Tanzania · Wholesale & distribution
Wholesale margins are thin. Lose track and they are gone.
A wholesaler's margin is measured in single percentage points, which means it survives only if three things are exact: the cost of every container, the price on every tier, and the balance of every retailer buying on credit.
None of those are exact in a notebook. Cartons arrive at a landed cost nobody has calculated, prices are quoted from memory and differ by who is asking, and the credit book is a list of names with amounts that were right a fortnight ago.
And the money arrives on four rails from dozens of small retailers, in part-payments, against invoices nobody is matching.
What you get
What a wholesale & distribution in Tanzania actually needs
Carton, dozen and piece on one product
Buy by the carton, sell by the carton, the dozen or the piece, with the conversion on the product so stock stays right at every break.
Price tiers that hold
Separate price lists for distributors, retailers and walk-ins over the same products, applied automatically rather than quoted from memory at the counter.
Credit limits and ageing
A limit and terms per retailer, enforced at the point of sale, and an ageing report showing what is overdue and by how long across every customer.
Payments matched to invoices
Part-payments applied to the specific invoices they settle, so a retailer with six open invoices and four payments has a balance both sides agree on.
Landed cost on the way in
Goods received with the price actually paid, so margin per line is real — and a container that arrived at a higher cost is visible on the day, not at year end.
Branch and route visibility
Stock and sales per depot, so a second location or a route is a set of real numbers rather than a second set of books.
Fiscal receipts in a B2B trade
Wholesale sits awkwardly with fiscalisation because its customers are businesses. A retailer buying from you needs a document for their own records and their own fiscal obligations, which makes the quality of your invoice part of the trade rather than an afterthought.
Credit makes it harder still: goods leave on Tuesday, the money arrives in three instalments over five weeks, and the invoice, the delivery and the payments are separate events. A business recording only the money cannot produce a document that matches when the goods actually moved.
sell.ke records the sale when the goods leave, against the retailer's account, itemised at carton or piece level, and applies payments to specific invoices as they arrive. The fiscal receipt is still issued through your registered device; what changes is that the underlying trade is finally legible.
- Sale recorded when goods move, not when money arrives
- Itemised invoices at the unit the customer actually bought
- Payments applied to specific invoices, with statements to send
- Fiscal receipt still issued through your registered EFD or VFD
A Kariakoo week
A container of cooking oil lands at a cost that works out to TZS 41,200 per carton after transport and clearing. The distributor price is set at TZS 43,100, the retailer price at TZS 44,800 — margins of 4.6 and 8.7 percent. Both are derived from the landed cost rather than from last month's number.
Over the week, 1,340 cartons move. 480 go to eleven retailers on credit against their own limits; three of them are near the limit and the counter knows before the lorry is loaded rather than after.
Payments arrive on M-Pesa, Mixx by Yas and Airtel in part-amounts, each applied to a specific invoice. At Friday close the ageing report shows TZS 36.4m outstanding: TZS 28.1m current, TZS 6.2m at 30 days and TZS 2.1m at 60. Three names need a statement; everyone else is fine.
The next container lands at TZS 43,900 per carton. Both price tiers are reviewed as the goods are received — because at 4.6 percent, selling two weeks at the old price is not a thin margin, it is a loss.
Questions
Wholesale & distribution in Tanzania — questions
Can I sell the same product by carton and by piece?
Yes. The conversion sits on the product, so a carton of 24 is held as 24 pieces and selling a dozen leaves twelve. Stock is right at every break, which is what makes a wholesale stock figure usable at all.
Can different customers get different prices automatically?
Yes. Price lists for distributors, retailers and walk-ins sit over the same products and apply at the point of sale. The price stops depending on who is behind the counter and what they remember.
How do I keep track of what retailers owe me?
Credit limits and terms per customer, enforced when the sale is rung up, and an ageing report grouping what you are owed by how overdue it is. Payments are applied to specific invoices, so balances are unambiguous and statements can be sent without an argument.
My landed cost changes with every container. How do I price?
Record each receipt at the cost you actually paid, including transport and clearing where they are material, and price each tier as a margin over the current cost. On wholesale margins this is not a refinement — two weeks at a stale price can be the whole month's profit.
Can I run more than one depot?
Yes. One catalogue and one customer list, with stock and sales held per depot and transfers recorded as movements with two ends. Credit limits follow the customer across depots, which closes the obvious gap.
Can I use it for more than one shop?
Yes. Branches share one product catalogue but hold their own stock, so a transfer between them is a recorded movement rather than a re-count. Reports run per branch or across all of them, and staff permissions are set per branch — a Kisumu supervisor does not need to see Nairobi's margins.
Will it show me my profit?
Yes, and from a real ledger rather than a sales total. Every sale posts to a double-entry chart of accounts, so you get a trial balance, profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flow — not a CSV to hand your accountant. Margin is visible per product, per branch and per channel, because cost is tracked on the way in through purchase orders and goods-received notes.
What does it cost?
Plans run from USD 12/month for a single-location till to USD 115/month for unlimited scale, with the online store on your own domain included from USD 23/month. In Kenya the same plans are KES 1,499 to KES 14,999/month, billed in shillings. Every plan starts with a 14-day trial and no card, and there is no per-terminal licence and no commission on your sales. There is no hardware to buy either — sell.ke runs on a phone, tablet or laptop you already own.
Other trades in Tanzania
Supermarket POS (Tanzania)
Four wallets at every till and a fiscal receipt that has to describe real goods.
Pharmacy POS (Tanzania)
Batch and expiry for a TMDA-regulated shelf, dispensing by unit, fiscal receipt at the counter.
Restaurant POS (Tanzania)
A fiscal receipt per bill, recipes that deduct real stock, and a table paying on four wallets.
The features this leans on
Each one goes deeper than this page does.
Prices, price lists and promotions
Wholesale and retail off one product, quantity breaks, customer-specific lists, VAT-inclusive display.
Customers and loyalty
Credit accounts that do not go missing, loyalty that returns, and a debtor list you can actually chase.
Stock you can trust
Batch and expiry, serial numbers, reorder levels, stock takes and the formulas behind them.
Buying, suppliers and approvals
Purchase orders, goods-received notes, supplier bills and the cost figure every margin depends on.
Wholesale & distribution POS in other markets
What this actually fixes
The problems underneath, and the rails and revenue authority you deal with.
Customers who buy on credit
The debtors book is where a profitable shop runs out of cash. How to lend without bleeding.
Supplier prices keep moving
When cost moves every delivery, a shelf price set once is a margin you are losing on purpose.
Not knowing your profit
Takings are not profit. The gap between them is where most small shops quietly fail.
EFD and VFD receipts (Tanzania)
Stop the fiscal receipt and the shop's own record from describing two different days.
Airtel Money at the till
The second rail is a third of your takings and usually a separate book. It should not be.
Try it in your Tanzania shop
Fourteen days, no card, no hardware to buy. Your prices, stock, costs and reports all run in TZS.