Apply HN: Tiz.com

The three tier system requires that all wholesale alcohol in this country be ordered from a liquor distributor. These distributors are primarily sales and logistics agents and aren't technology driven.

We are looking to create enterprise software that allows liquor distributors to start accepting orders online via the web and mobile. This frees up sales reps to do high level sales activities and lets distributors save money by being able to service more accounts.

P.S. We are looking for a rails developer to hire if anyone is looking for some hourly work.

Are the distributors mom and pop shops or big corporations?

How does Walmart/Costco/Big grocery store chain place orders for liquor now?

There is a pretty big range - but it ends up being a nice mix of large, medium and small. Large distributors will typically be your macro beer and liquor brands. Mom and pop distributors will typically be niche wine distributors.

A handful of chains have developed systems to create PO's, but a majority just rely on sales reps to service the account.

It is a split, the bars, restaurants and stores get to speed up ordering immensely and also don't have the interruptions of sales reps in and out.

The distributors get to streamline how orders are placed and have records of them. They also get to save money by servicing house accounts that might rely on telesales to take orders.

From a bar/restaurant manager perspective, I never understood why distributors don't integrate technology. When I managed a large bar/restaurant, ordering $1000s of dollars of liquor/beer each week, I would have to call each order in to my rep's voicemail and leave a message. If he had any questions he would call me back and ask for clarification. In almost every order though there was at least one issue where the wrong liquor was sent, the wrong quantity was sent, etc... Huge time suck for management having to always double check each order as it came in and reorder with risk of running out.

With that said, it would be cool if you could integrate with liquor management systems (i.e. BevSpot or BarMetrix) to somehow automate the entire process. So when they ran their inventory it would automatically create events and reorder the required products.