Need to create an online product catalog: separate website or add it to our existing one?

Moving to a separate domain means tossing away all the domain authority your corporate site has built up over the years. Setting up the catalog in a subfolder will give your main site's search engine visibility a massive boost. Plus, you can attach technical drawing PDFs straight to the product pages.

We ditched the printed catalog for our 220 furniture hardware items. Having a catalog section built into our existing site cost us 1,200 Euro. Uploading weekly price updates via a single spreadsheet takes us maybe 15 minutes. We netted a 6,500 Euro profit in the first year alone.

Don't expect your dealers to adapt overnight. Most wholesalers are still used to flipping through physical pages to order. Even if you build an online catalog you really should add a one-click button to download a PDF with up-to-date pricing, otherwise your phone won't stop ringing.

Before you jump into complicated software, just define a custom post type for products inside your existing CMS. Keep the price field hidden and only visible to logged-in dealers with a basic membership setup, and you'll have it sorted in two weeks.

In Italy, when showing wholesale B2B pricing, it's a legal requirement to clearly state that prices exclude VAT. Furthermore, having dealers accept your corporate terms of sale and warranty conditions directly within the catalog platform provides solid legal protection.

Are you using any ERP or inventory management software for your products? Or are you planning to manage stock levels and pricing entirely manually through spreadsheets?

our wholesalers initially complained that they couldn't work off a screen but but once we set up dedicated logins for each dealer showing their exact discount rates right there they absolutely loved it... tbh now they just copy the product code straight into an email and our order errors dropped to zero.

no need for a separate site at all its just a waste of money... just add a subpage to your current site list the products there and put the prices behind a password protected area works like a charm.

Absolutely. If I were to add anything: Code without setup documentation isn't yours, even if you have it.

The discussion got scattered, let me summarize. When we decide without measuring, we always end up in the same place.

Just leaving this note, it might be useful.

There's a trap here, let me mention it. Weekly written progress reports are much more useful than asking for dates.

That's all, sorry if I went on too long.

You're right, I've been down that road too. Hasty decisions become decisions you have to fix six months later.

If I were you, I'd go this route.

I've been down this road, let me tell you. Implementing a change request process doesn't slow things down, it speeds them up.

If you post the result here, it will help others too.

There's a trap here, let me mention it. In legacy systems, the most expensive thing is unknown dependencies.

That's all, sorry if I went on too long.

There's one point I'm curious about. The real issue isn't the number, but what it's based on.

This is my opinion, I'm not claiming it's absolute truth.

Thanks this was very helpful. tbh hasty decisions become decisions you have to fix six months later.

Code without setup documentation isnt yours, even if you have it. This is my opinion Im not claiming its absolute truth.

I'm writing this so you don't make the same mistake. Weekly written progress reports are much more useful than asking for dates.

I have a question. Don't hesitate to ask; those who don't ask always pay more.

If you have questions, write them; I'll answer as best I can.