Give trade customers a fast way to find, repeat and manage the products they are actually allowed to buy—at their prices, in their units, before their cut-offs. ORBN builds B2B foodservice ecommerce that connects the customer experience directly to ERP, product and warehouse execution.
The value of a wholesale portal is not the basket screen. It is the amount of repeated sales and service work removed without weakening pricing, product, allergen, credit or fulfilment controls behind the order.
Show the products, pack formats, contract lines, substitutions, promotions and net prices relevant to the signed-in customer, location and delivery context. Preserve the commercial authority of ERP or pricing services.
Support favourites, standing lists, previous baskets, templates, search by product or code, rapid quantity entry, CSV-assisted workflows and mobile use without forcing buyers through a consumer browse journey.
Validate order day, route, warehouse, lead time, minimums, credit, unit, catch weight, restricted products and substitution preferences before acceptance. Make estimates and confirmed facts visibly different.
Create the commercial order once, return acceptance and changes, expose fulfilment status and give customer service the same order evidence. Avoid a digital front end that simply creates a new rekeying queue.
The same user may order for several sites with different catalogues, prices, delivery days and approval rights. Identity and account context shape the experience before a product is shown.
Foodservice buyers often know what they need and work against a cut-off. Search, rapid entry, favourites and previous orders should reduce keystrokes while still exposing material product and service changes.
A confirmation screen should state whether the ERP accepted the order, which version is current and what remains estimated or subject to warehouse execution. Silent queues and ambiguous stock promises move admin rather than remove it.
Score one common customer order from sign-in to ERP acceptance. The weakest commercial rule, product-data or fulfilment assumption is more important than the storefront framework chosen.
Every slider starts at 1 for an unproven assumption. Use current evidence, not a roadmap, product brochure or best-case demonstration.
The largest risks are in account, product, price or acceptance authority. Observe real buyers, map one common order and prove how the current systems answer each rule before selecting the portal architecture.
This scorecard supports initial scoping. It is not a food-safety, accessibility, security, financial or regulatory assurance review.
Generic ecommerce can make a polished demonstration while leaving customer service to correct price, pack, route and account exceptions behind it. The portal succeeds only when the digital order is easier for the customer and cleaner for the operation.
Account range, contract products, agreed substitutions and restricted lines are ignored, so buyers find items they cannot purchase or miss the lines negotiated for them.
Copied price lists cannot represent every contract, tier, promotion, surcharge or effective date. Staff correct orders after checkout and confidence in the portal falls.
A quantity of one can mean an each, case, split pack or approximate catch weight depending on the product and system, creating invoice disputes and avoidable substitutions.
A cached on-hand figure ignores holds, allocations, warehouse, lead time or delivery day and is presented without freshness or qualification.
Checkout sends an email, spreadsheet or isolated web order to a team who recreates it in ERP, preserving the same delay and error under a newer interface.
A chef, buyer or multi-site operator with a known list clicks through categories and promotional layouts instead of entering, repeating or approving the order quickly.
A robust B2B order is built from several authorities: identity, account permissions, commercial terms, product data, availability and fulfilment. The portal coordinates those responsibilities without quietly becoming an unsupported copy of each one.
Authenticate the person, determine the organisations and sites they may represent, apply buying and approval permissions and select the relevant delivery address, route or collection context before pricing the basket.
Resolve the customer range, product status, pack options, specifications, relevant allergen information, substitutes and effective dates. Search should understand trade codes, descriptions, synonyms and previous buying behaviour.
Offer favourites, previous orders, templates, rapid entry, bulk input and mobile-friendly controls with keyboard and assistive-technology support. Surface material changes rather than hiding them in a faster interaction.
Apply price, tax, credit, minimum, cut-off, delivery day, unit, availability, restricted-product and approval rules using the responsible source. Explain a failed rule in language the buyer can resolve.
Submit with a stable key, handle timeout and repeat safely, return the ERP or order authority reference and distinguish accepted, held, rejected and estimated outcomes. Preserve the exact order version confirmed to the customer.
Show approved changes, substitutions, shortages, shipment and delivery evidence at the level useful to the buyer. Keep customer service on the same record and use history to make the next order faster.
These are common patterns, not a universal feature list. Discovery should identify which rules genuinely affect the customer, commercial promise and warehouse operation, then test them using representative accounts and products.
| Requirement | Generic storefront risk | B2B-first design | Acceptance evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer-specific catalogue | One published range with products hidden through manual groups | Eligibility derived from account, site, contract, product status and effective date | Representative accounts see every permitted line and no restricted line |
| Contract and tier pricing | Copied web prices drift from ERP and complex exceptions are corrected later | Pricing authority or governed service resolves price with timing and reason | Basket, accepted order and invoice agree across price scenarios |
| Packs, splits and catch weights | One quantity field hides order, stock and invoice unit differences | Display unit, order unit, conversion, estimated weight and actual treatment are explicit | Buyer, warehouse and invoice interpret representative quantities identically |
| Availability and cut-offs | Cached on-hand is presented as a delivery promise | Availability rule includes source, freshness, warehouse, allocation, route and lead time | Confirmed, estimated and unavailable states remain distinguishable through exceptions |
| Substitution preference | A generic alternative is offered without customer, specification or safety context | Customer policy, approved equivalents and explicit consent route into warehouse handling | Substitution decisions and resulting order versions are traceable to the account |
The first release should prove that a representative order becomes easier for the customer and cleaner for ERP and operations. Expanding around evidence reduces support shock and gives product, commercial and warehouse teams time to improve source data.
Observe buyers and customer-service staff against cut-offs. Map accounts, permissions, lists, codes, pack decisions, changes and calls; measure the effort and corrections around current channels.
Use representative accounts, products and prices to verify identity, catalogue, unit, availability and ERP acceptance. Test inaccessible, late, duplicate, rejected and changed orders early.
Choose buyers whose pattern exercises the core workflow without every edge case. Provide assisted onboarding and compare order time, correction, contact and acceptance with the previous channel.
Add accounts and features around governed product, price and content processes. Review search failure, abandoned baskets, corrections, service contacts, accessibility and fulfilment outcomes continuously.
A portal can shift customers away from phone and email while increasing downstream corrections. Establish a baseline before release and follow the order through ERP acceptance, warehouse execution, customer contact and invoice—not only to the checkout confirmation.
Eligible orders and customers completing the intended digital flow
Buyer and service time from need to accepted order
Orders requiring price, unit, product, address or quantity intervention
Status, availability and change enquiries resolved without manual investigation
These sources inform discovery and assurance; they do not replace advice from your food-safety, accessibility, data-protection or legal specialists.
The international web accessibility standard and supporting resources for perceivable, operable, understandable and robust digital experiences.
S/02Current Food Standards Agency guidance on allergen information, product records and responsibilities across food-business contexts and online ordering.
S/03GS1 guidance for consistent product identification, critical tracking events and key data elements across physical and digital supply chains.
It is a trade ordering experience built around customer accounts, negotiated products and prices, pack formats, delivery schedules, credit and operational fulfilment. Unlike a consumer shop, the buyer may represent several sites, repeat a known list under a cut-off and require approval or substitution rules. A useful platform creates an accepted commercial order in the responsible system and returns meaningful changes and status, rather than sending another message for staff to rekey.
Yes. The portal can resolve customer, site, contract, range, tier, promotion and effective-date rules from ERP, pricing services or another governed authority. The design should avoid maintaining a second unsupported copy unless latency or availability requires a controlled cache. Representative account tests need to prove that permitted products and net prices match the accepted order and invoice, including exceptions such as overrides, surcharges, tax and future price changes.
Yes, but the promise must be defined. On-hand stock is not necessarily available after holds, allocation, warehouse, route, cut-off, lead time and inbound supply are considered. We identify the source and freshness of each component and present confirmed, estimated or unavailable states clearly. When a live call is too expensive or fragile, a controlled cache with visible age and conservative rules may provide a better customer outcome.
The product model distinguishes display, order, stock and invoice units and owns the conversion between them. The buyer sees whether quantity refers to each, case, inner or another pack, plus any estimated weight or price behaviour before confirming. Actual catch weight or substitution can return after warehouse execution under agreed change rules. Representative products must be tested end to end because a correct storefront quantity can still be interpreted differently by ERP or WMS.
They can. A common pattern validates the basket against commercial rules, creates the accepted order in ERP or an order-management authority, then releases eligible demand to WMS. Warehouse progress and changes return to the commercial order and customer view. The exact boundary depends on the systems. Duplicate protection, timeout handling, rejection, change and cancellation are designed explicitly so direct integration does not mean silent failure or duplicate orders.
Yes. Previous baskets, favourites, standing lists, templates, rapid product-code entry and structured uploads can reduce work for repeat buyers. Historical lines still need current validation because products, prices, packs, availability and permissions may have changed. The experience should highlight a material change and offer a safe alternative rather than silently recreating an old order under new commercial conditions.
A bounded production release for one customer segment and core order pattern can often be delivered in months, with useful technical and user evidence earlier. Scope grows with identity, pricing, product data, search, content, ERP and WMS interfaces, approvals, payments or credit, accessibility, migration and support. ORBN separates discovery, the commercial integration proof, a customer cohort release and measured expansion rather than estimating one large feature list as if every rule were known.
Track eligible digital order share, buyer time, internal entry time, corrections, rejected orders, service contacts, adoption by customer segment and downstream fulfilment quality. Revenue and basket measures can matter, but should not hide extra operational work. Establish a baseline by channel before release and follow the order through acceptance and fulfilment. A good outcome is a faster, more accurate repeat order and fewer preventable interventions for both customer and wholesaler.
See how customer ordering connects to ERP, warehouse, delivery and reporting across the operation.
R/02Build the commercial, product and fulfilment interfaces behind a reliable customer experience.
R/03Return order, warehouse and delivery exceptions to customer service while they remain actionable.
R/04Build owned portals, workflows and platforms around the process your market differentiates on.
R/05Connect accepted digital demand to picking, packing, dispatch and financial hand-offs.
R/06Model the UK team, duration, integration and delivery assumptions behind a portal investment.
Bring a real account, product list, price agreement and order that currently moves through phone, email or a limited portal. We’ll map the buyer effort, commercial rules, system boundary and smallest production cohort worth proving.