Sidekick is the AI assistant built into the Shopify admin. Since June 2026, apps can plug their data into it — which means your wholesale application queue no longer lives only inside an app you have to open. You can just ask.
Sidekick has been able to answer questions about your orders, products, and customers for a while. What it couldn't see was anything that lived inside third-party apps — and for wholesale merchants, that's where the interesting part of the day happens: who applied for a trade account, who's waiting, who checked out.
In June 2026 Shopify opened Sidekick app extensions to all developers. Apps can now expose their data to Sidekick, and Sidekick decides when it's relevant to your question. The first time you ask, it requests your permission before touching any app data — nothing is shared silently.
With a wholesale onboarding app connected to Sidekick, questions like these get real answers, straight in the chat panel:
The answer comes back with the details that matter for a decision: the company name, country, expected order volume, how long the application has been waiting, and — the part we care most about at Tradelane — whether the buyer's EU VAT number passed the VIES check, or which US state issued their resale certificate. If you're new to buyer verification, we've written about how EU VAT and US resale certificate checks work.
Sidekick reads your application data; it doesn't act on it. Approving or rejecting a wholesale application stays a human decision, made inside the app, with the full application in front of you. That's not a technical limitation — it's the right design. Approval creates a real B2B company on your store, assigns a catalog with trade pricing, and emails the buyer. You want a person clicking that button.
Shopify enforces this direction too: app extensions are reviewed against strict rules — read-only data tools, no promotions, no hidden actions. The assistant tells you what's in the queue; the queue stays yours.
A wholesale application is time-sensitive in a way most admin tasks aren't. The buyer who filled in your trade form is comparing suppliers this week. Every day an application sits unnoticed is a day they spend evaluating someone else — we've seen applications go stale simply because the merchant didn't open the app for a few days.
Sidekick removes that failure mode. The queue becomes visible from anywhere in the admin, in the same place you already ask about orders and inventory. "Anything waiting for me?" now includes your B2B pipeline.
No. Sidekick is available across Shopify plans, and native B2B no longer requires Plus. A standard plan, a wholesale onboarding app, and Sidekick work together fine.
The data flows from the app to Sidekick inside your own admin session, and only after you grant permission the first time. It's the same data you'd see opening the app yourself.
No, and by design. Sidekick surfaces the information and points you to the right page; the approval click — and the company it creates — remains yours.
Tradelane works with Sidekick out of the box: ask about pending wholesale applications, applicant details, and buyer verification status (EU VAT via VIES, US resale certificates) without leaving your flow. Buyers apply through a form on your storefront; you approve in one click. Try it free on the Shopify App Store. See also: how to onboard wholesale customers.