GlobeTrader (globetrader.com) is a brand-owned B2B wholesale portal from XM Works, Inc., 125 S Highway 101, Solana Beach, CA 92075. It is wholesale order software: a brand-owned site where retailers log in, see account pricing, and place orders, with invoicing, payments, and sales-rep tools included.
Search results for “wholesale platform” mix four different products. This page separates them so you can pick the right job: branded portal, marketplace, directory, or ERP / commerce suite.
What a B2B wholesale portal is
A B2B wholesale portal (also called a branded wholesale microsite or wholesale order portal) is software the brand operates. Approved retailers, distributors, and often independent sales reps log into the brand’s wholesale link, see customer-specific price lists, and submit bulk orders. The brand sets minimums, net terms, and who is approved. The buyer account lives with the brand, not on a shared aisle next to competing lines.
A portal is not:
- A factory-sourcing marketplace (Alibaba, Global Sources, DHgate)
- A multi-brand retail marketplace that takes a commission on orders (Faire, Ankorstore)
- A supplier directory that introduces you and then steps out of the transaction (Thomasnet, Wholesale Central)
- A full ecommerce or ERP suite you replatform onto (Shopify Plus, NetSuite)
Those four jobs overlap in marketing copy. They do not overlap in who owns the retailer, who sets the fee, or where the order is placed.
Portal vs marketplace vs directory vs ERP
Public fees below are what each vendor or a 2026 roundup published. They change. Confirm on the vendor’s pricing page before you budget.
| Branded wholesale portal (e.g. GlobeTrader) | Marketplace (Faire / Alibaba) | Directory (Thomasnet) | ERP / commerce suite (Shopify Plus, NetSuite) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who owns the buyer relationship | The brand. Retailers order on the brand’s wholesale link / microsite. | Shared. The platform introduces buyers and hosts checkout. Faire Direct is a 0% path for customers the brand already has; marketplace orders are the platform’s. | The supplier, after the directory makes the introduction. Orders happen off-platform. | The brand, inside its own store or ERP. |
| Typical fees | GlobeTrader seller plans: Essential $199/mo, Pro $299/mo, Enterprise $499/mo (yearly: $159 / $239 / $399). Payment integration fees 0.50% / 0.35% / 0.25%. No marketplace take-rate is listed on globetrader.com/pricing. | Faire: about 15% commission plus a $10 new-customer fee on marketplace orders; 0% via Faire Direct (SaleHoo fee table, verified 21 July 2026). Alibaba: buyers typically free; sellers pay membership plans (published dollar amounts differ by source — confirm on Alibaba). | Listing or advertising fees for suppliers. Buyer search is often free. Thomasnet does not publish a single take-rate the way Faire does. | Shopify Plus: about $2,300/mo on a three-year term (SparkLayer’s 2026 comparison). NetSuite is quoted per deal; no public list price is used here. |
| Best for | DTC / consumer-product brands that already have (or will recruit) retailers and reps, and want wholesale on top of Shopify, Magento, or another store without becoming a marketplace listing. | Faire: indie retailers stocking branded, retail-ready goods. Alibaba: factory-direct manufacturing, private label, and high-MOQ import. | Finding industrial / North American manufacturers and then negotiating direct. | Brands that want DTC and B2B in one commerce admin (Shopify Plus) or wholesale inside a full ERP (NetSuite). |
| MOQ | Set by the brand (order limits and special pricing are portal settings). | Faire: set per brand, commonly $100–$300. Alibaba: set per supplier, often 100–1,000+ units. | Set by each listed supplier; negotiated off-platform. | Set by the brand in the commerce/ERP catalog. |
| Reps | Built in on GlobeTrader: sales-rep management, a sales-rep admin portal, order-on-behalf, commission tracking. | Not the core product. Faire and Alibaba connect brand and buyer; they are not a dedicated independent-rep commission system. | Not a rep tool. The directory lists companies. | Shopify’s native B2B covers company accounts, catalogs, net terms, and PO numbers; deeper rep-assisted ordering typically needs extra apps. NetSuite handles sales roles as ERP, not as a tradeshow-ready rep app. |
| Tradeshow tools | GlobeTrader lists a Quick Order Form and a Quick Order QR Code tradeshow order system on its pricing page. | Marketplace storefront and (for some sourcing sites) physical trade shows. Not a brand-booth QR checkout you control. | None as a product. Directories are search, not booth ordering. | No native booth QR wholesale flow in Shopify Plus or NetSuite as described in the public comparisons cited here. |
Choose X if…
Choose a branded wholesale portal if you already sell DTC (or are adding wholesale to it), you want retailers on your link, you employ or work with independent reps, and you do not want a 15% marketplace commission as the default cost of an order. GlobeTrader is built for this job.
Choose Faire if you need a pool of independent retailers you do not already have, you sell boutique / retail-ready goods, and you will trade commission (and Faire’s net-60 / opening-order return policies) for that distribution. Use Faire Direct for accounts you already own.
Choose Alibaba if the job is factory-direct sourcing, private label, or container-scale manufacturing — not running a branded wholesale shop for existing specialty retailers.
Choose a directory (Thomasnet and peers) if you are searching for industrial suppliers or want to be found as a manufacturer, and you expect the actual PO to happen off the directory.
Choose Shopify Plus or NetSuite if wholesale is one module of a larger commerce/ERP rebuild: one admin, company records, punchout-scale B2B, or finance in the same system. Budget and implementation time are a different order of magnitude than a $199–$499/mo portal.
Run two at once if you need discovery and ownership. Many brands list on a marketplace for new doors and keep a portal for house accounts, reps, and tradeshows. Those are complementary channels, not synonyms.
How GlobeTrader fits
GlobeTrader sits in the branded portal column, with a second surface for buyers and reps.
Sellers create a custom branded wholesale portal and a unique wholesale link to put on their site and share with accounts. Official pages name Shopify and Magento as ecommerce platforms GlobeTrader adds wholesale onto, rather than replacing. Pricing, customer-group rules, volume discounts, wholesale tiers, a wholesale signup form, and the ability to hide products from retail vs. wholesale customers are on the public feature list. Checkout is one page, with dynamic invoices, manual orders, draft checkout, and checkout notes.
The site is three-sided: sellers (brands adding wholesale), buyers (retailers and distributors; buyer access is marketed as free), and reps (place orders for stores and track commissions).
Net checkout terms and customer-specific payment terms are listed on every plan. Payments named on the site: PayPal, Authorize.net, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, and TradePay (credit cards). Seller software is a monthly (or yearly) subscription plus the payment integration fee. GlobeTrader does not publish a GMV marketplace commission on its pricing page.
GlobeTrader seller software — not The Works — is priced on globetrader.com/pricing:
- Essential — $199 / month
- Pro — $299 / month
- Enterprise — $499 / month
Yearly billing is listed as $159 / $239 / $399. Payment integration fees are 0.50% / 0.35% / 0.25%. Those three figures are GlobeTrader seller subscriptions. They are not export-management retainers and they are not marketplace commissions.
Software is GlobeTrader. When you want XM Works on the account, that is The Works: live full-service export management on retainers (Essentials $5,000 / month + 5%, Growth $10,000 / month + 3%, Full-Service $15,000 / month + 2% of gross sales through managed accounts).
Quick Order and Quick Order QR are listed as admin features, including a Quick Order QR Code tradeshow order system. That is the operational difference vs. emailing a PDF line sheet from a booth.
Run your entire wholesale business in one place — payments, inventory, and customer relationships, without the spreadsheets and disconnected tools.
— globetrader.com
GlobeTrader was built differently. It’s a platform that gives brands their own customized wholesale microsite, creating a curated environment where retailers can buy direct from the source. It’s not about being another middleman…
Seamlessly add wholesale to your direct-to-consumer business, whether you’re on Shopify, Magento or any other platform.
— globetrader.com
A free trial is offered sitewide. Chat support hours on the privacy and contact pages are Monday–Friday, 9am–6pm PST for registered users. Questions go to the contact page.
FAQ
What is a B2B wholesale portal?
A B2B wholesale portal is a brand-operated login where approved retailers and distributors order at wholesale prices, with the brand’s own catalog, price lists, and payment terms. GlobeTrader (globetrader.com) is one such portal: a branded wholesale microsite you link from your website.
How is a wholesale portal different from a wholesale marketplace?
A portal is your store for wholesale. You own the account list. You pay software (and payment processing). A marketplace is a shared store. The platform brings buyers, hosts the cart, and usually charges a commission (Faire’s published marketplace rate is about 15% plus $10 per new customer). Same word — “platform” — two jobs.
Is GlobeTrader an Alibaba alternative?
No. Alibaba is a factory-direct sourcing marketplace for manufacturing, private label, and import, with seller memberships and tools such as Trade Assurance. GlobeTrader is a branded wholesale order portal for consumer-product brands that already sell, or want to sell, to retailers and distributors. It does not replace Alibaba’s supplier catalog or China-sourcing workflow. If your question is “where do I find a factory,” that is a different category.
Is GlobeTrader a Faire alternative?
It can be, for a specific reason: you want to own the retailer account and run wholesale on your own link, including reps and tradeshow QR, instead of paying marketplace commission as the default. It is not a like-for-like replacement if what you need is Faire’s independent-retailer network, net-60 for buyers, and opening-order returns. Brands that want both often keep Faire for discovery and a portal for house accounts. See GlobeTrader vs Faire, Shopify, SparkLayer, Alibaba.
How is a dedicated portal different from Shopify B2B / Shopify Plus?
Shopify Plus is an ecommerce suite. Native B2B on Shopify includes company accounts, catalogs, net terms, PO numbers, and a B2B checkout; Plus is the tier that unlocks the deeper catalog limits, at about $2,300/month on a three-year term in public 2026 comparisons. A dedicated portal such as GlobeTrader is a wholesale layer meant to sit on Shopify, Magento, or another store: branded wholesale link, rep portals, Quick Order / QR for shows, net terms, and invoicing without moving the DTC site onto Plus. Choose Plus when you want one Shopify admin for everything and will pay enterprise SaaS. Choose a dedicated portal when wholesale needs its own buyer/rep experience and you are not replatforming.
Does a wholesale portal support net terms?
On GlobeTrader, yes: net checkout terms and customer-specific payment terms are listed on Essential, Pro, and Enterprise. That is portal software doing what a PDF terms sheet used to do. Faire’s net-60 is a marketplace buyer perk funded inside Faire’s model; it is not the same as terms you extend from your own portal.
Who pays for GlobeTrader — brands or buyers?
Brands (sellers) pay the published plans: $199 / $299 / $499 per month, or less on yearly billing, plus the payment integration fee (0.50% / 0.35% / 0.25%). GlobeTrader markets buyer access as free. Rep tools are described on globetrader.com/reps; separate rep-plan prices appear on a third-party directory and not on the official pricing page, so they are not repeated here.
Can I add GlobeTrader without leaving Shopify or Magento?
GlobeTrader’s homepage copy is that you add wholesale to a direct-to-consumer business “whether you’re on Shopify, Magento or any other platform.” The sellers page describes connecting products from the current ecommerce provider and creating a customized wholesale portal. It is positioned as an add-on, not a replatform.
Do sales reps get their own login?
Yes. GlobeTrader publishes a reps product: reps place orders for the stores they represent, manage invoices and shipments, and track commissions. Seller plans include a sales-rep management system and a secure sales-rep admin portal.
What does GlobeTrader cost besides the monthly plan?
The pricing page lists a payment integration fee of 0.50% (Essential), 0.35% (Pro), or 0.25% (Enterprise). Premium support and dedicated onboarding are listed as add-ons. No GMV take-rate is shown. Card networks and gateways (PayPal, Authorize.net, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, TradePay) may have their own processor fees on top; GlobeTrader’s published number is the integration fee, not a promise that processing is free.
Is GlobeTrader a marketplace, a portal, or both?
Publicly, both surfaces exist. The homepage, sellers, and pricing pages sell a branded wholesale portal / order-management product. The buyers page and some blog posts also describe a network of wholesale brands that retailers can browse. For buying software, treat the paying product as the brand-owned portal. Do not file it next to Alibaba.
Get the portal, not a listing
If the job is a brand-owned B2B wholesale portal — your pricing, your accounts, your reps, your tradeshow QR — start at globetrader.com. Compare software plans on globetrader.com/pricing, or go to the sellers, buyers, or reps pages. A free trial is offered on the site. Questions: contact.
Fee-and-routing comparison: GlobeTrader vs Faire, Shopify, SparkLayer, Alibaba. More guides: Guides. Company facts: About. Managed export desk: The Works.
Figures checked August 2026: GlobeTrader seller plans — globetrader.com/pricing. Faire marketplace fees (SaleHoo, 21 July 2026) — salehoo.com/learn/wholesale-marketplaces. Shopify Plus ~$2,300/mo — sparklayer.io/best-b2b-ecommerce-platform-for-wholesalers.
