Digitizing wholesale sales is not "launching an ecommerce store." It means bringing order to a commercial process that currently lives across WhatsApp, spreadsheets, email threads, and the institutional memory of a few sales reps — and moving it onto a platform without breaking that month's invoicing.
When the sequence is respected, the project works. When steps are skipped, you risk ending up with a polished store that no one uses.
Step 1 — Map who buys and how
Before touching technology: who is your channel? Distributors, retailers, installers, trade professionals, your own sales force? Each has a different workflow, and that determines the platform. The key question: if your top sales rep didn't come in tomorrow, which customers would still place orders on their own? That is your starting base.
Step 2 — Document the commercial rules that live in people's heads
Price lists per customer, volume discounts, regional conditions, payment terms, MOQ per SKU, special withholdings — all of this typically lives in spreadsheets or in someone's memory. Write it all down before loading anything into the system. If it cannot be written down, it cannot be automated.
Step 3 — Define the role of the ERP
Your ERP remains the single source of truth: inventory, invoicing, accounting. The B2B platform is the visible face for your channel. The conversation you need to have with your provider: what gets synced, in which direction, and how often? Inventory typically syncs in near-real time, customer master data in batch, and orders event by event.
Step 4 — Catalog: the underestimated bottleneck
Your catalog in the ERP probably holds accounting data (SKU, cost, VAT) but not what customers actually need to see: photos, data sheets, filterable attributes, clear variants. This work is slow and consistently underestimated. Assign it to someone with dedicated time and editorial oversight.
Step 5 — Implementation with pilot customers
Do not open the platform to 200 customers on day one. Choose 5 to 10 accounts that already have a strong relationship with you, communicate openly about pain points, and buy frequently. One month with that group surfaces 80% of the real-world issues.
Step 6 — Onboarding the full channel
Communication plan: email with instructions, a 3-minute video, WhatsApp support for the first 30 days. If the sales rep can place an order on behalf of the customer from the portal, even better — the transition becomes assisted rather than abrupt.
Step 7 — Metrics that matter
- % of active customers on the portal (logged in + ordered) in the last 30 days.
- Average time to build an order (target: −50% vs. manual process).
- Purchase frequency per account (month over month).
- Average digital order value vs. average assisted order value.
- Entry errors (orders that require correction).