Quickstart

This is the fastest path from "I just signed up" to "I've taken my first order." It assumes you have nothing in Distribu yet — no products, no customers, no team.

1. Create your account

Go to /signup and fill in four fields:

• Company name — shown to your customers (e.g. "Acme Distributors")
• Your name
• Work email
• Password (8 characters or more)

Submitting the form creates your company, makes you the Owner, and starts a 14-day free trial on the Starter plan. No credit card required.

You'll be redirected to the sign-in page — enter the same email + password to log in.

Your company slug. Distribu auto-generates a URL slug from your company name (for example, Acme Distributors → acme-distributors). This becomes the address of your customer-facing storefront: distribu.app/store/acme-distributors.

2. Add your first product

From the dashboard sidebar, click Inventory, then Add product.

Required fields:

Optional but recommended:

• SKU — your internal product code (e.g. GLV-NIT-M)
• Category — groups products on the storefront (e.g. PPE)
• Image — JPG, PNG, WebP, or AVIF, up to 5 MB
• Description — shown to buyers when they view the product

Click Add product. You're back in the inventory list with one item.

3. Open your storefront

In a new tab, visit https://distribu.app/store/{your-slug} — this is the public B2B portal your customers will use. You'll see your product, your company name, and a Sign in / Register button.

Not sure of your slug? Open your company settings — the slug is shown there and you can change it if you want.

4. Take your first order

There are two ways to create an order:

Option A — have a customer place it (the real flow)

1. On the storefront, a customer clicks Register and fills in their email, name, and a password.
2. They browse the catalog, add items to their cart, and hit Place order.
3. The order appears in your dashboard under Orders with status SUBMITTED.

This is the flow you'll use day-to-day. You can also bulk-import an existing customer list — see Importing customers from CSV.

Option B — internal order (for testing or walk-ins)

If you just want to see it work without a customer, click Orders → New order in the dashboard. Browse products, set quantities, add notes, and hit Place order. This creates an order with no customer attached — useful for walk-in sales or quick testing.

5. Process the order

Open the order from the Orders list. You'll see:

• Line items and totals
• A Status dropdown

Work the order through the status workflow:

SUBMITTED  →  CONFIRMED  →  SHIPPED  →  DELIVERED
                │              │
                └─────→ CANCELLED

If the order came from a registered customer, they'll get an email each time the status changes.

6. Download the invoice

On the order detail page, click Download invoice (top-right). Distribu generates a PDF on the fly with your company header, bill-to / ship-to, line items, and total.

That's a real invoice — send it to your customer or drop it in your accounting system.

What to do next

• Dashboard tour — see what every sidebar screen does.
• Invite your team — add admins and members.
• REST API — if you want to sync products or pull orders programmatically.
• Webhooks — get pinged when orders come in.
• CSV formats — bulk-import your existing catalog and customer list.

If you get stuck, email support@distribu.app — a real human reads every email.