B2B online shop: customer groups, net prices, approvals

In Shopware Community Edition, almost every distinction between consumer and business trade hangs on a single object: the customer group. It decides whether prices appear net or gross, which price list applies, which payment and shipping methods are visible, and whether a customer may enter a protected area at all. Making that decision early and cleanly saves special cases in every second template later on.

A split into at least three groups has proven itself in practice: private customers, business customers under review, and verified business customers. The middle group is the important one. Registering as a business customer is initially just a claim — company name, legal form and VAT identification number sit in a form, nothing more. Only after that number has been confirmed and briefly reviewed does the customer move into the group that sees net prices, price tiers and invoice purchase. Until then they buy at gross prices and by prepayment, without the site turning them away.

These six points are also the checklist for the build. As soon as one of these properties hangs on something other than the customer group — on a text block, on a tick box in the article, on an IP address — a special case appears that will be forgotten at the next range change. The customer group is the only place where the distinction holds over time.

An input field for the VAT identification number is quickly built. It simply does not answer the question that matters: does this number belong to this customer, and is it valid today? For supplies to other EU member states this is no formality but the condition for exemption. Section 6a (1) sentence 1 no. 4 UStG makes the use of a valid number issued by another member state a prerequisite of the intra-Community supply.

The number can be confirmed by the Federal Central Tax Office: under section 18e no. 1 UStG the authority confirms on request the validity of a VAT identification number together with the name and address of the person to whom it was issued by another member state. This qualified confirmation is the difference between “the number looks plausible” and a record you can still produce two years later. For the shop that means storing the confirmation result with a timestamp on the customer account, switching the customer into the verified business group only afterwards, and setting a follow-up when company name or address change.

Three lines, three statements: the protected area redirects an anonymous request to the login, without a session no net-price note is found on the product page, and with the session of a verified business customer it appears. This check belongs in the routine after every larger update, because visibility rules tend to spring back quietly. It also assumes working encryption — what changes there from 2026 is covered in HTTPS certificates: shorter lifetimes from 2026 onwards.

In business trade, invoice purchase is less a payment method than an expectation. The question is therefore rarely whether it is offered, but with which payment term and from which verification result onwards. The law draws a line here: under section 271a (1) sentence 1 BGB an agreement under which the creditor may demand performance only after more than 60 days is effective only if it was expressly made and is not grossly unfair with regard to the creditor's interests. For the selection in the ordering route two fixed tiers are usually enough; longer terms belong in the framework agreement. For clauses in terms and conditions section 308 no. 1a BGB comes on top: where the user of the terms is not a consumer and reserves more than 30 days after receipt of the counter-performance for settling the other party's payment claim, that is in case of doubt unreasonably long — and section 310 (1) sentence 1 BGB does not exempt that number towards traders. How terms and notice periods are set out cleanly in such contracts is shown in Website contracts: terms and year-end notice periods.

For the case where payment does not arrive, the figures between businesses are fixed as well. The default interest rate on payment claims is nine percentage points above the base rate where no consumer is involved (section 288 (2) BGB), and the creditor additionally has a claim to a flat sum of 40 euros (section 288 (5) BGB). These two figures belong in the payment terms and in the reminder templates, because otherwise they get looked up afresh for every single case.

In business trade the invoice is a document with mandatory content. Section 14 (4) UStG lists the mandatory details in numbers 1 to 10, among them the applicable tax rate and the tax amount attributable to the consideration — or, in the case of an exemption, a reference to the fact that an exemption applies to the supply or other service. It is precisely this reference that a shop without customer group logic fails on, because it knows only one invoice text.

Three cases have to be kept apart. For a supply to a domestic business customer the invoice shows VAT. For an intra-Community supply to a business in another member state the supply remains exempt provided the customer has used a valid VAT identification number; the invoice then has to state the numbers of both parties (section 14a (3) sentence 2 UStG). And where a trader supplies a service for which the recipient owes the tax under section 13b (5) UStG, the statement on the reverse charge belongs on the invoice.

For the shop that means three invoice templates instead of one, selected by customer group, customer location and the verification result of the number — and not by a tick box someone sets by hand. It also means storing the verification result as of the time of the order rather than only the current state: if a number becomes invalid a year later, the old invoice still has to be explainable. Which mandatory details additionally attach to the article itself is covered in GPSR and the new ProdSG: mandatory information in your online shop.

Building a business area is first and foremost data work: defining customer groups, taking price lists over from the ERP system, storing verification results, setting up roles in the company account. The visible part — a net price instead of a gross price, one extra field in the ordering route — is the smaller one. It is therefore worth answering three questions before the first draft: which customers buy at which prices? Who is allowed to order at those customers? And which of that data already sits structured in the ERP system?

We build shops like this with Shopware Community Edition: setting up customer groups and price lists, keeping net and gross display properly apart, building registration with a check of the VAT identification number, invoice purchase with payment terms, order approvals as an option with your own Shopware licence, and taking article data over from your existing ERP system. How such a shop is set up and what drives the effort is described on the online shop page; the ongoing care afterwards — updates, security levels, adjustments to the price structure — is covered by website care.