Set Up Employee Pricing for Internal Sales in BSS B2B Solution

Internal sales or employee purchase lets you offer special pricing to employees while keeping your regular retail pricing unchanged for other customers.

This setup is useful if you want to run an employee purchase program without affecting the experience for B2C shoppers or other wholesale buyers and this use case is also helpful when your store already uses promotions such as free gifts, bundle offers, or cart-based conditions. Availability may vary by plan/setup, buyer group configuration, theme behavior, and any third-party apps that also affect pricing or cart behavior.

Quick recommendation

Create a dedicated buyer group or customer tag for employees, then apply a separate pricing rule to that group only. This is the safest and easiest way to manage employee pricing and keep other promotions working as expected.

# Eligibility requirements

To use internal sales / employee purchase, your store should meet these requirements:

You run a B2B-only or hybrid store and need different pricing for a specific group of buyers.
You can assign employees to a dedicated buyer group or customer tag.
You already have products that should be available at employee pricing.
You want employees to see a special price after logging in.
You want to keep existing promotion logic that depends on the original Shopify product or variant.
You use BSS B2B Solution with pricing features enabled for your current setup.
You have permission to manage customer groups, pricing rules, and storefront configuration.

# Understanding internal sales

# What it is

Internal sales is a pricing setup that gives employees or internal buyers a special price for the same products sold in your store.

Employees still purchase the original Shopify product. They simply see a different price when they log in with an eligible account.

# What you can do

With this setup, you can:

Offer employee-only pricing
Keep regular retail pricing for all other customers
Use the same product catalog without creating duplicate products
Support employee purchase programs for staff or internal teams
Keep cart-based promotions such as free gifts or bundle conditions

# Where it applies

This use case usually applies in these areas:

Product pages
Collection pages
Cart pages
Other storefront areas where pricing is shown based on buyer group

A key point is that BSS only calculates and displays the discounted price. The original Shopify Product ID and Variant ID stay the same.

This means that if your store uses logic like “add a free gift when Product A is added to cart,” that logic can still identify the original product correctly.

# Availability & limitations

This use case is supported depending on how your store is configured.

Condition	Status
B2B-only store	Supported
Hybrid B2C + B2B store	Supported
Employee access managed by buyer groups or customer tags	Recommended
Need employee pricing without creating duplicate products	Supported
Promotions based on product_id or variant_id	Supported
Third-party apps that replace or rebuild cart line items	Needs extra testing
Logic based on line item key	Not recommended
Final behavior depends on plan/setup	May vary

# Known limitations

This setup does not create a separate product for employees.
This setup does not change the Shopify Product ID or Variant ID.
If a third-party app changes how cart items are handled, some promotions may need additional testing.
If your store uses several apps that affect discounts, gifts, or cart logic at the same time, results may vary.
Actual availability may depend on your plan, theme setup, or checkout setup.

# Adding/configuring

# Step 1: Create an employee buyer group

Go to Customers
Click Customer segments or your buyer group management area
Select the group for employees
Set a clear tag such as employee
Save

Note

Use a dedicated group or tag for employees only.
Do not mix employee accounts with other wholesale groups if they need different pricing or benefits.

# Step 2: Create an employee pricing rule

Go to BSS B2B Solution
Click Pricing
Select Price list, Custom pricing, or the pricing method that matches your setup
Set the rule to apply to the employee buyer group
Select the products or variants to include
Set the employee price or discount
Save
Activate

Note

Apply the rule only to the employee group to avoid showing internal pricing to regular customers.
If you need different pricing by team or role, create separate buyer groups instead of using one shared rule.

# Step 3: Verify the storefront result

Go to your storefront
Click Log in
Select an employee account with the correct tag
Go to a product page with employee pricing
Check the displayed price
Add the product to cart
Check the cart price
Check any free gift or cart-based promotion if applicable

Custom price $20.00 shown next to the original price $33.00, struck through, on the product page

Cart for a B2B buyer on a price list: Lightweight Hand Lotion at $20.00 instead of $37.40 and Hydrating Milk and Honey Body Lotion at $73.60 instead of $83.60

Caution

If the price does not change, check the customer tag first.
If the gift offer does not work, check whether your promotion app uses product_id, variant_id, or line item key.

# Step 4: Test with a regular customer account

Go to your storefront
Log out
Log in with a regular customer account
Go to the same product
Check the displayed price
Add the product to cart
Check the cart behavior

Best practice

Always test with at least two account types:
One employee account
One regular customer account

This helps confirm that the pricing rule only applies to the intended buyers.

# Third-party support

If you use third-party apps for free gifts, bundles, discounts, or cart validation, keep these points in mind:

BSS keeps the original Shopify Product ID and Variant ID
Promotions based on the original product or variant can usually continue to work
Apps that check conditions by product_id or variant_id are recommended
Apps that depend heavily on line item key may need extra review

# Example

A merchant wants employees to buy Product A at a discounted price and still receive a free gift when that product is added to the cart.

Recommended setup:

Assign the tag employee to employee accounts
Create a pricing rule for the employee group
Apply employee pricing to Product A
Keep the free gift logic based on product_id or variant_id

Expected outcome:

Employees log in and see the discounted price
Regular customers still see the standard price
When Product A is added to cart, the gift app can still identify the product correctly
The merchant does not need to create a duplicate product just for internal sales

# Troubleshooting & Edge Cases

Reach out to our support team if:

Employee pricing does not display correctly
Regular customers can still see internal pricing
Free gifts or promotions do not work as expected
Your store uses multiple apps that affect pricing or cart behavior
You need help confirming whether your current setup supports the internal sales use case