Wholesale orders
Before
Orders arrived by email and needed manual entry and invoicing.
With the new system
Customers order through the portal, which calculates shipping and generates the warehouse email and invoice.
Case study / DTC stationery retailer
Wholesale ordering and stock management for a stationery retailer.
We replaced spreadsheets with a wholesale ordering portal, stock and supplier records, and a connection to the retailer’s Shopify store.
Delivered and handed over
The engagement
The business had managed orders, customer records and stock in Excel and Word for eleven years. In a two-week project, we built a custom system using Airtable and a Next.js portal, including order processing and supplier reorder alerts. The existing Shopify store stayed in place.
- Client
- Restricted (NDA)
- Sector
- DTC retail, B2C and B2B
- Stage
- Established, 11+ years
- Scope includes
- Shopify sync · Wholesale portal · Customer records · Stock
- Duration
- 2 weeks
- Status
- Delivered · Handed over
The business need.
Customer and supplier records, stock levels, orders and invoices were spread across Excel and Word files. Wholesale orders arrived by email, then had to be entered, priced and invoiced manually. Keeping the records up to date meant repeatedly copying information between documents.
What the project needed to achieve
Give wholesale customers a way to place orders online, keep customer and supplier records together, and track stock with alerts when products need reordering. Connect the system to the existing Shopify store and hand it over for the business to manage.
Delivery
What we built.
Airtable database · Shopify sync · B2B portal · stockist CRM · supplier CRM · reorder automation
01
Shopify and Airtable
Set up Airtable to hold the business records and connected it to Shopify, so retail orders and product information sync into the system.
02
Wholesale ordering
Built a Next.js portal with product search, minimum order quantities and shipping calculations. Orders generate the warehouse email and customer invoice from the details entered in the portal.
03
Customers and suppliers
Created stockist records for outreach, stock levels, order frequency and last contact. Supplier records track print quality, orders and how often products are reordered.
04
Stock and reordering
Added reorder alerts based on stock levels and average monthly orders. Supplier purchase orders can be generated with other low-stock products from the same supplier shown together.
What changed.
Wholesale customers can place orders through the portal, while Shopify orders sync into the same system. The business can manage stockist and supplier records together and use reorder alerts to plan purchasing. The project was delivered and handed over in two weeks.
Business records
Before
Customer, supplier and stock information was spread across files.
With the new system
Records are held in Airtable, with product and order information synced from Shopify.
Reordering
Before
Stock and supplier orders were managed in spreadsheets.
With the new system
Low-stock alerts use average monthly orders, with purchase order generation grouped by supplier.
“It’s the first time I’ve trusted the data in my own business.”
How can we help you work better?
You don’t need a brief or a solution in mind. Tell us what’s proving difficult or what you’d like to improve. We’ll explore the options together and agree where to start.