Order processing, for small wholesale businesses in particular, can be a nightmare — as a wholesaler, you’re acutely aware of this.
This nightmare may be a grim reality if you’re still manually entering your order data. Manual processes have too many steps, and each step has room for error. This is made doubly difficult if your wholesale customers can only order by giving you a call or sending you an email.
Determining what each customer wants and handling each order personally (either yourself or your office staff) takes precious time. And, in the world of wholesale, time is money like nowhere else.
Wholesale customers want to order fast and are not interested in waiting.
We've gotten used to getting what we want when we want it, which means order processing for smaller wholesale businesses has certain expectations attached to it.
Think about your own expectations when you do business. Do you want to call each of your vendors whenever you want to place an order? Ever catch yourself wishing you could have the same ease of ordering as when you shop online?
Do your customers have the same wish? Do they expect to only order during your business hours?
Online ordering for your wholesale customers must be fast, efficient, up-to-date, and accessible.
Your wholesale customers must be able to place orders any time of the day or night. They don’t have time to wait for you to process their orders, to wait for you to check inventory, or to make phone calls to your sales department to confirm prices. They don’t have time to wait for the salesperson to visit their store to take an order, wait to get a callback, or wait to confirm their specific pricing.
They want to place the order, know the product is coming in, and get on with running their business.
Many people spend most of their workday in front of a computer, so filling out an order form online and knowing that the product is in stock with a confirmed price makes their life infinitely simpler. They know how online order placement works and want the wholesale ordering process to be the same easy online experience.
Order management software makes your life and your customer's life easier.
You give your wholesale customers control of the process by allowing them to log in and place their orders directly.
Supplying restaurants? The owner or manager can pour themselves a glass of wine at the end of a long day, review their inventory, and place their order at their leisure.
Supplying retail stores? They can place their order as needed when they have time throughout the day, filling in the order piecemeal while helping their customers.
It doesn’t matter who your customer is – being able to place an order at their convenience when they want to place the order improves their experience with your company.
Spend the time you need on the customers with tricky orders or issues that must be resolved. Send the office staff home early. Finally, get around to updating your website or researching more products to carry.
Do you use QuickBooks?
Do you need to provide custom pricing for each customer? Do your sales reps need to be able to access their own customer base and manage orders? Do you need it all to work with QuickBooks? For many wholesalers, online order processing software that integrates with QuickBooks isn’t just something that’d be nice to have – it’s essential.
