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Exporter website development

For export directors, commercial managers and owners of exporters and trading companies who need the catalogue, the quotation cycle, buyer accounts, shipment documents and the agent network to live in one system shaped around how their export desk actually works.

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The problem

What goes wrong today

Where it usually starts

An export desk runs on email, a quotation template in a word processor and a folder per shipment.

  • A buyer in another country sends a request listing six products; the export manager works out pallet quantities and container fill by hand, checks today's freight indication, and types a quotation.
  • The buyer replies three days later asking for a different incoterm and two more products, so a second quotation is typed, and when the order finally arrives nobody is quite sure which version was accepted.
  • Prices quoted to one buyer are forgotten by the time the same buyer asks again, and two salespeople quote the same product to two buyers in the same territory at different levels.

Where it gets harder

Shipment documents are assembled from scratch each time.

  • The commercial invoice, packing list, certificate of origin application and any product certificates the destination needs are built in different programs from the same order data, retyped, and emailed to the forwarder, the buyer and the bank in three separate threads.
  • A buyer asking where their container is gets an answer only when someone chases the forwarder.
  • Agents in each territory have their own buyers and their own commission arrangements, but head office cannot see which enquiries came through which agent, which quotations are open or which territories have gone quiet.
  • When the order book is asked for by product, by country or by agent, it is rebuilt from the email archive.

Scope of the service

What the build covers

A custom export build normally covers:

  • A product catalogue where each product carries export packaging Units per carton and pallet, gross and net weights, volume and harmonised code as the business records them
  • An enquiry and request-for-quotation flow That asks for destination country, port, incoterm, quantities and required documents, so the first reply is a quotation rather than a list of questions
  • Quotation records with line items Versions, validity dates and the buyer's acceptance, so every revision is kept and the accepted version is unambiguous
  • Buyer accounts with a contact list Agreed terms, order history and open quotations
  • Orders created from accepted quotations
  • A document pack per shipment Where the commercial invoice and packing list are generated from the order data and certificates, declarations and inspection reports are uploaded as supplied, with a checklist of what the destination requires
  • Shipment status updates recorded By the documentation clerk and visible to the buyer
  • An agent and distributor network by territory With each agent seeing their own buyers, enquiries and quotations and head office seeing all of it

How discovery works

Discovery walks through a shipment with you from first enquiry to delivered container: who quotes and who approves, how freight and insurance figures enter a quotation, what document set each market needs, who prepares and who checks the pack, how agents are paid and what they may see, and which figures the finance system needs. Each becomes a named stage in the scope document: enquiry, quotation, order, shipment documents, status updates.

Deliberately out of scope

  • Customs filing and freight booking, which stay with your forwarder and broker
  • Letters of credit and trade finance beyond recording references and dates
  • The finance ledger, which receives invoices from the system. Documents are generated from your data and certificates are shown as uploaded
  • The system does not decide what a destination requires or assert that a shipment complies

When the scope grows

Scoping scenario

A trading company exporting to thirty countries through nine territory agents, quoting in three currencies with an approval step above a threshold, generating invoices and packing lists per shipment and pushing invoices to an accounting system is a different build from a single-product exporter with four buyers, and the scope document will say so.

Deliverables

What you receive

  • Discovery notes from a walk-through of a shipment from enquiry to delivery, with a sample of quotations and document packs
  • A written scope document naming each stage from enquiry to status update, the finance export and what is excluded
  • Design of the quotation request, the quotation record with versions, the shipment document pack and the agent view on phone and desktop
  • The build, deployed to your hosting or ours
  • Migration of products with shipping data, buyers, agents, open quotations and recent orders from spreadsheets or your current system, where relevant
  • Invoice and packing list templates set up and checked against a sample of real shipments
  • Training for export sales, the documentation clerk and agents, with a short written guide
  • Handover material and full ownership of the source code and your data

Process

How a project runs

Each stage maps onto the project view in your client panel. Durations are set in your proposal, never on this page.

  1. Onboarding

    Access to the catalogue, quotation templates, a folder of recent shipment documents, the buyer and agent lists and any accounting system invoices should reach.

    Project stage: Onboarding

  2. Planning

    Discovery with the export manager, a salesperson, the documentation clerk and one agent; quotation rules, document checklists per market and the scope document are agreed with milestones.

    Project stage: Planning

  3. Design

    Clickable designs of the request-for-quotation flow, a quotation with its versions, the shipment pack checklist and the agent dashboard.

    Project stage: Design

  4. Development

    Built in stages: catalogue and buyers first, then enquiries and quotations, then orders, shipment packs and status, then agents and the finance export.

    Project stage: Development

  5. Client review

    The export team runs a shadow cycle on real enquiries, produces a document pack for a live shipment alongside the current method and compares the two line by line.

    Project stage: Client review

  6. Revisions

    Quotation layouts, document checklists, approval thresholds and agent visibility are adjusted from the review and re-checked against the scope document.

    Project stage: Revisions

  7. Ready for launch

    Catalogue, buyers and open quotations migrated, templates signed off, finance export verified, agent accounts issued, checklist signed off.

    Project stage: Ready for launch

  8. Delivered

    The export desk runs on the new system from the next enquiry; optional maintenance and hosting continue under their own agreement.

    Project stage: Delivered

Integrations

Commonly integrated

Systems this kind of business usually asks us to connect. Each integration is confirmed during discovery; none is assumed.

  • Accounting and ERP systems receiving invoices, orders and buyer records
  • Freight forwarder and carrier systems supplying shipment milestones
  • Currency rate services for quotation conversions, with the rate recorded on each version
  • Electronic signature services for quotation acceptance and agent agreements
  • Document storage for certificates, inspection reports and signed documents
  • Email and messaging services for quotation delivery and shipment status notices
  • Chamber of commerce and certification bodies, as records of what was applied for and received rather than as a filing route

How we would approach it

Worked example

Concept demo

A thirty-country trading company with territory agents

The situation

A trading company exporting to thirty countries through nine agents quoted from a word-processor template, assembled every document pack by hand and could not say which quotations were open.

Why it is a custom build

The reason this needs a custom build is the combination of versioned multi-currency quoting with an approval step and the per-market document checklist, which the company maintains itself as rules change.

The scope we would propose

  • A catalogue with packaging, weights and harmonised codes per product
  • A request-for-quotation flow capturing destination, port, incoterm and required documents
  • Quotations in three currencies with the rate recorded on each version and an approval step above a value the directors set
  • Buyer accounts with agreed terms and history
  • A document pack per shipment with a checklist per destination market, the invoice and packing list generated from the order and the certificates uploaded as received
  • Shipment status visible to the buyer
  • Agent dashboards limited to their own territory
  • Invoices pushed to the accounting system

Concept demo: a scoping scenario written to show how we would approach the work. It is not a delivered client project.

Pricing

What affects the price

Every proposal is priced on scope. These are the factors that move it most for this kind of build.

  • Number of products and how much packaging and shipping data each carries
  • Quotation currencies, approval thresholds and how freight figures enter a quotation
  • Document pack contents per market and which documents are generated versus uploaded
  • Buyer portal with quotations, orders and shipment status
  • Number of agents and territories and what each may see
  • Whether invoices and orders exchange with an accounting or ERP system, and which one
  • Shipment status from forwarder systems or entered by the clerk
  • Hosting choice: your own hosting or ours

Start from a package

Export enquiry package

Export catalogue with shipping units, quotation requests by destination and incoterm, versioned quotations, buyer accounts with order history, shipment document packs, status updates and agents by territory.

Custom build
View the package

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

How do you decide between a custom build and the package?

Discovery compares your export cycle with what the export enquiry package does through configuration. An exporter quoting in one or two currencies, with a stable document set and agents who need only their own view, usually fits the package. Approval chains, per-market document rules that change often, forwarder integrations or a live accounting connection point to custom work, and we say which before anything is quoted.

Does the system file customs declarations or book freight?

No. Those stay with your forwarder and broker. The system produces the commercial invoice and packing list from the order, holds the certificates you upload and records the references and milestones the forwarder reports.

Does it tell us which documents a destination needs?

It holds a checklist per market that you maintain, and shows which items are present or missing for a shipment. What a market actually requires is for you, your forwarder and your advisers to determine; the system records your decision and does not make it.

Can agents see each other's buyers?

No. Each agent sees the buyers, enquiries and quotations in their own territory and nothing beyond it. Head office sees everything, including which enquiries came through which agent, for commission purposes.

Who owns the system afterwards?

You do. Source code and all data, including every quotation version and document pack, are handed over at delivery. Hosting and maintenance are optional, separately agreed and the system can move to another provider.

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