Reordering
In the B2B environment, reordering refers to the activity when a customer places an order identical to an earlier order; the Same products and from the Same supplier.
Consider the scenario when customers come back to you because they were satisfied with the goods ordered previously and with your services. So now they would like to purchase the items again. Of course, in addition to being content, you should also help the customer as much as you can to place this order easily. And this is reordering, explained with a real-life situation.
Benefits
Reordering allows the customer to be more efficient and save some time. As the items and most of the details are remaining the same, some information is not necessary to be asked again, or could be easily taken from the previous agreement. It should be almost as simple as entering your favourite bar and casually telling the bartender “Hi Bob, the regular, please!”
Of course, the customers cannot expect the supplier or the seller to know all the details of the last months’ orders by heart. Especially, when the personal contact between the seller and the buyer is limited or the number of buyers is just simply too many to remember. Therefore, if you are still handling orders manually, providing the option to reorder can be a challenge. Because in this case, every order must be registered as a new one. All information must be requested again and again, requiring the same amount of time from the customer to make an order as the first time.
This can be especially challenging in the wholesale environment, where the point is to place big orders. Since your customers can’t just call you and say “Hi Marta, can you send me the same products as last month?” expecting you to actually remember what that order contained.
On the other hand, it is also ridiculous to expect your customers to spend time filling out the same ordering form with the details you should already know or at least have registered somewhere. Or for them to look up the SKU numbers and product details again and again when they just want the same products as last time.
Digitalised Reordering
So how can wholesalers offer to reorder? Automation is a good way of getting to the bottom of this task without causing extra work to anyone. On the contrary, with a digitalised ordering platform, your processes become easy and convenient. Not only for your customers, but also for you. And this can be just what’s needed, for them to return and buy the products from you again instead of from your competitors. Because sometimes it is simply enough to have an easier ordering flow to beat other market players.
With a digitalised ordering system, not only the practical details are autofilled, but basically, the same order can be placed again. Preferably, with a few clicks.
It is a common practice to offer reordering at online marketplaces. Shopify for instance has a special plug-in to support the reordering feature. If you are selling B2C via this platform, we recommend you look into it.
But this is a super nice feature to have also when you sell B2B. At Turis we call this function “Express ordering”. To support our new users, we also allow the customers to simply copy and paste the SKU numbers of the products they wish to order or bulk upload previously used order lists, and our platform does the rest. Find out more about order management here. With the magic of automation, reordering becomes the most convenient and simple task ever.
