You make, import or distribute goods, and your dealers order the way they always have: a call to the salesman, a WhatsApp voice note, a list on a parchi photographed and sent in the evening. Someone retypes it into the system, prices are argued over later, and a dealer over his credit limit finds out when the truck does not come. A B2B ordering portal moves that ordering online without changing who your customers are. These are the questions owners ask before building one.
How is B2B ordering different from a consumer store?
- Login only. A dealer sees the portal after you approve the account; the public sees a company site, or nothing.
- Customer-specific prices. Each dealer or dealer class has its own price list, scheme and discount, loaded from your system.
- Bulk packs and minimums. Items are sold by carton, bag or dozen, with a minimum order quantity and multiples.
- Credit, not cards. The dealer orders against a credit limit, sees the outstanding balance, and pays by cheque, transfer or through the salesman.
- Approval. Orders over the limit, or from new dealers, wait for the sales team before they reach the godown.
- Repeat orders. A dealer reorders last month's list in a tap, which is how the regular volume arrives.
Consumer store or B2B ordering portal?
| Consumer store | B2B ordering portal | |
|---|---|---|
| Who sees prices | Everyone | Logged-in dealers, each their own list |
| Pricing | One price, sale prices | Price lists by dealer class, schemes, trade discounts |
| Quantities | Single pieces | Packs and cartons, minimum quantities |
| Payment | Cash on delivery, wallet, card | Credit limit and udhaar balance, cheque or transfer |
| Approval | None; the order is dispatched | Sales team approves where limits or terms require |
What should the dealer see when they log in?
- Their own prices, with scheme and discount already applied.
- Stock availability as in stock, low or out, without exposing your exact quantities if you prefer.
- Order history, with reorder from any past order.
- Outstanding balance, credit limit, and the room left to order.
- Invoices and delivery challans to download, and a ledger of payments made.
- Order status: received, approved, packed, dispatched, delivered.
- A way to message the salesman or the order desk from the order itself.
How does the portal connect to the ERP or distribution system?
The portal should not keep its own item list, prices or stock. Items, price lists, credit limits and balances come from the ERP, and orders go back into it, where the order desk, the godown and accounts already work. One item list and one stock figure, read by the portal, the salesmen's app and the order desk alike. Where the current system cannot share data, the portal can hold the item list for a period and the ERP is joined later, but plan for that join from the start. The ways systems are connected are set out in integrating ERP, CRM and your online store. If your distribution still runs on registers, distribution software describes the system the portal would sit on.
Can the portal run alongside the consumer store?
Yes, on one catalogue with two price layers and two entrances; how to design a site that serves both trade and retail buyers is covered in B2B and B2C website design in Pakistan, so it is not repeated here.
How do salesmen and routes fit with an ordering portal?
They stay. A portal does not replace the salesman; it takes the typing away from him. Orders a dealer places on the portal land in the same order list as the orders the salesman books on his route, tagged with the dealer and the salesman responsible, so targets, commission and recovery are unchanged. The salesman sees on his phone which dealers ordered online this week and visits the ones who did not. Dealers who will never use a portal keep ordering through him, and the sales office sees both streams in one place. The businesses we serve this way are described on our distribution page.
A portal is only as good as the price list behind it. If prices and schemes are still agreed dealer by dealer on the phone, settle them in the ERP first, or the portal will show a price the salesman then overrides.
What has Operix built like this?
Siratim is a brand website with a CRM and ERP behind it for a bottled water company, keeping its customers, orders and deliveries in one system, with a label management system for custom-label orders that only invited customers can open. That invitation-only, order-and-delivery pattern is the shape of a dealer portal. Our web development team designs the dealer's screens and the sales office's screens before anything is built, and our website development company in Karachi page explains how a project runs. Karachi clients get on-site demos; manufacturers and distributors in other cities work with us online. Contact us with your dealer count and the system you use today.
Questions people ask
Will my dealers actually use a portal?
They will if it is quicker than the phone: built for a phone screen, in Urdu or English, with reorder from the last order in a tap. Dealers who prefer the salesman keep ordering through him.
Can prices stay hidden until a dealer logs in?
Yes. That is the normal design. A public catalogue can show products and packs without prices, with a request-account button for new dealers.
What happens when a dealer is over the credit limit?
The order is saved as pending and the sales team either approves it or asks for a payment first. The dealer sees the reason on the order instead of hearing it from the driver.
Can the portal take payments?
It can record bank transfers against the ledger and show the balance after each payment. Dealers usually pay by cheque, transfer or through the salesman; a card gateway is rare in trade.
Do I need an app as well as the portal?
Start with a portal that works well on a phone. An app earns its place when dealers or salesmen need offline order booking or alerts.
