B2B and distribution
Your buyers choose on spec. Your catalogue was built for order codes
Industrial and trade catalogues were designed for someone who already knows the part number. The buyer who does not is filtering on thread size, voltage or tolerance, and those live in a PDF datasheet rather than in a field.
Which specs to map firstfrom one category export
The market
What B2B and distribution looks like right now
Where the fact already is
The value exists. A filter cannot reach it.
Nothing here is missing from the catalogue. It is missing from the schema, which is a different problem with a cheaper fix.
In the description, as prose
Voltage rating
Thread size
Tolerance class
In the filters, as a field
- Voltage rating34%
- Thread size47%
- Tolerance class19%
- Pack quantity91%
The last row is already a field, which is why nobody ever files a complaint about it.
What happens here
Your customers phone the sales desk to ask what the website should have told them.
An engineer needs a valve rated to a specific pressure in a specific thread size. Your catalogue has eleven that fit. The website can show all of them in a list ordered by part number, and it cannot filter by either of the two things that decide the purchase.
So the engineer calls, or emails, or gives up and buys from whoever's site could answer it. The sales team answers the same specification question many times a week and treats it as service rather than as a catalogue defect, because the catalogue was never expected to answer it.
The specifications almost always exist. They are in the supplier datasheet that came with the range, in a PDF nobody mapped into a field. That makes this the sector where the gap between what you hold and what your site can use is widest, and usually the cheapest to close.
The spec is not missing. It is in a PDF, which is the same as missing to everyone except the person who already knows the part number.
AttributeRecordedDecides it
- Voltage rating34%Yes
- Thread size47%Yes
- Tolerance class19%Yes
- Pack quantity91%No
Illustrative of this sector's shape. The measured figures are on the method page, with the command that reproduces them.
The situation
What usually goes wrong in B2B and distribution
What a buyer here is trying to decide: Which part meets the specification I have to hit?
Specifications trapped in supplier PDFs and never mapped into the catalogue
Search that works for a part number and fails for a requirement
Hundreds of variants distinguished only by a suffix in the product code
Sales time spent answering specification questions the catalogue should answer
Attribute coverage on a typical B2B and distribution catalogue
illustrative of this sector's shape; the measured figures are on the method pageVoltage rating34%
Thread size47%
Tolerance class19%
Pack quantity91%
Red rows are the ones a purchase turns on and the catalogue mostly does not record. Those are the rows an audit surfaces and a coverage report buries.
View as table
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Voltage rating | 34% |
| Thread size | 47% |
| Tolerance class | 19% |
| Pack quantity | 91% |
Where it usually already lives: Usually a mapping job. The specification is in a supplier datasheet or a feed you already receive, and the audit separates the fields you can map this week from the ones that need real acquisition.
What happens
What we do about it
Three things, and only the first one needs anything from you.
- 01
Send one category
A CSV or JSON export of a single category. Product name, description, category, price, and whatever attributes you already record.
- 02
We rank what to record first
Every missing attribute scored by how much recording it would change what a buyer in your sector can decide, with the affected products attached.
- 03
You fix it, then we verify
Most of the repair is work your own team can do. When it is done we recompute on the repaired catalogue and show you exactly what moved.
- One category export
- No code
- No tag on your site
- No customer data
Questions from this sector
What B2B and distribution teams ask us
- Our specs are in supplier PDFs. Does that count as missing?
- For a buyer, yes. A specification your catalogue cannot filter on is one your customer cannot use, regardless of whether it exists somewhere in your systems. The audit records where each fact currently lives precisely because "in a datasheet" and "nowhere at all" cost very different amounts to fix.
- Our buyers know the part numbers. Why does this matter?
- Your existing buyers do. The ones evaluating you against a competitor do not, and neither does anyone specifying a new build. Part-number search serves the customers you already have; specification search is how you get the next ones.
- We have thousands of variants. Where do we start?
- With one category, and with the specifications that decide purchases in it rather than with the long tail. Variant-heavy catalogues are exactly where ranking the work matters most, because doing all of it is not a plan anybody will fund.
- Can this reduce the load on our sales desk?
- That is the usual reason distributors run it. Every specification question your catalogue can answer is one your team does not. We will not put a number on it, because we have not measured one on your traffic, but the questions your desk repeats are a good place to point the audit.
Other sectors
- Ecommerce and retailA category with hundreds of near-identical products, where the fact that separates them was never a column.
- MarketplacesEvery seller fills the schema differently, so coverage is an average that hides which listings are unfindable.
- Shopping feeds and paid mediaShopping platforms match on the attributes in your feed, so a missing field is spend delivered against the wrong query.
- Travel and hospitalityTwo properties at the same price on the same street, and the thing that decides between them is not a field.
- AI shopping agentsAn agent comparing products cannot infer a fact you never recorded, and it will not guess in your favour.
Send us one B2B and distribution category.
Pick the shelf where you most suspect buyers struggle. You get a ranked list, the affected products, and half an hour with whoever owns merchandising.
A fixed fee, no obligation, and if your catalogue is already fine we will say so.