It's no wonder that many people choose to be on the wholesale side of things when you consider the thrill of selling tens, hundreds, or even thousands of items with one transaction. Wholesale order management, on the other hand, can be difficult if you don't have the right tools and procedures in place.
Here are several things you can do to ensure that nothing interferes with the excitement of landing those big orders:
Keep Careful Track of Inventory
There's nothing worse than getting a huge order only to find out that you don't have enough product in stock to fill it! Not only do you have to give all of that money back, your company looks bad in the eyes of the customer. Avoid this problem by integrating your wholesale order management software with QuickBooks so your inventory levels automatically update with each new order. This way, you can get the correct inventory status before customers finish placing their orders. Your B2B e-commerce site will also update automatically, so customers can see how much of each item you have on hand.
Standardize Your Product Descriptions
When customers make queries about your product, you need to ensure that they get the same answer no matter which rep they contact. Do this by adding good descriptions to your QuickBooks account. This will then transfer over to your order management system that everyone can access. You can then create specific order forms for each customer. When a customer pulls up their specific order form they will be able to see the correct descriptions of the items they usually purchase. Adding images to your order forms will also be a big help to your customer too.
Offer Online Ordering for Customers and Outside Sales Staff
Modern order management systems don't just keep track of orders that come in through the old channels. Instead, they make it easy to enter orders online by allowing you to set up accounts for your customers and your sales reps. The best solutions allow you to set prices for each customer account, so customers see the right ones when they order online.
Sales rep accounts allow reps to enter orders right from customers' offices. This eliminates delays and helps ensure that the orders are entered correctly.
Integrate Multiple Channels into One System
One of the biggest problems with old-fashioned systems is that each channel generates its own order stream. These different streams may use a variety of order-taking methods, and this causes difficulty when it comes time to enter all of the information into your processing and accounting records. Modernizing your system allows you to standardize your order formats into a single one. Once everyone learns the new template, it'll be easy for all of your sales reps, accountants, and other personnel to understand it at a glance.
Make Order Information Immediately Available to All Departments
When everyone in your company can see order information, your departments won't end up tripping on each other when a new order arrives. Everyone will know how much stock is available, where current orders are in the fulfillment process, and who ordered what. This will prevent the mistakes that would be caused if your departments were blind to each other's status.
Send Orders to Your Warehouse Electronically
Electronic integration with your offsite warehouse operations ensures that information is transmitted accurately at all times. This transmission works in both directions. The warehouse will get accurate order information and your main office, in turn, gets instantly updated when an order goes out. Together, these benefits result in fast and error-free fulfillment and inventory control.
For more information on modernizing your order management, just contact us. We'll be glad to help you gain the benefits of today's systems.