Starting today, you can integrate your Sendcloud account with Picqer. Sendcloud lets you quickly start shipping your first PostNL and DHL parcels, without complicated contracts. Sendcloud is now available in Picqer as a shipping provider, so you can create Sendcloud shipping labels in Picqer with a single click.

Many wholesalers still let business customers place orders via email, phone or even fax. But customers can easily do it themselves through a self-service portal. We’re happy to explain the benefits—for you as a wholesaler and for your customers.

Reduce unnecessary customer contact

As a wholesaler, it's important to stay in touch with your customers. Speaking with them regularly helps you understand their needs and serve them better. But a lot of customer contact is unnecessary. Placing an order is often just that: telling you which products they want. It’s a waste of time to have a €20-per-hour sales rep retype the order. And what about calling to check product availability or order status? All of that information can easily be digitized.

What if customers could take care of those things themselves? Then your team could focus on more valuable work, like bringing in new customers. Or on meaningful contact with existing ones—for example, advising them on upcoming trends.

Convenient for customers too

New generations are used to managing everything themselves. In their free time they browse online stores and place orders based on real-time stock levels—without having to call anyone. And these generations are now among your customers. They prefer to place orders whenever it suits them. It’s important to meet that expectation.

What is a self-service portal?

A self-service portal for wholesalers is essentially a simple, private webshop. Only your regular customers can log in and view the products you offer them, along with their specific pricing. They can place orders and check the status of current ones.

The portal doesn’t need to support online payments, have fancy marketing copy, or rank well in Google. It does need to be easy to use, and the information should always be up to date.

To keep the information current and avoid having to retype orders, the portal should be directly connected to your warehouse software. Orders go straight into your system, and stock levels and order statuses are automatically updated in the portal.

How to set up a self-service portal?

Some WMS or warehouse software platforms offer ready-made portals you can start using immediately. Picqer, for example, includes a Customer Portal that you can set up in just a few minutes.

If your warehouse software doesn’t offer a portal, you can also use webshop software. For example, by setting up a Lightspeed store or using open-source tools like WooCommerce. These systems are designed for retail but can be adapted in a few hours into a closed-off portal where customers don’t need to pay online.

Already have a webshop for consumers? Ask your web developer if you can use the same software to create a self-service portal for your B2B customers.

Start gradually

We don’t recommend giving all your customers access to the portal on day one and shutting down your phone :) Try it out with a few customers first so you can get used to it and fix any issues. Once you're comfortable and your customers are happy, you can roll it out to more users.

No warehouse software yet?

Still not using warehouse software? Then that’s your first step. A good online WMS makes your internal processes more efficient. Once that’s in place, launching a self-service portal is a small next step.

Want to get started with easy-to-use online warehouse software? Try Picqer free for 14 days and make your warehouse run 5× more efficiently by tomorrow.

Take the next step as a wholesaler

With a self-service portal, you save time, make your customers happier and reduce errors. It’s a powerful addition to any wholesaler’s offering. And now is the time to do it. The technology is ready.

Each week, we share tips on how to set up your warehouse as a newcomer. You’ll get advice on structure, automation and the physical setup of your warehouse. Today is part 5 in the automation category.

Tip 5: Never retype anything

If you run a webshop, your customer already enters their address and order details. That means you should never have to retype address information or product data—not even for a shipping label or an invoice. Retyping is a waste of time.

Connect all the systems you use so that data is transferred automatically. When you start automating, make it your goal to (almost) never have to retype any information.

Do you also receive orders by phone or email? Make sure you only need to enter them once and that picklists, packing slips and invoices are generated automatically. Your stock levels should update automatically too.

Tip 6: Use a WMS

Life becomes a lot easier with a WMS, like Picqer ;-) WMS stands for Warehouse Management System. In other words, a system to manage your warehouse. If you choose a ready-to-use WMS, you’ll instantly cover many of the earlier automation tips. No more retyping, and you’ll always know exactly what’s in stock.

Using a WMS can save you at least 15 minutes per order, not even counting the benefits it brings for purchasing and internal communication. A WMS also helps ensure that “everyone can do everything,” as mentioned in Tip 3.

Our previous tips

• Tip 1: Make sure everyone knows the process
• Tip 2: Complete each order in one go
• Tip 3: Reduce exceptions
• Tip 4: Automate everything

You can also download all tips at once in our book A warehouse to be proud of.

Today we’re launching the new Picqer Help Center. On this site you'll find answers to many questions you may have about Picqer. It’s designed to help new users get started quickly and to help existing users discover new features. We’re starting with 40 articles and will add new topics every week.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll share lots of tips on how to set up your warehouse as a newcomer. You’ll get advice on structure, automation and the physical setup of your warehouse. Today is part 4 in the automation category.

Automate everything

Automate as many tasks and actions as possible. Anything that repeats regularly can be automated, so do it. And do it as soon as you can, even if your business is still small.

Many small webshops think they don’t need much automation yet. Things aren’t that busy, and it’s fine to do some things manually. But unfortunately, they often forget to automate later on. When things do get busy, they end up just hiring more people or outsourcing the warehouse because they can no longer keep up.

But as a small webshop, you actually stand to benefit the most from automation. Here’s why:

• Automation is much easier in a small warehouse.
• It’s cheaper and leaves less room for errors.
• You have time early on to figure out what works best for you, before things get really busy.
• You’ll be able to grow more easily and handle busy periods with less effort, because each order takes less time to process.
• As a small webshop, you probably work with a small team. Automation helps you focus your time on more valuable tasks, like sales and marketing, instead of manually copying addresses.

That’s why we always say: “Automate as much as possible, as soon as possible.”

Tip 4: Always know your stock levels

Make sure you always know how many units of each product you have in stock, how many are already reserved for customers, and how many are still incoming. You need this information to inform customers about product availability and to place purchase orders.

You could keep track of it in an Excel sheet, but that’s not ideal. Excel doesn’t let you track history, it’s hard to use with multiple people, and your stock can’t update automatically when an order comes in. That means your stock list is almost always outdated.

Keep track of your inventory in a structured database that updates automatically when an order arrives. Most webshop platforms can do this to some extent. But many only track “available stock,” which is immediately reduced when an order comes in. That means you won’t know how much is actually on the shelf or how many items still need to be shipped. You’ll also likely miss information about outstanding purchase orders.

If you want to do it properly, you need an easy-to-use WMS that connects directly to your webshop. We’ll talk more about that in the next tip. Or try out how Picqer can improve your warehouse in the meantime.

Our previous tips

• Tip 1: Make sure everyone knows the process
• Tip 2: Complete each order in one go
• Tip 3: Reduce exceptions