In an industry where relationships, handshakes, and spreadsheets have long reigned supreme, something is shifting. Quietly at first — but now with growing pace — traditional companies in wholesale, manufacturing, foodservice, and construction supply are making bold moves into digital ordering and sales platforms.

The question isn’t if you need to digitise anymore. It’s how long can you afford not to?

The Reality: Your Buyers Are Already Online

The pandemic accelerated digital expectations across the board. Today’s B2B buyers expect the same simplicity they experience in their personal lives: easy browsing, fast ordering, and minimal admin. Whether they’re publicans ordering craft beer, farm shop owners restocking cheese, or builders getting materials, they don’t want to call or email anymore — they want to tap and go.

Companies that still rely on phone calls, WhatsApp messages, or manually typed Excel orders are creating unnecessary friction. In many cases, the issue isn’t the quality of the product — it’s the time it takes to get it into someone’s hands.

The Cost of Doing Nothing

You might not feel the pressure yet, but the danger is in being replaced without noticing.

Your competitors are onboarding customers faster with apps that streamline ordering and reordering.
Your sales team is wasting time answering order confirmation requests or manually entering data, time that could be spent building deeper relationships.
You’re not capturing valuable insights — like top products by customer, repeat buying behaviour, or delivery feedback — because there’s no digital trail.

In short, sticking to the status quo costs more than just time — it’s costing you future business.

What the Smart Players Are Doing

Forward-thinking companies are:

Offering branded ordering apps tailored to their customer' needs.
Simplifying the reordering process with one-click repeat purchases.
Reducing admin strain through automated invoices, delivery tracking, and CRM integration.
Staying front-of-mind by sitting on their customer’s phone, not buried in an inbox.

These aren’t tech startups. They’re family-run wholesalers, regional breweries, specialist food distributors — the very companies you might compete with today.

It’s Not Just Convenience — It’s Commercial Survival

Ordering apps aren’t just about keeping up with the times. They’re about owning your customer experience in a way that’s scalable, trackable, and profitable.

You can’t improve what you can’t measure. If you don’t know who’s slipping away or what they wanted to reorder but didn’t, you're not just standing still — you’re sliding backwards.