How Manufacturers Can Start Selling Online: Five Steps
A manufacturer can start selling online in five steps: decide which customers and products go online first, connect a store to the systems the factory already runs, build product data a buyer can use, set up fulfilment for single orders, and automate the repetitive work so the channel does not depend on someone retyping. Done in that order, the store launches in two to four months without disrupting the factory or the trade customers. This guide takes each step in turn, with a hypothetical example at the end.
Step 1: decide who and what goes online first
Two decisions before anything is built. First, who: existing trade customers who want to order online instead of by phone and email, new consumers, or both. A trade ordering portal and a consumer store are different projects, and starting with one is faster than starting with both. Second, what: the whole catalogue, or a range chosen to avoid conflict with your distributors and retailers. Many manufacturers begin with products the trade does not carry, or with a trade portal only, because that avoids the pricing argument entirely. Our guide to selling direct to customers covers the channel conflict question in detail.
The market is there either way. Australians spent $82.6 billion online in 2025, up 14 percent, according to the Australia Post eCommerce Report 2026, and business buyers increasingly expect the same ordering experience at work that they get at home.
Step 2: connect the store to what you already run
The store is the easy part. Shopify, BigCommerce or WooCommerce will do for almost every manufacturer, and for trade ordering Shopify’s business-to-business features or a WooCommerce setup with account pricing are usually enough. What matters is the connection to your inventory or ERP: stock levels on the store must be real, and orders must land in the factory’s system without anyone retyping them. If that connection is missing, the office keys orders by hand, the stock on the site is wrong, and the channel is quietly abandoned within a year. All three platforms have published interfaces; the WooCommerce developer documentation and Shopify’s equivalent describe how orders, products and stock can be read and written by other systems.
Decide early which system is the source of truth for stock and price. Usually it is the ERP, and the store reads from it.
Step 3: build product data a buyer can use
A trade catalogue says “RSJ 150UB14 6.0m”. A buyer needs a title that says what it is, a description that says what it is for, the dimensions and weight for shipping, the variants laid out as choices, and a photograph. Multiply that by the catalogue and it is the longest task in the project. Start it on day one, in a spreadsheet template from whoever is building the store, and accept that the first version will cover the chosen range rather than everything. Good product data also feeds Google Shopping and, increasingly, AI shopping assistants, so it keeps paying after launch.
Step 4: set up fulfilment for single orders
A factory ships pallets. An online store ships one item to one address. That means parcel carrier accounts, packaging that survives a parcel network, a packing bench and a process, and shipping rates that do not frighten a buyer at checkout. For bulky or heavy products, this step takes longer than the website and is worth testing with real parcels before launch. The Australia Post report found 73 percent of shoppers say a good delivery experience makes them more likely to shop online and 69 percent want a range of delivery options at checkout, so it is not a detail.
Returns need a process too. Australian Consumer Law applies to every sale to a consumer, and a manufacturer selling direct carries the obligations a retailer used to carry for it.
Step 5: automate the repetitive work
Order confirmations, dispatch notifications with tracking, stock sync in both directions, invoices created in the accounting system, and a daily summary for whoever runs the office. These are the tasks that eat the office if done by hand, and they are the easiest to automate because every platform expects them. Set them up before launch, not after the first busy week.
Want this as a one-page checklist? Five steps and ten checks for manufacturers starting to sell online, on one A4 page.
A worked example
This is a hypothetical, not a client. Take a Toowoomba manufacturer of agricultural gates and fencing hardware that sells through rural merchants. Its trade customers ring or email orders, and the office re-keys them into an ERP. Step one: a trade ordering portal first, with each merchant seeing its own price list, and no consumer store yet, so there is no conflict with the merchants. Step two: a Shopify store with business-to-business pricing, connected to the ERP so stock and orders flow both ways. Step three: product data for the 300 most ordered lines, with the rest added monthly. Step four: freight stays as it is, because merchants order in bulk, so this step is light. Step five: order confirmations, dispatch notices and invoice creation automated. Fourteen weeks from scope to launch. Six months in, the office spends its mornings on something other than retyping, and the business has a channel it can open to consumers later with a second range.
What to avoid
Launching the whole catalogue at once, with half the product data missing. Building the store before deciding the source of truth for stock. Leaving the merchants to find out. Treating shipping as a detail. And expecting the website to produce sales by itself: an online channel needs the same attention as a trade show, which means someone owns it after launch.
How High10 helps
High10 builds online stores and trade ordering portals for manufacturers on Shopify and WooCommerce, connects them to the ERP, inventory and accounting systems the factory already runs, and sets up workflow automation for orders, stock and invoicing. Where products are configured or quoted rather than picked from a list, we build the custom eCommerce piece in front of the standard checkout. Every project is quoted in writing after a scoping call.
Frequently asked questions
Should a manufacturer start with a trade portal or a consumer store?
Usually a trade portal, if existing customers order by phone and email. It removes retyping, avoids conflict with distributors, and teaches the business online fulfilment with customers it already knows. A consumer store can follow with a chosen range.
Which platform suits a manufacturer selling online?
Shopify or WooCommerce for most, with BigCommerce an option for large catalogues. The platform matters less than the connection to your ERP or inventory system, which is what keeps stock and orders accurate without manual work.
How long does it take a manufacturer to start selling online?
Two to four months for a platform store connected to an ERP, with product data for a chosen range. The product data and the ERP connection set the pace, not the website design.
What is the biggest mistake manufacturers make when selling online?
Launching without the store connected to the factory’s systems, so orders and stock are handled by hand. The channel then depends on someone’s spare time and is abandoned within a year. The connection is the project; the website is the front of it.
Want this as a one-page checklist? Five steps and ten checks for manufacturers starting to sell online, on one A4 page.
Related reading
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