In this guide 6 sections
Dealers phone in orders because the call still beats the portal: it shows scheme pricing, confirms stock, gives a status and costs one minute. Fix the portal until it matches that, show the dealer’s own price and open schemes, add reorder and tracking, and give someone ownership of onboarding.
The phone call is the competitor
A dealer who rings your salesman hears the rebate tier, this month’s bundle and the hour the truck leaves the dispatch bay. The portal must beat that.
Instructions to use the portal rarely work, because a dealer who loses ten minutes on a clumsy form goes back to the phone and says nothing. You see only the gap in orders. Check the ERP sync as well, since a stale price list or a stock figure that was true yesterday sends dealers straight back to the salesman.
Scheme pricing is not on the screen
Many portals show only a list price, while the dealer’s real price depends on slab discounts, a quarter target or a free item scheme that the salesman remembers. Hide that number and the dealer phones.
Show the dealer’s own rate against each SKU, flag a scheme that is one carton short of the next slab, and apply the discount before checkout. Put the saving beside the cart total, so the dealer sees what the slab is worth before adding one more carton, and show quarter-target progress on the home screen.
Keep scheme rules in an admin screen the sales head can edit, because rebate tiers, clawbacks on returns and free item bundles change every quarter. Developer queues make schemes stale.
- Price book keyed to dealer code, region and tier
- Slab, bundle and clawback rules shown in the cart
- Credit ceiling and ageing buckets beside the order
- Scheme start and expiry dates editable by the sales desk
No order status means a status call
Dealers ring to ask where goods are. A portal that says only Submitted keeps those calls coming, so give each order visible stages: received, credit checked, packed, and dispatched with a transporter name and consignment number.
Add an invoice download and a delivery note copy, and send a WhatsApp message at dispatch with the tracking link, so the dealer stops asking. Show backorders on their own line, with a promised date from the pick list, so a short shipment never looks like a lost order.
Show overdue invoices plainly. Never spring a credit hold at checkout. Let the dealer raise a damage claim or return authorisation from the same order page, so the credit note sits beside the order it corrects.
Reordering has to take seconds
Most dealers buy the same twenty SKUs again and again, so a portal that restarts the catalogue every time wastes their patience. Offer repeat-last-order and saved lists.
On a phone a long catalogue is painful, so allow search by code, name or barcode, accept cartons, pallets and loose pieces, and keep the cart total in view.
Large dealers want a CSV upload for long lists, with a template that carries item codes and minimum order quantities, and with errors flagged line by line before submission. Where connections are weak, let the dealer build the order offline and send it later, then show a clear message when it reaches your office.
- Repeat the last order in one tap
- Saved lists such as the monthly shelf refill
- Item code entry with minimum order quantity checks
- Light pages that load on a weak 3G signal
Someone must own dealer onboarding
A portal launched by email fails. Name one person who phones each dealer, creates the login, resets the forgotten password, walks through a first order and then watches the second.
Track adoption by dealer through logins, orders placed and orders phoned, then visit the ones who stall and ask what blocked them. Fix what you hear before inviting the next batch, because an unfixed blocker repeats with every dealer who follows and quietly gives the portal a reputation for being hard.
Start this week. List your ten biggest dealers who still phone and ask each what the call gives them, then write the answers on one sheet, because the patterns show fast.
Dealer portal adoption sheet
One line per dealer. Columns hold dealer code, onboarding date, first portal order, online and phoned orders this month, the reason given for phoning, and the fix with an owner and due date.
Open a blank worksheet to printQuestions owners ask
Should we force dealers onto the portal?
Forcing a switch usually sends orders to a rival distributor, so make the portal quicker and more useful than the call first and let phone orders fade without circular.
What should a dealer see after login?
They should see their own price book, open bundles, credit ceiling, ageing buckets, recent orders and a repeat button, because a generic catalogue feels like a brochure.
How do we measure whether the portal is working?
Count online orders against phoned orders by dealer, then add minutes from login to confirmed order, abandoned carts and the status calls your dispatch desk takes each week.
Is a mobile app needed for dealers?
A mobile friendly web portal often does the job, so build an app only if dealers need barcode scanning or offline entry on weak networks.