Decide what the van is for
Van sales means the rep carries the stock, sells it at the shelf, invoices on the spot and collects payment. It suits small shops that order little and often, pay in cash or on short credit, and cannot wait a day for delivery. Larger accounts that order by the pallet are usually better served by presales, where the rep takes the order and the warehouse delivers it.
Most distributors end up running both. Write down which customers the van will serve and which stay on order-and-deliver before you buy a single vehicle. That one list decides how many vans you need, what they carry and how much cash comes back each evening.
- Which customers the van serves, by area and size
- Whether reps sell for cash only or also on credit
- The range each van carries, usually your fastest movers
- How many visits a rep can make in a working day
- Who in the office approves each evening’s close
TipStart with customers you already serve and know, so the first weeks test the operation, not the market.
Treat every van as a small warehouse
Once goods are on a van, the van is holding stock. Record it as its own stock location, and move goods onto it by transfer from the warehouse, never on a paper slip. The warehouse goes down, the van goes up, and every sale, return and unload can be checked against what the van should hold.
Size the morning load from what each van actually sells, not from what fits. Too little and the rep turns customers away by noon; too much and stock sits in a hot van for days, which matters for anything with a short shelf life.
TipCount the van with the rep present the first time it is loaded, so both sides agree on the starting stock.
Set what each rep may sell, and at what price
Decide the range per rep or per area before the first route. A rep serving grocery shops does not need your catering lines, and every extra item makes the van harder to count. Prices should come from the customer’s price list, not from the rep’s memory, so two shops on the same terms pay the same.
Then decide the limits: whether a rep may give a discount and how far, and how much credit each customer can carry. Set these before the first day, because a rep who has once given 10% will be asked for it again.
- A catalogue of the items each rep may sell
- A price list for each customer group
- A maximum discount per rep, or none
- A credit limit for every customer sold on credit
- Payment terms for each credit customer
TipKeep the first range short; a rep who knows every item on the van sells and counts faster than one hunting through the back.
Draw the first routes
Put each customer on a fixed weekday and keep them there, so shops know when to expect the van and hold their order for it. Group neighbouring customers on the same day, decide how often each one is visited, and keep a day short enough to finish with time to count and close.
Leave the fine-tuning for later. The first routes will be wrong in places; the point is to have a plan the rep follows and you can measure, so the second version is better. Planning weekly routes has a guide of its own.
Plan how cash comes back
Every van becomes a collection point. Decide how reps take payment: cash, card on a terminal, bank transfer or cheque, and what reference they record for each. Decide what change float, if any, each rep starts with, and that cash is handed over every evening, not carried home.
Agree from the start that the rep counts cash and stock at the end of every day, and that the office approves the count. A daily close keeps any difference small enough to trace to one visit.
TipKeep the change float the same amount every day, so it never blurs into the takings.
Get the equipment and the signal right
Each rep needs a phone with the sales app, a portable printer for invoices and receipts, and a way to take card payments if you accept them. Test all three together in the yard before the first route, including printing an invoice with its e-invoicing QR code where your country requires one.
Assume the signal will drop. Shops in basements, industrial areas and long highway stretches lose coverage, and a rep who cannot sell without signal will go back to paper invoices. Whatever system you use must let the rep sell, invoice and collect offline, and send it all once the signal returns.
Run a pilot before you grow
Start with one or two vans on routes you know, for at least two full weeks. That covers every weekday twice and shows the routine problems: the item that always runs out, the customer who is never open at ten, the close that takes an hour.
Decide in advance what you will judge it on, so the decision to add vans rests on numbers, not on how the rep feels about it.
- Pick one or two reps and fixed routes
- Load, sell and close every day for two weeks
- Review stock and cash differences each morning
- Compare visits planned with visits made
- Adjust the range, the load and the routes
- Add vans only once the close runs clean
Checklist: Before the first van leaves
- List the customers the van will serve
- Set up each van as its own stock location
- Choose the range each rep may sell
- Load every price list and payment term
- Set a credit limit for every credit customer
- Set each rep’s maximum discount
- Put every customer on a weekday route
- Test phone, printer and card terminal together
- Agree the daily stock and cash close
- Run a two-week pilot before adding vans