An MRO buyer is rarely browsing. A maintenance tech has a failed bearing, motor or valve in hand, a line that is down, and a nameplate or part number to go on. A maintenance manager wants the same part from the same supplier as last time. A purchasing agent needs a price for a quantity and a PO number on the order. All three judge a supplier’s website by how fast it gets them to the exact item, the specs to confirm it, and a straight answer on stock. If any of that takes a phone call, they call whoever picks up first.
Common problems on industrial supply websites
- Specs locked in PDFs. The data sheet is a download, so neither the buyer nor a search engine can read the bore size or the voltage on the page.
- Attributes entered three different ways. “1/2 in”, “0.5” and “.500” for the same dimension make items hard to compare.
- Cross-reference lists nobody can trace. A substitute typed from memory or copied from another site is how the wrong part ends up on a machine.
- Search that needs the exact format. “MB-2040-S” is in the system, the buyer types “MB2040S”, and the search returns nothing.
- Categories that follow the warehouse. A tree built around bin locations or vendor codes instead of what a buyer is replacing.
- No way to ask for a quantity price. The page shows a unit price and no form, so a buyer who needs a case of 50 picks up the phone or leaves.
- Stock that does not match the ERP. The site says in stock and the shelf says otherwise.
What we build for industrial and MRO suppliers
- Spec tables on the page, in the same order every time. Bore, OD, width, seal type and material for bearings; horsepower, voltage, phase, RPM and frame for motors. A buyer comparing two items reads the same rows, and search engines can read them too.
- Part-number search. “MB-2040-S”, “MB2040S” and “MB 2040 S” all return the same item, and plain words like “pillow block 1-1/4” work as well.
- Cross-references from manufacturer data only. When a manufacturer or your supplier publishes an interchange, it appears on the page. When there is none, there is no list.
- Quote requests on every product. A form already filled in with the item, plus quantity, company, PO number and need-by date. It reaches your inside sales team by email or Discord as soon as it is sent, through our order and form alerts.
- Buyer accounts. Customers sign in with their own logins, and new account requests wait for your approval. Roles decide who sees what. We build this as a custom member database on Wix members.
- A catalog fed from your ERP. A scheduled sync brings in items, stock and prices from your ERP or inventory export, with a log of every run and a daily check that flags problems. The inventory integration page explains how it works.
- Categories built around the job. For example, Power Transmission / Bearings / Mounted Bearings / Pillow Block Bearings, with a page per manufacturer. Buyers can narrow results by manufacturer, category, condition or price.
- Product pages that cover the order. Every photo, the condition (new, surplus or rebuilt), shipping, returns and a question form that already names the item.
- A staff order screen. Counter staff work from their own sign-in to see and ship orders, so nobody shares the owner’s account.
The cart, checkout and other basics come from our standard store build.
Getting found by maintenance buyers
Maintenance searches are narrow and specific. A few examples:
- “pillow block bearing 1-1/4 bore cast iron”
- “5 hp 3 phase motor 184t frame”
- “ac drive 10 hp 480v”
- a manufacturer part number followed by “replacement” or “equivalent”
The page that answers these best is a product page with the number in the title and the specs on the page. Titles follow one pattern, such as “[Brand] MB-2040-S Pillow Block Bearing, 1-1/4 in Bore, Cast Iron Housing”. Category pages get short introductions that explain how to choose within them. Product structured data carries brand, part number, condition, price and stock, every product is in the sitemap, and with Merchant Center connected, a feed can send items to Google’s free shopping listings. We set up Bing as well as Google.
Techs also ask AI assistants what replaces a discontinued part. Those answers draw on pages that state specs and documented cross-references in plain text, which is one more reason not to bury them in PDFs. We do not promise rankings or AI mentions. Our SEO and AI visibility work keeps the catalog readable and fixes problems as they show up.
What we need from you
- Your item data. An ERP or inventory export with item numbers, descriptions, stock and prices, and how often it changes.
- Manufacturer data. Data sheets or files for specs and cross-references, from the manufacturer or your supplier.
- Images. Manufacturer images you are allowed to use, or your own photos.
- Quote and account rules. Who receives quote requests, what you need before approving an account, and whether some accounts see different prices. Our page for wholesale and B2B distributors covers prices by account.
- Policies. Returns, restocking, shipping cutoffs and freight for heavy items.
Large catalogs need a plan for the platform’s ceilings: 50,000 products per store, counting hidden ones, and 1,000 categories in a tree no more than four levels deep. Our guide to those limits explains what we do about each. Before go-live, the item count on the site must match your export, and a random sample of items is checked against the source data.
The quote comes as a written proposal that separates one-time work from monthly costs. For the factors that size an industrial catalog project, see the cost guide, or tell us about your catalog.
