants have radically different workflows or you need true SaaS-style tenancy.
4. Magento/Adobe Commerce — powerful for very complex B2B, but I'd generally avoid it for an agency trying to maximize standardized, repeatable launches unless your team already specializes in it.

If you tell me roughly how many stores you expect (e.g. 10, 50, 500), whether each client needs a separate admin, and whether you're building DTC + wholesale or wholesale-only, I can recommend the actual agency architecture—including how I'd structure tenants, pricing/catalogs, themes, deployments, and ERP integrations.

BigCommerce's B2B offering specifically emphasizes corporate accounts, quotes, invoices, buyer approval workflows and extensibility through APIs. BigCommerce

One important architectural distinction

If by "multi-tenant" you mean:

"We want one SaaS application where our agency operates 50–500 independent client wholesale stores from one admin/codebase."

Then I would not automatically choose either platform's standard multi-store functionality.

I'd consider a composable/headless architecture where you establish a reusable agency "B2B commerce framework":

Agency platform
→ tenant/client
→ storefront
→ companies/buyers
→ catalogs
→ price lists
→ orders
→ ERP/PIM integrations

Then each client gets its own domain, branding, catalog, pricing rules and integrations while your agency maintains one common implementation.

For that model, I'd rank the options:

1. BigCommerce B2B Edition — best balance of native B2B + multi-storefront + APIs.
2. Shopify Plus — best if your agency is already deeply invested in Shopify and clients value its ecosystem.
3. Custom/composable commerce — best when your tenants have radically different workflows or you need true SaaS-style tenancy.
4. Magento/Adobe Commerce — powerful for very complex B2B, but I'd generally avoid it for an agency trying to maximize standardized, repeatable launches unless your team already specializes in it.

If you tell me roughly how many stores you expect (e.g. 10, 50, 500), whether each client needs a separate admin, and whether you're building DTC + wholesale or wholesale-only, I can recommend the actual agency architecture—including how I'd structure tenants, pricing/catalogs, themes, deployments, and ERP integrations.

If your agency is building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I’d optimize for repeatable implementation + tenant isolation + native B2B primitives, rather than simply picking the platform with the biggest feature list.

My recommendation: BigCommerce B2B Edition

bigcommerce.com is probably the best fit for an agency operating a portfolio of wholesale stores.

Why:

• Multi-storefront: one BigCommerce account can support multiple distinct storefronts, with separate branding/domains and localized experiences. BigCommerce BigCommerce
• B2B-native: company accounts, customer groups, custom pricing/catalogs, permissions, quoting, invoice portal, shared shopping lists and sales-rep functionality are built into the B2B offering. BigCommerce BigCommerce
• Headless/API-friendly: useful if your agency has a standardized frontend stack that you want to reuse across clients.
• Good agency economics: you can establish a common architecture, integration patterns and deployment process instead of reinventing the stack for every client.
• Less operational burden: it's SaaS, so your agency isn't responsible for maintaining Magento/Adobe infrastructure for every client.

The architecture I'd use

I'd treat each client as an isolated tenant/store, rather than trying to put all clients into one BigCommerce store.

Agency Platform
│
├── Client A
│   ├── BigCommerce store
│   ├── B2B customers
│   ├── Catalog/pricing
│   ├── ERP/CRM integrations
│   └── Custom storefront
│
├── Client B
│   ├── BigCommerce store
│   ├── B2B customers
│   ├── Catalog/pricing
│   ├── ERP/CRM integrations
│   └── Custom storefront
│
└── Client C
    └── ...

Then maintain a shared agency "commerce framework" around them:

• reusable storefront components
• common authentication/account UX
• standardized B2B pricing abstractions
• ERP integration adapters
• order/customer synchronization
• analytics
• deployment tooling
• client-specific configuration rather than client-specific code

That gives you the benefits of multi-tenancy at your agency/application layer without risking cross-client data contamination inside a commerce platform.

The other platforms I'd consider

Shopify Plus is the strongest alternative

shopify.com has become considerably more attractive for wholesale. Shopify now provides native company profiles, catalogs, volume pricing, payment terms and B2B purchasing, with Plus adding capabilities such as unlimited catalogs and direct catalog assignment to company locations. Shopify Shopify

I'd choose Shopify Plus over BigCommerce when your clients are likely to have:

• substantial DTC + wholesale businesses
• strong brand/marketing requirements
• relatively straightforward B2B workflows
• a desire for the Shopify ecosystem
• a frontend that can leverage Shopify's extensive tooling

I'd choose BigCommerce when wholesale/B2B is the center of gravity and you expect more account hierarchy, quoting, ERP integration, custom workflows and multi-store requirements.

When I'd go OroCommerce

oroinc.com becomes interesting if your clients are genuine distributors/manufacturers, rather than brands that happen to sell wholesale.

Its B2B-first architecture is better suited to things like complex organizations, sales reps, negotiated pricing, RFQs, purchasing workflows and ERP-driven commerce. Current comparisons consistently position Oro as the more B2B-specialized option, while BigCommerce/Shopify are easier managed-SaaS choices. Alkali Razoyo

The tradeoff is that your agency now owns much more implementation complexity.

What I would do as an agency

I'd standardize on two tiers rather than one platform:

Tier 1 — BigCommerce B2B: default for ~70–80% of clients.

Tier 2 — Shopify Plus: clients where brand/DTC experience is more important than deep B2B complexity.

Then have an OroCommerce/Adobe escape hatch for the genuinely complex enterprise accounts.

Most importantly, don't build a proprietary "multi-tenant ecommerce platform" unless you have a very strong reason. Let BigCommerce/Shopify provide the commerce tenancy and build your agency's reusable layer around them.

That gives you a much more scalable business model: one implementation architecture, many independently operated client stores.

For an agency building many wholesale stores for different clients, I’d make BigCommerce B2B Edition the default platform to standardize on.

bigcommerce.com

Why I’d pick BigCommerce

The important distinction is that you probably want multi-client scalability at the agency level, not merely a platform that can put multiple storefronts under one merchant account.

BigCommerce gives you a strong combination of:

• Native B2B company accounts — businesses can have multiple buyers, roles, permissions, addresses, etc. BigCommerce BigCommerce
• Customer-specific pricing/catalogs through customer groups and price lists. BigCommerce BigCommerce
• Quotes/RFQ, invoices, purchase orders, shared shopping lists and bulk ordering without having to assemble the entire B2B stack from apps. BigCommerce BigCommerce
• Multi-Storefront so a merchant can operate multiple brands, regions, or channels from a backend. BigCommerce
• Headless/custom storefront support, including a customizable/open-source Buyer Portal. BigCommerce
• A relatively strong API-first/integration story, which matters enormously when you're building repeatable agency implementations. BigCommerce

The particularly interesting part for an agency is that B2B functionality can be enabled/configured per storefront, while companies and users can have channel-specific access. BigCommerce

How I'd rank the alternatives

The architecture I'd use as an agency

I'd avoid trying to make one BigCommerce installation literally serve all of your clients.

Instead, standardize your agency stack:

Agency
→ reusable frontend/theme/component library
→ reusable B2B integration layer
→ reusable ERP/CRM/PIM connectors
→ client-specific BigCommerce store
→ client-specific configuration/data

Then maintain an internal "B2B starter kit" containing things like:

• customer/company onboarding
• customer groups & price lists
• tiered/contract pricing
• MOQ rules
• quote workflow
• PO/net-terms payments
• buyer roles & approvals
• quick order / CSV ordering
• account hierarchy
• ERP synchronization
• product/catalog imports
• transactional email templates
• analytics
• common frontend components

That turns each new client from "build another ecommerce site" into "configure and extend our B2B commerce product."

Where Shopify Plus fits

I'd keep Shopify Plus as your second platform rather than dismissing it. It's particularly attractive when a client already operates on Shopify or needs a polished B2C + B2B operation with minimal operational complexity. Current comparisons generally put Shopify ahead for speed/ease of use, while BigCommerce is stronger when the business is genuinely B2B-heavy. Shopify Elogic Commerce

When I'd choose commercetools instead

If your agency is targeting large enterprise clients and you want to build a genuinely composable commerce practice, I'd seriously consider commercetools.com.

It's much more of an engineering platform than a ready-made ecommerce system: excellent when you want to own the domain model, frontend, orchestration and integrations, but considerably more work per client. Alkali Elogic Commerce

Bottom line: for an agency doing lots of wholesale/B2B implementations, I'd start with BigCommerce B2B Edition, build your own reusable implementation layer around it, and reserve Shopify Plus for Shopify-native clients and commercetools for enterprise/composable engagements.

Where Shopify Plus fits

I'd keep Shopify Plus as your second platform rather than dismissing it. It's particularly attractive when a client already operates on Shopify or needs a polished B2C + B2B operation with minimal operational complexity. Current comparisons generally put Shopify ahead for speed/ease of use, while BigCommerce is stronger when the business is genuinely B2B-heavy.

When I'd choose commercetools instead

For an agency building many wholesale stores for different clients, I’d make BigCommerce the default platform, with Shopify Plus as the alternative when the client values ecosystem, speed, and DTC/B2B convergence more than deep B2B flexibility.

My recommendation: BigCommerce

bigcommerce.com is unusually well suited to an agency model because its architecture maps nicely to multiple storefronts + centralized administration + B2B customer segmentation.

Key reasons:

• Multi-storefront: You can manage multiple distinct storefronts from one BigCommerce account, with separate domains, themes, currencies, catalogs, and customer experiences. BigCommerce BigCommerce
• Strong B2B primitives: Companies, company users, customer groups, price lists, permissions, quotes, invoices, and buyer portals are built into the B2B stack. BigCommerce BigCommerce
• Customer-specific pricing: Price lists can go down to the SKU level and be associated with customer groups/companies—important for wholesale clients with negotiated pricing. BigCommerce BigCommerce
• Good headless/API story: Useful if your agency wants to standardize a frontend framework while keeping commerce functionality underneath.
• Agency scalability: You can establish a repeatable architecture rather than building a bespoke B2B implementation for every client.

The important distinction is that I wouldn't necessarily make one BigCommerce store/account the tenant container for all your clients. I'd generally treat each client as an isolated commerce instance, then standardize your agency's code, deployment, integrations, design system, and operational tooling across those instances.

How I'd structure the agency platform

                    YOUR AGENCY
                         │
             ┌───────────┴───────────┐
             │ Shared agency layer   │
             │                       │
             │ • Design system       │
             │ • Components          │
             │ • B2B patterns        │
             │ • Integrations        │
             │ • CI/CD               │
             │ • Analytics            │
             │ • ERP connectors      │
             └───────────┬───────────┘
                         │
       ┌─────────────────┼─────────────────┐
       │                 │                 │
    Client A          Client B          Client C
       │                 │                 │
 BigCommerce        BigCommerce       BigCommerce
    store              store             store
       │                 │                 │
 Wholesale           Wholesale         Wholesale
 buyers              buyers            buyers

That gives you tenant isolation at the platform level, while your agency owns the reusable layer.

Shopify Plus is the runner-up

shopify.com is probably the better choice if your clients are frequently B2B + DTC brands and you want the fastest development/launch experience.

Its native B2B system now includes company profiles, multiple buyers/locations, payment terms, catalogs, volume pricing, quantity rules, tax exemptions, and customer-specific pricing. Shopify Help Center Shopify App Store

Plus becomes particularly compelling when you need lots of individualized wholesale catalogs: it supports unlimited catalogs and direct assignment to company locations, whereas non-Plus plans have a three-active-catalog limitation. Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center

I'd pick Shopify Plus when:

• Most clients are already in Shopify.
• Clients need sophisticated DTC alongside wholesale.
• Your agency has a strong Shopify development practice.
• Speed-to-launch matters more than maximum B2B customization.
• You want to lean heavily on Shopify's app ecosystem.

I'd pick BigCommerce when:

• Wholesale/B2B is the primary business.
• Pricing logic is complicated.
• Clients have lots of customer-specific pricing.
• You need multiple storefronts/brands.
• You expect significant ERP/PIM/integration work.
• You want fewer B2B features implemented through third-party apps.

What about Adobe Commerce / OroCommerce?

business.adobe.com is powerful for very complex enterprise implementations—company hierarchies, shared catalogs, quotes, credit, requisition lists, and sophisticated permissions—but I'd avoid making it your agency default unless your clients regularly have enterprise-level requirements. Shopify

oroinc.com is worth considering if you're specifically building B2B-first experiences where things like account hierarchies, sales workflows, and complex purchasing processes dominate. But it gives you a smaller ecosystem and more specialized implementation model.

My agency stack recommendation

The key architectural principle I'd use is "multi-client platform, not multi-client database." Keep each client's commerce data, credentials, orders, buyers, pricing, and payment configuration isolated. Share code and infrastructure patterns, not customer data.

If you're expecting 10, 50, or 100+ wholesale clients, I'd also build an internal agency control plane on top of the commerce platforms—client provisioning, theme configuration, integrations, deployment, monitoring, and standardized B2B modules. That's where the real scalability advantage comes from, rather than trying to turn the commerce platform itself into a SaaS multi-tenant application.

For an agency building multiple wholesale/B2B stores for different clients, I’d make BigCommerce B2B Edition your default platform.

bigcommerce.com

Why I’d pick BigCommerce

• Multi-storefront: multiple branded storefronts can run from one backend, with separate domains, themes, catalogs, currencies, and customer experiences. BigCommerce BigCommerce
• Strong native B2B model: company accounts, buyer roles/permissions, quotes, invoices, purchase orders, approval workflows, shared shopping lists, and sales-rep functionality are built in. BigCommerce BigCommerce
• Wholesale pricing: customer groups and SKU-level price lists let you implement customer-specific catalogs and negotiated pricing without building your own pricing engine. BigCommerce BigCommerce
• Agency-friendly architecture: APIs, headless support, and extensibility make it practical to build a reusable frontend/design system while letting each client retain a distinct storefront. BigCommerce BigCommerce
• Less infrastructure to own: compared with building on Magento/Adobe Commerce or a fully custom stack, your agency isn't responsible for maintaining the ecommerce core.

The important distinction: multi-store vs. multi-tenant

I'd structure your agency offering as one BigCommerce store/account per client, rather than trying to put unrelated clients into one BigCommerce tenant.

Think of it as:

Your Agency
│
├── Client A
│   └── BigCommerce tenant
│       ├── Wholesale storefront
│       ├── Customer accounts
│       ├── Price lists
│       └── ERP/inventory integration
│
├── Client B
│   └── BigCommerce tenant
│       ├── Wholesale storefront
│       ├── Customer accounts
│       └── ...
│
└── Client C
    └── BigCommerce tenant
        └── ...

Then make your agency's implementation the reusable layer:

Shared Agency Platform
├── Design system
├── B2B account UX
├── Product/catalog components
├── Pricing UI
├── Quote workflow
├── Account dashboard
├── ERP integration framework
├── Analytics
└── Deployment/configuration tooling

That gives you repeatability without creating a giant shared database/security boundary between unrelated clients.

My shortlist

For an agency, I would not start custom unless your clients consistently need unusual procurement, pricing, or ERP behavior. BigCommerce's current B2B model already covers a lot of what you'd otherwise have to build. BigCommerce BigCommerce

One caveat

BigCommerce's current plans have different Multi-Storefront limits and pricing, so if your agency means dozens/hundreds of storefronts, I'd talk to their enterprise team rather than designing around the standard plan limits. Their current published plans, for example, list increasing storefront allowances by plan, with custom arrangements on Performance. BigCommerce

Bottom line: I'd standardize your agency around BigCommerce B2B Edition + a reusable headless/design-system layer + connector framework for ERP/CRM. That gives you a repeatable implementation rather than reinventing B2B ecommerce for every client.

If you tell me roughly how many stores you expect (10 / 50 / 500+) and whether each client needs its own isolated admin/catalog, I can recommend the actual multi-tenant architecture and deployment model I'd use.

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I would avoid choosing a platform purely on “B2B features.” The bigger question is: can you create a repeatable delivery model with isolated tenants, reusable integrations, centralized operations, and predictable maintenance?

My shortlist:

1. BigCommerce — Best default for an agency scaling many B2B stores

Best fit: mid-market wholesalers, distributors, manufacturers, B2B + DTC hybrids.

Why it works well for an agency:

• SaaS hosting (less infrastructure burden)
• Multiple storefront support
• Strong APIs/headless options
• Native B2B capabilities: - company accounts
• customer groups
• shared catalogs
• account-level pricing
• purchase orders
• buyer roles/permissions
• sales-rep-assisted ordering
• Easier onboarding of new clients than highly customized platforms BigCommerce BigCommerce

Agency model:

• Maintain a reusable BigCommerce starter framework
• Build custom themes/components
• Create standard ERP/CRM integration patterns
• Deploy each client as a separate store

My pick if you expect 10–100 client stores.

2. OroCommerce — Best if clients are true wholesale businesses

Best fit: distributors, manufacturers, complex B2B procurement.

Strengths:

• Built B2B-first rather than adding B2B onto a retail platform
• Complex price lists
• Contract pricing
• Multiple buyer roles
• Corporate account hierarchies
• RFQs/quotes
• ERP-heavy workflows ORO INC.

Tradeoff:

• More implementation-heavy
• Smaller ecosystem than BigCommerce/Shopify
• Often better for larger clients with serious wholesale operations

3. Adobe Commerce — Best for maximum customization

Best fit: enterprise clients with complicated business rules.

Advantages:

• Extremely flexible
• Mature B2B modules: - company accounts
• shared catalogs
• negotiable quotes
• approval workflows
• customer-specific pricing
• Large integration ecosystem

Downside for an agency:

• More expensive to operate
• More custom code per client
• Hosting, upgrades, security, and extensions become ongoing responsibilities

I would use this selectively, not as your default agency platform.

4. Shopify / Shopify Plus — Best for fast launches

Best fit: brands that are moving from DTC into wholesale.

Pros:

• Excellent merchant experience
• Huge ecosystem
• Fast development velocity
• Strong frontend tooling

Cons:

• Complex wholesale requirements often require apps or custom work
• Less ideal for deep distributor workflows

Good for:

• apparel
• consumer goods
• lifestyle brands
• simple wholesale catalogs

Less ideal for:

• industrial distribution
• complex dealer networks
• ERP-driven businesses

5. Composable/headless stack — Best long-term agency platform

Example architecture:

• Commerce engine: - commercetools
• Elastic Path
• Medusa
• Frontend: - Next.js
• CMS: - Contentful / Sanity
• Integration layer: - custom middleware

Best for:

• agencies wanting a platform they can reuse across industries
• enterprise clients
• custom multi-brand ecosystems

Tradeoff:

• You become the platform team.

My recommended agency stack

If I were building a wholesale commerce practice:

Tier 1 clients (most projects)

BigCommerce B2B

• repeatable
• SaaS
• lower operational burden
• strong enough for most wholesalers

Tier 2 clients (complex wholesale)

OroCommerce or Adobe Commerce

• ERP integrations
• contract pricing
• procurement workflows

Tier 3 clients (enterprise)

Composable commerce

• custom architecture
• higher budgets

Architecture pattern I would build

Avoid a “multi-tenant SaaS” where all client stores share one database unless you are actually building a commerce product.

Instead:

Agency Platform Layer
│
├── Design system
├── Component library
├── Integration framework
├── CI/CD templates
├── Analytics framework
├── QA automation
│
├── Client A Store
│   ├── Catalog
│   ├── Pricing
│   ├── ERP integration
│
├── Client B Store
│   ├── Catalog
│   ├── Pricing
│   ├── ERP integration
│
└── Client C Store

This gives you:

• faster launches
• reusable IP
• cleaner client separation
• easier support contracts

If your clients are mostly manufacturers/distributors with ERP systems (NetSuite, SAP, Dynamics, Epicor, Infor), I would lean BigCommerce + a reusable integration layer or OroCommerce. If they are mostly brands adding wholesale channels, I would lean Shopify Plus or BigCommerce. ORO INC. BigCommerce

If your clients are mostly manufacturers/distributors with ERP systems (NetSuite, SAP, Dynamics, Epicor, Infor), I would lean BigCommerce + a reusable integration layer or OroCommerce. If they are mostly brands adding wholesale channels, I would lean Shopify Plus or BigCommerce. ORO INC. BigCommerce

For an agency building many wholesale/B2B stores for different clients, I’d shortlist BigCommerce first, Shopify Plus second.

My recommendation: BigCommerce

BigCommerce B2B Edition is particularly well suited to an agency model because its B2B architecture maps nicely to wholesale requirements:

• Multi-Storefront: multiple storefronts can be managed from one BigCommerce environment, with B2B functionality enabled per storefront. docs.bigcommerce.com
• Company accounts: business customers can have buyers, roles, permissions, addresses, etc.
• Account hierarchies: parent/child company structures support franchises, subsidiaries, and large corporate customers. docs.bigcommerce.com
• Customer-specific pricing/catalogs: customer groups can control what products and pricing buyers see. docs.bigcommerce.com
• Quotes, invoices and net terms: these are first-class B2B workflows rather than things you necessarily have to assemble from apps. docs.bigcommerce.com
• Headless/open APIs: useful if your agency wants to build a standardized frontend framework and reuse components across clients. docs.bigcommerce.com
• Buyer Portal: customizable, including for headless storefronts. docs.bigcommerce.com

The important distinction is that BigCommerce Multi-Storefront isn't exactly "one SaaS database containing completely independent client tenants." I'd architect your agency platform so each client gets an isolated BigCommerce store/account, while your agency owns the reusable application layer, theme system, integrations, deployment tooling, and operational standards.

Shopify Plus is the strongest alternative

Shopify Plus B2B is arguably the better choice if your agency values developer ecosystem, ease of implementation, and client familiarity over deep wholesale complexity.

Shopify B2B now has native:

• Companies and company locations
• Multiple buyers and permissions
• Customer-specific catalogs/pricing
• Volume pricing and quantity rules
• Net payment terms
• PO workflows
• Self-service ordering
• APIs/headless capabilities help.shopify.com

Plus is particularly important for an agency because it unlocks unlimited B2B catalogs and direct catalog assignment to companies/company locations, which is much more useful when every wholesale customer has negotiated pricing. help.shopify.com

How I'd choose

The architecture I'd use for your agency

Rather than trying to make the commerce platform itself your multi-tenant application, I'd separate the layers:

Agency platform
→ client provisioning
→ reusable theme/design system
→ product/import tooling
→ ERP/PIM integrations
→ deployment/configuration
→ analytics/monitoring
→ shared agency admin

Commerce tenant
→ one BigCommerce store per client
→ that client's catalog
→ customers/companies
→ pricing
→ orders
→ payments
→ inventory

That gives you true tenant isolation while still allowing your agency to build a common platform around the commerce engine.

If your clients are primarily distributors/manufacturers with complicated pricing, company structures, quotes, POs, credit limits and sales reps, I'd go BigCommerce.

If they're mostly brands with relatively straightforward wholesale programs, I'd go Shopify Plus because the broader ecosystem and developer experience can make your agency much more efficient.

For your specific use case, I'd start by evaluating BigCommerce B2B Edition as the default platform and Shopify Plus as the "easy-mode" alternative.

For an agency building many wholesale stores for different clients, I’d put BigCommerce B2B Edition at the top of the shortlist.

My ranking

Why I'd choose BigCommerce

The important distinction for an agency is that you don't just need "a wholesale ecommerce platform." You need something that lets you repeat your architecture across clients without rebuilding the B2B plumbing every time.

BigCommerce's B2B Edition has native:

• Company accounts and buyer users
• Customer-specific catalogs/pricing
• Roles and permissions
• Quotes
• Purchase orders / payment terms
• Invoice management
• Shared shopping lists
• Sales-rep workflows
• Company account hierarchies
• APIs for building custom buyer experiences docs.bigcommerce.com

The particularly compelling feature for an agency is Multi-Storefront. You can operate multiple storefronts from one backend, while B2B functionality can be enabled independently for each storefront. Companies can also have relationships with multiple channels/storefronts. docs.bigcommerce.com

That gives you a model like:

Agency → BigCommerce infrastructure → Client A / Client B / Client C → multiple storefronts → B2B companies → buyers

rather than maintaining a completely separate commerce stack for every client.

BigCommerce also supports company hierarchies, useful for wholesalers with parent companies, subsidiaries, franchises, or locations. Its current documentation supports up to five hierarchy layers and 500 companies per hierarchy. docs.bigcommerce.com

BigCommerce B2B Edition

Shopify Plus is the main alternative

I'd choose Shopify Plus if your agency already has a strong Shopify practice or your clients particularly value Shopify's ecosystem, admin UX, and app marketplace.

Shopify's native B2B functionality now includes companies, buyers/locations, catalogs, customer-specific pricing, volume pricing, payment terms and other wholesale functionality. Plus adds more sophisticated catalog and company assignment capabilities. www.shopify.com

Plus is also excellent for headless implementations and integrations. www.shopify.com

The catch for your particular model is multi-client tenancy: Shopify Plus's store/brand structure doesn't map quite as cleanly to "one agency infrastructure serving lots of independent client businesses." Shopify states that multiple brands under the same company require separate Plus contracts. www.shopify.com

Shopify Plus

How I'd architect this as an agency

I'd avoid trying to make the commerce platform itself your SaaS tenancy layer.

Instead:

                    YOUR AGENCY PLATFORM
                           │
             ┌─────────────┴─────────────┐
             │                           │
        Client A                     Client B
             │                           │
      BigCommerce Store            BigCommerce Store
             │                           │
       ┌─────┴─────┐               ┌─────┴─────┐
       │           │               │           │
    Catalog     B2B Co.         Catalog     B2B Co.
                  │                           │
            Buyers/Users                Buyers/Users

Then create an agency-owned reusable integration layer for things that should be consistent across clients:

• ERP/accounting integrations
• Product/catalog imports
• Customer/company provisioning
• Pricing synchronization
• Order synchronization
• SSO
• Client-specific business rules
• Analytics
• Deployment/configuration
• Automated store provisioning

In other words, make your reusable IP the orchestration layer, not the ecommerce engine.

That gives you a much better scaling story: a new client becomes configuration + integration work rather than another bespoke commerce implementation.

One important consideration

BigCommerce's current pricing supports multiple storefronts, but the number included varies by plan and additional storefronts incur fees; enterprise pricing is negotiated. www.bigcommerce.com

So if you're talking about dozens or hundreds of independent client stores, I'd have a BigCommerce enterprise/agency conversation before standardizing. Your commercial arrangement with the platform could matter almost as much as the technical capabilities.

Bottom line: for an agency whose core business is repeatedly launching custom wholesale/B2B stores, I'd standardize on BigCommerce B2B Edition first, keep Shopify Plus as your second platform for Shopify-native clients, and build your agency's reusable provisioning/integration layer above them.

For an agency building many wholesale stores for different clients, I’d prioritize multi-tenant architecture, repeatable deployments, strong B2B primitives, and isolation between clients—not simply the platform with the biggest feature list.

My shortlist

1. OroCommerce — my first choice

If your clients are manufacturers, distributors, importers, or traditional wholesalers, OroCommerce is probably the strongest match.

It is designed around B2B rather than adding B2B capabilities onto a consumer-commerce foundation. It supports multi-organization, multi-site, corporate account hierarchies, buyer permissions, customer-specific pricing, catalogs, RFQs, workflows, multiple warehouses, and ERP integrations. oroinc.com

The particularly interesting part for an agency is its multi-brand/multi-site architecture: multiple storefronts can share a backend while keeping catalogs, users, content, pricing, and integrations appropriately separated. oroinc.com

Agency architecture I'd consider:

                    Agency Commerce Layer
                           │
              ┌────────────┴────────────┐
              │                         │
        Client A Tenant            Client B Tenant
              │                         │
       ┌──────┼──────┐            ┌─────┼─────┐
       │      │      │            │     │     │
     Store   API    ERP          Store API   ERP
       │                         │
   B2B Buyers                B2B Buyers

The important caveat: don't assume "multi-site" automatically means SaaS multi-tenancy. I'd validate exactly how Oro's licensing, tenant isolation, deployment model, upgrades, and per-client customization work before making it your agency's standardized platform.

2. commercetools — best if you're a highly technical agency

I'd choose commercetools if your agency wants to build a standardized composable commerce stack rather than rely heavily on an out-of-the-box admin/application.

Its B2B offering has account hierarchies, roles/permissions, custom pricing, multiple catalogs, quotes/approvals, and high-volume catalog/transaction support. commercetools.com Its API-first approach also makes it particularly attractive if every client gets a different frontend or integration layer. In 2026, commercetools' B2B product received strong recognition for its APIs, flexibility, pricing engine, and extensibility. commercetools.com

The tradeoff: you're taking on considerably more implementation responsibility. For an agency, that can actually be an advantage if you're trying to create a reusable internal platform.

3. Medusa — interesting if you want to own the SaaS layer

Medusa is worth serious consideration if your goal is:

"We want to build our own reusable wholesale-commerce platform and deploy it for hundreds of clients."

Its architecture is much more developer-oriented. Its B2B capabilities can use sales channels, customer groups, and price lists, and its framework lets you scope/customize functionality for particular customer groups or channels. docs.medusajs.com

You'd likely need to build more of the enterprise B2B layer yourself, though. That's both the attraction and the risk.

What I'd do in your position

If you're building 5–50+ wholesale stores, I'd actually separate the decision into two questions:

If you want to sell implementation/services:
→ OroCommerce

If you want to build an agency-owned commerce platform/SaaS:
→ commercetools or Medusa

I'd lean OroCommerce when clients expect sophisticated wholesale functionality immediately. I'd lean commercetools when your agency has strong engineering capabilities and wants maximum architectural control.

The architecture I'd standardize around

Regardless of platform, make your agency's reusable layer look something like:

                    Your Agency Platform
                           │
              ┌────────────┴────────────┐
              │                         │
         Tenant Config             Shared Services
              │                         │
       ┌──────┼──────┐          ┌───────┼────────┐
       │      │      │          │       │        │
     Brand  Catalog Pricing     Auth   Search   Analytics
       │      │      │
       └──────┼──────┘
              │
        Commerce Engine
              │
     ┌────────┼─────────┐
     │        │         │
    ERP      WMS      Payments

The key is to make tenant configuration data-driven, rather than forking the codebase for every client. Each client should be able to have its own branding, domain, catalog, pricing rules, customer hierarchy, ERP connection, tax configuration, and workflows while sharing your core implementation.

For a serious agency operation, I'd also require tenant isolation, automated provisioning, infrastructure-as-code, per-tenant feature flags, upgrade-safe extensions, centralized observability, and a clear escape hatch for client-specific customizations.

Bottom line: OroCommerce is my strongest recommendation for a wholesale-focused agency; commercetools is my recommendation for a technically sophisticated composable agency; Medusa is the one I'd investigate if you're effectively building your own multi-tenant commerce product.

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I would optimize for a platform that gives you:

• tenant/client isolation
• repeatable deployments
• reusable components/themes
• B2B-native workflows
• API access
• agency-friendly admin
• predictable operating costs

The best fit depends on how “multi-tenant” you mean. There are two common models:

1. Agency manages many independent client stores (most common)
2. One platform powers many branded wholesale portals (true SaaS/multi-tenant)

My shortlist:

My recommendation for an agency: BigCommerce first

For an agency portfolio, I would seriously consider BigCommerce as the default delivery platform. It is SaaS-based, supports multiple storefront patterns, and has B2B capabilities such as customer groups, custom pricing, buyer accounts, and wholesale workflows. www.bigcommerce.com

A good agency architecture:

Agency Platform Layer
│
├── Shared design system
├── Shared integrations
├── Deployment templates
├── Analytics/reporting layer
│
├── Client A Store
│   ├── Catalog
│   ├── Pricing rules
│   ├── ERP connection
│
├── Client B Store
│   ├── Catalog
│   ├── Pricing rules
│   ├── ERP connection
│
└── Client C Store

This lets your team launch new stores from a blueprint instead of reinventing every project.

When I would choose Shopify Plus

Choose Shopify Plus if your clients are typically:

• brands moving from wholesale spreadsheets into online ordering
• B2B + DTC hybrids
• less ERP-heavy
• focused on speed and UX

Shopify has strong B2B capabilities like company accounts, catalogs, pricing rules, and payment terms, making it attractive when wholesale complexity is moderate. www.shopify.com

The downside for an agency is that highly customized wholesale logic can become app-heavy.

When I would choose Adobe Commerce

Use Adobe Commerce when clients need:

• complex customer hierarchies
• multiple subsidiaries
• contract pricing
• custom workflows
• deep ERP integration
• unusual catalogs

It is powerful, but your agency needs stronger engineering capabilities and a heavier maintenance model.

If you are actually building a wholesale SaaS platform

If the goal is:

"We want one backend where 100 clients each get their own wholesale storefront"

then I would not use normal ecommerce instances. I would look at:

• headless commerce architecture
• tenant-aware database design
• centralized product/customer/order services
• isolated tenant configs
• API-driven storefronts

Platforms in this category include composable systems such as commercetools or agency-oriented multi-store systems. www.shopify.com

My agency stack ranking

For a wholesale ecommerce agency:

Tier 1 — default platform

1. BigCommerce B2B
2. Shopify Plus B2B

Tier 2 — complex clients

3. Adobe Commerce
4. OroCommerce

Tier 3 — build your own platform

5. Headless/composable commerce

A practical agency playbook would be:

• 70% of clients → BigCommerce B2B template
• 20% → Shopify Plus
• 10% → Adobe/Oro/custom

The biggest differentiator will not be the storefront. It will be your implementation framework: reusable B2B components, ERP connectors, onboarding automation, and tenant management.

For an agency building multiple wholesale/B2B stores for different clients, my first choice would be BigCommerce B2B Edition + Multi-Storefront.

BigCommerce

Why I’d pick BigCommerce

The important distinction is that you don't just need “a B2B platform”—you need an architecture that lets your agency repeat implementations without creating a maintenance nightmare.

BigCommerce's B2B Edition gives you company accounts, quotes, invoices, purchase-order workflows, buyer roles, sales-rep access, and a customizable Buyer Portal. docs.bigcommerce.com

More importantly for your agency, Multi-Storefront lets you manage multiple storefronts from one BigCommerce account. Each storefront can have its own branding, domain, products, pricing, templates, etc., while you retain centralized administration. www.bigcommerce.comdocs.bigcommerce.com

And B2B companies can span multiple storefronts/channels, with buyer access controlled at the channel level. www.bigcommerce.comdocs.bigcommerce.com

The architecture I'd use

I'd structure your agency offering roughly like this:

BigCommerce
→ Client/brand
→ Storefront
→ B2B Companies
→ Company locations
→ Buyers + roles
→ Catalogs/customer groups
→ Price lists
→ Orders/quotes/invoices

Then build your own agency layer around it:

Your Agency Platform

• Client provisioning
• Storefront templates
• Theme/component library
• Standard B2B configuration
• ERP/PIM integrations
• Shared app/integration packages
• Automated deployment
• Monitoring
• Client-specific overrides

That gives you a “90% standardized, 10% customized” implementation model rather than rebuilding every wholesale store from scratch.

BigCommerce explicitly supports agency partners and provides sandbox/staging, partner tooling, APIs, headless capabilities, and B2B/Multi-Storefront functionality. www.bigcommerce.com

Where Shopify Plus fits

Shopify Plus is my #2 choice, and I'd choose it when your clients prioritize the Shopify ecosystem, merchant usability, or highly polished DTC+B2B experiences.

Its B2B functionality is now quite strong: company profiles, multiple buyers/locations, customer-specific catalogs, volume pricing, payment terms, and self-service purchasing are built in. www.shopify.com

The catch for your particular business model is that Shopify's multi-store architecture is fundamentally more store-centric. Plus expansion stores are separate stores under an organization; products, inventory, settings, and other data aren't automatically shared between them. help.shopify.com

That's perfectly fine when one client owns several storefronts. It's less compelling when your agency wants a repeatable platform for dozens of unrelated clients.

I'd avoid making Adobe Commerce your default

Adobe Commerce can handle extremely complex B2B requirements, but I'd reserve it for clients with genuinely unusual requirements—complex ERP integration, highly customized pricing/ordering, sophisticated catalogs, or substantial internal engineering teams.

For an agency trying to scale the number of implementations, the extra infrastructure and customization burden can work against you.

My recommendation

Standardize your agency on BigCommerce B2B Edition + Multi-Storefront.

Use:

• BigCommerce B2B for wholesale functionality
• Multi-Storefront for the multi-brand/multi-site layer
• Headless/Catalyst or Stencil depending on client sophistication
• Your own reusable component/design system
• A standardized integration layer for ERP/PIM/CRM
• Your agency's provisioning/configuration layer on top

The particularly attractive part is that BigCommerce supports company hierarchies up to five levels, custom company roles/permissions, and complex parent/subsidiary structures—useful for distributors, franchises, and multi-location wholesale buyers. docs.bigcommerce.com

If your target is something like 50–500 client wholesale stores, I'd take this architecture seriously before considering a custom multi-tenant commerce platform. The biggest win will come from standardizing your provisioning + integrations + frontend component system, rather than trying to make the commerce engine itself multi-tenant.

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I’d put BigCommerce B2B Edition at the top of the shortlist.

My recommendation: BigCommerce B2B Edition

The key reason is that you’re not just looking for a good B2B storefront—you’re looking for something your agency can standardize, templatize, and deploy repeatedly.

BigCommerce gives you:

• Multi-Storefront: multiple branded storefronts managed from one backend, rather than maintaining completely separate installations. Each storefront can have its own domain, theme, catalog presentation, currency, etc. www.bigcommerce.com
• Native B2B company accounts: customers can have organizations, users, roles, permissions, addresses, etc. docs.bigcommerce.com
• Customer-specific pricing/catalogs: customer groups can control products and pricing, which maps well to wholesale tiers and negotiated pricing. docs.bigcommerce.com
• Company hierarchies: useful for distributors, franchises, chains, and enterprises with subsidiaries. BigCommerce supports up to five hierarchy levels and up to 500 companies within a hierarchy. docs.bigcommerce.com
• Quotes, invoices, purchase workflows and buyer portal: these are already part of B2B Edition rather than things you'd have to build for every client. docs.bigcommerce.com
• Headless/custom storefront support: particularly attractive if your agency wants to create a reusable React/Next.js storefront framework. docs.bigcommerce.com

BigCommerce explicitly supports putting B2B functionality across multiple storefronts, including company accounts, shared shopping lists, quoting and invoice functionality. www.bigcommerce.com

BigCommerce B2B platform

How I'd rank the alternatives

BigCommerce vs. Adobe Commerce is the important decision

I'd choose BigCommerce if your agency wants a repeatable delivery platform.

Think:

one agency architecture → reusable components → reusable integrations → reusable B2B configuration → deploy client #1, #2, #10, #30

Adobe Commerce is arguably more powerful when a client has extremely complicated pricing, catalogs, ERP workflows, organizational structures, or custom business rules. Its B2B system supports company accounts, shared catalogs, negotiated quotes, purchase orders, quick orders, etc. experienceleague.adobe.com

It also supports custom shared catalogs with company-specific pricing, including across multiple websites. experienceleague.adobe.com

But the operational burden is substantially higher. For an agency trying to make ecommerce delivery repeatable, I'd rather have BigCommerce absorb more of the infrastructure/platform responsibility.

Adobe Commerce B2B documentation

One architectural distinction I'd make

If by multi-tenant you mean:

"We want one agency-controlled platform where Client A, Client B and Client C are isolated tenants, each with their own admin, users, products, orders, branding, domain, integrations, etc."

then don't automatically interpret BigCommerce Multi-Storefront as SaaS multi-tenancy.

It's excellent for multiple storefronts under an organization, but I'd architect your agency offering as a provisioning/management layer around BigCommerce, rather than trying to turn one BigCommerce instance into an arbitrary multi-tenant SaaS platform.

For example:

                    YOUR AGENCY PLATFORM
                           │
              ┌────────────┴────────────┐
              │                         │
       Client provisioning       Shared services
              │                         │
     ┌────────┼────────┐        ┌───────┼────────┐
     ▼        ▼        ▼        ▼       ▼        ▼
  Client A Client B Client C   ERP    PIM    Analytics
     │        │        │
     ▼        ▼        ▼
 BigCommerce storefronts
     │        │        │
     ▼        ▼        ▼
  Wholesale B2B experiences

Your agency owns the repeatable layer—design system, provisioning, integrations, deployment pipeline, analytics, ERP/PIM adapters, onboarding, etc.—while BigCommerce owns the core commerce/B2B primitives.

That separation is what I'd optimize for.

Bottom line: if you're building dozens of wholesale sites and want a platform you can standardize around, start with BigCommerce B2B Edition. I'd move to Adobe Commerce only when a client's B2B complexity genuinely warrants the additional engineering/operational overhead.

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I’d make BigCommerce + B2B Edition the default platform, with OroCommerce and Adobe Commerce as escalation paths for unusually complex clients.

My recommendation: BigCommerce B2B Edition

BigCommerce B2B Edition

It hits a particularly good sweet spot for an agency: SaaS operations + strong B2B primitives + multi-storefront + APIs/headless, without requiring you to operate a Magento-style infrastructure stack.

For wholesale clients, B2B Edition natively supports:

• Company accounts and account hierarchies
• Multiple buyers per company
• Buyer roles and permissions
• Customer-specific catalogs/pricing
• Quotes/RFQ workflows
• Purchase orders and invoice/payment workflows
• Shared shopping lists and bulk ordering
• Sales-rep tooling
• Multi-Storefront
• Headless/custom Buyer Portal experiences docs.bigcommerce.com

The company hierarchy is especially useful for wholesale: BigCommerce supports parent/child company relationships, with up to five hierarchy levels and 500 companies per hierarchy. docs.bigcommerce.com

Why I'd choose it for an agency

The important distinction is multi-store vs. multi-tenant.

I wouldn't try to make one BigCommerce store into a giant SaaS-style tenant system where all your clients share one commerce database. Instead, I'd use an agency provisioning model:

Your Agency
│
├── Client A → BigCommerce Store + B2B Edition
│   ├── Storefront
│   ├── B2B companies
│   ├── Customer-specific pricing
│   └── ERP/CRM integrations
│
├── Client B → BigCommerce Store + B2B Edition
│   ├── Storefront
│   ├── B2B companies
│   ├── Customer-specific pricing
│   └── ERP/CRM integrations
│
└── Client C → BigCommerce Store + B2B Edition
    └── ...

Then build your agency layer above the commerce platforms:

• standardized storefront starter
• shared component library
• reusable B2B modules
• automated store provisioning
• common integration patterns
• centralized monitoring
• deployment tooling
• client-specific configuration rather than client-specific code

That gives you repeatability without creating a dangerous shared-tenant architecture.

BigCommerce also has B2B-specific GraphQL APIs for companies, users, quotes, shopping lists, invoices, orders, etc., and explicitly supports custom/headless storefronts. docs.bigcommerce.com

Platform shortlist

OroCommerce is particularly compelling when the client has genuinely complicated wholesale operations; it is B2B-first rather than a retail platform with B2B capabilities added on. Current comparisons put it alongside Adobe, Sana, Elastic Path and BigCommerce specifically for wholesale use cases. oroinc.com

The architecture I'd standardize on

If you're expecting dozens or hundreds of client stores, I'd establish three layers:

1. Commerce layer — BigCommerce

Each client gets an isolated store/account.

2. Agency platform layer

Your own services manage things such as:

• tenant/client configuration
• ERP connector configuration
• product import/sync
• customer/company provisioning
• price-list mapping
• feature flags
• analytics
• webhooks/events
• deployment configuration

3. Frontend layer

Use a common headless starter/component system where appropriate. BigCommerce's B2B GraphQL API is designed for this kind of custom storefront integration. docs.bigcommerce.com

That lets you say internally:

"Every client is a configuration of our commerce system, not a new commerce system we build from scratch."

That's the scalability advantage I'd optimize for.

When I'd not choose BigCommerce

Go OroCommerce if your clients routinely need things like extremely complex organizational structures, sophisticated wholesale workflows, or manufacturer/distributor-specific processes.

Go Adobe Commerce when you have enterprise clients where maximum customization, complex integrations, or an existing Magento investment outweigh operational simplicity. Current comparisons generally position Adobe ahead when B2B complexity and customization become extreme. www.iwdagency.com

Go commercetools if your agency is deliberately building a composable commerce platform and has the engineering capability to own substantially more of the architecture.

Bottom line: for an agency standardizing on one platform for many wholesale clients, I'd start with BigCommerce B2B Edition, build a reusable agency framework around it, and reserve OroCommerce/Adobe Commerce for clients whose requirements exceed the BigCommerce abstraction.

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I’d optimize for:

• true multi-store / multi-tenant architecture
• B2B account management
• customer-specific pricing/catalogs
• dealer/distributor portals
• repeatable deployments
• API/headless flexibility
• easy handoff + ongoing maintenance

My shortlist:

www.znode.com

My agency recommendation

1. If you want a scalable “agency platform” → Spree Commerce + your own tenant layer

This is the most flexible architecture.

You could create:

Agency Commerce Platform
│
├── Tenant A (Client Wholesale Store)
│   ├── Catalog
│   ├── Pricing Rules
│   ├── Users
│   └── Branding
│
├── Tenant B
│   ├── Catalog
│   ├── ERP Integration
│   └── Buyer Portal
│
└── Tenant C

Benefits:

• one codebase
• reusable components
• custom integrations
• white-label deployments
• no vendor lock-in

Spree already supports wholesale concepts like price lists, buyer organizations, gated storefronts, and multi-store patterns. spreecommerce.org

2. If you want fastest client launches → BigCommerce B2B Edition

For an agency serving manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers, this is probably the safest commercial choice.

Strong features:

• customer groups
• account-based pricing
• bulk ordering
• quote workflows
• B2B payment options
• integrations

www.znode.comwww.bigcommerce.com

A typical agency model:

Your Agency
    |
    +-- BigCommerce Partner Account
            |
            +-- Client Store 1
            +-- Client Store 2
            +-- Client Store 3

You can standardize:

• theme framework
• integration templates
• onboarding process
• maintenance packages

3. For serious distributor networks → Znode

If your clients are selling through:

• dealers
• regional distributors
• franchise-like networks
• private catalogs

Znode is worth looking at.

It is designed around multiple stores, catalogs, customer profiles, and B2B rules from a shared backend. www.znode.com

Architecture I would avoid

I would be cautious about building dozens of wholesale stores on:

WooCommerce multisite

It works for smaller projects, but agencies often hit problems with:

• plugin conflicts
• upgrade management
• security maintenance
• inconsistent client requirements

Shopify Plus (for this specific use case)

Excellent commerce platform, but wholesale/multi-client agency scenarios can become awkward because each client generally becomes its own Shopify organization/store setup rather than a shared B2B operating system.

My suggested agency stack

For a new agency practice:

Option A — SaaS agency model

• BigCommerce B2B
• Next.js storefronts
• reusable design system
• ERP connectors
• agency-managed hosting/support

Option B — Build a commerce operating system

• Spree Commerce
• PostgreSQL tenant architecture
• Next.js frontend
• shared services:
  • pricing engine
  • catalog importer
  • ERP connector
  • customer portal
  • analytics

Option C — Enterprise wholesale specialization

• Znode
• integration layer
• PIM/ERP connectors

If you expect to build 10–100+ wholesale stores, I’d lean toward Spree Commerce if you have engineering capacity or BigCommerce B2B if you want predictable agency delivery and lower maintenance.

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I’d optimize for repeatable implementation + tenant isolation + strong native B2B + multi-storefront, rather than simply picking the platform with the most B2B features.

My shortlist

🥇 I'd pick BigCommerce B2B Edition

BigCommerce B2B Edition

The reason is that BigCommerce maps unusually well to an agency's "build once, repeat many times" model.

Its B2B stack includes corporate/company accounts, customer groups, custom pricing/catalogs, buyer permissions, quotes, invoices and approval workflows. Its Multi-Storefront capability lets you operate multiple distinct storefronts from a single backend. www.bigcommerce.com

That gives you an architecture like:

                    YOUR AGENCY
                         │
              ┌──────────┴──────────┐
              │  Shared Integration │
              │  / Component Layer  │
              └──────────┬──────────┘
                         │
          ┌──────────────┼──────────────┐
          ▼              ▼              ▼
      Client A        Client B       Client C
      Storefront      Storefront     Storefront
          │              │              │
      B2B accounts    B2B accounts   B2B accounts
      Price lists     Price lists    Price lists
      Catalogs        Catalogs       Catalogs
      ERP             ERP            ERP

Important distinction: BigCommerce's Multi-Storefront is excellent for multiple storefronts within a merchant/account architecture. If by "multi-tenant" you mean your agency operates a true SaaS where each client is an independently isolated tenant, I'd architect each client as its own BigCommerce store/account rather than trying to turn one BigCommerce instance into your own tenant database.

That gives you cleaner:

• client isolation
• billing
• domains
• permissions
• deployments
• data ownership
• ERP integrations
• client offboarding

while your agency owns the reusable implementation layer.

🥈 Shopify Plus

Shopify Plus B2B

Shopify is probably the better choice if your agency's competitive advantage is speed, UX, and a large ecosystem.

Its B2B functionality now supports company accounts, catalogs, customer-specific pricing, payment terms, quantity/volume rules and self-service buyer experiences. www.shopify.com

I'd choose Shopify Plus when your typical client looks like:

"We need a polished wholesale portal, custom branding, ERP integration, and we're not doing extremely exotic pricing/procurement."

I'd choose BigCommerce when they look more like:

"We have distributors, sales reps, multiple buyer roles, negotiated pricing, quotes, approval workflows and lots of wholesale-specific behavior."

🥉 OroCommerce

OroCommerce

This is the interesting option if B2B itself is your agency's specialization.

Oro explicitly supports multi-organization, multi-site and B2B2X models, and is designed around manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers. oroinc.com

I'd consider it if you're targeting sophisticated distributors rather than general ecommerce clients.

What I would not make your default: Adobe Commerce

Adobe Commerce is extremely capable, but for an agency trying to industrialize delivery across dozens of clients, its operational and development burden can become a liability. It's better when a client's requirements genuinely justify that complexity. Current comparisons similarly put Adobe at the high-complexity end, versus BigCommerce/Shopify for more managed implementations. elogic.co

The agency architecture I'd use

Rather than building a "multi-tenant ecommerce platform" yourself, I'd make the ecommerce platform the tenant boundary and build your own agency platform around it.

Core layer

• Store provisioning
• Client/tenant management
• Theme/component library
• B2B configuration templates
• Product/catalog importers
• ERP connectors
• Customer/account synchronization
• Pricing rules
• Analytics
• Deployment/version management

Per-client layer

• BigCommerce store
• Client-specific theme/config
• Domain
• Catalog
• Companies/accounts
• Price lists
• ERP connection
• Payment configuration

Then create presets:

Wholesale Starter
├── Company accounts
├── Customer groups
├── Price lists
├── Quick order
└── Reorder

Distributor
├── Everything above
├── Sales reps
├── Quotes/RFQs
├── Approval workflows
├── Multiple warehouses
└── ERP integration

Enterprise Wholesale
├── Everything above
├── Complex account hierarchy
├── Contract pricing
├── Multiple storefronts
├── Multiple regions
└── Custom integrations

This is much more scalable than creating a custom ecommerce engine or trying to force all clients into one database.

My ranking for your specific agency model:

1. BigCommerce B2B Edition — best balance of B2B depth, SaaS operations, APIs and multi-storefront.
2. Shopify Plus — best if speed/CX and mainstream wholesale requirements dominate.
3. OroCommerce — best if you're deliberately becoming a specialist B2B/distributor agency.
4. Adobe Commerce — reserve for clients whose complexity genuinely demands it.

If you expect to build 20–100+ client stores, I'd strongly favor BigCommerce + your own reusable agency provisioning/configuration layer rather than trying to create a custom multi-tenant commerce platform. www.bigcommerce.comwww.bigcommerce.com

For an agency building multiple wholesale/B2B stores for different clients, I’d shortlist BigCommerce B2B Edition first, with commercetools as the choice when you need a much more custom/headless architecture.

My recommendation: BigCommerce B2B Edition

BigCommerce is probably the best balance of agency scalability + native B2B functionality + manageable implementation effort.

Why it fits an agency model:

• Multi-Storefront: multiple brands, domains, regions, or customer segments can run from one backend. Storefronts can have distinct themes, catalogs, currencies, domains, etc. docs.bigcommerce.com
• Real B2B account structures: companies, subsidiaries, users, roles, permissions, and account hierarchies. docs.bigcommerce.com
• Wholesale pricing: customer groups and price lists let you expose different products/prices to different accounts.
• Quotes + purchase orders + invoices: these are native B2B workflows rather than things you'd have to bolt on with apps. docs.bigcommerce.com
• Buyer portal: buyers get reordering, shopping lists, quotes, invoices, company users and permissions. It can also be customized for headless implementations. docs.bigcommerce.com
• Headless/API support: useful if your agency wants to standardize a frontend architecture while letting BigCommerce handle commerce/B2B primitives.
• Agency-friendly reuse: you can establish a reference architecture, component library, integration patterns and deployment process, then adapt them per client instead of reinventing the commerce backend.

The particularly important distinction is that BigCommerce's Company model is already designed around B2B buyers, rather than treating wholesale customers as glorified retail customer accounts.

Where I'd use commercetools instead

commercetools is my pick if your agency is building large, highly customized commerce systems and has strong engineering capabilities.

It has sophisticated B2B concepts such as Business Units, hierarchical organizations, granular roles, company-specific assortments/pricing and flexible commerce APIs. commercetools.com

The tradeoff is that you're buying a commerce platform/toolkit, not as turnkey a wholesale-store solution. Your agency takes on substantially more architecture, frontend, orchestration and operational responsibility.

How I'd rank them for your use case

For an agency, I'd favor BigCommerce unless you have a strong reason to go composable.

The architecture I'd aim for is:

Agency platform layer
→ standardized BigCommerce configuration
→ reusable B2B data model
→ reusable integrations (ERP/PIM/CRM)
→ reusable frontend/component library
→ client-specific branding + business rules
→ automated provisioning/deployment

That gives you a repeatable implementation factory rather than maintaining a bespoke ecommerce stack for every client.

One caveat: if by "multi-tenant" you literally mean one SaaS application where your agency provisions isolated tenants/clients inside a single commerce installation, rather than multiple storefronts for separate merchants, I'd evaluate the architecture differently. BigCommerce's Multi-Storefront model is excellent for multiple storefronts within a merchant account, but that's not identical to a true multi-tenant SaaS architecture. www.bigcommerce.com

If that's your model, I can lay out a recommended multi-tenant architecture (tenant isolation, catalog/pricing model, ERP integrations, provisioning, frontend, and deployment strategy) and compare BigCommerce vs commercetools vs Oro specifically for it.

For an agency building many wholesale stores for different clients, I’d shortlist these three—but my default recommendation is BigCommerce B2B Edition.

My ranking

1. BigCommerce B2B Edition — my default choice

This is probably the sweet spot for an agency.

BigCommerce supports Multi-Storefront, letting you manage multiple storefronts from one account, while B2B Edition provides customer groups, custom pricing/catalogs, company hierarchies, buyer portals, and other wholesale functionality. www.bigcommerce.comdocs.bigcommerce.com

For your architecture, I'd think of it as:

Agency
→ Client A → Storefront A
→ Client B → Storefront B
→ Client C → Storefront C

Then build a reusable agency layer around the platform:

• standardized theme/design system
• reusable B2B components
• ERP connectors
• product/catalog import
• customer/company provisioning
• pricing rules
• quote/order workflows
• analytics
• deployment/configuration automation

The important caveat: BigCommerce Multi-Storefront isn't the same thing as putting unrelated clients into one database tenant. For strong client isolation, I'd generally give each client their own BigCommerce account/store and use your agency platform to orchestrate them. BigCommerce's own documentation positions Multi-Storefront around multiple brands, regions and channels within a merchant account. www.bigcommerce.comdocs.bigcommerce.com

That makes it especially attractive if your business model is "we launch and operate 20–100 independent client stores."

2. commercetools — best if you're building a real commerce platform

This becomes more interesting if you're not merely deploying stores, but building an agency-owned commerce infrastructure.

commercetools explicitly models Projects as isolated tenant boundaries. Each Project contains its own customers, products, carts, orders, discounts, etc., and API requests are scoped to that Project. docs.commercetools.com

Within a Project, you can then create multiple Stores with their own data fencing, catalogs, pricing and inventory contexts. docs.commercetools.com

So you could architect:

Agency Platform
│
├── Client A → Project A
│   ├── Store A-US
│   └── Store A-CA
│
├── Client B → Project B
│   └── Store B-US
│
└── Client C → Project C
    ├── Store C-US
    └── Store C-EU

That's a much cleaner technical multi-tenant model than trying to force dozens of unrelated clients into a traditional ecommerce installation.

The tradeoff is that you're taking on substantially more architecture work. It's ideal if your agency has strong engineering resources and wants a reusable headless/composable commerce platform rather than a turnkey storefront solution.

3. OroCommerce — best for genuinely complex wholesale

If your clients are manufacturers, distributors, industrial suppliers, etc., I'd seriously evaluate OroCommerce.

It has multi-organization, multi-site and multi-business-model capabilities, with customer hierarchies, complex pricing, catalogs and workflows built around B2B rather than bolted onto a retail platform. oroinc.com

Oro specifically positions itself for multi-org/multi-site and high-volume enterprise operations. oroinc.com

I'd choose this over BigCommerce when clients routinely need things like:

• sophisticated account hierarchies
• contract/customer-specific pricing
• RFQs
• sales-rep workflows
• complicated approval processes
• multiple organizations under one customer
• distributor/manufacturer workflows
• deep ERP integration

What about Shopify Plus?

Shopify Plus is very attractive if your clients are B2B + B2C and you want the easiest ecosystem for your agency.

Shopify's current B2B model supports companies, company locations, catalogs, negotiated pricing, payment terms and buyer-specific product availability. shopify.dev

But I wouldn't make it my default wholesale platform if your agency's niche is complex B2B. BigCommerce/Oro/commercetools give you a more natural architecture for wholesale-heavy requirements.

What I'd do in your position

If your agency expects something like:

10–100+ independent wholesale clients → repeatable implementations → SaaS hosting → moderate-to-complex B2B

I'd build around BigCommerce B2B Edition first.

If the ambition is:

"We're building our own multi-tenant commerce platform and storefront factory"

I'd choose commercetools.

If the clients are predominantly:

manufacturers/distributors with very complicated B2B processes

I'd choose OroCommerce.

The key architectural decision is to separate your agency's tenant/control plane from the commerce platform's tenant/store layer. Don't build every client as a bespoke ecommerce project. Build a provisioning/configuration layer that can spin up a client, configure its B2B model, connect ERP, seed catalog/pricing, deploy the storefront, and apply your design system from a common codebase.

That is what will actually make the agency scalable—not just the choice of ecommerce platform.

For an agency building many wholesale/B2B stores for different clients, I’d put BigCommerce B2B Edition at the top of the shortlist.

My recommendation: BigCommerce B2B Edition

It hits a particularly good balance between B2B functionality, multi-store capability, APIs, and agency-friendly implementation.

Why I’d favor it for your model:

• Multi-storefront: you can manage multiple storefront experiences from a backend, which is useful for clients with brands, regions, or separate B2B/B2C sites. www.bigcommerce.com
• Native B2B accounts: company hierarchies, multiple buyers, roles/permissions, sales reps, etc. docs.bigcommerce.com
• B2B pricing: customer groups and SKU-level price lists support customer-specific wholesale pricing without duplicating stores. www.bigcommerce.com
• Quotes, invoices, POs, bulk ordering and reordering are much closer to what wholesale clients actually need than a basic ecommerce platform. www.bigcommerce.com
• Headless/API support: its B2B GraphQL APIs cover companies, users, quotes, shopping lists, orders, invoices and payments, so you aren't locked into the default storefront. docs.bigcommerce.com
• Custom Buyer Portal: particularly interesting for an agency—you can build a reusable B2B account/ordering experience and adapt it per client. docs.bigcommerce.com

How I'd rank the alternatives

Current industry comparisons similarly put BigCommerce in the sweet spot for mid-market B2B, while Adobe has the deepest native B2B functionality and Shopify Plus emphasizes speed/operational simplicity. elogic.co

The architecture I'd use as an agency

The important distinction is multi-store vs. multi-tenant.

I wouldn't try to make one BigCommerce installation behave like a SaaS platform containing all your clients. Instead, I'd build an agency platform layer around individual BigCommerce stores:

                    YOUR AGENCY PLATFORM
                           │
          ┌────────────────┼────────────────┐
          │                │                │
       Client A         Client B         Client C
          │                │                │
    BigCommerce       BigCommerce       BigCommerce
     B2B Store         B2B Store         B2B Store
          │                │                │
       ERP/CRM          ERP/CRM          ERP/CRM

Then standardize everything you control:

• reusable storefront/theme
• reusable B2B account portal
• customer/company provisioning
• pricing/catalog integration
• ERP connectors
• tax/shipping abstraction
• SSO/authentication
• analytics
• deployment pipeline
• client-specific configuration rather than client-specific code

That gives you a "build once, configure many" model.

When I'd choose Shopify Plus instead

I'd choose Shopify Plus B2B if your typical clients are mid-market brands that sell both wholesale and DTC and care heavily about polished storefront UX, rapid implementation, and the Shopify ecosystem.

I'd choose BigCommerce when your agency's sweet spot is genuinely wholesale/distribution/manufacturing, particularly where buyer roles, company structures, customer-specific pricing, quotes, invoices and procurement workflows matter.

For an agency specifically trying to build a repeatable wholesale-store factory, my default would therefore be:

BigCommerce B2B Edition + headless/reusable frontend + your own integration/configuration layer.

If you tell me roughly how many stores you expect to launch per year (10 / 50 / 100+) and whether each client gets their own domain/store, I can also lay out the architecture I'd use—including tenant isolation, deployment, shared components, pricing/catalog data, and ERP integrations.

For an agency building multiple wholesale stores for different clients, I would avoid a standard single-merchant ecommerce stack and choose something designed around multi-store / multi-tenant operations, B2B account structures, and reusable deployments.

My shortlist:

My recommendation for an agency model

I would choose based on your business model:

1. You want to build a repeatable "wholesale storefront factory"

Choose Spree Commerce.

Architecture:

• One core commerce platform
• Tenant/client isolation
• Per-client branding and domains
• Shared deployment pipeline
• Reusable integrations
• Client-specific catalogs, pricing, users, workflows

This is closest to building your own commerce SaaS. Spree explicitly supports multi-tenant commerce patterns where each tenant can have its own storefront, admin experience, and API access. spreecommerce.org

2. You mostly serve manufacturers/distributors

Choose Znode.

It is more opinionated toward B2B:

• customer-specific price lists
• dealer/distributor portals
• complex catalogs
• account-level buying rules
• multi-store management

Znode positions its platform around manufacturers, distributors, and multi-store B2B scenarios. www.znode.comspreecommerce.org

3. You need fastest launches for many SMB/mid-market clients

Choose Shopify Plus + B2B layer.

Pros:

• fastest developer onboarding
• large ecosystem
• easier client handoff
• less infrastructure ownership

Cons:

• you may end up managing many separate stores instead of a true tenant architecture.

For an agency, I would design the platform around these capabilities regardless of vendor:

Tenant layer

• client → store → domains → themes → permissions
• isolated data boundaries
• centralized agency admin

B2B engine

• company accounts
• buyer roles
• approval workflows
• negotiated pricing
• price lists
• customer-specific catalogs
• minimum order quantities
• purchase orders
• net terms

Operations

• ERP connectors
• inventory sync
• tax/shipping rules
• analytics
• automated provisioning

If you expect 10–100+ wholesale stores, I would lean Spree Commerce or Znode. If you expect 5–20 stores/year with faster delivery and less engineering, Shopify Plus-based builds are likely more profitable. www.znode.comspreecommerce.org

I would also avoid building this on WooCommerce for this use case unless the clients are very small; the multi-tenant + B2B complexity tends to become plugin-management rather than platform engineering.