What is a dealer portal? A guide to moving B2B orders off the phone

01What is a dealer portal?

A dealer portal is a website and mobile app of your own where your dealers and trade customers log in with their own account and place orders. It is not a public shop: each dealer sees only their own prices, their own discounts, their open balance and their order history.

Behind it runs an admin panel for you. You approve incoming orders, plan shipments and post payments to the customer account. In short, a dealer portal is a B2B ordering system that pulls scattered wholesale traffic from phones and messages into a single record.

02How is it different from a B2B e-commerce site?

Both sell online, but to different people in different ways. A retail store shows everyone the same price; a dealer portal knows the deal you made with each customer.

So a dealer portal is not "an online store with a login". Its real value is that the system knows your pricing and credit rules.

03Which businesses need a dealer portal?

If two of these sound familiar, it is time:

• Most orders arrive by phone, chat message or a photo of a handwritten list.
• Each dealer gets different prices and discounts, and only one or two people know them all.
• When a dealer asks "do you have it?", someone has to call the warehouse.
• You sometimes find out after the fact that goods went to a dealer who was over their limit.
• Your sales reps collect payments in the field, but balances update only that evening or the next day.
• When the office closes, ordering stops and dealers wait for the morning.

This picture is common wherever orders are large and repeat often: auto parts, lubricants, hardware, building materials, food and beverage distribution, stationery and cosmetics.

04How does an order move through the portal?

Work that takes five people on a phone order happens in one flow:

1. The dealer places the order. On the phone while closing the shop, seeing their own prices and live stock. No call needed.
2. The price is calculated by rules. List price, dealer group discount and promotions are applied on the server. Nobody touches a calculator.
3. Credit is checked. If the dealer's open balance exceeds their limit, the order waits for approval. You only see the exceptions.
4. A manager approves and the shipment is planned. One screen in the morning: approval, pick list and delivery route.
5. Payment is posted to the account. The moment a rep records a payment, the balance updates. Dealer, accounting and sales see the same number.

05What a good dealer portal should have

Ask about these in every proposal you get:

• Dealer-specific pricing: list, group, quantity and promotion rules working together. Dealers never see each other's prices.
• Credit limits and approvals: orders over the limit stop and go to a manager.
• Live stock: dealers see real stock while ordering and, where needed, an expected delivery date.
• Account and payments: open balance, overdue amounts and payment history on the dealer's screen.
• Accounting integration: connections to common systems such as QuickBooks, Xero or NetSuite, so orders and payments are never entered twice.
• Mobile first: most dealers order from a phone. The portal has to work flawlessly there.
• Field team: a screen where reps can place orders and record payments on a dealer's behalf.
• Data ownership: your dealer list, prices and order history are yours, and you can export them any time.

06Ready-made portal or a custom system?

Both can be right; it depends on how standard your workflow is.

A ready-made dealer portal is a fast start with predictable cost. Most core needs (price groups, credit limits, accounts, mobile ordering) come built in. LABONNI's ready product Bayibox was designed for this; see current plans on our pricing page.

A custom system makes sense when your workflow is truly different: parts search by vehicle fitment, multi-warehouse shipping, approval chains specific to your industry. The auto parts e-commerce and B2B solution we built is one example.

07How do you switch?

The most common mistake is to launch the system and tell dealers "order here from now on". A healthy switch goes in this order:

1. Write down your pricing rules. Which dealer is in which group, what discount they get, how promotions work. This list is the brain of the system.
2. Decide on the accounting link. Settle early which way stock, balances and invoices flow.
3. Tidy up product data. Codes, units, case quantities and images; dealers can only order what they can find.
4. Pilot with a few dealers. Start with those who order most often and are comfortable with technology, and collect their feedback.
5. Move the phone to the portal gradually. Let your team enter phone orders into the portal and tell the dealer "you can see this there too". Habits change over time.

08Frequently asked questions