Research note · October 2026
How UK suppliers take orders and quotes: what 209 company websites say.
We read the websites of 209 UK wholesalers, distributors, merchants, printers, packaging makers, engineering firms and food manufacturers, most of them with 50 to 500 staff, and noted what each one tells a customer about ordering and quoting. Here is what they say, and what they leave out.
In short
Distributors explain how to order. Manufacturers mostly don’t, and almost nobody says how fast they quote.
69%
of the 101 manufacturers we read say nothing on their website about how a customer should place an order.
6 of 80
printers, packaging makers and engineering firms tell customers how fast they will get a quote.
17 of 23
foodservice wholesalers with online ordering still ask customers to phone orders in or give them to a rep.
12%
of the suppliers we read still list a fax number.
Distributors and wholesalers
The portal arrived. The phone stayed.
73% of the 108 distributors and wholesalers offer some form of online ordering, usually a trade portal behind a login. Of those, 48% still tell customers to phone, email or give the order to a rep as well. In foodservice the pattern is strongest: 23 of 25 wholesalers have online ordering, and 17 of those still advertise telesales or a phone order line.
On these websites, online ordering has not replaced the other routes in; it sits beside them. Every route other than the portal is a place where an order arrives in its own shape, and someone has to read it and key it.
Manufacturers
Firms that make to order rarely say how long a quote takes.
69% of the 101 manufacturers say nothing about how a customer should place an order. That is less odd than it sounds: for a firm that makes to order, the order usually follows a quote. The quote is where the silence matters, and there six of the 80 printers, packaging makers and engineering firms tell customers how fast they will quote. Where a promise is made, five of the six say 24 hours and the fastest says 4 hours.
Most ask for a quote through a web form (69%), by email (41%) or by phone (46%). Ten let a customer upload a drawing with the request, and four show a price online straight away. The rest of the work happens out of sight, in an estimator’s inbox.
The details customers look for
Cut-off times, desk hours and minimum orders are mostly a distributor habit.
35% of distributors publish an order cut-off time for next-day delivery and 31% publish their order desk hours. Among manufacturers both are rare. Only 7% of all suppliers give an email address just for orders; the rest send orders to the same inbox as every other enquiry.
12% still list a fax number, and four still invite orders by fax. Four invite orders by WhatsApp. Two of the 209 websites mention AI in connection with orders or quotes, and both are about plans, not something running today. Two go the other way and promise customers a person, not a bot or an automated phone queue.
| Sector (websites read) | Online ordering | Order by phone or rep | Order by email | Says nothing about ordering | Cut-off time | Order desk hours | Minimum order | Orders email address | Fax number listed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Foodservice wholesale (25) | 92% | 72% | 24% | 4% | 52% | 48% | 56% | 20% | 12% |
| Grocery and convenience wholesale (20) | 80% | 45% | 40% | 10% | 50% | 25% | 50% | 20% | 15% |
| Trade distributors and merchants (63) | 63% | 25% | 6% | 25% | 24% | 27% | 48% | 0% | 13% |
| Printers (32) | 25% | 9% | 3% | 66% | 6% | 34% | 6% | 0% | 3% |
| Packaging makers (23) | 13% | 13% | 4% | 87% | 13% | 13% | 22% | 4% | 13% |
| Engineering and fabrication (25) | 4% | 4% | 0% | 92% | 0% | 0% | 4% | 0% | 20% |
| Food and drink manufacturers (21) | 48% | 19% | 24% | 29% | 5% | 10% | 29% | 24% | 14% |
Each figure is the share of company websites in that sector that say so. It is not a share of orders. Download the table (CSV).
If you run one of these businesses
What the clearest order pages tell customers.
Drawn from the websites in the study that answer a customer’s questions before they have to ask.
- Every way you accept an order, on one page, with the one you prefer first.
- The cut-off for next-day delivery, by product type if it differs.
- When the order desk is staffed, and a number for urgent changes.
- An email address for orders only, so they don’t queue behind general enquiries.
- The minimum order and what delivery costs below it.
- For quotes: what to send (drawing, quantity, material, finish, date needed) and when the customer will hear back.
- How to open an account, as a form on the website.
Method
How we did it, and what it can’t tell you.
What we read. We screened 481 UK-registered suppliers on 5 October 2026. 176 turned out to be outside the size range or the sectors below, and 96 had websites that blocked automated reading or were down (we did not work around any block). That leaves 209 websites, each read in full.
Who they are. Wholesalers and distributors (108) and manufacturers (101), found through the public member lists of buying groups and trade associations, trade press coverage, and our own earlier research into UK suppliers. We aimed for firms with 50 to 500 staff; we confirmed headcount from Companies House accounts or the company’s own site for 126 of them, and 125 of those are in that range. This is not a random sample of UK suppliers.
What we recorded. For each site: how it tells customers to order (phone, email, online, app, EDI, fax, WhatsApp, rep or telesales), whether it publishes a cut-off time, order desk hours, a minimum order, an orders-only email address, a fax number and live chat, how it takes quote requests and whether it promises a turnaround, and whether it mentions AI or automation in how orders and quotes are handled. A channel counts only where the site tells customers to order or quote through it; a phone number in the footer is not an order line. Every yes is backed by the page and the words it came from.
Checking the reading. A second reader re-coded a random 30 of the 209 websites without seeing the first reading. The two agreed on 95% of the yes or no answers (315 of 330). The least consistent question was whether a site says how to order at all (26 of 30 agreed); the second reader was the stricter of the two, so if anything our “says nothing” figures are low.
What it can’t tell you. This is what suppliers say to customers on their websites. It does not show how orders actually arrive, how many come each way, or how fast quotes really go out. A firm that says nothing online may run an excellent order desk.
Names. We publish totals only and name no company. The coding rules are available on request, so anyone can repeat the study.
Using these figures. Quote them freely with a link to this page. Journalists and editors who want the sector tables in another cut can write to elad@harrowell.co.
Who we are
Harrowell builds systems that read orders and quote requests like these.
We build AI into one division of a business and are measured on that division’s own numbers. If your orders or quote requests arrive in every shape at once, send us one and we’ll send back the draft it would become.
The Open Build. We’ll build one UK supplier an order desk or quote desk system, free and in public, measured on its own numbers. Everyone who applies gets a one-page read of their own workflow. Applications close at 5pm UK time on Friday 6 November. See the Open Build.