B2B Distribution Ordering App Development

How B2B distribution ordering differs from consumer ecommerce

A restaurant buyer ordering from a foodservice distributor, a facilities manager reordering janitorial supplies and a contractor restocking from a building materials yard all behave the same way. They know what they need, they order often, and they want it on the next truck. They do not want to search a catalog of 20 thousand items; they want last week’s order, adjusted and submitted in two minutes. Tepia designs distribution ordering apps around that reorder habit, not around a consumer storefront.

The business rules underneath are different too. Each account may have its own approved item list, contract terms, minimum order, delivery days and credit limit. Some items are catch weight, sold by the case but billed by actual pounds. Substitutions happen when a product is short, and the customer needs to accept or reject them. Tepia gathers these rules in Discovery from your ERP, your sales reps and your customer service team, because they decide whether customers trust the app enough to stop phoning in orders.

Order guides, cutoffs and delivery days

The order guide is the heart of a distributor app. Tepia builds guides from each account’s purchase history, lets buyers set par levels so the app suggests quantities from what is on hand, and supports several guides per account for different kitchens or job sites. A buyer can walk the shelves, enter what remains, and let the app fill the order up to par.

Cutoffs tie the order to the warehouse and routing schedule. If an account receives deliveries on Monday and Thursday with a 4 p.m. cutoff the day before, the app shows the next delivery date, counts down to the cutoff and reminds buyers who usually order but have not yet. Late orders can be blocked, held for the following delivery or routed to a rep for approval, based on your rules. Tepia also checks that a new account’s delivery days match a truck that actually serves its area, drawing on our route optimization software experience.

Features distributors ask for

Tepia scopes the first release around the accounts that order most often. Common features include:

Tepia often adds barcode scanning so a buyer can scan a shelf label to add an item, which helps in back rooms and walk in coolers. For portal style ordering on desktop, see B2B ecommerce portal development.

ERP integration and data sync

An ordering app is only as accurate as its link to the ERP. Tepia integrates with NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, SAP Business One, Acumatica and other systems through their APIs, or through middleware and scheduled files when an older ERP offers nothing else. The sync usually covers:

• Items, units of measure, pack sizes and catch weight flags.
• Customer accounts, ship to locations, terms and credit status.
• Available quantities by warehouse, refreshed often enough to avoid promising stock that is gone.
• Orders in, then confirmations, substitutions, delivery tickets and account statements back out.

Tepia designs the app to keep working when the ERP is slow or down for maintenance, queuing orders and confirming them once the connection returns. Our ERP integration services and NetSuite integration pages go deeper.

How Tepia approaches B2B distribution ordering apps

1. Discovery: interviews with buyers across account types, ride alongs with sales reps, and an ERP data review covering items, terms and order history. Deliverables are an Investigation Summary, an Interview Summary and User Stories such as a kitchen manager ordering to par at 10 p.m. after close.
2. Design: a design questionnaire, moodboards and wireframes for order guides, cart, cutoff messages and rep mode, tested with buyers on phones in a stockroom.
3. Development and Testing: an Alpha with a handful of friendly accounts, a Beta across one region, and test plans for ERP sync, cutoff rules, offline rep orders and catch weight items.
4. Training: rep training first, since reps onboard their customers, plus short videos and in app tips for buyers.
5. Launch: account invitations in waves, order guides built from history, App Store and Google Play release, and support reps on call through the first order cycles.
6. Support: feature requests such as new warehouses, promotions and rep reporting.

Typically Discovery takes 1 to 3 months, development and QA 2 to 6 months, and launch about a month. See our process.

Portal software or a custom ordering app

ERP add on portals and B2B ecommerce platforms give distributors a web store quickly, and for a catalog led business with occasional buyers they can be enough. Tepia will recommend that path when it fits. A custom app makes sense when:

• Your customers reorder weekly or daily and need order guides and par levels that portals handle poorly.
• Reps need an offline ordering tool tied to the same data as customers.
• Your ERP holds account rules that a packaged portal cannot represent.
• You want a branded mobile app that keeps customers loyal as competitors go digital.

Tepia also built MNC Go, a grocery ordering app for Mother’s Nutritional Center; see our work and how to build a B2B ordering app, then contact Tepia.

Frequently asked questions