mPorts
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Product

Run your own B2B distribution marketplace.

mPorts Distribution is software for building and operating a B2B distribution marketplace: a business runs its own marketplace, on its own domain, connecting the suppliers it works with to the business buyers it sells to. It covers supplier accounts and listings, catalog categorization, buyer groups with contract pricing, quoting, purchasing, fulfillment visibility and returns, and settlement to suppliers.

Talk to mPorts See mPorts OMS

Who this is for

The company that runs the marketplace, not the two sides buying and selling on it. Distribution is worth looking at when you already sit between suppliers and buyers and keeping them coordinated has become the job.

  • Already in the middle

    Distributors, importers and wholesalers

    You have supplier relationships on one side and business buyers on the other. The marketplace is the thing you are already running — in email, spreadsheets and phone calls.

  • Representing supply

    Sourcing companies and manufacturer networks

    You represent supply that other businesses want to buy. A marketplace turns a set of relationships into an operation that does not depend on who answers the phone.

  • Building the network

    Operators building a reseller or dealer network

    Logistics operators, 3PLs and enterprises starting a digital distribution business, rather than building a marketplace from scratch.

Three sides, and you run the middle one

Suppliers list, buyers purchase, and you run the operation between them.

Your suppliers
  • Supplier accounts
  • Listings
  • Catalog import
Your marketplace — the part you operate
  • Categorization & attributes
  • Contract pricing
  • Quotes
  • Orders
  • Settlement
Your business buyers
  • Buyer accounts
  • Buyer groups
  • Purchasing
  • Fulfillment visibility
  • Returns

Your marketplace runs on your own domain, with your suppliers and your buyers.

The problem it addresses

Business buying does not look like consumer buying. A buyer arrives with a specification rather than a wishlist, asks for a quote before committing, orders in quantities and combinations that need approval, and cares more about what happens after the order than about the checkout itself.

Running that on a storefront built for consumers means the difference gets absorbed by people — quotes in email, approvals in spreadsheets, order status in phone calls. It works until volume arrives.

What a business buyer actually does

  1. 01

    Discover

    Finds products through a catalog built for business selection criteria, not consumer browsing.

  2. 02

    Engage

    Requests a quote and goes through your purchasing steps, rather than dropping items in a cart.

  3. 03

    Transact

    Places the order, with the record kept where operations can act on it.

  4. 04

    After the sale

    Sees fulfillment progress and raises returns without opening a support ticket.

Two catalogs, two different jobs

The catalog in mPorts Distribution is your marketplace’s catalog: what your suppliers list and your business buyers shop. The products & catalog capability in mPorts OMS is different — it is the operational product data behind the channels you sell on, and the work of getting products ready for them. A company can use one without the other.

What changes when the buying process is built into the software

The left column is how every company runs business buying before the volume arrives — and it is the first thing that stops scaling.

Business buying on a consumer storefront

  • Quotes negotiated in an email thread
  • Approvals tracked in a spreadsheet, or in somebody’s head
  • Order status answered by a person on the phone
  • Returns raised as a support ticket and chased
  • Every new buyer adds coordination work, not just revenue

The gap absorbed by people

The difference between how business buying works and how a consumer checkout works does not disappear. It gets absorbed by your team, one message at a time, until the volume makes that impossible.

Business buying with the process built in

  • Quoting and purchasing as part of the product
  • The order recorded where operations can act on it
  • Fulfillment progress visible to the buyer without asking
  • Returns raised in the same place the order lives
  • Another buyer is another buyer, not another coordinator

How it relates to the rest of mPorts

Distribution creates and operates the marketplace, so it is where the order is created. mPorts OMS operates commerce after the order exists — inventory, fulfillment, shipment and returns, across every channel, including channels that have nothing to do with Distribution.

The two are separable. A company can run its marketplace on Distribution while operating fulfillment somewhere else, or run OMS across existing channels without Distribution at all.

  • Distribution takes the quote and the order on your marketplace
  • OMS operates what happens next
  • mPorts OMS connects both to the systems outside

Where the handover happens

One transaction, two halves. Distribution owns everything up to and including the order; mPorts OMS owns everything after it. The order passes between them as a record; nobody types it in again.

The buyer

mPorts Distribution → mPorts OMS

And your operation runs it

  1. Orders
  2. Inventory
  3. Fulfillment
  4. Shipment
  5. Tracking
  6. Returns

The buyer sees

Do you need both?

No. A company can run its marketplace on Distribution while fulfilling somewhere else entirely, or run mPorts OMS across the channels it already sells on without ever touching Distribution.

Which one to start with is a question about where the work currently hurts. If buyers are the constraint, start here. If the orders already arrive and serving them is the constraint, start with the OMS.

Questions buyers ask

Whose marketplace is it?

Yours. You operate it, on your own domain, with the suppliers you work with and the business buyers you sell to. That is the product: the software for running your own B2B distribution marketplace.

Do we need mPorts OMS to use Distribution?

No. The two are separable. Most companies find the question becomes interesting once order volume makes running the orders the harder half.

How is this different from listing on someone else’s marketplace?

Listing puts your products in someone else’s aisle, on their terms, with their buyer relationship. Distribution is the software for running the aisle — you decide who supplies, who buys, what the pricing is and what the terms are.

What do our suppliers get?

Supplier accounts with roles, a place to put listings, and catalog import instead of typing listings in again. Settlement runs to them from the marketplace you operate.

What does a buyer actually get?

A catalog they can shop by business criteria, a way to request a quote and go through their purchasing steps, order placement and order history, and a view of shipping and returns after the sale — without opening a ticket to find out where something is.

Can it work alongside our existing ERP?

mPorts is designed to run alongside the systems you already have, connecting to them rather than replacing them. Whether your specific ERP can be connected depends on whether that connection has been built.

Related reading

Your suppliers. Your buyers. Your marketplace.

Talk to mPorts See how operations connect