Wholesale Handler
The phone starts buzzing at 4am. WhatsApp messages from chefs, texts from shop managers, a voicemail from the café that always orders late. One sends "the usual." Another sends a photo of last week's delivery note circled in pen. It all gets typed into a spreadsheet before the van leaves at 6am, and someone's probably been missed.
There's ordering software that handles this. But everything out there is either built for large fruit and veg distributors running SAP, or costs more per month than some customers spend with the supplier.
What the big platforms charge
The main ordering platforms for fresh produce wholesalers are priced for businesses processing hundreds of orders per day.
Fresho charges based on order volume. Their published examples: $788/month for 400 orders per week, or $2,146/month for 1,000 orders per week. That's before the setup fee.
Orderlion doesn't publish pricing at all. Based on their 2021 public disclosure ($1.3M revenue from 150 customers), the average customer pays around $722/month. All three tiers say "contact sales."
Acctivate is $5,000 to $14,000/year, integrated with QuickBooks, aimed at fruit and vegetable distributors who need traceability and route accounting.
These are serious platforms with serious features: AI order parsing, ERP integration, delivery route management, warehouse operations. If you're running a large distribution business with 500+ customers and a fleet of lorries, they might be worth the cost.
If you're a fruit and veg wholesaler with 15 to 80 trade customers and a few vans, you're paying for warehouse management software features you'll never touch.
What fresh produce wholesalers actually need
Most produce wholesalers I talk to don't need AI to read their WhatsApp messages. They need to stop getting WhatsApp messages in the first place.
The actual requirements are simple:
- A product list your customers can see, with current prices
- An ordering portal they can use independently for tomorrow's delivery
- A cutoff time so you know the orders are finalised before loading the van
- Organised orders with quantities and product names, not "2 boxes of the green ones"
- A way to update prices when the market moves
That's it. Not a warehouse management system. Not an ERP connector. Just a simple way to take orders online.
How Wholesale Handler works for fruit and vegetable wholesalers
Your customers get their own login to your online ordering portal. They see your product list, pick what they need, choose quantities, and submit. You see the order on your dashboard. No phone call, no WhatsApp thread, no guesswork.
Your product list, your units
Set up products however you sell them. Boxes of tomatoes, cases of lettuce, bags of potatoes, punnets of strawberries, bunches of herbs. Whatever fruit and veg you supply, each product has a name, a price, and a unit. Your customers see exactly what’s available and what it costs.
Price changes
Produce prices move with the market. When your costs change, open the product, type the new price, save. It takes about 10 seconds per product. Your customers automatically see the updated price next time they order, with a clear indicator showing the price has changed and what it was before.
Price lists
If you charge different prices to different customers, create named price lists and assign each customer to one. A restaurant chain on your Trusted list sees one price, a new corner shop on Default sees another. Customers only ever see their own prices.
Order cutoffs
Set a cutoff time for each delivery day. If you load the van at 5am, set the cutoff for 8pm the night before. Orders arrive clean and complete before you start picking. No more chasing late orders while you're trying to load.
Invitations, not app downloads
Your customers don't need to install anything. Send them an email invitation, they create a password, and they're ordering from their phone or laptop. No app store, no IT department, no training manual.
Invoicing
Generate invoices from orders. Send them by email. Track what’s been paid and what’s outstanding. Print professional PDFs with your business details and payment terms. Batch-create invoices from multiple orders at once.
Stock tracking
If you sell products with limited availability, track stock quantities per product. The system prevents overselling and your customers can subscribe to notifications when sold-out products are restocked. Useful for seasonal lines or products that sell out fast.
Do you need AI to take wholesale orders?
Orderlion and Fresho both offer AI that reads incoming WhatsApp messages, emails, and voicemails and converts them into structured orders. It's clever technology. But think about what it's actually doing: your customers are still ordering through the same messy channels as before. The AI just cleans up after them.
Your customers still don't see your product list. They still don't see your prices. They still send voice notes and "the usual." The AI guesses what they meant, and a human reviews and approves the interpretation.
Wholesale Handler takes a different approach. Give your customers a proper ordering portal and the orders arrive clean. No AI interpretation needed. No human review step. The customer picks the product, enters the quantity, submits. Done.
Orderlion automates the mess. Wholesale Handler prevents it.
What's not included with Wholesale Handler
- No traceability or compliance reporting
If you need FDA or FSA traceability with lot codes and recall management, you need a platform like Produce Pro or Farmsoft. Wholesale Handler is an ordering system, not a compliance tool.
- No delivery route planning
You don't need a worse version of Google Maps.
- No ERP integration
If you're running SAP or Sage and need orders flowing into your ERP automatically, Orderlion or Fresho are built for that. If you don't have an ERP (and most small produce wholesalers don't), you don't need one to use Wholesale Handler.
If you need a full operations platform with warehouse management, AI order processing, and ERP integration, the bigger platforms exist for a reason. If you need a simple, affordable way to let your customers order online instead of texting you at 4am, that's what Wholesale Handler does.
FAQ
- What's the cheapest ordering software for fruit and veg wholesalers?
Wholesale Handler is £30/month with no setup fees or transaction fees. The next cheapest options in the produce space start at several hundred dollars per month.
- Do I need ERP integration to use wholesale ordering software?
No. Wholesale Handler works as a standalone system. Your customers order through the portal, you manage orders from your dashboard, and you generate invoices directly. ERP integration is only necessary if you're already running enterprise software and want orders to flow into it automatically.
- Can I change prices daily on Wholesale Handler?
Yes. Open the product, type the new price, save. Your customers see the updated price next time they order, with a visible indicator showing the price changed.
- How do my customers place orders?
You send them an email invitation. They create a password and log into your ordering portal from any device. They see your product list with current prices, choose what they need, and submit. No app download required.
