Van sales: direct store delivery, finally under control

Van sales or pre-sales: what is the difference?

In pre-sales, the rep visits the customer and takes the order; delivery is handled later by a driver. In van sales — direct store delivery, or DSD — the rep carries the goods in the van: they sell, deliver and invoice on the spot, in a single visit. This model dominates in food, beverages and fast-moving consumer goods, where the store buys what it sees.

The two models often coexist within the same company, and that is exactly what DistrIA supports: distribution management software that covers both pre-sales and van sales with the same products, the same customers and the same stock.

Vehicle stock, under control from loading to unloading

In van sales software, everything starts with the on-board stock. Every van becomes a mobile mini-warehouse whose contents are known, tracked and accounted for at any point in the day.

• Morning loading: the vehicle is loaded from the warehouse, item by item, and the vehicle stock is recorded before departure.
• Stock requests from the field: when an item runs low during the route, the rep sends a replenishment request from their mobile.
• Dispatch from the warehouse: the warehouse team receives the request, prepares the goods and organizes the transfer to the vehicle.
• End-of-day unloading and discrepancies: the return to the depot reconciles sales against the remaining stock and surfaces discrepancies, line by line.

Sell, invoice and collect at the customer's location

The heart of direct store delivery is the on-the-spot transaction. With DistrIA, the rep issues the invoice from their mobile in front of the customer, with no paper and no double entry: mobile invoicing feeds straight into the route's accounting.

• Invoice on mobile
• Cash
• Check
• Customer credit
• Printed receipt
• Returns & credit notes

Payment is recorded at the moment of sale — cash, check or credit — and a receipt can be printed on a portable printer. Goods returns and credit notes are handled in the same flow, which avoids manual end-of-day adjustments and disputes with customers.

Organized routes and vehicles

A well-loaded van is not enough: it still has to visit the right customers, in the right order. DistrIA plans van sales routes, assigns agents and vehicles, and builds itineraries around each customer's visit days.

Geolocation lets you follow route progress in real time and check that planned visits actually happen. To go further on trip planning, see our dedicated page on route optimization.

A direct link between the van and the warehouse

Vehicle stock is not an island: every loading, transfer, sale or return is a tracked movement between the van and the warehouse. DistrIA keeps the full history of these movements, so the stock you see always reflects reality — at the depot and on the road.

This permanent link makes replenishment easier: the warehouse sees what each vehicle has consumed and can anticipate the next day's loading. It all runs on our warehouse and inventory management module, shared with the rest of the business.

Artificial intelligence for van sales

Reports by vehicle and by rep

Every route produces data: sales by rep, revenue by vehicle, collections by payment method, stock discrepancies, best-selling products. DistrIA turns them into clear reports you can check day by day, to steer direct store delivery performance and compare routes against each other.

Running a van sales team in Morocco and want to see the van sales software in action, with your products and your routes? Request a personalized demo — we walk you through the full journey, from the morning loading to the evening reconciliation.