Buyer accounts, buyer groups and buyer group members
Key Takeaway
Buyers can shop in a store when their buyer account belongs to a buyer group that is associated with that store. Disabling an account as a buyer deletes its buyer group associations. After you re-enable it, you must add it back to its buyer groups.
In B2B Commerce, a buyer account is a Salesforce account that is enabled to buy from a store. A buyer group is a set of buyer accounts that share the same store access, price books, and entitlement policies. Buyer group members are the records that link buyers to a buyer group. Together, these three pieces decide who can shop in a store and which products and prices they see.
How store access works
Store access follows a three-step chain:
- Enable an account as a buyer.
- Add the buyer account to a buyer group.
- Associate the buyer group with a store.
The products and prices buyers see come from the entitlement policies and price books assigned to that buyer group.
| Object | API name | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer Account | BuyerAccount | The buyer's financial information, including credit and order limits. Some of this information applies only to B2B. |
| Buyer Group | BuyerGroup | A group of buyers with the same assigned entitlement policies, price books, and products. |
| Buyer Group Member | BuyerGroupMember | An individual buyer associated with a buyer group. |
The people who actually shop are contacts on the buyer account. A contact on a buyer account can access the stores that the account's buyer group is associated with. Shopping access comes through the group, not from the contact record alone.
An admin enables the Ridgeway Builders account as a buyer and enables two of its contacts as customer users. The contacts can't shop in the Atlas Pro store yet, because the account isn't in any buyer group. The admin then adds Ridgeway Builders to the Contractor buyer group, which is associated with Atlas Pro. Now both contacts can shop in Atlas Pro. They see the products and prices from the entitlement policies and price books assigned to the Contractor buyer group.