From Facebook page to fulfilled order: F-commerce with Steadfast, Pathao and an ERP

A Facebook page with a few thousand followers, a phone that never stops buzzing, a notebook of orders, and a courier pickup every evening: that is how a large part of Bangladeshi online retail actually runs. It works until it does not. Orders get missed in the inbox, the same customer is confirmed twice, a parcel goes to Steadfast and the payout arrives weeks later with no way to tell which orders it covers. This guide walks through the order from Facebook message to reconciled COD payout, and shows where an ERP takes over from the notebook.

The F-commerce order problem

Facebook is a good place to sell and a poor place to run operations. Messenger has no order status, no stock check and no way to tell you that the customer in Sylhet has refused their last three COD parcels. The costs of running it by hand show up as returned parcels you paid delivery for, stock sold twice, and COD money nobody can reconcile. The fix is not to leave Facebook; it is to make Facebook the front door and give every order a record the moment it is confirmed. See the e-commerce and F-commerce industry page for the wider picture.

Step 1: capture the order once

When a customer says “confirm”, the order goes into the ERP as a sales order: customer name, phone, full address with district and thana, items from the live item list, price, delivery charge, and payment method (COD or advance by bKash). Doing this at confirmation, not at packing, means stock is reserved, the customer’s history is visible (including past refusals), and the same order is not created twice. The phone number is the natural customer key in Bangladesh; the ERP should find the returning customer by number.

Step 2: confirm by SMS or WhatsApp

An automatic confirmation message the moment the order is saved does two things: it reassures the customer, and it filters out fake orders, because a customer who gave a wrong number will not receive it. Templates in Bangla, with the order number, items, total and expected delivery days, and a follow-up when the parcel is booked, both come from the SMS and WhatsApp module, which supports the major Bangladeshi gateways and handles Bangla Unicode encoding. For advance payments, a bKash number and instruction can be part of the message; the payment is then recorded against the order when it arrives.

Step 3: book the courier

Once confirmed, the order goes to the courier from inside the ERP through SORS ERP’s courier and delivery module. With Steadfast the booking is made by API: the recipient’s name, phone, address and COD amount go out, and the consignment number comes back onto the order. With Pathao, Paperfly or CarryBee your team books in the courier’s own panel and records the consignment number on the order, and API booking for them is on our roadmap. What matters either way is that the consignment number sits on the order, because that is what makes tracking and COD reconciliation possible later. One thing to plan around: label file generation inside the ERP is still a placeholder, so print your parcel stickers from the courier’s panel for now. Packing is done against a pick list, so the right item and quantity go into the polybag and stock is deducted from the right warehouse.

Step 4: track and handle the difficult ones

Consignment status runs through the usual stages: picked up, in transit, delivered, on hold, returned. Steadfast reports it back by API and it shows against the order; for couriers booked in their own panel your team sets the status, or the payout statement confirms delivery when it is uploaded. Either way your team answers “where is my parcel” from one screen, and the SMS trigger for delivery fires when the order is marked delivered. The difficult ones are the on-hold parcels where the customer is not answering. A daily list of those, with a call and a note on the order, saves return charges and keeps the courier’s hub from sending the parcel back on its own schedule.

Step 5: returns

Returned parcels are the hidden cost of COD. When a courier returns a parcel, the ERP should record the return against the order, bring the stock back to saleable (or to a damaged bucket), record the delivery and return charges you still owe the courier, and mark the customer’s history so the next order from that number is handled with an advance payment or a confirmation call. Over a few months, the return rate by district and by product tells you where to ask for advance payment and which products get refused on arrival.

Step 6: reconcile COD payouts

Couriers settle collected COD in batches, on their own cycle, often net of delivery and COD charges. The payout arrives as a lump sum with a statement listing consignment IDs. Reconciliation means matching each line of that statement to an order in the ERP, marking those orders paid, recording the courier’s charges as an expense, and identifying the orders that were delivered but do not appear in any payout yet. In SORS ERP the statement is uploaded and matched by consignment number on the courier payments screen, for the API-booked courier and the manually recorded ones alike. Without it, a shop with a few hundred parcels a month is trusting the courier’s arithmetic.

Stage	Without a system	With the ERP
Order intake	Notebook or Excel, duplicates	Sales order from the item list, stock reserved
Confirmation	Manual reply	Automatic Bangla SMS from a template
Courier booking	Typed into the courier panel, order number nowhere	Steadfast booked from the order by API; other couriers booked in their panel with the consignment number recorded on the order
Label	Handwritten	Printed from the courier’s panel; label files from the ERP are on the roadmap
Tracking	Check the courier site per parcel	Status on the order, delivery SMS triggered
Returns	Stock lost or miscounted	Return recorded, stock restored, customer flagged
COD payout	Lump sum, trust	Matched line by line, charges booked

Which courier

Steadfast, Pathao, RedX and Paperfly handle much of the parcel delivery for online sellers in Bangladesh. Coverage, pricing, COD charges and payout frequency differ and change; check each courier’s current merchant terms rather than a blog. Industry blogs in 2026 describe Steadfast as strong on nationwide coverage with frequent COD payouts, and Pathao as strong on fast in-city delivery in Dhaka and Chattogram with daily payout options, but verify for your own routes and parcel sizes. Many sellers use two couriers, one for Dhaka and one for the rest of the country. That is a good reason to keep every consignment number and payout in one system, whichever panel the booking was made in.

When to add a real online store

Facebook is enough while orders are few and repeat customers are many. Signs that you need a website: customers ask for a catalogue link, you spend hours answering “price please”, you want search traffic, or you want to accept bKash, Nagad and cards at checkout through SSLCommerz rather than by manual transfer. The important design decision is that the website should read the same stock, prices and orders as the Facebook orders, so a product does not sell twice. SORS ERP’s headless e-commerce module works that way: the ERP is the back end and the storefront reads from it. Loyalty points and coupons from the CRM module then apply to both channels, and inventory stays one number.

Where SORS ERP fits

SORS ERP handles the flow above: sales orders with customer lookup by phone, automatic Bangla SMS through Bangladeshi gateways, Steadfast booking and tracking by API, consignment numbers and payout reconciliation for Pathao, Paperfly and CarryBee, returns back to stock, and COD reconciliation against courier payouts, with stock and accounting updated throughout. Courier API booking for those three couriers and printable label files are on the roadmap, RedX is not integrated, and there is no direct Facebook Messenger integration, so orders are entered from the conversation by your team. We are a company founded in 2024, and the storefront is a headless setup that we deploy with you rather than a template you switch on yourself.

To see one order go from confirmation SMS to a booked Steadfast consignment and a reconciled payout, request a demo.

Written by the team that builds SORS ERP, the ERP described on this site. We implement it ourselves in Bangladesh, so the guidance here comes from setups we run rather than from general research. More about SORS Technology.

How to fulfil a Facebook order with an ERP and a courier

1. Capture the order once. Create a sales order from the Facebook conversation with the customer's phone number, full address with district and thana, items from the live item list, delivery charge and payment method (COD or bKash advance).
2. Send the confirmation SMS. Trigger an automatic Bangla SMS or WhatsApp message with the order number, items, total and expected delivery time. Wrong numbers fail here, before you pay for delivery.
3. Pack against the pick list. Print the pick list, pack the exact items and quantities, and mark the order ready for dispatch so stock is deducted from the right warehouse.
4. Book the courier. Book Steadfast from the order by API, or record the consignment number your other courier gives you. Either way the consignment number is stored on the order, which is what makes tracking and payout reconciliation possible later.
5. Track delivery. Watch the consignment status on the order, which Steadfast updates by API and your team sets for other couriers, call customers whose parcels are on hold, and let the delivery SMS trigger fire when the order is marked delivered.
6. Record returns. For returned parcels, record the return against the order, restore stock to saleable or damaged, book the courier charges you still owe, and flag the customer for advance payment next time.
7. Reconcile COD payouts. Upload the courier's payout statement, match each line to orders by consignment number, mark them paid, and record delivery and COD charges as expenses.

Frequently asked questions

Which couriers does SORS ERP integrate with?

Steadfast is API integrated for booking and tracking. Pathao, Paperfly and CarryBee are set up as couriers with the consignment number entered by your team, and their payout statements can be uploaded to reconcile cash on delivery. API booking for those three is on the roadmap, and RedX is not integrated. Every parcel stays attached to its order either way.

How do I reduce fake COD orders?

Confirm every order with an automatic SMS so wrong numbers fail immediately, keep customer history by phone number so repeat refusers are visible, and ask for a small bKash advance from new customers in districts with high return rates. An ERP makes all three routine rather than dependent on memory.

How does COD reconciliation work?

The courier pays collected cash in batches with a statement listing consignment IDs. In the ERP you match each line to its order, mark those orders paid, record delivery and COD charges as expenses, and see which delivered parcels have not yet been paid out.

Can I sell on Facebook and a website from one stock?

Yes, if the website is built on the ERP as its back end. Facebook orders are entered as sales orders and website orders arrive through the storefront, both reserving from the same stock and appearing in one order list. This avoids selling the same unit twice.