Planning
Does your building supplier website need a catalogue or a checkout?
Reliable product and fulfilment information should decide the buying route. More functionality is useful only when the business can support it.
Published · 7 min read
The starting point
Use a catalogue enquiry when stock, batch quantities, suitability or delivery need a person to confirm them. Consider checkout when prices, units, availability, payment and fulfilment rules can be maintained reliably. Some ranges may support different routes, but the interface must make clear whether the customer is requesting a quote or placing an order.
Start with the questions at the trade counter
Choose three representative products and list what a customer needs to know before buying. For materials, that may include dimensions, grade, colour, pack size, condition and delivery constraints. Unique reclaimed items may need photographs of the actual batch rather than a generic product image.
Ask the team which answers remain reliable online and which need checking for every enquiry. This identifies the information the website can publish and the questions the form should collect. It also stops a catalogue being designed around attractive photographs while the useful facts remain buried.
Use four decisions to choose the route
| Question | If a person must confirm | If the rule is reliable |
|---|---|---|
| Can the quantity be supplied? | Ask for a stock enquiry. | Define the stock source and update process. |
| Is the payable price known? | Prepare a quotation. | Use clear units and an agreed price model. |
| Can fulfilment be priced? | Collect the destination and relevant access details. | Specify supported delivery or collection rules. |
| Can the team fulfil an online order? | Keep the route as an enquiry. | Agree payment, confirmation and operational responsibilities. |
A “reliable” answer means someone owns the information and the failure behaviour is agreed. It does not mean a field was filled once during development. A mixed catalogue needs clear labels for which items can be bought and which require a quote.
Design an enquiry that carries the useful details
A quote list can carry product references, requested quantities and the customer’s broad delivery requirement into one review screen. Keep quantities in the right units: a number of packs is not the same as a number of individual pieces. Let the visitor check and correct the list before sending.
Explain that stock, suitability, transport and the final price will be confirmed. Saving a list in the browser does not reserve goods. A success message should describe receipt of a request rather than an order confirmation.
Decide how the team will receive and reply to the list. Email may be enough for a first phase; CRM routing, attachments and catalogue imports need a separate specification. Keep personal details and message contents out of analytics events.
Treat checkout as an operational decision
Before building checkout, agree who maintains prices and stock, which destinations you serve, what happens when delivery cannot be calculated and how the team handles an unsuccessful payment or unavailable item. Choose a suitable platform only after those rules are understood.
Terms, taxes, consumer rights and cancellation handling depend on the business and market. Have appropriate advice on the obligations that apply; a polished checkout screen does not settle them. The build proposal should identify payment-provider subscriptions, transaction charges and other external costs.
Product search features also need accurate data. Google’s product structured-data guidance distinguishes product snippets and merchant listings. Use markup that matches the page and the buying route; do not describe an enquiry-only item as an instantly available offer.
Worked example: standard timber and reclaimed stone
Give useful product pages a deliberate search structure
Make category names, specifications and related products understandable in ordinary text. Decide which category and product URLs are the stable pages customers should share. Filters can help browsing without every combination becoming an indexable landing page.
Google’s faceted-navigation guidance explains how filter combinations can create large numbers of URLs. Agree the indexing plan with the developer before the catalogue grows; useful customer categories and arbitrary filter permutations are different things.
Keep important product information on the web page, even when a technical sheet can be downloaded. Customers and crawlers should not need to open a PDF merely to discover the product’s dimensions or how to request it.
Choose a first phase you can maintain
The worksheet records the product range, unit, stock owner, pricing rule, fulfilment question and proposed buying route. Use “needs confirmation” when a fact is unresolved. Choose a modest representative range for review before committing to a full import.
Download the supplier worksheet (TXT)
Our building supplier website service starts with these decisions. Standard website packages cover defined brochure and service sites; catalogue tools, ecommerce and integrations require an agreed separate scope. Explore the portfolio and send your current website and three representative products to discuss a first phase.
Sources and scope
The linked Google documentation was checked on 13 October 2026. The framework, yard example and worksheet are original planning aids from Charlie’s Web Design. They do not confirm legal compliance, compatibility with an existing stock system or a commercial result.
