· By Erik Svedin
How to look up a part at the counter without five supplier logins
A customer asks for a cassette. This is the counter workflow: one search, live stock and price, then an answer — without logging into every wholesaler.
The customer is waiting
You know the drill. Someone at the counter asks whether you can order in a specific cassette. Without a shared search you log in to one wholesaler, search, find nothing, log in to the next. Three tabs and five minutes later you still don't have a clear answer — and the queue behind them is growing.
The Product Search workflow is the opposite. You stay in BikeOffice, type an article number, designation or name, and get hits from the suppliers the shop is already connected to. No new tab, no new login in the middle of the conversation.
We save hours every week. What used to be five tabs is now a single search.
What you check before you promise anything
This is not a catalogue to browse in peace — it has to answer while the customer waits. Three things decide whether you can promise a delivery:
- Stock at each connected supplier, so you don't promise a part that is out
- Prices side by side, so you see which option is reasonable to order
- Which supplier the hit belongs to, so the next step (order, hold, "we'll call this afternoon") is concrete
Anything the search does not show — suppliers you have not connected, or rows with no stock figure — is not something to guess. Tell the customer and search onward, rather than promising the wrong thing.
When this is not enough
Product Search does not replace the supplier's own portal for placing orders, returns or net prices in the contract. It replaces the first hunt: does the part exist, with whom, at what price, right now.
If a supplier is missing from the results, the next step is to connect them in BikeOffice, not to open another tab at the counter. The product page covers what is included and how to start.