It's no wonder many people choose to be on the wholesale side when considering the thrill of selling tens, hundreds, or even thousands of items with one transaction. On the other hand, wholesale order management can be complex if you don't have the right tools and procedures in place.
Here are some things you can do to ensure that nothing interferes with the excitement of landing those big orders:
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! Avoid this 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 eCommerce portal will also update automatically so customers can see how much of each item you have on hand.
When wholesale customers ask about your products, you must ensure they get the same answer no matter which reps they contact. Do this by adding good descriptions to the products on your QuickBooks item list. This will then be transferred to your order management system, which everyone can access. You can then create specific order forms for each customer. When customers pull up their specific order form, they can see the correct descriptions of the items they usually purchase. Adding images to your order forms will also greatly help your customers.
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 wholesale 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 portals allow reps to enter orders right from customers' locations. This eliminates delays and helps ensure that the orders are entered correctly.
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.
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.
Electronic integration with your offsite warehouse operations ensures that information is always transmitted accurately. This transmission works in both directions: The warehouse will receive accurate order information, and your team will be instantly updated when an order goes out. Together, these benefits result in fast and error-free fulfillment and inventory control.