My dealers are used to WhatsApp — will they use a portal?
The answer lies in what the portal gives the dealer. If a dealer can see their own price, the stock, where their order is and their balance, using the portal is faster for them too. So we make the transition gradual rather than forced: pilot dealers first, then during the transition we enter phone orders into the portal ourselves and show the dealer the result. Habits start to change once the screen proves useful.
Could my price list leak to competitors?
The portal is not a shop window open to everyone. Each dealer logs in with their own account and sees only the prices defined for them; no dealer can see another dealer's discount. Price visibility can be switched off entirely for visitors who are not logged in. Who viewed which screen and when is also kept on record.
We already have an e-commerce site — do we need this as well?
A retail site and a dealer portal do different jobs. Retail means one price, a basket and card payment; the dealer side means customer-specific prices, tiered discounts, carton and pallet multiples, credit limits, open accounts and payment terms. Forcing retail infrastructure into the dealer arrangement usually breaks both. If needed, the two can be connected so they share the same product and stock source.
Will we need to change our ERP?
No. Your accounting backbone stays as it is. The portal takes product and stock information from it and writes new orders back into it. We build the integration by whatever route your system allows — interface or database. If no suitable route exists, we say so up front and set out the alternative and its limits clearly in writing.
How are language and currency handled for our export customers?
The catalogue, the order screens and the notification texts are kept in multiple languages; each dealer sees their own. Prices are shown in the dealer's own currency, and the rule for which rate and which date apply works exactly as you define it. Proformas and delivery terms are generated from the order, lifting the burden of retyping the same information at the export desk.
Have you done this before?
Yes. We built, end to end, a B2B dealer portal where dealers log in to their own prices and open their own orders. On the factory side we have also built integration layers running alongside ERPs, production tracking systems and management dashboards; the stock and order plumbing behind the portal comes exactly from that experience. We don't name customers, and we don't dress up references with numbers.
How long does it take, and where does it make sense to start?
The duration depends not on the number of dealers but on the state of your product data and integration. Most of the time goes into fixing product cards, units and per-carton quantities. So we start the job with discovery, plan data preparation as its own step, and go live with pilot dealers. A proposal that quotes a number of days up front has usually never seen this step.
Who will own the portal and the data in it?
The source code and the data are yours. It can run on your own server or on a provider you choose. Your dealer list, your prices and your order history are your commercial assets; locking them into a supplier's system would be wrong.