Wholesale order form – and a better alternative.

If you are familiar with the wholesale business and distribution, you have likely encountered one or more wholesale order forms.

But technology has evolved to a large extent and for businesses to keep up with a competitive market also need to update the way they do B2B transactions. And in the year 2024, no retailer should be forced to order via order forms. Having to use printers, pencils, scanners, emails, phones – and sometimes, even fax!

In this blog post, we are going to show you a much better alternative for your B2B wholesale. It’s called a wholesale ordering platform.

But first, an introduction to wholesale order forms.

A wholesale order form is a document used by brands selling B2B and wholesale to get their retailers to order their products. They have been – and still is – the most common way for retailers to order from their suppliers.

What is a wholesale order form?
Variations of order forms
What does a wholesale order form typically include?
A better alternative to wholesale price sheets
Digitize your wholesale order form today

What is a wholesale order form?

An order form is a document used to handle wholesale and business-to-business orders. The document lists a brand’s products, product details, prices, etc., and lets the buyer order by inputting the requested order quantities in an empty column.

The brand sends this document to their customers, who print it, fill it out by hand, scan it, and send it back to the brand.

Brands typically create their product order forms in Excel or using various templates found online. Such templates are not necessarily free, so if you are willing to spend a bit of time creating your own template from scratch, there are plenty of guides on how to build an order form yourself.

Variations of order forms

Order forms come in various shapes and sizes and have different names depending on who you are talking to. To name a few, we have:

Order forms
Order sheets
Line sheets
Price sheets

All of these share the same objective; Getting your wholesale clients to order your products. But they typically differ in the amount and type of information included in the form/sheet.

Below we’ve listed three of the most commonly used variations.

Wholesale line sheets

First, we have wholesale line sheets. These are the most information-heavy order sheets you can send your customers.

It’s not exactly a full-scale product catalog, but almost. It includes nearly all possible information about your brand, products, ordering information, terms of sale, large high-resolution photographs, etc.

A wholesale line sheet is often most suitable for customers that are new to your brand and require a lot of information about your products.

For existing customers that are familiar with your products, a wholesale line sheet is too extensive and slow to use for ordering.

Wholesale price sheet

In terms of information included, wholesale price sheets are at the other end of the spectrum.

These typically only include the bare minimum of information required for the customer. It might be as little as SKU, product name, and wholesale prices.

Price sheets are targeted at buyers familiar with your brand and products. They have purchased your products before and don’t need a lot of information to re-order.

Wholesale order form

A wholesale order form – also called a wholesale order sheet – positions itself right in the middle of the line sheet and price sheet.

It doesn’t contain the same extensive amount of information found in a line sheet but offers a bit more guidance than the bare minimum of a price sheet.

A wholesale order form is a good all-around solution that will cover the needs of both existing and new customers.

What does a wholesale order form typically include?

So what do a line sheet, order sheet, and price sheet include? We’ve listed some of the most common elements below:

Brand logo
Brand contact information
Terms (payment, shipping, etc.)
Customer info (company name, contact name, etc.)
SKU’s (Stock Keeping Unit)
Product names
Product description (color, size, etc.)
Wholesale price
RRP (Recommended Retail Price)
Case quantity / minimum order
A column for the buyer to put the requested order quantity
Total amount (quantity and order value)
Box for comments
A place for buyer signature

A better alternative to wholesale price sheets

As you can see from the above list, there is potentially a lot of info crammed into an order sheet, and it’s a lot of work for the buyer to order this way. Remember, they are not only receiving order sheets from you, but also from many of their other suppliers. That’s a lot of time spent having to fill out order sheets. Not to mention the risk of order errors, following such a manual approach.

That is why we at Turis believe that there is a better alternative to price sheets, order forms, line sheets, and so forth. Something that makes the ordering process much easier – not only for your wholesale buyers but also for you.

The alternative: a wholesale ordering platform

The much better alternative is to let your wholesale and B2B customers order via a wholesale ordering platform.

Using a wholesale ordering platform, you can offer more info than the sometimes chaotic and crammed line sheets while making the order process way simpler than with the light price sheet.

An online wholesale platform also reduces the risk of order errors and inspire your buyers to try out new products.

Furthermore, using a wholesale platform allows you to automate workflows and integrate them into your accounting, ERP, and shipping software to save time.