The Shopping Cart offers the ability to assign users to a Shopper Group. This enables Storekeepers to create Shopper Groups for whatever need (e.g. site access, customer rating, tax display, etc.). These shopper groups can then be used to provide special services, discounts, or access to a specific group of users. Because users and shopper groups are associated to a particular vendor, it is important to create your vendor records before creating the user and shopper group records.
Payment Processors can also be assigned to specific Shopper Groups. For example say you support eduactional facilities and always give them a discount and allow them to pay with C.O.D. You can set a discount or product prices based on the shopper group as well as assign a payment module to that specific Shopper Group. Another example of this in a real life use case is if you are a manufacturer and you also want to offer a different price to Retailers who log into your site. This can be a little tricky in setting up as well as managing but it can work.
Note: Due to several special needs that a cart system needs to accomodate Wholesale rather than retail we always advise Manufacturers to set up 2 different systems/sites. The goals are pretty different and in most cases it is easier to manage if seperated.