Context
Arca Continental is one of the largest bottlers in Latin America, responsible for distributing beverages and snacks to thousands of store owners across the region. However, until 2023, many customers still placed orders by phone or through in‑person visits, leading to frequent capture errors, slow processing and high operational costs.
With more than 60% of store owners being minimally digital, the company faced the challenge of modernizing order capture without imposing new technological barriers. The goal was clear: accelerate sales, ensure inventory accuracy and free up commercial resources to focus on market development activities.
The challenge
The challenge was to design an order capture model that included store owners with low digital adoption, without requiring downloads or additional registrations; synchronized prices, promotions and portfolio with the ERP in real time; and reduced processing times while eliminating re‑entry errors.
In addition, the system had to scale quickly to multiple countries, ensuring consistency in internal processes and centralized visibility of metrics.
The solution
Together with Jelou, Arca Continental implemented a B2B ordering ecosystem on WhatsApp, turning the most used channel by store owners into their main commercial platform. The conversational flow included an intelligent agent with interactive catalog, prices and promotions updated in real time; automatic inventory validation and direct order submission to the logistics system; unified integrations with the ERP and internal apps; and order confirmation notifications and delivery tracking within the same WhatsApp thread.
The system also incorporated adoption and volume dashboards, with metrics segmented by country, route and customer type, enabling measurement and optimization from day one.
Results
Adoption exceeded expectations: over USD 2.5 million in orders processed since 2023, 20,000 orders captured without the need for manual re‑entry, and rapid expansion from Ecuador to Mexico and Peru after validating the impact on sales.
The channel proved accessible even for the least digital store owners, thanks to the simplicity of WhatsApp as an interaction interface.
