The Origin of OrderEase...A True Story

The OrderEase backstory starts way back. Warren Patterson, CEO, says his introduction to entrepreneurship began in grade 7 when running a chicken business;

"I sold eggs all throughout high school, from there I got a taste of what it means to build something, own it, and understand how best to serve customers.” 

For years, he worked at  PricewaterhouseCoopers in a successful corporate career as a Chartered Accountant.  In 2001, that changed when he made the decision to follow the entrepreneurship dream to build and open a garden center.

“When I opened the garden center the worst case was I would have a pile of debt, and I'd have to go back to work to pay it off. I could do it, and so I went for it. I haven't looked back since.” 

From the experience gained owning and operating his garden center, Warren learned all of the rewards as well as frustrations of being an independent RETAILER. He identified some challenges that came along with the business recognizing they were “the challenges most independent retailers have.” 

The biggest struggle was finding enough time to manage placing and receiving orders from the multitude of suppliers required to stock a successful garden center.

This became a full time job in it’s own.

He decided there needed to be a better way to do business with his suppliers.  As the world has become more digital, so has his vision of wholesale ordering made easier.

This is what formed the vision of LinkGreen, now OrderEase, an online ordering solution for independent retailers and an online ordering solution for their vendors.

The ability of the OrderEase solution to integrate with existing business systems on both the wholesale and retail side of business is what makes it capable of being the complete paperless digital catalog and order management solutions.

Amid the evolution from phone, fax, and email ordering to digital ordering and eCommerce, OrderEase has risen above the rest of the wholesale ordering solutions because it can handle complex business and pricing models and serves as an integration solution.

OrderEase is a technology solution that connects industry supply chains to make wholesale buying and selling fast and easy. OrderEase has created a fully connected and integrated supply chain that provides innovative operational efficiencies, modern sales, and marketing opportunities, and familiar digital ordering experience for suppliers, distributors, and retailers.

This is not typical wholesale purchasing—no catalogs, paper forms, faxes or emails.

“With fragmented industries, players on both sides are too small to create the technology to link the two together, OrderEase provides the common connectivity for an independent retailer.” 

BUT, the vision didn’t stop at placing orders with wholesalers for retailers.  There was still a problem at the retailer level.  With the emergence of eCommerce, it added an extra layer of product management for retailers.

Not only do retailers need to manage receiving and inventory levels at their brick and mortar stores, they also needed to put all of their products into their eCommerce platforms.  This is where it made sense as part of the OrderEase solution to integrate with retail B2C ordering systems such as the point of sale and web stores since all of the wholesaler product information is already digital within OrderEase.

Saving hours of data entry with just a click of a button, product information and inventory can be added to Shopify, WooCommerce and Weebly plus allow direct to consumer fulfillment!

As a result of Warren’s first-hand experience living these issues and frustrations, OrderEase has become a go-to solution for end-to-end wholesale and retail order management.

His vision and ordering problem solving has positioned him as a true industry thought leader in the era of digital transformation in the garden industry as well as emerging industries requiring digital transformation such as lumber, building materials, pets and more.