Dealer portal: dealer-specific prices, stock and orders

On a Friday evening a dealer sends a message: “Is this product in stock, what is my price, can it ship tomorrow?” The answer is in the sales representative’s Excel file, and the representative is not reachable at that hour. A dealer portal is a B2B web platform where dealers see products and place orders with their own prices, discounts and permissions, and follow stock and shipment status.

In this article, within the framework of YazSis Online Dealer Software, we explain how dealer work that runs over phone, messages and Excel falls into order in a portal, what dealer-specific means and which rules need to be defined before you build.

What happens in the phone and Excel setup?

As the dealer network grows, the sales and order team at headquarters turns into an information hotline. Every dealer’s question is similar but every answer is produced by hand. When working hours end, the questions go unanswered; the dealer either waits or turns to a competitor’s product. The list below will be familiar in most dealer networks:

• Because prices vary by dealer, a separate list and a separate discount calculation is sent to each dealer; when a list goes stale, orders arrive with the wrong price.
• Stock information is asked for by phone; the answer is valid at the moment it is given and may have changed a few hours later.
• Orders arrive by email, message or form; the team keys them into the system one by one, and errors can creep in during this.
• Where a shipment is gets asked by phone again; the dealer has to wait and the headquarters team answers the same question over and over.

How does the same work flow in a dealer portal?

1. The dealer logs in with their own account and sees only the product catalog defined for them; which product is open to which dealer is decided at headquarters.
2. The product price is shown with the dealer’s defined price and discount; there is no need to send price lists or to ask “is this list current”.
3. Live stock and, if needed, an alternative-product suggestion can be seen before adding to the cart; if the product is not available, the dealer learns it before ordering, not after.
4. The dealer places the order directly or asks for a quotation for a special purchase.
5. The order moves through the process linked to the ERP; the dealer follows delivery and shipment status in the portal and does not call headquarters.
6. Balance, statement and documents are in the same account; the dealer does not make a call for these either.

The purpose of a dealer portal is not to sideline the sales team but to relieve the team of repeated questions and return it to real selling.

What does “dealer-specific” mean?

The value of the portal comes from each dealer being able to work with a different rule set. The same catalog is not presented to every dealer in the same way:

• Price and discount: each dealer sees their own price and discount; another dealer’s terms are not visible.
• Product rules: depending on the region or dealer type, certain products are visible and certain products can stay closed.
• Permissions: users within a dealer work with different permissions; one places orders, another only sees the balance.
• Campaigns and targets: campaigns and targets aimed at dealers appear in the relevant dealer’s portal.

What does the headquarters team gain?

The visible face of the portal is for dealers, but most of the change happens at headquarters. The sales team monitors the status of orders instead of entering them; it plans campaigns and targets instead of preparing price lists. Management sees which dealer buys which product and how much, which product stands out and which dealer never uses the portal, without waiting for a separate report. The dealer relationship thus moves to an order based on records, not on personal memory.

Define the dealer model before you build

Although the portal looks like a software installation, the real work is putting the dealer model into writing. So the first step is commercial, not technical: price, discount, permission, region and product rules are mapped out. The questions below form the basis of this work:

• How many different price lists are there and which list is each dealer tied to?
• Is the discount fixed, or does it vary by order amount or product group?
• Are there products that should not be visible by region or dealer type?
• Whom should the dealer’s own users be able to see, and who should be able to place orders?
• Which dealers will campaigns and targets apply to, and under which conditions?

Connection to the ERP

If the portal is a storefront independent of the ERP, it creates a new disconnect. That is why it is built so that product, stock, order, customer-account and shipment data is synchronized with the ERP. The stock the dealer sees and the stock the warehouse sees rest on the same source; an order that is placed enters the workflow without being keyed in again. Because the account balance and shipment information come through the same connection, most of the questions dealers ask find their answer inside the portal.

After setup, measuring portal use, orders and dealer performance is also part of the job: which dealer uses the portal, which still orders by phone, which products stand out? These answers become the basis for managing the growth of the dealer network. If you want to turn your dealer network into a digital sales channel that works 24/7, you can start from the Online Dealer Software page.