Order taking app for the Sangalo Fijaciones sales force

Sangalo Fijaciones distributes fasteners to hardware stores and companies. Its reps took orders by phone and WhatsApp, and someone then passed them by hand to administration and the warehouse.

At a distributor with thousands of similar items and hundreds of customers, every mistranscribed order ends in a wrong shipment, and the error only surfaces when the goods arrive.

And one variable complicates every order before it even gets transcribed.

• Discount per customer: each one has their own, so the price does not come from the catalog but from the cross reference.
• Nearly identical items: the difference is size, thread and finish, which is exactly what gets lost in a message.
• Double transcription: from message to system, and from system to warehouse paperwork.

Every manual step between the rep and the shelf is a place where the order can change.

We gave the sales force a mobile tool to load orders directly against the real catalog, with the customer discount already applied.

It went live in 2019, with rep only access and a members restricted store area.

The order, from the phone

• Each rep registers and the administrator enables them.
• They search by name or filter by family, pick size and quantity, and apply the customer discount.
• They add notes, choose shipping type and close the order with a tracking number.

Catalog and prices from the real system

• Catalog and prices loaded from the management system export, across some 2,800 items.
• Discounts taken from the company customer list, across five tiers.

What each order produces

• Picking note for the warehouse, with a field to record shortages.
• Daily route sheet for logistics, with packages, rods and rep.
• The documents are generated from the order instead of transcribed from a message.

Architecture and technology

• Order app with restricted access and user enablement controlled by the administrator.
• Step by step tutorial handed to the reps for adoption.

Learn more about software development and ecommerce development.

Orders went from traveling through messages and transcriptions to coming straight off the catalog with their paperwork.

Starting point

• Orders taken by phone and WhatsApp, transcribed by hand to administration and the warehouse.
• A different discount per customer applied outside the order.
• Warehouse and logistics paperwork assembled manually.

Results

• Sales force taking orders from the phone against the real catalog of some 2,800 items.
• Five customer discount tiers applied directly in the order.
• Warehouse picking note and logistics route sheet generated from every order.
• Rep registration and enablement controlled by the administrator.

Strategic impact

• The two transcriptions where the order could change are gone.
• The shortage field on the picking note turns a warehouse problem into data.