CUSTOM SOFTWARE
One vendor app added live visibility and replaced three weekly workflows
A live portal gives 39 local makers direct access to sales, inventory, and restocking while replacing three weekly workflows and reducing the constant questions surrounding them.
- Status
- Live and expanding
- Timing
- Launched July 2026 · Expanded August 2026
- Results snapshot
- August 2026
- Role
- Internal builder + operator
- Contribution
- Product design · Sales data · Inventory tracking · Scheduling automation
AT A GLANCE
The answer in three lines.
- What was built
- A live operations portal that brings three previously separate weekly workflows—sales reporting, inventory reporting, and restocking scheduling—into one application across a three-location marketplace network.
- What changed
- Vendors get faster answers and simpler restocking across all three locations, while employees no longer manage three separate weekly workflows—or the same stream of follow-up questions about sales, stock, and scheduling.
- Evidence
- 39 vendor workspaces live, inventory visible within ten minutes, restocking scheduling automated across all three locations, and three weekly staff workflows consolidated.
vendor workspaces
Each scoped to the vendor’s data across the marketplace network.
weekly workflows consolidated
Sales reporting, inventory reporting, and restocking scheduling.
restocking scheduling
Replaced a Google Form an employee had to recreate every week across three locations.
inventory visibility
The former weekly inventory report is now a vendor view that updates within ten minutes.
The situation
Three distinct retail marketplace locations stock products from 39 local vendors in total. Each location carries its own vendor mix: there is overlap across the three marketplaces, but the assortment is not identical.
Sales reporting, inventory reporting, and restocking scheduling were three separate weekly workflows owned by different people. Every handoff created another place for the process to slow down or fall out of date.
For scheduling, an employee had to create and distribute a new Google Form every week so vendors could choose a time to stock products at one of the three locations.
That process did more than create staff work. Vendors were making production and restocking decisions with delayed information and regularly had to ask employees about sales, current stock, reports, and stocking logistics.
The build
The portal began as a secure, self-serve view of sales performance across the marketplace network. Vendors can examine daily, weekly, current-month, previous-month, and year-to-date results and identify their best-selling products.
It has since expanded into inventory tracking and restocking scheduling, bringing all three previously separate weekly workflows into the same application.
The weekly inventory report was removed from the process completely. Vendors can now see what their inventory looks like within ten minutes instead of waiting for the next report.
The scheduling workflow is now built into the app. Vendors choose a stocking time for any of the three locations directly, so an employee no longer needs to create a new Google Form each week.
Because the underlying answers are self-serve, much of the communication and many of the follow-up questions surrounding sales, inventory, and restocking no longer need an employee response.
The application was built internally without outside development spend or an enterprise software subscription. Current infrastructure remains below $20 per month.
The results
- Thirty-nine vendor workspaces are live across three marketplace locations.
- Vendors can use current sales and product performance to make faster production and restocking decisions.
- Inventory that once arrived in a weekly report is now visible within ten minutes, reducing the risk of missed sales or unnecessary stock.
- Vendors choose their restocking location and time directly in the app instead of waiting for a weekly Google Form.
- Behind that vendor experience, three weekly workflows previously owned by different people now run through one shared application.
- The communication burden has also dropped substantially: vendors can answer common sales, stock, report, and scheduling questions themselves instead of routing them through staff.
Why it matters
For a local maker, sales and inventory are not abstract dashboard metrics. They shape what to produce next, where to restock, and how to spend limited time and cash. Faster access makes the marketplace more useful to the vendor—not merely more efficient for the operator.
The value is shared evenly: vendors gain transparency, control, and a simpler relationship with the marketplace; employees gain one reliable system in place of three weekly workflows plus far fewer repetitive questions and follow-ups. The same product improves both sides of the operating relationship.