A procurement buyer needs the specifications they use to compare suppliers: dimensions, materials, tolerances, documents, minimum order quantity and packaging. If the product catalogue on your website has only photos and names, it's just a set of pictures. There's no way to tell from them whether a product is suitable — so the buyer either writes to you with questions or chooses a supplier that has this data on its website.
Below: how a buyer chooses a supplier based on its website, which fields a product page needs, and how to stop the catalogue going out of date.
How a buyer chooses a supplier from its website
The buyer usually has a set of technical requirements or a specification: what dimensions, what material, what tolerances, what volume. They find several manufacturers through search and compare their catalogues against these parameters.
Picture a buyer who has to compare several offers by the end of the day. They open the suppliers' websites side by side in browser tabs, and the first one they set aside is the one where they would have to chase up the data.
Screening is quick: the size they need isn't on the product page — a point against; no certificate — another point against; an unclear minimum order quantity — a reason to contact a supplier who does state it. The shortlist is made up of those whose data could be found without a phone call.
The buyer doesn't decide alone. A process engineer checks tolerances and materials, the quality department checks the documents, and management looks at volumes and reliability. A good product page answers the questions of everyone the buyer forwards the link to, and it's readable even on a phone — between meetings or right there on the shop floor.
The catalogue is the central part of a manufacturer's website, but not the only one. We cover what else a buyer needs in our article on a manufacturer's B2B website.
Which specifications a product page needs
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Technical specifications. Dimensions, material, grade, weight, and the standard the product is made to. As text, not as an image of a table: text can be found by search and copied into a specification.
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Tolerances. What deviations in dimensions and parameters are acceptable. Without them, the process engineer won't confirm that the product is suitable.
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Available versions. Colours, coatings, size range, and whether you can make it to the customer's drawing.
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Applications. What the product is suitable for and what it's compatible with. This helps a buyer who is searching by the job to be done rather than by grade.
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Documents. Certificates, product data sheets, drawings and specifications in PDF, downloadable straight from the product page.
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Minimum order quantity and order multiples. The volume you start from and the increments in which buyers can order.
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Packaging. How the product is packed, and the dimensions and weight of the package — the buyer plans delivery around this.
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Availability or lead time. Whether the product is in stock, or how long it takes to make a batch.
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Language. Specifications and documents in Russian and Uzbek, and in English as well for buyers abroad.
For a printed circuit board, for example, the buyer and the engineer need the number of layers, base material, thickness, surface finish, and minimum track width and hole size. Without these parameters, the board can't be compared with offers from other manufacturers.
Products in the same group should have the same set of fields. Then the buyer can compare products with each other, and the filters work.
Parameter filters
When the catalogue has a lot of items, scrolling through them one by one is inconvenient. You need filters for the parameters in the buyer's technical requirements: size, material, version, availability. Put first the ones that immediately rule out what's irrelevant, such as size or material. And a "certificate available" filter will save the quality department time.
A filter only works if the data is entered consistently. If one product page gives the board thickness as "1.6 mm", another as "1.6mm" and a third simply as "1,6", the filter will show three different values or fail to find the right one at all. So specifications are best entered not as free text but as fields with a choice of values and units of measure.
One more detail: have the selected filters saved in the page address. Then the buyer can send a colleague a link to the selection, and the colleague will see the same items. And if nothing matches the filters, show a request button rather than an empty page: you may be able to make the product they need to a drawing.
Test the filters on a real task: take a recent request from a buyer and try to find suitable items using the filters alone.
A PDF catalogue or an online product catalogue
A PDF catalogue is easy to send by email, print out and take to meetings. But it goes out of date with every change to the range and prices, it can't be found by searching for a specific product, and it has no filters or quote request button.
An online catalogue can be found through search, shows up-to-date data and leads straight to a request. The most convenient option is to combine the two: the main catalogue lives on the website, and the PDF is generated from the same data, or at least updated along with it. That way the figures in the file don't drift away from the product pages. Put links to the product pages in the PDF, so the buyer can send a request straight from there.
Sometimes it's the other way round: the buyer needs a file for a single item to attach to a purchase requisition inside their own company. For this, every product page should have a "Download specification" button.
If you already have a good PDF catalogue, don't throw it away: it's a convenient source for the section structure and the first product pages on the site. And you can move the range across gradually, starting with the items people ask about most often.
Who updates the catalogue and how to keep it current
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Appoint an owner. A catalogue that everyone is responsible for is updated by no one. It could be a process engineer, a product manager or a marketer — what matters is that it's part of their job.
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Give them a convenient admin panel. They should be able to add a product, replace a certificate or correct a specification without a developer.
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Create a product page template. Required fields won't let anyone publish a product without specifications and documents.
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Don't delete discontinued products. Mark them and name a replacement. A buyer who arrives via an old link will see what to order instead.
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Keep an eye on documents. Certificates have an expiry date — make a note of when they need renewing.
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Take accounting data from 1C. If products, prices and stock levels are kept in 1C, there's no need to duplicate them by hand. Names, item codes, prices and availability come to the site automatically, while descriptions, photos and documents are managed on the site.
We covered what gets passed between 1C and a website, and what breaks along the way, in our article on integrating 1C with a website.
Checklist
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Specifications as text. Every product has them in the text of its page, not just in an image.
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Consistent fields. Products in the same group have their specifications entered in the same fields and units.
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Documents. Certificates and data sheets can be downloaded straight from the product page.
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Order quantities and packaging. Minimum order quantity, order multiples and packaging are stated.
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Filters. The catalogue can be filtered by the parameters in the buyer's technical requirements.
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Owner. A specific person is responsible for the catalogue and updates product pages without a developer.
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Archive. Discontinued products are marked, with a replacement named.
If your catalogue still looks more like a photo album, we can help you put together product pages, filters and an admin panel that lets you update the catalogue without a developer — either separately or as part of a B2B website. What we do for manufacturers is collected on the "Website for a manufacturing company" page. One example of our work is the website of BOFPCB, a printed circuit board manufacturer.