Every B2B wholesaler who used Handshake remembers the email. It arrived in the autumn of 2021, written in the careful, measured tone of a company that knew it was about to ruin a lot of mornings. Shopify was, the message explained, "consolidating B2B investment" into its Plus offering. Handshake — the polished iPad-first app that had been the de-facto sales rep tool for a decade — would be sunset.
Most merchants reading the email had paid for Handshake licenses. Many had spent six-figure budgets on rolling it out across field teams in five languages. A few had built entire commission processes around it. None of them had a real plan B.
"We're consolidating our B2B investment into the Shopify Plus platform."
— Shopify, internal comms paraphrased, late 2021
The pivot made sense for Shopify. It made considerably less sense for the wholesale florist in Lyon, the Italian wine importer in Verona, the German industrial parts distributor in Düsseldorf — none of whom had asked for a B2B platform pivot. They had asked for a sales rep app that worked.
The Handshake-shaped hole had begun. It wouldn't be filled, properly, for almost five years.