Case Study · Wholesale Distribution
From stalled ERP to a custom-built operations backbone
A family-owned, multi-brand wholesale distributor — multiple retail stores, four brands, an aging ecommerce presence, and a NetSuite rollout that had gone off the rails. Over roughly ten months, DreamSight stabilized the platform and rebuilt the technology backbone around it — warehouse, ecommerce, retail, and marketing — delivered under budget.
At a glance
custom WMS — vs. a $168K traditional estimate (83% saved)
lower delivery cost across projects
sales-order load time after a single platform fix
software licensing avoided by building, not buying
ecommerce rebuild — vs. an agency's $36K / 6-month retainer for less
every phase delivered
The challenge
A platform off the rails, and operations running on paper
When we arrived, discovery surfaced a hard picture:
- ●An ERP implementation off track, with the incumbent partner underdelivering and trust eroding across the organization.
- ●Siloed systems — handwritten notes, spreadsheets, and unintegrated platforms.
- ●Paper-based warehouse operations — documents printed in advance, frequently lost.
- ●A leadership team worried about “key-man” risk and poor ROI on technology already paid for.
- ●A real desire to grow revenue through ecommerce that the current systems couldn't support.
What we did
A complete technology rebuild — on the platform they already owned
Stabilized the ERP
We stepped into the missing business-analyst and project-manager roles, built a business-impact-ranked issue backlog, replaced the underperforming ERP partner, and found and killed a platform-wide performance bug — sales orders that took 30+ seconds to open or save (affecting nearly every screen) now take about four seconds. One fix restored usability across the whole organization.
Built a custom warehouse management system — from scratch
Rather than license a $30–40K/yr off-the-shelf WMS, we built a modular WMS directly on their existing ERP: route planning and driver dispatch, parcel shipping, goods receiving, purchasing with vendor rules and backorder reduction, vendor-rebate tracking, and automated invoice dunning. Each module reused the last, so each shipped faster. Operations went paperless, with just-in-time printing replacing lost pre-printed batches. The capstone — an iPad-native floor app — consolidated 3–4 shipping platforms into one and put picking, receiving, and shipping on a tablet in the warehouse.
Rebuilt and launched the ecommerce store
A complete storefront rebuild on a modern, mobile-first platform, integrated to the ERP: a parts finder, interactive exploded-view schematics, per-model product pages, customer reviews, subscribe-and-save, a self-service returns portal, SEO foundation, and email marketing. We took it live to production, cleaned up the product feed for search and shopping channels, and localized it into Spanish and Portuguese. The storefront is a reusable template across all four of the company's brands.
Rolled out retail POS
We stood up point-of-sale across the retail stores, integrated to the ERP so in-store sales relieve inventory in real time and post correctly — including automatic intercompany replenishment and a full self-service returns flow. Along the way we identified and quantified $192,527.88 of phantom inventory for a clean, accountant-approved write-down.
Stood up lifecycle marketing
We built an automated email program — welcome, abandoned-cart recovery, win-back and re-engagement flows segmented by customer lifetime value, and promotional campaigns — turning a large dormant customer list into an automated revenue channel.
Introduced AI across the organization
We brought AI tools into daily use for sales reporting, ERP administration, and purchasing — directly reducing the “key-man” risk leadership was worried about, and leaving the team with self-service capability instead of tribal knowledge.
How we delivered it so affordably
An AI-automated delivery pipeline
Traditional consulting needs eight roles and constant coordination between them. DreamSight keeps humans at the front (understanding the business) and the back (verifying the result), and automates the middle with AI — architecture, development, code review, QA, and documentation. That's how a custom purchasing system a traditional team would estimate at ~80 hours got built in about 14, and the full WMS came in at 127 hours against an 840-hour estimate.
Results
Promised — and delivered
- ✓ ERP stabilized; failing partner replaced; performance restored; critical tickets cleared
- ✓ A custom, owned WMS replacing vendor lock-in — 83% below traditional build cost
- ✓ Ecommerce store rebuilt and launched, with a template reusable across four brands
- ✓ Retail POS live and integrated to the ERP
- ✓ $60–80K/yr in licensing avoided; every phase delivered under budget
- ✓ AI adopted across the team, reducing key-man risk
“Mike is a sharp, solutions-driven thinker. He quickly understood our goal and delivered a simple, practical solution that made an immediate impact. He communicates clearly, works efficiently, and adds real value without overcomplicating the process. Highly recommend.”
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