Ecommerce · 7 min read
How to sell online without a second inventory book
Most Bangladesh brands that sell both online and in a shop eventually invent a second inventory book-Excel for the website, the till for the floor. The last polo sells on Facebook at 11pm while Gulshan still thinks it has twelve. By morning both teams are arguing about a number that was never shared.
Ecommerce in Workcel is not a separate shop system. It is another channel on the same catalog: products, prices, on-hand stock, and order handling live where POS, warehouse, and sales already work.
Pick how you go live-do not rebuild for vanity
You do not have to throw away a website customers already trust. Workcel supports three practical paths; choose the one that matches the brand, not the one that sounds most “digital.”
- Connect your existing ecommerce site so products, stock, and orders stay in Workcel
- Launch a ready Workcel storefront on your domain, selling from the ERP catalog
- Request a custom storefront design that still reads live Workcel inventory
Publish one catalog, not a nightly export
Products, images, prices, taxes, and availability should be the same records the counter rings up. When the website sells a copied list, drift is inevitable-wrong price, wrong size, phantom stock.
Mark what is available online from the company catalog, keep fulfilment tied to a real stock location (usually the warehouse or the outlet that packs parcels), and let receipts, transfers, POS sales, and web orders update the same on-hand picture.
Orders must land where pickers work
An online sale that dies in a separate admin inbox or a WhatsApp screenshot is not an order-it is a rumour. Paid or COD checkouts should become operational work inside Workcel: confirm, pick against stock, ship with a method you already configured, collect what is still outstanding.
Shipping methods and coupons belong in the same system as checkout rules. If delivery charges live only on a Facebook reply, your margin disappears before the parcel leaves Banani.
Social messages are not a stock system
Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are how many Bangladesh sales start. That is fine-until availability is promised from memory.
When a customer asks “is this available?”, turn the reply into a real order in Workcel (POS or Ecommerce) so stock updates everywhere at once. Confirm COD, bKash, or Nagad on the order; print what the courier needs; stop promising pieces you already sold at the counter.
Cut fake COD before you pack
Cash on delivery is ordinary here. Fake COD is also ordinary. A one-time SMS code before packing wastes fewer courier runs and fewer “customer not found” afternoons.
Use your own BulkSMSBD key and sender ID, or ask Workcel about an SMS number if you need one. Verification is a process choice-not a reason to abandon COD entirely.
Watch the channel, not only the homepage
Once orders flow, look at ecommerce reporting beside the rest of the business: storefront sales in BDT, top products, and cart conversion. The owner home dashboard can show the ecommerce tile next to stock and POS-so online is not a mystery spreadsheet.
If conversion is fine but stockouts spike after every campaign, the problem is usually location stock or transfers, not the homepage banner.
What this is not
Connecting ecommerce does not replace a courier contract, a Facebook ads strategy, or legal recovery on bad COD. It stops the website and the shop from disagreeing about the same SKU.
You do not have to rebuild your site on Workcel to get shared stock. Many sellers keep the front customers know and bring catalog, inventory, and order handling into the ERP.