---
title: Doudlah Farms — B2B Portal Implementation
type: article
created: '2025-10-24'
updated: '2025-10-24'
source_docs:
- raw/2025-10-24-doudlah-farms-marketing-amazon-ecommerce-inventory-call-96644259.md
tags:
- client:doudlah-farms
- b2b
- ecommerce
- portal
- implementation
layer: 2
client_source: null
industry_context: null
transferable: true
---

# Doudlah Farms — B2B Portal Implementation

## Overview

Doudlah Farms is rolling out a B2B ordering portal to replace the current manual invoicing workflow. As of October 2025, the rollout is stalled at the customer onboarding step: gathering stable email addresses for accounts is proving difficult because key wholesale customers (particularly Epic) use rotating staff to place orders, making it impossible to assign a single, consistent account identity.

Related context: [[clients/doudlah-farms/_index]]

---

## Current Blocker: Complex Customer Ordering Structures

The primary obstacle to launching the portal is that several wholesale customers do not have a single designated person or shared email for ordering. Specific examples surfaced in the October 2025 call:

- **Epic** operates five restaurants and uses **5–7 different staff members** who rotate weekly to place orders. A single person orders for all five locations, but that person changes every week. Lucy has never seen the same person twice across orders.
- **Metcalfe's** has three locations, each with multiple staff who have placed orders at various times.
- **Willie Street Co-op** similarly has three locations with overlapping ordering contacts.

This creates downstream problems for Lucy beyond the portal setup: when tracking down unpaid invoices, she cannot easily identify which staff member placed a given order weeks prior.

### Why This Matters

The B2B portal requires a stable email address per account. Without a consistent contact, account history becomes fragmented, and the portal's core benefits (visible pricing, automated invoicing, order history) are undermined.

---

## Proposed Solution: Outreach to Establish Account Conventions

Rather than trying to map existing chaotic ordering patterns directly into the portal, the team agreed to proactively reach out to key customers and propose a streamlined account structure.

**Approach:**
- Karly will draft a template email for Lucy to send to key customer contacts (starting with Andrea, Epic's supervisor over all five restaurants).
- The email will frame the portal as a benefit to the customer: consistent pricing visibility, no need to manually request invoices, streamlined ordering.
- It will ask the customer how they'd like to structure their account — e.g., a shared ordering email per restaurant, or individual accounts per location.
- Lucy will personalize the template before sending, given her existing relationships.

**Suggested account structure (Lucy's recommendation):**
- Use a role-based or restaurant-based email rather than a personal one (e.g., `voyager@epic.com` or `ordering@voyagerhall.com`), so the account survives staff turnover.
- If individual accounts are preferred, inactive accounts (no activity for 12 months) can be flagged for deletion with customer permission.

---

## Current Manual Invoicing Pain Points

Understanding the existing workflow helps frame why the portal is valuable:

1. A customer staff member places an order via email or phone.
2. Lucy downloads the order, creates an invoice, converts it to PDF, and emails it to the customer's AP department — a separate contact from the person who ordered.
3. The ordering staff never see the invoice; AP handles payment separately.

The portal would automate invoice generation and delivery, eliminating steps 2 and 3 from Lucy's workload.

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## Action Items

| Owner | Action |
|-------|--------|
| Karly | Draft B2B portal outreach email template (addressed to Andrea at Epic); highlight portal benefits and ask for preferred account/email structure |
| Lucy | Personalize and send the template to Andrea and other key wholesale contacts once received |
| Lucy | Continue compiling email addresses for remaining customers in parallel |

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## Open Questions

- Will Epic (or similar customers) already have a shared ordering email in use with other vendors? (Karly's hypothesis: likely yes, given Epic's scale and tech-savviness.)
- For customers with multiple locations (Metcalfe's, Willie Street), should each location get its own account, or one parent account with location notes?
- What is the policy for dormant accounts — 12-month inactivity threshold before deletion with customer notification?

---

## Related Notes

- [[clients/doudlah-farms/_index]]
- [[raw/2025-10-24-doudlah-farms-marketing-amazon-ecommerce-inventory-call-96644259]]