A dealer portal is a closed screen a dealer enters with their own login. The person who enters is a dealer user you name. The public website, the shop window and the dealer finder are not this screen. Your price list, your discount and your orders do not sit there. They sit in the portal. A shared password and the sentence “dealers can come in” do not build a portal. Each dealer sees only their own record.
Who enters
On the dealer side, the person who writes the order enters. On your side, the role that processes the order enters separately. The dealer’s accounts clerk and the salesperson do not have to hold the same permission. The first release opens with the accounts that order most. The whole network is not brought in on day one.
What they see
Their own item, their own quantity, their own price list and the status of their own order. Another dealer’s price, your margin and an internal note are not in this login. Price is read from a list you name. The dealer does not type the list.
The site and the portal
The site helps a buyer find you and find a dealer. The portal takes the order as a record. Opening both on the same address shows the price to everyone. HED Creative does not draw that boundary in Berlin or Ankara before the code repository is opened in the company’s name. The repository stays with you. The agency is a user.
The first release is not a shop
A public cart, card payment and a promise of live warehouse stock are not the job of the first release. The job is to turn an incomplete email order into one record. Stock shows only as far as you promised. The warehouse system is named. The portal does not replace it.
To start, you do not need the size of the network. You need the names of about ten accounts in the first wave, the file that holds the price, and the person who processes the order.
Write who may enter in the web app development scope. The first screen for the order: dealer order screen.