Shopify Handshake Shut Down: What to Use Instead in 2026

In this article

• What happened to Handshake on Shopify?
• Why did Shopify shut Handshake down?
• What are the best Shopify Handshake alternatives in 2026?
• Marketplace or your own wholesale store: which should you pick?
• How do you rebuild a wholesale channel on your own Shopify store?
• Frequently asked questions

What happened to Handshake on Shopify?

Handshake was Shopify's own wholesale marketplace, and it no longer exists. Shopify quietly acquired Handshake, a New York B2B wholesale commerce platform, in May 2019, then relaunched it in 2020 as a curated marketplace where approved suppliers listed wholesale catalogs and independent retailers placed orders. There were no listing fees and no commission, which is exactly why so many small brands built a real part of their order book on it.

That ended in 2023. Shopify wound the marketplace down and the shopify.com/handshake address now sends visitors to a general list of wholesale suppliers instead. If you are searching for handshake wholesale today and finding dead links, outdated reviews, and a career-services site with the same name, that is why. There is nothing left to sign up for.

The practical consequence for suppliers was blunt. Handshake buyer relationships lived inside Shopify's marketplace, not inside your store, so when the marketplace closed the discovery channel closed with it. Brands that had also collected buyer emails and pushed repeat orders through their own site kept most of that revenue. Brands that had treated Handshake as the whole wholesale channel had to start again.

Why did Shopify shut Handshake down?

Shopify chose a partner instead of a product. On September 27, 2023, Faire and Shopify announced a partnership establishing Faire as Shopify's recommended wholesale marketplace, with Shopify also becoming a Faire shareholder. Handshake was retired shortly afterward.

Read alongside the 2019 acquisition, the arc is clear. Shopify kept the part of Handshake it actually wanted, which was B2B ordering technology that fed into what became Shopify B2B on Plus, and handed marketplace discovery to a company whose entire business is running one. Running a two-sided wholesale marketplace against Faire was not a fight Shopify wanted.

This is the second Shopify wholesale product to be retired in recent years, which matters more than the individual shutdowns. The older Shopify Wholesale Channel was also sunset and replaced. If your wholesale operation depends entirely on one Shopify-owned surface, you are carrying a real platform risk, and the last six years have twice made that point.

What are the best Shopify Handshake alternatives in 2026?

There is no like-for-like replacement, because nothing else is a free, zero-commission wholesale marketplace inside Shopify. Your realistic options split into two camps: rent discovery from a marketplace, or own the channel on your own store. For brands that already have retailer relationships, owning the channel wins on margin and control; for brands that need new buyers introduced to them, a marketplace still earns its fee.

Faire

Faire is the closest thing to a direct Handshake successor and it is where Shopify officially points merchants. It genuinely does the one thing Handshake did that your own site cannot: it puts your catalog in front of retailers who have never heard of you. The cost is commission. Per Faire's own fee documentation, marketplace orders carry a 15% commission, with a one-time 10% new customer referral fee on top for a retailer's first order, taking that first order to 25%. Orders from retailers you bring yourself through Faire Direct are 0%. Treat Faire as paid acquisition, not as your wholesale infrastructure.

Shopify B2B on Plus

Shopify's native B2B features are the technology Handshake was partly absorbed into, and they are solid: company profiles, price lists, payment terms, and a proper wholesale checkout. The catch is the plan. Shopify B2B requires Shopify Plus, which puts it out of reach for most brands doing their first six figures of wholesale. If you are already on Plus, use it. If you are not, upgrading purely to unlock wholesale is an expensive way to solve the problem.

Your own wholesale portal

The third option is to run wholesale on the Shopify store you already have, with an app supplying the B2B layer. This is what a B2B wholesale software app such as PortalSphere does: gated registration and login, hidden prices for logged-out visitors, tiered pricing per customer group, minimum order quantities and pack sizes, bulk order forms, net terms, and tax exemption, all on a standard Shopify plan. You pay a flat subscription rather than a slice of every order, and the buyer stays yours.

Marketplace or your own wholesale store: which should you pick?

The honest answer is that most brands should run both, weighted by where their buyers actually come from. The decision hinges on one question: do you need buyers introduced to you, or do you already have them?

If you are starting cold with no retailer list, a marketplace is worth its commission. Paying 25% on a first order to meet a stockist you would never otherwise have reached is a reasonable customer acquisition cost, provided you have a plan to move that retailer onto your own ordering system for reorders. Reorders are where wholesale margin lives, and paying 15% on every one of them forever is not acquisition, it is rent.

If you already have retailers emailing you order forms, taking orders by phone, or working off a spreadsheet you maintain by hand, a marketplace solves nothing. Your problem is not discovery, it is manual order entry, pricing errors, and a buying experience that makes a professional buyer do your data entry for you. That is a job for your own portal. We have broken the economics down in detail in our guide to Faire versus selling wholesale on your own Shopify store.

How do you rebuild a wholesale channel on your own Shopify store?

Five steps take you from a closed marketplace account to a working wholesale portal. None of them require Shopify Plus or custom code.

1. Gate the catalog and hide wholesale prices

Wholesale pricing should never be visible to retail shoppers or competitors. Add a registration form for trade applicants, approve accounts manually, and hide prices until customers log in. This is the piece a marketplace handled invisibly for you, and it is the first thing to rebuild.

2. Rebuild your price tiers as customer groups

Sort your buyers into the groups you actually price by: stockist, distributor, key account. Then set up tiered wholesale pricing so each group sees its own prices automatically, with volume breaks where they apply. Doing this properly removes the single biggest source of wholesale errors, which is a human applying the wrong discount.

3. Set minimum order quantities and pack sizes

Wholesale is not retail with a discount. Enforce order minimums, per-product MOQs, and case pack multiples at the cart so an unprofitable order cannot be placed. Our walkthrough on setting minimum order quantities covers the common configurations.

4. Give buyers a bulk ordering experience

A retailer reordering 40 SKUs will not click through 40 product pages. A bulk order form with SKU search, quantity fields, and a running subtotal is what turns a wholesale site into something buyers use without being chased.

5. Offer net terms and tax exemption

Trade buyers expect to be invoiced, not to hand over a card. Support net 30 terms at checkout for approved accounts, and flag tax-exempt customers so resale certificates are handled correctly rather than refunded later.

If you want the full sequence including customer group setup and go-live checks, our guide to setting up wholesale on Shopify without upgrading to Plus walks through it end to end.

Frequently asked questions

Is Shopify Handshake still active in 2026?

No. Shopify retired the Handshake wholesale marketplace in 2023 and it is not accepting suppliers or buyers. The shopify.com/handshake address now points to a general page listing wholesale suppliers, with no way to join the original marketplace.

Is Shopify Handshake the same as the Handshake job site?

No, and the name collision causes real confusion in search results. Handshake at joinhandshake.com is a university career and recruiting platform with no connection to ecommerce. Shopify's Handshake was a separate wholesale marketplace that has since closed.

What replaced Handshake by Shopify?

Nothing replaced it directly. Shopify named Faire its recommended wholesale marketplace in September 2023, so Faire is the closest successor for buyer discovery, while Shopify's own B2B features on the Plus plan absorbed the ordering technology. Brands that want a commission-free channel run wholesale on their own Shopify store with a B2B app instead.

Does Shopify have its own wholesale marketplace now?

No. Since Handshake closed, Shopify has not operated a wholesale marketplace of its own. It recommends Faire for marketplace discovery and provides native B2B ordering features to Shopify Plus merchants, but there is no Shopify-run wholesale marketplace to list on.

How much does Faire charge compared to Handshake?

Handshake charged suppliers nothing: no listing fees and no commission. Faire charges a 15% commission on marketplace orders, plus a one-time 10% new customer referral fee on a retailer's first order, which makes that first order 25%. Orders you bring in yourself through Faire Direct are 0%.

Do I need Shopify Plus to sell wholesale after Handshake?

No. Shopify's built-in B2B features require Plus, but a wholesale app on a standard Shopify plan delivers gated access, tiered pricing, MOQs, bulk ordering, and net terms without the upgrade. Most brands building their first wholesale channel start there and move to Plus only when volume justifies it.