You’ve probably tried one of them already. Here they are side by side, with what each leaves on your team’s desk and what it really costs, for brands and distributors running Shopify, Cin7 Core, WooCommerce .
Where your stock lives · stays the source of truth
Every marketplace · stock and prices out, orders and fees back
Retailers on purchase orders · POs straight into your ERP
Your books · every fee and invoice
Point-to-point sync tools link one system to one marketplace and make you work their way. Build your own and you become a software shop instead of a selling shop. Wherehouse fits the way you already work, and does listing, repricing and your books on the same connection.
| Spreadsheets and a hire | A sync tool Bought, or built in-house | Wherehouse | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your stock system | Any, because it’s all done by hand | A short list, or whatever your developer can connect | Shopify, Cin7 Core . Not on the list? On Retail, we build it free |
| Your business rules | Live in someone’s head | You change how you work to fit the tool, or code every rule yourself | The tool fits you: buffers, lead times, DCs and custom fields |
| Stock on every channel | Updated when someone gets to it | Synced between the systems it links, until an API changes | One stock number on every marketplace and retailer |
| Orders and retailer POs | Retyped into your system | Orders from the marketplace it links. Each new channel is another project | Marketplace orders and retailer POs land in your ERP |
| The right price per channel | Reworked by hand when fees change | Often one price everywhere | Price rules per channel that cover fees and commission |
| Listings | Loadsheets, one SKU at a time | Usually not included | Built from your data. 100 a month on Retail |
| Buy box repricing | Someone watching prices all day | Usually a separate tool, or another project | Repricer add-on on the same connection |
| Fees in your books | Keyed in at month end | Usually not, or totals only | Fees, payouts and credit notes in Xero, QuickBooks or Zoho Books |
| Custom data and odd SKUs | Extra spreadsheet columns | Standard fields only, one SKU to one listing | Custom attributes, SKU remaps and linked listings |
| Supplier stock | Emailed price lists | Rarely, or one feed at a time | Syntech, Pinnacle, Amrod and more, next to your own stock |
| Takealot stock recon | Hours with the recon sheet, or written off | Not included | Claims built from Takealot’s monthly sheet: R11,000 a month on average |
| Who keeps it running | Your team, by hand, every day | You do. Build your own and you become a software shop instead of a selling shop | We do, so you stay a selling shop |
| Setup, and Black Friday | You hire, train and cover leave. Someone works late | Help docs, a ticket queue, or your developer on call | Done with you, live in under 5 days, then a named person |
| What it costs | R15,000 to R25,000 a month per person, before leave | A fee per connection or a developer’s salary, plus the work it leaves | R4,799 a month on Retail. No setup fee |
Listing, sync, pricing and your books, all driven from the system you already run.
Listing one SKU is fine. Listing hundreds, for every brand you carry, is a full-time job. We take the catalogue you already have and submit it in bulk.
This is the part that keeps growth from turning into chaos. We connect it with you, then it runs in the background.
From R549 a month. Makro alone can unlock 15 to 30% extra revenue for sellers who compete properly on price.
A marketplace sale isn’t the sticker price. Commission, fulfilment and other deductions ride along with every order, so net margin is a fact.
If your ERP already talks to your books, we leave that link alone and handle the marketplaces and stock. Running Shopify with no ERP? We write invoices straight to Xero, QuickBooks or Zoho Books.
Either way, your accountant keeps working in the system they know.
One dashboard for sales, stock and what you actually keep, on desktop or mobile. Compare periods. See which products are worth pushing.
We read Takealot’s monthly recon sheet and build a compliant claim, so you recover inventory they can’t account for instead of leaving it. Accounts claim R11,000 a month on average, and some have claimed R500,000 in a single month.
See the guideConnect Syntech, Pinnacle, Amrod and more. Combine supplier stock with your own stock on hand, and price from the live supplier cost.
Also Zoho, Sage, Odoo, Mintsoft, inFlow, Parcelninja and more. Don’t see yours? Ask on the fit call.
For your ops lead
Every record runs through the same four steps, so the way your business already works travels with your data.
Skip cancelled orders, discontinued SKUs, or a brand you don’t want on that channel.
Copy, set a fixed value, or carry custom attributes from your ERP into the next system.
Maths, prefixes, suffixes and conditions. Raise a price, add a stock buffer, build a reference.
Find and replace in titles, swap category names, or set a default when a field is empty.
Conditions gate every step, so a rule can apply to Takealot and leave Makro alone.
Warehouse bin, tax class, lead-time bucket, supplier reference: if it lives in your system and has no home on a standard field, we store it as a custom attribute and reuse it.
Your ERP or your store stays the source of truth. Shopify can be both store and inventory hub.
When a marketplace SKU can’t match yours, a remap links them. Stock, price and orders then flow as if they were the same code.
See the guide 📦 Linked listingsOne base product can back several offer pages. Stock and price go out to all of them. Orders resolve back to the single SKU in your ERP.
See the guide 🧮 Sync overridesPin a price, force out of stock, or pause sync on one channel without changing the rest. Overrides always win, including over the repricer.
See the guideGrowth and Retail include API access. If you have developers, they can read orders, products and buy box data, drive repricers in bulk, and push tracking, without waiting on a new connector. It complements the mapping pipeline. It doesn’t replace it. Read the docs.
Trusted by South African brands and distributors since 2019
A named person onboards you and learns how your business actually flows. We run test orders first, and nothing automatic goes through until those are right. Connecting Wherehouse won’t rewrite a year of accounting overnight.
We never sell or share your personal, product or sales data. Encryption is standard, with optional two-factor authentication on every account. Independent third parties have reviewed our security processes.
We build software. We don’t sell products, so we’ll never list against your range, and we never sell your data.
Since 2019 we’ve connected South African brands and distributors to Takealot, Amazon, Makro and the rest. 2.4m+ products in sync. R1.7B+ marketplace revenue flowing through every year.
Retail includes 2,500 synced orders a month with no overage. Go above a 2,500 average over 12 months and we talk about Enterprise rather than cutting you off.
20 minutes with someone who has connected hundreds of South African brands and distributors. You’ll leave knowing exactly what it takes, even if we’re not the right fit.
Black Friday is Friday 27 November. Book your fit call by Thursday 6 November and you’ll be live, with test orders run, before the rush.