Quick answer: can CPG brands run DTC and wholesale on Shopify?
Yes. Shopify runs DTC and wholesale from one store, and since April 2026 native B2B is included on the Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Plus plans at no extra cost. Non-Plus plans allow up to three active B2B catalogs; Shopify Plus adds unlimited catalogs, catalogs assigned directly to a company or location (customer-level pricing), deposits, and partial payments. For most CPG brands the real question is not wholesale or DTC, it is how to run both without one channel undercutting the other.
This guide covers the platform side: how CPG brands run DTC and wholesale on Shopify, which plan fits, and the economics. If you are a wholesale-first brand that has not built its DTC channel yet, the step-by-step version is in our playbook for launching and scaling DTC.
Why are CPG brands rethinking their channel mix?
Retail is still where most CPG revenue comes from, but brands expect the channels they own to grow. In PwC's 2025 CPG executive survey of 207 senior executives, respondents said self-enabled DTC made up about 10% of revenue in 2025 and expected that to reach 15% by 2030, and 49% said they do not believe their current business model will still be viable in a decade, per PwC.
The US DTC market is large but maturing. eMarketer forecast US DTC ecommerce sales of $239.75 billion in 2025, about 19.2% of all retail ecommerce. The opportunity is real, and so is the competition, which is why running both channels well matters more than picking one.
Can you sell wholesale and DTC on the same Shopify store?
Yes, and it got easier in 2026. As of April 2, 2026, Shopify's native B2B features are no longer limited to Shopify Plus. Shopify extended B2B to the Basic, Grow, and Advanced plans at no extra cost, so a brand on any plan can manage wholesale and DTC from one platform. Company profiles for wholesale buyers, catalogs, net payment terms, self-serve ordering, and Shopify Flow automations come on every plan, per the Shopify Help Center.
Where the plans differ is capacity and control:
| Capability | Basic / Grow / Advanced | Shopify Plus |
|---|---|---|
| B2B market catalogs | Up to 3 active across all B2B markets | Unlimited |
| Catalogs assigned directly to a company or location (customer-level pricing) | Not available | Available |
| Deposit requirements | Not available | Available |
| Partial payments | Not available | Available |
| Payment requests per fulfillment | Not available | Available |
Source: Shopify Help Center, B2B plan features.
A few details are worth planning around. On non-Plus plans, assigning all three catalogs to a single B2B market uses up the whole limit, and catalog features on those plans require the new Shopify Markets. Each company location can have at most 25 catalogs assigned, whether through a market or directly. And while B2B carries no extra fee, B2B and DTC orders may have different variable platform fee rates, per Shopify.
When does a CPG brand need Shopify Plus?
Move to Plus when the wholesale program needs Plus-only controls, not just because you sell wholesale. A brand with one or two wholesale price tiers, for example independent retail and a distributor, can usually run on Grow or Advanced. A brand that negotiates account-specific pricing with large retailers, or needs deposits and partial payments on big orders, or has outgrown three catalogs, will need Plus. The honest test is your account list and your finance team's requirements, not the plan name.
Should you run one store or two?
Most CPG brands should start with a single blended store running DTC and B2B together. One store shares a product catalog, an inventory pool, and one admin, which keeps operations simple. A separate B2B store makes sense when wholesale is operationally heavy on its own: hundreds of accounts, highly individualized pricing, complex ERP requirements, or sales-rep-driven ordering. Either way, one rule holds: wholesale pricing must never leak into the consumer experience. Which products are DTC-only, which are wholesale-only, and what a wholesale buyer sees on the consumer storefront are decisions made when the store is built, not settings you flip later.
Is DTC more profitable than wholesale for CPG brands?
DTC gross margins are usually higher than wholesale, because the brand keeps the retailer's markup. Public filings that split margin by channel are rare, but Rocky Brands' 2025 filing reported a 47.8% gross margin in its retail segment, which includes DTC, against 39.1% in wholesale (footwear, illustrative, not a CPG benchmark). Gross margin is only part of the picture. BCG studied footwear and apparel wholesalers that added DTC and found the added costs offset much of the gain: marketing rose 1 to 3 points of sales, overhead 2 to 5 points, and brick-and-mortar 2 to 4 points, with EBITDA topping out at 9 to 14% (2023, apparel and footwear). Acquisition costs keep rising too: the median brand in Northbeam's advertiser dataset paid nearly 9% more to acquire a first-time customer in 2025.
Worth knowing: public CPG companies disclose DTC revenue by channel but rarely DTC margins, so any precise CPG DTC margin is an estimate. The takeaway is that DTC earns its place through repeat purchases, subscriptions, and customer data, not the first order. The full launch and retention motion is in our wholesale-to-DTC playbook.
How much does site speed and mobile affect revenue?
Most DTC customers shop on a phone. Mobile drove 56.4% of US online holiday spending in 2025, up from 54.5% in 2024, the first full year mobile passed half of online spend (Adobe). Globally, Salesforce forecast that mobile would account for 80% of traffic and 70% of orders during Cyber Week 2025. Speed compounds with it. A widely cited Deloitte study commissioned by Google, covering 37 brands and 30 million sessions, found a 0.1-second improvement in mobile speed lifted retail conversions 8.4% and average order value 9.2% (2019 data). Portent found ecommerce sites loading in one second convert about three times better than sites loading in five seconds.
Why do direct customer relationships matter in CPG?
CPG brands lose customers quickly. Bain and Fetch analyzed 73 CPG brands and found that 43% of a brand's customers are new each quarter, while retention and reactivation grew the customer base 7.1% over 12 months. A DTC channel on Shopify gives you the customer email addresses, purchase histories, and replenishment timing that retail partners generally do not share, which is the raw material for retention through a tool like Klaviyo.
Key definitions
- Wholesale-first CPG brand: a consumer packaged goods brand whose revenue comes mainly from retailers and distributors, and which adds its own direct-to-consumer channel later.
- Self-enabled DTC: direct sales the brand runs and fulfills itself, for example on its own Shopify store, as opposed to DTC fulfilled through third parties.
- Contribution margin (DTC): revenue minus product cost, fulfillment, shipping, payment fees, and acquisition spend, calculated per order.
- Shopify B2B catalog: a set of products and prices assigned to wholesale buyers through a market, or on Plus directly to a company or location.
- Blended store: a single Shopify store that serves both DTC shoppers and wholesale buyers from one catalog and admin.
Key takeaways
- Shopify runs DTC and wholesale from one store, and since April 2026 native B2B is on every plan at no extra cost.
- Non-Plus plans cover up to three B2B catalogs; Plus adds unlimited catalogs, customer-level pricing, deposits, and partial payments.
- DTC usually carries a higher gross margin than wholesale, but added marketing, logistics, and overhead can cap the profit, so it pays off on repeat purchases and data, not the first order.
- Build mobile-first, because mobile is now the majority of online spend and speed moves conversion.
- The durable reason to build DTC is owning the customer relationship that retail keeps from you.
Last updated September 2026 to reflect Shopify's April 2026 B2B expansion. Sourced from Shopify documentation, SEC filings, and published research from PwC, BCG, Bain, eMarketer, Adobe, and Northbeam; we excluded unverified blog statistics. Two things the data does not show: there is no credible published DTC failure rate, and no primary benchmark for what share of CPG DTC revenue comes from subscriptions, so this guide quotes neither.
Written by Andrew Zam, Co-founder of Liquid Lemon, a Shopify / Shopify Plus design + development studio for DTC brands.
