Personalized Catalogs in B2B Ecommerce: Prices, Assortment, Setup

A personalized catalog in B2B e-commerce shows each business customer only the products, prices and terms that apply to them: their assortment, their contract prices, their volume discounts. It's how B2B buyers expect to order online, because it's how they already buy from your sales team. This guide explains what personalized catalogs include, how the main platforms support them, and how to set one up without slowing down the store.

What a personalized B2B catalog includes

Assortment per customer. A dealer sees only the product lines they're allowed to sell; a distributor sees spare parts that consumers never see.
Customer-specific prices. Price lists per customer or customer group, usually from the ERP.
Tiered and volume pricing. Lower unit prices for larger quantities, and minimum order quantities.
Prices only for approved customers. Guests see the catalogue, but only registered, approved and logged-in buyers see prices and can order.
Customer terms. Payment and shipping options per customer group, such as payment on invoice for trusted accounts.
Fast reordering. Order history, reorder lists and quick order by SKU, so buyers don't browse the whole catalogue every time.

Why it matters

Fewer orders by email and phone. If buyers can't see their own prices online, they ask a sales rep, and the rep re-types the order.
Fewer mistakes. Prices come from one source, not from spreadsheets sent around.
Larger orders. Buyers who see their volume discounts order more in one go.
One catalogue, many channels. Consumers and business customers can buy on the same platform, each with their own prices and products.

How the main platforms handle personalized catalogs

Magento and Adobe Commerce

Magento has customer groups out of the box: each group can have its own prices, tier prices and tax class. Adobe Commerce adds B2B features such as company accounts, shared catalogs with custom prices, quick order and quotes. On Magento Open Source, catalogue restrictions per group and quote requests are usually added with extensions or custom modules.

Shopify

Shopify B2B assigns catalogs to company locations, with their own prices and products. It's available on every plan, with up to 3 catalogs on Basic, Grow and Advanced and unlimited catalogs on Shopify Plus.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce supports customer groups and price lists, and its B2B Edition adds company accounts, quotes and buyer portals.

How to set up personalized catalogs

Decide where prices live. In most B2B companies, the ERP is the source of truth for customers and prices. The store should receive them, not duplicate them.
Group your customers. Map price lists, assortments and terms to customer groups or companies. Fewer, well-defined groups are easier to keep correct.
Sync prices and stock. Connect the ERP to the store so price lists, stock and orders move automatically. See how we approach e-commerce integrations.
Hide what each buyer shouldn't see. Products, categories and prices, by group or account.
Test with real accounts. Log in as several customers and check prices, assortment and checkout options.

Watch out for performance

Every customer group multiplies the price data the store has to index. With thousands of products and dozens of price lists, indexing gets slow, and so do category pages. Plan the number of groups, index prices on a schedule, and cache pages per group. In a headless storefront, group prices can be stored with each product, so every logged-in group sees its own price without extra queries to Magento. If your B2B store already feels slow, a performance audit shows whether price indexing is the cause.

Examples

A B2B self-service portal on Magento 2 for an industrial manufacturer.
Headless B2B commerce inside TYPO3: customer pricing, checkout and quotes added to an existing website.

Questions about personalized B2B catalogs

What's the difference between a price list and a personalized catalog?

A price list sets prices. A personalized catalog also controls which products and categories a customer sees, and on which terms they buy.

Can consumers and business customers use the same store?

Yes. Guests and consumers see retail prices; logged-in business customers see their own prices and products.

Do we need Adobe Commerce for B2B catalogs?

Not always. Adobe Commerce has B2B features built in. Magento Open Source can do the same with extensions and custom modules, often at a lower total cost.

SYSINT builds B2B stores on Magento, Shopify and BigCommerce for agencies and online stores. See B2B commerce.