Handshake.com is a wholesale marketplace made by Shopify.
With the Handshake sales channel,
you can list your wholesale products for retailers to purchase and resell.
Keep watching to learn how your business can get started on Handshake today!
Hey everyone, Sam here! Let’s get started with requirements
to sell on Handshake and how you can apply.
Your business must be located in the United States Your store must use USD currency.
You need to have a payment provider enabled in your store.
You have to have an active store on Shopify that’s made at least one sale
You cannot resell products from other businesses Your products need to comply with the Handshake
Product Guidelines and the Handshake Terms of Service.
Your product images must comply with the Handshake Photography Guidelines.
And all the products that you sell need to comply
with the product categories on the Handshake marketplace
To get notified when Handshake becomes available in more regions, subscribe now
to the Handshake blog for future updates. After you confirm that you meet the
seller requirements, you need to install the Handshake sales channel in your Shopify admin.
Installing the sales channel is also your application to the platform.
When you add the sales channel, the Handshake team reviews your
eligibility within 10 to 14 business days. If you’re approved to sell on the marketplace,
you receive a notification and the sales channel will become available on your Shopify admin.
After your business is approved, the next step is to set up your
Handshake supplier profile and preferences. You can find Handshake under the “Sales
Channels” section of your admin. The first page is your “Profile”.
Your products and brand information aren’t
available on Handshake.com until after you publish this profile.
You can customize your profile by adding a header image, logo, and other details.
I’ll come back to the “Profile” page later when everything is ready to be published.
For now, I need to set up preferences, products, and marketing.
From the “Preferences” page, you can set your shipping rates,
order minimums, and shipping policies.
For shipping, you can use the same shipping rates already set
up in your admin - whether that’s Shopify shipping or any flat rates you created.
But, if you use your Shopify store for both retail and wholesale,
then you might want to set up custom shipping rates specifically for Handshake orders.
This lets you have separate shipping rates for your retail
orders and for your wholesale Handshake orders.
You can set up either a flat shipping rate for Handshake orders,
or you can add 3 conditional shipping rates based on order value like the example shown here.
Next, it’s best practice to set a minimum order value to ensure that you’re making a profit.
This is especially important to sell more inventory,
and if you offer incentives like free shipping.
And finally, you need to add information about your shipping and returns policies.
Like order processing time, returns and refunds policy, shipping fees, shipping options,
and any other important information to set proper expectations for wholesale customers.
The next step is to set up and price your wholesale products.
The products that you have in your Shopify admin are automatically
synced to the “Products” page in the Handshake sales channel.
But, if there’s ever a product that you don’t want to list on Handshake, then you can remove it.
To remove a product from Handshake, start from the Shopify admin, click “Products” and open an item.
Click “Manage” beside “Sales channels and apps”, then uncheck the Handshake checkbox.
Click “Save” to finish. Now this product is available to sell on my online store
for retail customers, but not available to sell on Handshake for wholesale customers.
Now, let’s move back into the Handshake sales channel.
Click “Handshake”, then click “Products”. This page gives you an overview of all the
products that you have available on the Handshake sales channel.
From here, you can manage product status, prices, and product categories.
You can do these tasks through bulk editing like in this example.
Or if you prefer, you can edit each product individually.
From here, you can set up a separate product description and add product images
that only show on the Handshake marketplace, and not on your online store.
If you decide not to edit the products, then Handshake will use the existing
Shopify product images and description by default.
You can also select what category this product will appear in,
set the pricing structure, the minimum order, and how many items are sold in a case.
For example, I need to sell 30 t-shirts, to make a good profit
from my wholesale price. So, I set my "Minimum order" at 30 items.
Each case has 15 t-shirts. So I set that as my "Items per case".
When a customer shops on Handshake, they have to buy at least 30 t-shirts, which equals 2 cases. If
they want to buy more, then they have to buy full cases in sets of 15. So, 30, 45, 60 and so on.
When you’re done setting up your products and preferences, you can publish your supplier
profile and make it live on handshake.com. From the “Profile” page, click “Publish profile”
and then confirm in the pop up that you’re ready by clicking “Publish”.
To see what your profile looks like on handshake.com, click “View Profile”.
Your products are now officially available for purchase!
When your products are purchased on handshake.com,
your orders will appear on your Shopify admin where you can fulfill them.
Now that your profile is live, it’s time to start promoting it so retailers can find it.
On the “Discounts” page you can create, manage,
and delete automatic discounts for your Handshake products.
Discounts can be used for limited-time promotions,
or to encourage a certain amount of products per order.
Your discounts are advertised to customers on your product details pages and on the product
cards when browsing the Handshake marketplace. And finally, from the “Marketing” page,
you can embed a “Shop Wholesale” button in your online store.
This button directs customers to your Handshake supplier profile.
To learn how to copy and paste the code in your Shopify admin, see the link below.
You can also download Handshake-branded social media templates to edit and use in marketing
campaigns.
The social media templates are PNG files that you can edit using third-party image editing software.
And that’s how Handshake connects your wholesale business with retail customers.
If you want to know what Handshake is like for your retail customers, then watch our next video
“How to buy products on Handshake”. If you have any questions, then visit
the help articles linked below or visit help.shopify.com for more information.