Inventory and Order Systems for Wholesalers in Lebanon
05:50 in Mkalles. The van is open. The picker has a paper list from last night and a WhatsApp from a shop in Zahle that arrived at 05:12: a voice note, two photos of empty shelves, no quantities. Excel on the office PC still shows 24 cartons of the item that left yesterday with a different driver. The salesman already promised “whatever is left” to a retailer who pays next Thursday in a mix of dollars and lira. If you have lived this, you do not need a lecture about “digital transformation”. You need the load and the sheet to stop arguing.
A wholesaler’s day is not a shop’s day
Voice-note procurement. Retailers order like neighbours. Your staff translate guesses into cartons. If that translation never hits a stock figure, you will short one shop and dump expiry on another. The fix is not forcing a shop in the Bekaa onto a login they will ignore. The fix is a load sheet that cannot go negative while someone is still “pretty sure”.
The van as a moving warehouse nobody counts. Cases leave, come back damaged, get swapped at the door for a favour. Excel is updated on Friday if someone is in the mood. By then the truth is in the driver’s head. A count that happens when the van returns (even a simple one) beats a monthly inventory theatre that everyone knows is fake.
Money and qty tangled. Cost is dollars. The shop wants a lira number that changed twice since breakfast. Staff start using the exchange rate as a quantity fudge. That is how you “have stock” in the sheet and an empty aisle. Pieces are pieces. Currency is a price problem. Mixing them is how distributors go blind.
Promises from the road. A salesman in Tripoli says yes to 40 because he saw 40 last month. The garage in Mkalles has 12. You find out when the van is already on the highway. Locations, or an honest single pile, have to be visible before the yes, not after the apology.
What we set up behind the rolling shutter
Items with names humans use, remaining qty, and a place (garage, room, van if you truly stock the van). A way for office staff to turn a voice note into lines without retyping the whole customer. A pick list for the morning load that refuses what you do not have. Returns and damage as buttons, not windshield literature.
Optional: a simple catalog for the few retailers who will order from a page, cash on delivery, Whish, “pay the driver”, not a fake Visa-only checkout. Optional: an owner screen for what left today, what is below a minimum, who still owes, without waiting for the accountant’s Friday file. Migration from the least-bad Excel so you are not typing 2,000 SKUs by hand.
The store-shaped catalog is on the store example. The operations view is on the operations dashboard example. Payments as they actually happen are in online payments in Lebanon. Whether a public site even matters when all your buyers already have your WhatsApp is in do I need a website.
Lebanon on the pallet
Fuel, checkpoints, and a line that dies in the mountain are why the office PC cannot be the only copy of stock. Cuts happen while the van is out; the next morning’s list still has to be right. Arabic for the picker, English SKUs from a brand in Jebel Ali, numbers everyone fights over. OMT and Whish from shops that never touch a card machine. I will not invent “inventory accuracy 99%” or name a distributor. The work is: the yes matches the pallet, the return hits the count, the owner sees today’s load without a sermon.
Services and from-prices
Inventory from $1,200 is usually the spine. A catalog / store from $700 if some buyers will click. Excel to system from $250 so you do not retype the warehouse. An owner dashboard from $400 if Friday files are how you learn you are empty. We pick two, not all four, unless the day truly needs it.
Send the current sheet or the dead catalog site through the free website check if there is a URL; otherwise describe the 05:50 load on contact or WhatsApp. Twenty minutes free. A project starts after a written price, not after a demo of someone else’s warehouse in another country.
Questions owners ask
Our retailers only order by voice note. Will they use a portal?
Many will not, and we should not pretend. The win is that your staff turn a voice note into a line on a load that cannot oversell a pallet. A portal is optional for the few shops that want it. The van list is not optional.
Excel is the company. Do we throw it away on day one?
No. We migrate what is true (SKUs, remaining qty, customer names) and stop treating a file called final3 as the warehouse. The sheet can remain a report. It should stop being the only place a salesman promises 40 cartons.
How do returns and damaged cases work?
As first-class events, not a sticky note on the windshield. A return should put qty back or write it off. If your Excel never did that honestly, the system will feel strict. That strictness is the point.
Cost in USD, sell in LBP, can stock still match?
Yes if you pick one stock unit and stop converting qty through the exchange rate. Money can mix. Cartons cannot. The dashboard can show cash in both; the warehouse counts pieces.
We have a garage in Mkalles and a room in Tripoli. Is that two warehouses?
If stock can be in one and promised from the other, yes, you need location. If it is really one pile and a van, say so. Lying about locations is how the afternoon load goes out empty.
What does a wholesale setup start from?
Inventory starts from $1,200. A B2B-style catalog starts from $700. Excel migration starts from $250. An owner view of what left today starts from $400. Sales-force GPS is out unless scoped.
Book a free 20-minute consultation
Tell me what is wasting the day in the shop or clinic. I will say if a site, booking, or orders are the next step, with a written scope before paid work.