B2B and D2C inventory management system: one stock pool, two sets of rules

You can sell direct to consumers all day with a clean Shopify store and fast shipping. Then one day a retailer says yes, and suddenly your inventory is not just inventory. It is a contract with penalties.

That is when brands start searching for a B2B and D2C inventory management system. They are not searching because they love software. They are searching because B2B and D2C pull on the same stock in different ways, and weak systems turn that pull into a tug-of-war.

What makes B2B different from D2C in the warehouse

D2C is usually a steady stream of small orders. You pick one, you pack one, you ship one. B2B is usually fewer orders, but each one is bigger and more rule-bound.

That rule book includes routing guides, labeling rules, carton rules, pallet rules, and EDI rules for data timing and accuracy. Bryan Wright, CTO and COO at G10, sums up the operating gap in one line: "Our WMS system was written from day one around B2B, which is very different."

In D2C, a mistake is often one unhappy customer and a reship. In B2B, a mistake can trigger a chargeback that wipes out the profit on the entire shipment. This is why B2B capability cannot be an afterthought.

Why one pool of inventory becomes a fight

Most brands keep one shared pool of stock. That is efficient, but it creates conflict because B2B and D2C behave differently in time.

D2C demand can spike in an hour because of a social post, an email blast, or a marketplace algorithm. B2B demand can spike in one purchase order that consumes weeks of supply in one go. If you treat both channels as first come, first served, you are letting randomness run your business.

Jen Myers, Chief Marketing Officer at G10, describes the decision behind the dashboards: "You can ask, 'Do I have enough on the shelf to do both of those things? Where does it go first?'" A combined system should help you answer that question with rules. Those rules should be visible and easy to adjust when priorities change.

Allocation is a policy, not a spreadsheet

Many teams start allocation with spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are fine for planning, but they are bad at enforcing policy in real time. They cannot stop an order from being released, and they cannot stop a warehouse from picking the last units.

Allocation needs rules you can run automatically, including safety stock held back for D2C, reserves for key retailers, and exceptions for promotions. The important part is that the rule lives inside the system, not in someone's head.

When allocation is automated, it stops being a daily argument. It becomes a lever you can adjust as conditions change. That is how you avoid selling the same unit twice.

Accuracy keeps both channels honest

Allocation only works if your counts are real. If counts drift, the system allocates ghost inventory and both channels fail. Drift comes from unscanned moves, mispicks, and returns that get counted too early.

Connor Perkins, Director of Fulfillment at G10, sees the same pattern when brands change providers. "One of the pain points our clients have experienced with previous 3PLSs is inventory accuracy; maybe their previous 3PL wasn't great at picking the orders accurately." When pick accuracy slips, the system starts making promises it cannot keep.

Perkins also describes the warehouse habit that keeps counts from turning fictional: "You want everything to be scanned in the warehouse, nothing done on paper." Scan discipline does not just reduce errors. It creates an audit trail you can use to fix root causes instead of guessing.

Real-time sync keeps the store and the dock aligned

D2C channels expect near-instant updates. B2B workflows involve pallets, appointments, and documentation, so the tempo is different. A combined system has to keep one source of truth that updates fast enough for D2C while staying precise enough for B2B.

If Shopify updates faster than wholesale reserves, you can sell inventory that is already spoken for. If wholesale updates faster than Shopify, you can go out of stock online even though inventory is still on the shelf. Either way, latency turns into cancellations and late shipments.

Bryan Wright describes the standard for keeping truth consistent. "A good WMS tracks inventory through the warehouse at every point that you touch it." The trick is syncing continuously as inventory moves, not catching up tomorrow.

Retail compliance has to be enforced, not remembered

In B2B, the shipment has to match the retailer's requirements for labels, carton contents, pallet builds, and routing guides. If compliance lives in PDFs and tribal knowledge, it will break when volume spikes or staff changes.

Joel Malmquist, VP of Customer Experience at G10, is blunt about the stakes. "Walmart's pretty intense with their labeling rules." He also adds the financial consequence: "Dick's Sporting Goods is the same; if you don't do it right, you get those massive chargeback." Compliance has to be a workflow, not a hope.

Bryan Wright explains why D2C-first tools struggle when retail rules show up. "By comparison, a lot of other people have created D2C software and they're trying to get into the B2B space, and they many not realize the significant amount of effort that it takes to be compliant for B2B customers." If the system does not validate labels, cartons, and shipment data before freight leaves, you will spend your margin after the fact.

EDI, ASNs, and SSCC labels tie the shipment to the data

Retailers often want shipment data before the truck arrives. The common mechanism is an ASN, often the EDI 856, sent in time for the retailer to plan receiving and reconcile what shows up at the dock.

SSCC and UCC-128 labeling matter because receiving scans have to match the ASN. When pallet labels and ASN data disagree, receiving slows down, disputes begin, and chargebacks can follow. A combined system has to treat packaging structure as part of inventory truth, not an afterthought.

That is the hidden link between B2B and D2C inventory management. The same SKU can ship as a single unit one day and as a retailer-compliant case pack the next day. If your system cannot handle both cleanly, you will pay for the mismatch.

Multi-warehouse adds speed, but it also multiplies mistakes

Once you add multiple warehouses, the system has to make fast routing decisions for D2C and consistent compliance decisions for B2B. If one site uses an outdated label template, the retailer does not care which building made the mistake. They just invoice the error.

Holly Woods, Director of Operations at G10, describes the upside when a network is coordinated: "Now it's not just one site working on these orders. We have three sites that are working on orders for you." Multi-warehouse only helps when inventory is synchronized by site and rules are enforced the same way everywhere.

Multi-warehouse is a multiplier. It multiplies strengths when your system is disciplined, and it multiplies problems when your system is loose. The inventory system decides which kind of multiplier you get.

Integrations are the pipes, not the paint

A combined system lives or dies by integration quality. If orders arrive late, if confirmations go out late, or if inventory updates lag reality, the business looks unreliable even when the warehouse team works hard.

Connor Perkins describes the integration breadth needed for mixed-channel operations. "We have experience with omni-channel integration setup and we're capable of doing any EDI, API, flat file, XML, any type of integration needed throughout the omni-channel for the marketplaces out there." The system has to speak the languages your channels speak, and it has to do it reliably.

Malmquist describes what clean integration looks like on the D2C side: "There's a direct integration with Shopify where orders come in and flow directly into G10. We fulfill those pushback tracking to Shopify to show that the order hits, has been completed." When those pipes are solid, inventory and order status stop being mysteries.

How to evaluate a combined system without getting fooled

Start with your current failure modes. Are you overselling. Are you canceling. Are you constantly adjusting inventory. Are you getting chargebacks for labeling, routing, or ASN mismatches. Are you doing just one more spreadsheet to hold things together.

Then map features to outcomes. Scan-based execution reduces drift. Allocation rules reduce channel cannibalization. Compliance workflows reduce chargebacks. Real-time sync reduces oversells and stockouts.

The goal is not to add software. The goal is to stop paying for avoidable mistakes. That is what frees you to grow B2B without breaking D2C.

How G10 fits into the picture

G10 was founded in 2009, and the business has been built around brands that sell in multiple channels. That includes B2B, D2C e-commerce, retail, wholesale, and HAZMAT-compliant fulfillment. The work is the daily grind of scanning, labeling, routing, and shipping on time.

G10's proprietary ChannelPoint WMS is designed to handle the split-brain nature of modern commerce. D2C needs speed and clean integrations. B2B needs compliance, EDI discipline, and packing control.

If you are trying to run B2B and D2C off a patchwork of tools and spreadsheets, the next step is to map where inventory truth breaks today: receiving, picking, returns, allocation rules, or retail compliance steps. Bring a recent chargeback example, a recent oversell example, and your channel mix, and you will leave with a plan to keep one stock pool honest while respecting two very different sets of rules.