How to Get Wholesale Orders From Email Into Shopify

Wholesale orders by email reach Shopify one of four ways: someone keys them into a B2B draft order, an AI app reads the purchase order and builds the draft, a wholesale app applies the buyer’s price list to that draft, or repeat buyers move to self-serve ordering. Most stores end up running a mix.

Buyers won’t stop emailing. They already keep their order in a spreadsheet or an ERP, so forwarding it takes seconds, while logging into a portal takes training. This guide shows how to get those emailed orders into Shopify with the right buyer, the right price, the PO number and the payment terms attached.

Key takeaways

• A Shopify draft order is the native home for emailed orders. It carries a PO number field, and payment terms fill in from the company location.
• AI apps such as POClerk and LevelOps turn emailed PDFs and spreadsheets into draft orders, but they price from Shopify’s native catalogs.
• B2Bridge applies its price lists and volume discounts to any draft order in the admin, whoever created it.
• Self-serve ordering with CSV upload removes the retyping for your repeat buyers.

Why Wholesale Orders Still Arrive by Email

Wholesale orders arrive by email because it’s the easiest path for the buyer. Their order already exists in a spreadsheet, a PDF from their purchasing system, or a quick note on their phone. Two Shopify Community threads from October 2026 asked merchants how these orders get into Shopify, and the answers describe the same routine: someone retypes them.

What an Emailed Wholesale Order Looks Like

One developer on the Shopify Community described the typical message: “4 cases of 12, 2 dozen minis, PO #1234, deliver by Friday.” The order mixes units, cases and shorthand. A person reads it, resolves it, and types it into a draft order line by line.

Where Retyping Goes Wrong

Merchants in those threads named four recurring mistakes. Cases get entered as units, so 4 cases of 12 become 4 items. A SKU matches more than one variant. The same PO arrives twice and gets invoiced twice. The draft misses the account’s net 30 and comes out due on receipt.

Why Native Self-Serve Doesn’t Stop the Emails

Shopify’s B2B features give logged-in buyers catalogs, quantity rules and reorders. Buyers who never log in get none of that. A stockist with 40 line items in a spreadsheet has little reason to retype them into your storefront, so the email keeps coming and the work stays with your team.

What are your options when the email lands?

Four Ways to Get Emailed Orders Into Shopify

You can key the order into a B2B draft order, let an AI app read the PO, apply your wholesale app’s price list to the draft, or move the buyer to self-serve upload. Each path trades money for minutes at a different rate.

Method	Who types the order	Where the price comes from	PO and terms
B2B draft order	Your staff	Native catalog or custom line price	PO field; terms from company location
AI PO app	Nobody; app reads the email	Shopify native catalogs	Varies by app
Wholesale app pricing on the draft	Staff, app or rep	App price lists and volume discounts	Follows the draft
Self-serve with CSV upload	The buyer	Buyer’s assigned price list	At checkout

Key It Into a B2B Draft Order

The native route. Shopify’s help center names draft orders as the path for orders that arrive “by phone or email”. Attach the B2B customer and company location, and prices, terms and checkout options follow that company. The full steps are below.

Let an AI App Read the PO

A new category of apps reads emailed POs, PDFs and spreadsheets, matches each line to your products, and creates a draft order for review. POClerk, LevelOps PDF to Order, POMate and Scribe all launched or grew in 2025 and 2026. Their listings price from Shopify’s native catalogs.

Apply Wholesale Prices From Your B2B App

If your wholesale prices live in an app instead of native catalogs, the draft needs that app’s pricing. B2Bridge adds an Apply B2B Pricing button inside the Shopify draft order editor that matches the customer’s price list and volume discounts in one click.

Move Repeat Buyers to Self-Serve Upload

The long-term fix for your highest-volume emailers. Give buyers a quick order page where they upload the same spreadsheet they would have emailed, and validation catches the errors staff used to catch. The buyer keeps their habit. You lose the retyping.

How to Turn an Emailed PO Into a Shopify B2B Draft Order

The native workflow takes one pass through the draft order editor, documented in Shopify’s B2B draft order guide. It works on every plan with B2B set up.

1. Create the draft. In the Shopify admin, go to Orders > Drafts and click Create order.
2. Attach the company. Select the B2B customer, then the company location. Prices and checkout options fill in from that company.
3. Add the products. Enter each line from the email, converting cases to units as you go.
4. Enter the PO number. Use the PO number section, never the notes. The PO then shows on the order and invoice, and you can search by it.
5. Set payment due later. The company location’s terms, such as net 30, apply automatically.
6. Lock prices or reserve inventory if needed. A price lock holds a quoted price, and a reservation holds the stock while the buyer reviews the invoice.
7. Send the invoice or collect payment, then create the order.

Before you invoice, search existing drafts for the same PO number. Buyers resend orders, and a revised PO with the same number is how duplicate shipments happen.

How to Enter Emailed Orders With B2Bridge Price Lists

B2Bridge gives emailed orders three documented routes into Shopify, each applying the buyer’s price list rather than retail prices. Which one you use depends on who receives the email.

Apply B2B Pricing Inside the Draft Order

Create the draft in Shopify as above, then click Apply B2B Pricing. The extension matches the customer’s active price list and volume discounts and reprices every line, per B2Bridge’s draft order guide. It works on any draft in your admin, including drafts an AI app created, on every B2Bridge plan.

Create the Order in B2Bridge Manual Orders

The Manual Orders screen builds the order inside B2Bridge instead. Pick the wholesale customer, add products with live inventory shown, and their pricing rules apply. Set terms such as net 30, record the PO in a tag, save the draft, and export a PDF invoice.

Let the Rep Key In Their Own Accounts

Many emailed orders go to a sales rep, and those never need your admin team. In the Sales Rep Portal, the rep picks their assigned customer, adds products and creates the draft, with reorders and pre-invoice editing built in.

One honest limit applies to all three routes. Order rules such as minimums and case increments run on the storefront, so staff-entered orders skip them. The case math and duplicate-PO checks stay human.

What Each Intake Option Costs

Keying orders in costs staff time, while the apps charge by order volume. The table compares a store receiving 30 and 150 emailed orders a month. Prices come from each app’s Shopify App Store listing and b2bridge.io/pricing, checked November 11, 2026; several of these apps are new, so re-check before you install.

This comparison was written by the B2Bridge team. B2Bridge sells a wholesale app named below, so weigh the commercial context. The AI PO apps are complements rather than competitors, and prices were verified November 11, 2026.

Option	Pricing	30 orders/mo	150 orders/mo	Notes
Native draft orders	$0 extra	Staff time	Staff time	Manual entry per order
POMate	From $9.90/mo	$9.90 (50 drafts)	$19.90 (200 drafts)	Launched May 2026, no reviews yet
POClerk	From $79/mo	$79 (150 orders)	$79 (150 orders)	Launched Aug 2026, founding price $49
Scribe	From $50/mo	$50 (100 POs)	$100 (500 POs)	Can place orders on payment terms
LevelOps PDF to Order	From $100/mo	$100 (33 orders)	Above Growth’s 100/mo cap	5.0 stars, 21 reviews, Built for Shopify
B2Bridge	Professional $99/mo	$99	$99	Price-list entry, unlimited orders

LevelOps is the only one with a review history and a Built for Shopify badge, and POMate is the cheapest at low volume. Every listing prices from Shopify’s native catalogs, and none states support for a third-party wholesale app’s price lists. If your prices live in B2Bridge, pair the AI reader with the Apply B2B Pricing button, or enter the order through Manual Orders.

How to Move Email Buyers to Self-Serve Ordering

The cheapest emailed order is the one that stops arriving. These steps move repeat buyers onto self-serve ordering without forcing a new habit on them.

1. Share a SKU and quantity template. Send each buyer a two-column file matching your SKUs. They already order from a spreadsheet, so give it a format you can accept.
2. Set MOQ and case increments. Storefront order rules enforce the case math nobody wrote down. A buyer who must order in multiples of 12 can’t order 4 units by mistake.
3. Turn on CSV upload. On B2Bridge’s quick order page, buyers upload that .csv or .xlsx and every row validates at once: unknown SKUs, broken increments and out-of-stock lines get flagged before checkout.
4. Keep reorders one click away. Most wholesale orders repeat. Shopify’s customer accounts duplicate a past order, and reps reorder from the portal.
5. Route the holdouts to a rep. Some buyers will always email or call. Give those accounts to a rep instead of a shared inbox.

How do you know whether an app pays for itself? Count the minutes. The calculator below multiplies your emailed orders by entry time and hourly cost, then compares the total against each option’s fee.

Buyers who switch still email sometimes. The exception then runs through the same priced, validated path as everything else, which is the point of bulk ordering done properly.

Which Intake Method Fits Your Wholesale Volume

Start from two numbers: how many orders arrive by email each month, and where your wholesale prices live.

1. A handful a month, prices in native catalogs. Key them into B2B draft orders. The PO field and company terms cover you, and the cost is minutes.
2. Dozens a month, prices in native catalogs. An AI PO app earns its fee. POMate at $9.90 covers 50 drafts, and LevelOps adds company matching with a review history behind it.
3. Any volume, prices in a wholesale app. The draft needs the app's pricing step. With B2Bridge that's one button on the draft, whoever created it.
4. High volume from the same buyers. Push self-serve upload and reorders. Keep the AI app or manual entry for the exceptions.

Watch the catalog ceiling too. AI apps price from native catalogs, and below Shopify Plus you get 3 active catalog assignments across your B2B markets. Past that point, the prices the app reads stop matching the prices you quoted.

Take Wholesale Orders Any Way Buyers Send Them With B2Bridge

Some buyers upload spreadsheets, some email their rep, and some still call. B2Bridge covers each path with unlimited price lists and customer groups, against native B2B's 3 catalog assignments below Plus.

• Apply B2B Pricing on any Shopify draft order, on every plan.
• Manual Orders with live inventory, payment terms and PDF invoices from $99 a month.
• Quick order page with CSV upload and row-by-row validation on the Growth plan.
• A Sales Rep Portal where reps order for their own accounts, plus net payment terms online.

Professional is $99 a month, Growth $199 and Advanced $299, after a 14-day free trial. The emailed orders keep coming either way. With the right intake path, they stop costing an afternoon.

FAQs About Wholesale Orders by Email

Can Shopify turn a PDF purchase order into an order automatically?

Not natively. Shopify's documented path is a staff-created draft order. App Store apps such as POClerk, LevelOps and POMate read the PDF and create the draft order for your review.

Where does the PO number go on a Shopify B2B order?

In the draft order's own PO number section, never the notes. The number then appears on the order and invoice, is searchable, and gives you a duplicate check before invoicing.

Do payment terms apply to emailed orders entered as drafts?

Yes, when the draft has the B2B customer and company location attached. The location's terms, such as net 30, set automatically. A draft without the company falls back to due on receipt.

Do AI PO apps work with wholesale app pricing?

Their listings don't state support for third-party price lists; they read Shopify's native catalogs. B2Bridge covers this by applying its price lists to the draft the app created, through the Apply B2B Pricing extension.

Can wholesale buyers upload a spreadsheet instead of emailing it?

Yes. On B2Bridge's quick order page, buyers upload a .csv or .xlsx of SKUs and quantities, every row is validated against their price list and stock, and valid lines add to cart.