Today, we launched Quick Order for Convictional — an integrated order experience for suppliers that enables their trading partners (retailers/buyers) to place wholesale orders by email. Quick Order is another application of Convictional’s platform, and we’re excited to bring it to our customers.
Wholesale buying is incredibly complex as there are often a multitude of ways in which a trading partner can place an order. Suppliers often have EDI, a portal/website, a phone, and a fax number. And yet, email remains to be a popular method of doing B2B because of it's ubiquity and convenience. It's also existed since the advent of electronic commerce.
So what exactly did we build to make email ordering better? We’re glad you asked.
Quick Order is an application of Convictional’s platform. It intelligently parses any email order from your retail customer(s) and automatically enters the order information (SKU, quantity, etc.) into your system without you having to key them in manually. We also verify the availability of inventory so you don’t have to.
Quick Order has numerous benefits to wholesalers and their customers. Here are five reasons why our customers love Quick Order and why we think you will, too:
1. Let your trading partners use the tools that are easiest for them
Wholesalers can develop a competitive advantage by making it dead-simple for their trading partners to send them orders however the partner prefers to buy. All too often wholesalers will force the trading partner to order through a B2B portal. Is a portal really the optimal way for your trading partners to buy from you?
They may end up being more effort for you and your customer.
Portals are often not the best ordering experience because the trading partner has to login (remember a password), navigate a huge product catalogue, and checkout manually. For a trading partner, sending a “quick order” can take 10 minutes or longer. Your partners are already busy as-is. Why not just make it as easy as possible for them (and you)?
Don’t get me wrong. Portals have their advantages, especially for new customers who may not know what they want to buy yet. That’s fine, because they’ll want to peruse your catalogue. They just aren’t conducive to making a quick order. Convictional Quick Order is an answer to wholesalers who want to offer a simplified ordering experience for their busy buyers.
All the buyer has to do is type in the SKU, the quantity, and hit send. You get the order; we do the rest.
2. Eliminate manual order entry altogether and save your time
One of the issues with email orders is that they are overwhelming and often sporadic.
Receiving 20+ emails a day containing order information often means you have to open your system (ecommerce platform, accounting system, or ERP) and key in each and every order. Oh, you’ll probably want to check your inventory levels of each SKU before completing the order, too.
If it takes you 30 seconds to key in each order (and that’s being generous), then you’re spending (at a low 20 order/day) 10 minutes per day on order entry. That’s 300 minutes a month. That’s 60 hours a year.
The time adds up. What’s that worth to you?
Quick Order will allow you to make up that time. Since Convictional integrates with your back office systems, any order you receive from Quick Order will be automatically entered into that system on your behalf.
3. Avoid the constant distraction of checking and refreshing your email
Like your customers who buy from you, you also have things you need to do. And being close to your inbox 24/7 probably isn’t one of them.
By having the orders get to their appropriate systems, you can avoid context switching and get more things done. Instead of constantly refreshing your inbox looking for orders to key, you could pull up your Convictional dashboard at the end of the day (or your ERP) and check out all of the orders you received. Then, you can deal with them in bulk. Quick Order is a more efficient way to manage wholesale orders.
4. Email is not going away (embrace it)
Quick Order needed to exist because email ordering will never cease to exist.
It’s the default response tool for billions of people. Email occupies most of our digital interactions with others. Despite the best efforts of Slack and other chat tools, email is asynchronous and just gets the job done. Your customers are no exception. With email, they can bang out an order whenever is most convenient for them.
In Jeff Bezos’ famous 1997 Letter to Shareholders, he wrote:
“We believe that a fundamental measure of our success will be the shareholder value we create over the long term ... Because of our emphasis on the long term, we may make decisions and weigh tradeoffs differently than some companies.
Focusing on things that won't change does not guarantee success -- but it provides as close a foundation for success as you will find.”
We think that’s a pretty good reason to solve a problem caused by a tool (email) that’ll never change for our customers.
5. Migrate customers using fax and phone orders to email (it’s just easier)
Instead of waiting on hold or having to “be available” to take an order, encourage your customers to adopt email. It’s low friction and as previously mentioned, they are already using email. So you won’t have to train them. By moving your customers who were previously using phone and fax to email ordering, you can decongest the phone lines (and yes, even the fax line!) and move on with your day.
We get it. Buyers want multiple ways to wholesale with you. You should give them options and help them understand those options to match their preferences.
Quick Order is a way to use a classic way of ordering and make it a beautiful, integrated, and automatic experience for you and your customers.
To our customers (suppliers and wholesalers), we hope that Quick Order brings you joy and relief.
Feel free to contact sales if you’re interested in how Quick Order can automate email order entry for your wholesale business.
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