Wholesalers and distributors run on thin margins and thick paperwork. Commport's B2B solutions, including EDI, EDI VANs, and GDSN, replace manual order entry with automated data exchange, so purchase orders, invoices, and shipping notices move between you and your trading partners in minutes instead of days.
The B2B Integration Partner the Wholesalers & Distributors Rely On
Trading Partners in the Commport Network
Daily Transactions Processed
Customers Customers
Staff re-key purchase orders, invoices, and shipping notices by hand. Manual data entry raises operational costs by 20 to 30 percent and adds up to another 20 percent in chargebacks tied to data errors.
An incorrect price, a missing advance shipping notice, or a mismatched quantity can trigger a retailer chargeback that reduces the profit on an entire order.
Without a VAN network already connected to your retailers and suppliers, standing up a new trading relationship can take 8 to 10 weeks before the first order ever flows.
Without real-time synchronization across warehouses and trading partners, distributors either run out of fast-moving SKUs or tie up cash in slow-moving stock.
When your ERP, warehouse management system, and accounting software don't talk to your order data, staff spend hours reconciling numbers that should already match.
Wholesalers who can't publish accurate, GDSN-compliant product data face delayed retailer listings, rejected catalog submissions, and lost shelf space.
Wholesalers and distributors sit in the middle of the supply chain, buying in bulk from manufacturers and shipping smaller quantities to retailers, foodservice operators, and other businesses. That middle position means a distributor’s order volume, partner count, and data complexity often outpace what a single ERP or spreadsheet-driven process can handle. A distributor with 50 retail accounts might need to support a dozen different EDI standards, communication protocols, and pricing structures at once, and every one of those relationships depends on data arriving accurately and on time.
The pressure has only grown. Distributors are managing tighter margins, ongoing labor shortages in the warehouse, and supply chains that shift with every new tariff announcement. At the same time, B2B buyers now expect the same real-time visibility and self-service ordering they get as consumers, which pushes distributors to modernize order intake, pricing, and inventory availability across every channel a customer might use, whether that is a sales rep, a phone call, or an EDI connection.
Retailers and large buying groups are not waiting for distributors to catch up. Most major retailers require EDI compliance as a condition of doing business, and a growing number also require GDSN-synchronized product data before a new item can even be listed. A wholesaler that cannot meet those requirements risks losing shelf space entirely, regardless of how good the product is. B2B integration is not a back-office upgrade for wholesalers and distributors. It is what keeps a distributor eligible to trade with the retailers and buying groups that drive its revenue.
Everything you need to automate order-to-cash and procure-to-pay, in one connected platform.
A fully managed, cloud-native EDI platform that automates the exchange of orders, ASNs, invoices, and forecasts across every automobile trading partner.
Commport VAN is a secure, always-on transaction infrastructure connecting you to 5,000+ pre-mapped trading partners with protocol translation and full audit trails.
Convert PDFs, emails, and documents from non-EDI suppliers into fully compliant EDI transactions. Onboard any partner, regardless of capability.
Certified specialists build, test, and maintain partner-specific maps across X12, EDIFACT, ODETTE, and VDA, including custom transaction sets.
Full managed service: trading partner onboarding, mapping, monitoring, error resolution, and compliance, so your team can focus on core operations.
A secure, browser-based EDI platform for distributors getting started or managing lower transaction volumes, no software to install.
Automate the entire order-to-cash cycle, from PO receipt through ASN, invoicing, and payment reconciliation, end-to-end.
Real-time inventory signals across your supply network prevent stockouts, expose overstock, and keep JIT production lines fed.
Digitize the full procurement lifecycle, from supplier qualification through PO issuance and delivery confirmation, with supplier performance analytics.
Instead of building a separate connection for every retailer, supplier, and buying group, a wholesaler connects once to the Commport VAN, which handles protocol conversion and routes every document to the correct mailbox.
Integrated EDI translates an incoming EDI 850 purchase order into your ERP's native format and delivers it directly into your order management system, no printing, no manual keying.
Order and invoice management closes the loop: EDI 810 invoices and EDI 856 shipping notices go out automatically, and EDI 820 payment remittance comes back, speeding up the entire order-to-cash cycle.
EDI 846 inventory advice and warehouse transactions like EDI 940 and 945 keep stock counts current across every location, preventing reps from promising stock that already sold out.
Commport's GDSN Datapool synchronizes item data, pricing, packaging, and compliance attributes with every retailer and marketplace you sell through from a single update.
Doc2EDI converts incoming faxes and paper documents into the same structured EDI data flowing through every other connection, keeping your operation fully automated.
Procurement management automates requests for quotation and purchase order acknowledgments, giving buyers real-time pricing and availability data instead of a phone call.
With thousands of pre-built trading partner connections and mapping templates already in place, onboarding cuts from the 8–10 week industry norm down to days.
Managed EDI services and validation tools catch formatting errors and failed transmissions before they become chargebacks or missed shipments.
Challenge: Clover Tool was managing EDI manually across multiple OEM relationships. Volume and complexity had outgrown their approach, creating delays, compliance risk, and resource strain.
Challenge: Hologic needed to manage complex B2B exchanges across a diverse trading partner network with strict data-integrity and compliance requirements at growing transaction volumes.
Challenge: Manual processes were bottlenecking partner onboarding and creating compliance gaps as Commonwealth tried to scale across a growing network of trading partners with varying EDI maturity.
How removing manual data entry cuts the errors that lead to chargebacks and wasted inventory spend.
Where supply chain delays actually come from, and how automated document exchange closes those gaps.
How Automated customer documentation helps distributors pivot sourcing and pricing fast.
How manufactures and their distribution partners use EDI to automate order and shipping documents.
The efficiency gains distributors see across order processing, inventory, and partner communication.
How EDI fits into the broader supply chain picture for wholesalers and distributors.
Commport
Other Providers
Unlike providers requiring heavy upfront investment in hardware and in-house IT, Commport owns and operates its own infrastructure end to end, delivering deep ERP integration with SAP, Oracle NetSuite, and Microsoft Dynamics without the capital cost.
Commport
Other Providers
Where some VANs offer only partial encryption or delayed batch reporting, Commport secures every document with end-to-end encryption and a complete, immutable audit trail, plus real-time transaction visibility.
Commport
Other Providers
A GS1-certified GDSN datapool since 2005, connecting businesses across 25 countries with more than 10,000 data quality checks, at transparent pricing instead of the six-figure revenue-based contracts some providers charge.
Every week a wholesaler or distributor runs on manual processes is another week of chargebacks, stockouts, and staff hours that should be going toward growth instead of data entry. Commport has spent 40 years building the EDI, VAN, and GDSN infrastructure that lets wholesalers and distributors automate order processing, inventory, and trading partner data without a single point of failure.
Most wholesalers and distributors need EDI to automate purchase orders and invoices, a VAN to connect securely with every trading partner through one link, GDSN to keep product data synchronized with retailers, and ERP integration so all of that data flows into their existing accounting and inventory systems automatically.
EDI, or Electronic Data Interchange, is the computer-to-computer exchange of business documents such as purchase orders, invoices, and shipping notices in a standardized format. For wholesalers and distributors, it replaces manual data entry with automated document exchange, cutting processing costs, reducing errors, and speeding up order-to-cash cycles.
An EDI VAN, or Value Added Network, is a secure intermediary that routes EDI documents between trading partners through a single connection instead of dozens of separate ones. Most wholesalers and distributors working with multiple retailers or suppliers need one to avoid managing individual protocols and connections for every partner.
GDSN, the Global Data Synchronization Network, is a GS1 standard that keeps product data, like descriptions, pricing, and packaging details, consistent across every retailer and marketplace a distributor sells through. Many major retailers require GDSN-synchronized data before they will list a new product.
Implementation timelines vary by transaction volume and system complexity, but cloud-based EDI can often go live within days, while integrated EDI tied to an ERP typically takes longer depending on customization needs. Working with a provider that already has pre-built trading partner connections significantly shortens the timeline.
EDI pricing depends on transaction volume, the number of trading partners, and whether a business chooses cloud EDI, integrated EDI, or a fully managed outsourced service. Commport offers flexible, scalable pricing models designed to fit businesses from small distributors to large enterprise wholesalers.
Yes. Commport’s EDI solutions connect natively with major ERP platforms including SAP, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, Acumatica, and QuickBooks, translating incoming EDI documents directly into your ERP’s native format without requiring custom development work.
Commport’s Doc2EDI solution converts faxed or paper documents from non-EDI partners into structured EDI data automatically, so a distributor’s internal processes stay fully automated even while working with suppliers or customers who haven’t adopted electronic data exchange yet.
