Software for Wholesale and Distribution

The one number that decides the rest

Every wholesale problem we are asked to solve traces back to stock accuracy. Oversells, credit notes, apology calls, an order picked twice — all downstream of one number being wrong.

So phase one is almost always the same: one master for stock, everything else subscribing, and a nightly reconciliation that reports differences before a customer finds them.

One wholesaler was writing off two to three thousand pounds a week in credits traceable to stock and order errors. The fix was not a new sales channel.

Order capture, which is where the hours go

Trade orders arrive as email, PDF, phone calls and portal exports in a dozen formats. Someone types them in. It is the largest single time sink in most wholesale operations and the most automatable.

• Extraction from emailed and PDF orders, with confidence routing
• Matching customer product codes to yours — the part everyone underestimates
• Validating against credit limits and available stock before acceptance
• A confirmation back to the customer with what was actually accepted

Trade pricing that products handle badly

Wholesale pricing is customer-specific, volume-banded, sometimes contract-fixed and often negotiated per line. Consumer commerce platforms handle this poorly, which is why so many wholesalers run price lists in spreadsheets alongside their system.

1. Customer price lists with effective dates
2. Volume breaks, per product and per category
3. Contract prices that override everything, with expiry
4. Settlement and early-payment terms
5. Quote-to-order, since much trade business starts as a quote

The integration set

Sequencing a wholesale build

1. Stock truth and reconciliation — 6–10 weeks
2. Order capture and validation — 6–10 weeks
3. Pricing engine — 8–12 weeks
4. Customer portal for self-serve ordering and status — after the above
5. Demand forecasting, once there is a year of clean data

Customers ask for the portal first because it is visible. Built before stock is trustworthy, it publishes your inaccuracy to your customers, which is worse than not having one.

Frequently asked questions