This series uses Dingli, a Patisco demo account. Every system screen and all the data shown here came from real operations in the system, including the exchanges between buyers and suppliers; they are not mock-ups. The people and dialogue are dramatized, and the illustrations are for illustration only. Screens are shown in the system's Chinese interface; Patisco is also available in English and other languages.
In the story: the first Tuesday after the show, 8:50 a.m.
Saturday night at the hotel
This one starts on Saturday night.
Marta, a buyer at a distributor in Poland, walked past Dingli's booth on the last day of the show. She didn't stop. A-Zhe was talking to Jonas and never saw her. All she did was take a business card from the table.
Back at the hotel that night, she turned the card over and scanned the QR code on the back.
Her phone opened Dingli's "Trade Show Samples" catalog: photos, SKUs, specs, no prices. She looked for twenty minutes, added four things to her cart, and sent an inquiry. Then she clicked [Becoming a Member] in the page header, filled in her company information, and submitted an application.
At no point did she write a single email.
How it used to go
In the old days, this story would go like this:
A-Zhe comes back from the show and copies the details from the business cards into Excel, one at a time. Then he writes sales emails with a 12MB catalog PDF attached.
Half of those emails get blocked before they reach the inbox. The other half get opened, and the reply is "Please send price list." A-Zhe sends the price list. Then comes "What is your MOQ?" and then "Do you have it in black?" Three rounds, a week gone, and A-Zhe still isn't sure what they actually want.
And Marta? The old Dingli would never have known she existed. She'd take the card, go back to the hotel, flip through it, and that would be the end of that.
How it goes in Patisco
Sales emails, no more PDFs
A-Zhe's sales emails are very short now:
Dear Mr. Novák, thank you for visiting us at the show. Here are the cassettes and chains you asked about, with specs and photos: [link]
The link opens the public page for European customers, in English with euro prices, no sign-up needed. Customers can look as long as they like, and when something interests them, they add it to the cart and inquire. A-Zhe doesn't have to guess what they want, because they'll say so themselves.
No attachment means the email won't get blocked for being too large, and what customers see when they click is always today's data.
The person who scanned the QR code walks in on her own
On Tuesday morning, A-Zhe opens Patisco and sees two things Marta left.
A buyer application. After clicking [Becoming a Member], Marta filled out an application form: company name, country, address, phone, email. On Dingli's side, she has become a buyer with the status "Uninvited."
A-Zhe reviews her company information, takes a look at the company's website, confirms it's a real distributor, and only then sends an invitation. Once Marta accepts it, she can log in and see the catalogs Dingli has shared with her.
"So scanning doesn't automatically make someone a member?" A-Mei asks.
"No. She fills in her own details, and we decide whether to work together," A-Zhe says. "But it beats copying business cards by a long way. She even filled in the company's tax ID."
A quotation. The inquiry Marta sent became a quotation on Dingli's side straight away, with items and quantities already on it.
Document 101｜Quotation: A document from seller back to buyer, stating how much each item costs, the minimum quantity, the lead time, and how long the price is valid. Buyers use it to compare prices and to request budget from their boss. A quotation isn't a closed deal yet, but once things are agreed, the terms on it become the content of the proforma invoice.
A-Zhe fills in the prices, downloads it as a PDF, and emails it to Marta. This step is his to do: the system won't send quotations for you, and Marta doesn't get a confirmation email when she submits an inquiry. So A-Zhe adds one more line: "We received your inquiry on Saturday. Here is our quotation."
Marta replies ten minutes later: "That was fast."
It wasn't fast at all. She asked on Saturday. It's just that the old Dingli would never have known she'd asked.
Before vs. with Patisco
| Before | With Patisco | |
|---|---|---|
| Sales emails | A 12MB PDF attached, half get blocked | A public page link, and one click shows today's data |
| Customer information | Sales copies it from business cards | Customers fill it in themselves when applying |
| What the customer wants | Still guessing after three rounds | Customers add to the cart themselves, and it arrives as a quotation |
| People who took a card but never spoke up | You don't know they exist | Once they've scanned and inquired, Dingli can see it |
A word for the boss: Patisco won't find customers for you. But when customers come looking for you, you can catch them.
The real-world backdrop: The same 2025 Gartner survey also found that 73% of buyers actively avoid suppliers who send irrelevant sales outreach. A short sales email with a product page the customer will actually look at does more than attaching a full catalog. Gartner press release
Moments in Trade #8｜Orders in the InboxThat Tuesday, A-Zhe's inbox still has 63 unread emails.A dozen or so have PDFs attached, some written in English, some in German. And one is from Manager Sato in Tokyo, with a subject line of just two Japanese characters. They mean "order."