Getting Started with Saal: Sales Agent

Saal: Sales Agent lets you appoint customers as sales agents. An agent signs in to your storefront as themselves, selects a customer they are allowed to act for, and places an order in that customer's name — with that customer's catalog, agreed prices and delivery locations. The order lands on the customer's account, and the agent never needs a staff account or access to your admin. Setup takes about ten minutes. This guide covers the whole path: install, choose a plan, add the storefront blocks, and create your first agent.

You need a Shopify store and at least one customer account that will act as a sales agent. That can be an existing customer or one you create for the purpose — for example, a rep on your sales team who already has a customer account in your shop. The app works on every Shopify plan. On Shopify Plus, agents check out natively and can charge a company's saved payment method. On all other plans, the order is created as a draft order and the customer receives an invoice with a payment link. You do not need to decide anything here — the app detects your plan and enables the matching flow.

Install Saal: Sales Agent from the Shopify App Store. After installation the app opens automatically and your free trial begins. On first open you are asked to choose a plan. Pick the one matching your store — the app will tell you which features are available to you. You can change plans later at any time.

The app adds two blocks to your theme: the session bar that agents see at the top of the page, and the customer selector they use to choose who they are ordering for. Without these blocks, agents have no way to start a session. In the app, open the Setup Guide and follow each link. Each one opens your theme editor at the right place with the block ready to add. Add the block, then save the theme.

After saving, visit your storefront. You will not see anything new — this is expected and does not mean the setup failed. The blocks are hidden from everyone except signed-in sales agents, so ordinary customers never see them. They appear once you complete the next step and sign in as an agent.

Open the app's home page and search for the customer you want to appoint. Select them and designate them as a sales agent. Next, set what that agent may do. The simplest option is to allow access to all customers, which is a good starting point while you test. You can also restrict an agent to specific customers, to specific companies, or to customers carrying a particular tag — useful when reps have defined territories or account lists. Permission changes take effect immediately.

Sign in to your storefront as the sales agent customer. The session bar now appears at the top of the page. Use it to select a customer, enter a consent date and an optional note, and confirm. Consent is recorded once per customer — the next time this agent acts for the same person, they will not be asked again. The session bar now shows whose account you are ordering in. Add a product to the cart and check out as usual. When you are done, click End session to return to the agent's own account.

In your Shopify admin, open the order you just placed. It is assigned to the customer, not to the agent. Open that customer's record and you will find the consent date, the note, and the name of the responsible agent stored on their profile. That is the whole loop. From here your reps can take orders by phone or in the field and place them directly, without retyping anything into the admin.

Send your reps the guide on placing an order for a customer — it is written for them and covers only what they need, with no admin concepts in it. If you have territories or account lists to reflect, read about permissions next. If you are on Shopify Plus, the article on Plus and Basic explains the company and payment features available to you.