Private Catalog & Buyer Approval
Two switches that turn an open marketplace into a closed one: approve who gets a buyer account, and show the catalog only to the people you approved. Both live under Store Settings → Signup Form → Buyer Signup Fields, and both are available on the Pro plan and up.
Quick answer
pantrywholesale.com/listingsThis catalog is for approved Retailers
Sign in with your Retailer account to see listings and prices, or apply for one.
Create your Retailer account
First name
Last name
Shop name
VAT number
Account Under Review
Your account is being reviewed by the marketplace. You will get an email as soon as it has been approved, and you can then browse and buy.
Back to MarketplaceBuyer Management
48
Total Buyers
47
Active
0
Banned
1
Pending approval
"Your account on Pantry Wholesale has been approved" sent to [email protected]
All listings
Wholesale prices · signed in as Corner DeliHearth & Grain granola, case of 12
€51.00
Add to cartNordlys espresso beans, 6 × 1 kg
€78.00
Add to cartFjord sea salt flakes, 24 × 125 g
€64.80
Add to cartVisitor meets the catalog prompt → applies → account under review → owner approves → catalog and prices open
Why a marketplace closes its doors
On a consumer marketplace you remove friction. On a wholesale one you add it on purpose. A brand's wholesale price is the most sensitive number it has: if its own retail customers can Google it, the brand will not list with you, and if a competitor can scrape your catalog, they will. Retailers, in turn, expect to prove they are a business before they see trade prices. That is the shape of Faire, Ankorstore and every B2B marketplace: vetted on both sides, catalog behind a login.
Approve buyer accounts
Setup
- Store Settings → Signup Form → Buyer Signup Fields → Approve buyer accounts before they can shop. Off by default.
- Rename "Buyer" to "Retailer" (or whatever your vertical says) under Terminology on the Sellers & Buyers tab; the sign-up page and the catalog prompt follow it.
What happens
- A new buyer signup (magic link or social login) lands in Pending. The buyer gets a "request received" email and you get a "new request" email with a link to the queue.
- Pending buyers can sign in. Their dashboard shows "Account under review", and add to cart, Buy now, purchase requests and messaging sellers are refused with a clear message.
- Under Sellers & Buyers → Buyer Management the Pending approval card counts them. Approve, or reject with an optional reason. The buyer is emailed either way, and a rejected buyer sees the reason when they sign in. You can approve a rejected buyer later.
- Seller signups are not affected: they go through seller approval and, once active, can buy as well.
Not the same as purchase approval
Private catalog
Setup
- Store Settings → Signup Form → Buyer Signup Fields → Private catalog. Off by default.
- Keep Approve buyer accounts on as well. With open buyer signup, a private catalog is a login wall anyone can pass in ten seconds; the settings page warns you when the two disagree.
Who can see the catalog
- Approved buyers and active sellers of your marketplace, signed in.
- You, your team, and support access. The visual editor keeps working because it runs on your owner session.
- Nobody else: visitors, pending or rejected buyers, banned accounts, and members of other marketplaces.
What is gated
- Browse / all listings page
- Every listing detail page, including its title and image in link previews
- Seller profile pages
- Header search and the finder wizard
- Shared wishlists and boards
- Listing and seller sections on the homepage and custom pages (they show a sign-in prompt)
- The sitemap drops listings and sellers; robots.txt disallows them
- Homepage and every custom page you build
- Sign in, sign up and the seller application
- Category names and listing-type names in navigation
- Your store name, logo and branding
What a visitor sees
Any gated page shows a themed prompt in your normal header and footer: "This catalog is for approved Retailers. Sign in with your Retailer account to see listings and prices, or apply for one." A pending buyer sees "Your account is awaiting approval" instead. After sign-in they land back on the page they came from. Homepage sections that would list products show the same prompt in place of the grid.
Search engines
A wholesale setup in three switches
Good to know
- Existing buyers stay approved when you turn buyer approval on. Ban anyone you no longer want.
- Direct links a seller shares land non-members on the prompt, and bring them back to the listing after sign-in.
- Order, booking and account pages were already account-scoped and are unchanged.
- Turning private catalog off reopens everything immediately; sitemap and robots update on the next crawl.
- Starter plan: both switches are stored but not applied. Upgrade to Pro and they take effect.
Related
- Seller approval, the other half of a vetted marketplace
- Signup Form, gates and custom application fields
- Price rules, minimum price, order caps and minimum order quantity for wholesale
- B2B marketplace builder guide