Orders on WhatsApp and phone calls: how a distributor stops losing them

A shop owner sends a photo of a handwritten list at 9 pm. Another sends a voice note to the salesman. A third calls the owner directly. By the next morning, one order is in the owner’s gallery, one is in the salesman’s head, and one was never written down. The shop that did not get its goods does not blame WhatsApp. It blames you.

Where orders get lost

• A screenshot or photo sits in one person’s phone.
• A voice note is heard, but the quantities are misremembered.
• The same order is sent to the salesman and the owner, and is loaded twice.
• Stock is short, the shop is not told, and it finds out at delivery.

The routine that fixes it

1. One list, one owner

Decide who in the office owns incoming orders, and make it their job to move every WhatsApp message, voice note and call into one order list the same hour. Salesmen forward anything they receive to that person rather than keeping it.

2. Confirm it back in writing

Reply to the shop with the items and quantities as you understood them. A two-line reply catches most mistakes before they are loaded, and gives the shop something to point to later instead of an argument.

3. A daily cut-off

Orders received before, say, 7 pm go out tomorrow; later ones go the day after. Tell shops the time once. A clear cut-off stops the late-night rush of “just add this” messages that nobody can load properly.

4. Load from the list, and say what is short

The morning load comes from the order list, not from memory. If something is short, tell the shop before the van leaves and carry the rest to the next day’s order, so it is not forgotten.

5. Close the loop

At night, check the list against what was delivered: delivered, short, returned. Anything still open moves to tomorrow. The difference between order booking and selling off the van is covered in van sales or pre-sales.

How Mulberry Sales helps

Mulberry’s secondary orders are built for “order today, deliver tomorrow” (Starter plan and up). A salesman takes the order at the shop on his phone and can send it to the shop on WhatsApp as a confirmation. An order that came in by call or WhatsApp is entered by the office on the same screen, so every order sits in one list. Orders are loaded onto the van from that list, anything short at loading becomes a backorder for the next day instead of a forgotten line, and delivery turns the order into a bill. There is no app for shops to place orders themselves: orders still arrive the way shops like, and your team moves them into the list. See van sales software.

Questions people ask