One store for retail, wholesale and theatre licensing
A family-run children's publisher needed a store that could serve fans, bookstores and theatre groups at the same time. We built it in about two weeks, on Shopify's Basic plan, without the enterprise price tag.
- Shopify build
- B2B wholesale
- Theme customization
- Shipping strategy
- Branded email
- Business email
- Store policies
- Team training
- Client
- Thompson Tales Publishing
- Industry
- Independent children's book publishing
- Flagship property
- The Legend of the Thompson Goldbloods
- Platform
- Shopify (Basic plan), Trade theme
- Engagement
- Fixed fee, roughly two-week build
- Outcome
- A live, branded store taking real orders from retail customers, with wholesale pricing and theatre licensing built in
Results at a glance
- Business models, one store
- 3 → 1
- Retail, wholesale and theatre licensing
- Wholesale pricing on Shopify Basic
- 50%
- No jump to Shopify Plus
- Extra app subscriptions
- 0
- For preorders or wholesale pricing
- Build time, fixed fee
- ~2 wks
- Proven with a live test order
The challenge
Thompson Tales Publishing is a family business built around The Legend of the Thompson Goldbloods. Their main website was already live, but it wasn't built to sell. As the Goldbloods world grew into posters, candles, apparel and drinkware, and as schools and theatre groups started asking about staging the story, they needed somewhere to actually take orders.
The catch was that they weren't selling to one kind of customer. They were selling to three:
Fans and families
Buying merchandise at full price.
Approved retailers
Buying the same products wholesale, at half off, in bulk.
Theatre groups
Buying performance licenses, which aren't physical products at all and need a human to review each one before it's issued.
Most small-business stores handle the first group well and the other two poorly. Wholesale is usually treated as an enterprise feature, and Shopify's simplest route to it, assigning a price catalog directly to each retailer, is reserved for Shopify Plus, which costs thousands of dollars a month. For a family publisher, that wasn't an option.
They also had a real-world constraint that no theme setting can fix: a small team. Whoever processed orders needed to be able to do it confidently, even if they'd never opened a Shopify dashboard before.
Our approach
We set a few rules for ourselves at the start.
Keep it separate
The new store lives on its own subdomain (shop.thompsontalespublishing.com) so the existing custom website stays untouched and the store can launch, change and grow on its own schedule.
Stay on Basic
Every feature had to work on the plan the client was actually paying for. Where Shopify's documented path required a higher tier, we found another route.
Settings over code
Brand colors, typography and layout live in theme settings wherever possible, so future theme updates don't overwrite the client's look. We only wrote custom code where settings genuinely couldn't do the job, and kept a pristine copy of the stock theme in version control so every customization can be traced and reapplied.
Never break the live store
All theme work happened on unpublished copies. The client previewed changes before anything went live.
What we built
1. Wholesale pricing that works on the Basic plan
This was the core technical problem. On Shopify Basic, you can't attach a wholesale price list directly to a retailer's account. That entitlement is Plus-only.
We worked around it by routing wholesale buyers through a dedicated B2B market instead:
- Wholesale (B2B) market
- Wholesale catalog
- Price list: 50% off
Every approved retailer's company location belongs to that market, so they inherit the wholesale catalog automatically. One product page shows two different prices depending on who's looking at it:
What each type of visitor sees on the same product page Who's viewing Price shown Minimum order Visitor, not signed in Full retail 1 Retail customer, signed in Full retail 1 Approved retailer, signed in 50% off 10 units Nobody has to remember a discount code, and there's no separate "wholesale site" to maintain. Retailers sign in and the store recognizes them. We verified this end to end against a live product before handoff, and set up an internal test retailer with tax-exempt status so the client can re-test any time.
2. A storefront built for two audiences at once
We built on Shopify's Trade theme, which is designed for wholesale. The trap with wholesale-first themes is that they often hide prices and the add-to-cart button from anyone who isn't a verified business buyer, which would have quietly broken the store for every fan who came to buy a poster. We configured the theme so that:
- Retail visitors always see prices and a working add-to-cart button.
- Wholesale buyers see their pricing, and the 10-unit minimum is enforced on the product page itself, not as a surprise rejection at checkout.
- Retailers with more than one store location can switch locations, so they always land on the right pricing.
The theme is styled in the Thompson Tales palette of deep navy, gold and cream, anchored by their gold wax-seal mark.
3. Theatre licenses as digital products
Performance licenses are set up as their own product line with their own collection. They don't ask for a shipping address and don't carry a shipping charge. Because each license is reviewed and issued by hand, the store makes clear at the product and cart level that a license is not an instant download.
4. Candle preorders without a preorder app
When the family decided to launch their Goldbloods candle line before the first batch was poured, we needed a preorder flow fast. Rather than add another monthly app subscription, we built it into the theme.
- All seven candle variants accept orders at zero stock.
- Any product tagged "preorder" shows a Preorder button instead of Add to cart.
- We fixed a quirk where the theme reset the button label every time a shopper picked a different scent or color, so the label stays correct.
- Ending the preorder is a one-step change for the client: remove the tag.
5. Shipping rates that fit the business
Live carrier rates require a more expensive Shopify plan, so we designed a weight-based rate table instead: seven weight tiers, each with a Standard and an Express option, fourteen rates in all. Every product was assigned a shipping weight so the cart prices itself correctly, whether a customer buys a single poster or a box of candles. We verified the rates with a live test order.
For the actual labels, we installed Shippo, so the team can buy discounted postage after each order comes in.
6. Branded order emails
Shopify's default order emails look like every other store's. We designed and built five branded templates in the Thompson Tales navy, gold and cream: order confirmation, shipping confirmation with tracking, delivered, order refund, and order canceled.
The order confirmation is smart about candles. If an order contains a preorder candle, it automatically adds a short note explaining that candles are hand-poured in small batches and will ship when the next batch is ready. Every email ends with a clear way to reach the team and links to their social channels.
7. Business email on their own domain
Before the store launched, we set up professional email on the Thompson Tales domain, with dedicated addresses for orders, theatre inquiries, press, general contact and each family member. Order mail goes to a dedicated orders inbox rather than a personal account.
8. Policies written in plain language
We drafted the store's refund and shipping policies in plain, friendly language, built directly from how the family actually operates: realistic processing times, how posters and boxed items ship separately, how candle preorders are handled, and the fact that issued theatre licenses aren't returnable.
9. A one-page guide for a first-time Shopify user
The best-built store doesn't help if the person processing orders is guessing. We wrote a one-page, step-by-step guide covering exactly what to do when an order comes in: review it, capture the payment, buy the label in Shippo, print, pack and ship. It's written for someone who has never used Shopify before.
The results
- Live and taking orders. Payments, shipping rates and confirmation emails were all proven with a real end-to-end test order before launch.
- Three business models, one store. Retail merchandise, half-price wholesale and theatre licensing all run from a single storefront and a single admin.
- Enterprise-style wholesale without the enterprise plan. Wholesale pricing and quantity minimums work on Shopify Basic, avoiding a jump to Shopify Plus.
- No extra app subscriptions for preorders or wholesale pricing.
- Built to be handed off. Brand settings live in theme settings, the custom code is minimal and documented, and the team has a written process for every order.
- Delivered in about two weeks on a fixed fee.
Tools and platforms
- Shopify (Basic)
- Shopify B2B (Markets, Catalogs, Price Lists)
- Trade theme
- Liquid
- Shopify CLI
- GitHub
- Shopify Payments
- Shippo
- Zoho Mail
Have a store that needs to do more than one thing?
Whether you sell to fans and retailers at the same time, need preorders without another app, or want a store your team can actually run, we can help.