WizCommerce's Ella AI Aims to Erase Manual Order Entry in Wholesale

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – May 28, 2026 – WizCommerce today launched Ella, an AI-powered tool designed to automate one of the most persistent bottlenecks in the wholesale distribution industry: manual purchase order entry. The company claims its new solution can process complex purchase orders in under two minutes, a task that often takes sales and customer service teams much longer, promising to cut operational costs by up to 90% and fundamentally shift how distributors manage their sales operations.

The Lingering Burden of Manual Data Entry

For decades, the $10 trillion global wholesale industry has been a linchpin of commerce, yet many of its core processes have remained stubbornly analog. Order intake, in particular, is a significant operational drag. Inside sales and customer service representatives often spend hours each day manually re-keying purchase orders from emails, PDFs, and even faxes into their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.

Industry analysis confirms the high cost of this inefficiency. While the press release cites a baseline of 20 minutes and $10–$12 per order, broader research suggests the problem can be even more severe. Manual order processing can cost between $8 and $60 per order, depending on labor costs and complexity. For a mid-market distributor handling hundreds of orders daily, these costs quickly escalate, potentially reaching between $250,000 and $550,000 annually.

Beyond the time and labor costs, manual entry is notoriously prone to error. Industry data indicates that manual data entry error rates can range from 1% to as high as 5%. Each mistake—a wrong SKU, an incorrect quantity, or a missed shipping address—can trigger a cascade of costly corrections, including returns, shipping fees, and customer dissatisfaction, with individual errors costing anywhere from $30 to $400 to remediate. This financial drain represents capital that could otherwise be invested in growth, customer relationships, and strategic sales activities.

An AI Built for Operational Chaos

WizCommerce's Ella was engineered to address what the company calls the "messy realities of distributor operations." Unlike older Optical Character Recognition (OCR) tools that often require rigid templates and fail with inconsistent inputs, Ella leverages a more sophisticated approach known as Intelligent Document Processing (IDP). This technology combines AI, machine learning (ML), and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to interpret and understand unstructured data.

This allows the system to ingest orders from a chaotic mix of sources, including email bodies, PDF attachments, spreadsheets, handwritten notes, photos, and even WhatsApp messages. Once ingested, the AI extracts critical line items, quantities, and pricing. It then performs several validation steps that are crucial for distributors: mapping a customer's unique part numbers to the seller's internal SKUs, cross-referencing pricing against contracts to flag discrepancies, and identifying outdated terms. The system then compiles an ERP-ready order, flagging any exceptions for human review.

By automating these validation steps, the tool not only accelerates the process but also enhances accuracy, with similar AI-driven systems achieving accuracy rates above 99%. This proactive error-catching helps protect distributor margins that are often quietly eroded by off-contract pricing and fulfillment mistakes.

From Hours to Minutes: Early Adopters Validate Efficacy

While the promise of AI automation is compelling, its true value is measured in real-world performance. Early adopters of WizCommerce's technology report significant operational improvements. The Howard Elliott Collection, a home furnishings company, has seen a dramatic reduction in manual work.

"Ella has completely changed how we handle emailed and faxed orders. It’s saving hours every day for my team,” said Colleen Daly, VP at The Howard Elliott Collection, in a statement. Further reports indicate that the company reduced its manual order entry workload from nearly four hours a day to just 15 minutes, while simultaneously eliminating data-entry errors. Within six months of adopting WizCommerce's platform, Howard Elliott also saw a 10-15% increase in website orders.

Another early adopter, home decor brand Jaipur Living, leveraged WizCommerce's AI capabilities to unify its sales operations, which contributed to a reported 10% growth in revenue. These case studies suggest that the benefits extend beyond simple cost savings, enabling new growth and improved customer engagement.

Navigating a Competitive AI Landscape

WizCommerce is entering a dynamic and increasingly crowded market. The space for AI in sales and document automation includes a wide range of players, from broad Intelligent Document Processing platforms to specialized tools focused on specific verticals. However, the company's tight focus on the complete wholesale workflow serves as a key differentiator.

Many solutions focus solely on data extraction, leaving the complex tasks of validation, SKU mapping, and ERP integration to be handled separately. WizCommerce aims to provide an end-to-end solution, positioning Ella as an "AI co-worker" for sales teams. The market appears ripe for such innovation, with the utilization of AI in wholesale distribution projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 20% through 2028 as companies aggressively pursue digital transformation to enhance efficiency and supply chain resilience.

Funding and a Vision for an AI-Powered Future

Underpinning WizCommerce's ambitious product launch is a strong foundation of investor confidence. The company, which operates under the legal name Oritur Technologies Inc., has raised a total of $13.5 million in funding. Its recent $8 million Series A round was led by Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia India), a major venture capital firm, signaling a strong belief in the company's strategy and the market opportunity.

Co-founded by CEO Div Makkar and Vikas Garg, WizCommerce has a stated mission to build an "AI-native operating system for wholesale." This vision extends beyond order entry. The company has also launched Kai, an AI sales assistant for field reps, and WizStudio, an AI-powered image generator for creating lifestyle product photos. With over $100 million in Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) already being processed annually on its platform, WizCommerce is making a concerted push to replace the patchwork of spreadsheets and legacy software that has long defined the industry. As distributors increasingly look to technology to gain a competitive edge, platforms providing comprehensive, AI-driven solutions are positioned to lead the sector's next evolution.