Published 9 November 2026.
A B2B ecommerce website for a distributor has to do what the trade counter already does: find the part by its number, quote the price with and without GST, and tell a dealer what their price is. G Kumar Electro has supplied wires, switchgear, lighting and fans since 1982 as an authorised distributor for 25+ brands. We built its online store around those three jobs, on a catalogue built for 10,000+ products.
This post walks through the decisions behind the build, in the order we made them, so you can apply the same thinking if you sell to electricians, contractors, dealers or purchase teams. The screens are in our G Kumar Electro B2B ecommerce website case study, and the store is live at g-kumar.com.
Trade buyers do not shop, they look things up
A homeowner browsing for a ceiling fan wants photos, a few options and a checkout. An electrician on a site visit wants one thing: the part he already knows, in the size he needs, at a price he can bill against. A purchase manager at a contractor wants the same part in quantity, with a GST invoice that matches the order.
Most ecommerce themes are built for the first buyer. Put a distributor’s catalogue into one and the trade buyer gets a pretty grid of products with no part numbers, one price that may or may not include tax, and no way to say “I need 400 metres of this for a project next week”. So before we drew a single screen, we listed what a G Kumar customer asks at the counter:
- Do you have this part, by brand and part number?
- What does it cost with GST, and without it?
- What does it cost per metre, not just per box?
- What is my price as a dealer, once you know who I am?
- Can you quote me for a bulk or project quantity?
- How fast can it ship?
Every part of the store answers one of those six questions. Anything that did not, we left out.
Structure the catalogue the way the trade thinks
G Kumar sells across eight categories: wire and cable, wiring devices, switchgear, lighting, fans, home appliances, solar, and pipes and fittings. Each category splits into ranges a buyer would recognise. Wire and cable alone covers armoured cables, HT cables, single core and multicore flexible wires, solar wire, submersible wire, communication cables, fire safety wires, and lugs, glands and terminals.
We turned that into three layers of pages, each with its own URL and breadcrumb, so a buyer and Google can both see where they are:
| Page type | How many | What it answers |
|---|---|---|
| Category pages | 8 | Everything G Kumar sells in one area, such as switchgear |
| Collection pages | 64 | One range, such as MCB and RCCB or BLDC fans, with filters and sorting |
| Brand pages | 21 | Everything from one brand G Kumar is authorised to sell |
| Product pages | Built for 10,000+ | One product with all its variants, prices and stock |
Brand pages matter more in B2B than most stores admit. Contractors are often told which brand to use by the specification, so “Polycab wire dealer” or “Legrand switches distributor” is how many of them start. A page for each authorised brand gives those searches somewhere to land.
Mega menus that show the whole counter
A distributor with 64 ranges cannot hide them behind one “Shop” link. On g-kumar.com, each of the eight categories opens a menu of its ranges, the popular picks and the brands in that category, with a line for bulk pricing. Any collection page is one hover away from the homepage.
One product, many variants
This was the decision that shaped the catalogue most. A single house wire comes in six conductor sizes, from 0.75 to 6 sq mm, and in more than one colour. List each combination as its own product and one wire becomes a dozen near-identical pages. Buyers scroll past them, and search engines see a dozen thin pages competing with each other.
So each product carries its variants. On the Polycab house wire page, size and colour are options on one page, and the price, SKU and stock update as the buyer picks them. It is also how 10,000+ catalogue entries stay manageable: the G Kumar team adds products with their variants attached, more than 200 a month, instead of creating a new page for every size.
Google supports the same idea in its own structured data. Its product variant documentation describes grouping size and colour variants under one parent product, so search treats them as one item with options rather than as separate pages [1].
Prices the way a contractor reads them
On the product page the price box shows, in this order:
- The price including 18% GST, large, because that is what the buyer pays.
- The price excluding GST, because that is what a business claims input credit on.
- The price per metre, with and without GST, because wire is quoted by the metre on site.
- The MRP and the saving, because every buyer checks the discount.
Under the price sit three promises the warehouse can keep: 100% genuine with full brand warranty, a GST invoice on every order, and 24-hour dispatch from five warehouses.
Dealer pricing without a separate website
Many distributors run two sites, a retail store and a dealer portal, and end up maintaining two catalogues. G Kumar has one. Anyone can buy at the listed price, and a dealer, contractor or project buyer can apply for a trade account from any page.
The application asks for what the sales team needs to verify a business: business name, GSTIN, delivery city, the type of buyer (electrical dealer, retailer, contractor and so on) and the approximate monthly purchase. Once verified, the dealer sees trade prices and quantity breaks on every SKU. The catalogue, the product pages and the search stay the same for everyone.
A route for bulk and project orders
Some orders will never go through a cart. A contractor wiring a building wants a quote for a quantity, not a checkout. So every product page has a Bulk Query button next to Add to cart. The form asks for an approximate quantity or an approximate value, whichever the buyer knows, plus a name, mobile number and city. A rough figure is enough to start the conversation.
On a phone, Bulk Query is one of five buttons in the bottom bar, next to Products, Brands and Cart. Electricians order from the job, and the bar keeps the buttons they use within thumb reach.
Search that takes a part number
The search box at the top of every page takes a product name, a brand, or an SKU and part number. That last one sounds minor. It is how purchase teams work: they copy a part number from a bill of materials and paste it in. If the search does not recognise it, the buyer goes to a distributor whose search does.
Filters that help buyers without flooding Google
Collection pages have filters and sorting, which buyers need on a range like MCBs or LED panels. Filters also create a near-endless number of URL combinations, and Google warns that these can waste crawling on pages nobody searches for [2]. The plan on a store this size is to let buyers filter freely while keeping the collection page itself as the page that ranks.
Proof that the stock is real
A distributor is chosen for reliability, not for its homepage. So the homepage carries the company’s own record: founded in 1982, 25+ authorised brands, five warehouses with more than one lakh square feet of ready inventory, more than 300 dispatches a day and 24-hour dispatch as standard. Each number answers a question a dealer asks before switching supplier.
What a B2B store needs that a retail store does not
| Need | Retail store | B2B store like G Kumar’s |
|---|---|---|
| Search | By product name | By product, brand or SKU and part number |
| Price | One price | With and without GST, per box and per metre, MRP and saving |
| Who sees which price | Everyone sees the same | Verified dealers see trade prices and quantity breaks |
| Variants | Often separate products | Size and colour as options of one product |
| Large orders | Cart only | Cart plus bulk query and request a quote |
| Invoice | Receipt | GST invoice on every order |
| Trust | Reviews | Authorised brands, warehouses and dispatch numbers |
If you are planning a store for a distributor or manufacturer, start with the right-hand column. Our ecommerce website page covers how we scope these builds, and the B2B digital marketing page covers what happens after launch. For another large catalogue built around how people search, see our KTC India rebuild from 23 to 279 pages.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a B2B ecommerce website?
An online store built for business buyers such as dealers, contractors and purchase teams. It shows prices with and without GST, lets buyers search by part number, offers trade prices to verified accounts, and takes bulk or project enquiries alongside normal cart orders.
How many products can the G Kumar Electro website hold?
The catalogue is built for 10,000+ products. Each product carries its variants, so one house wire covers six sizes from 0.75 to 6 sq mm in more than one colour, and the G Kumar team adds more than 200 products a month.
Should product variants like wire size be separate pages?
Usually not. Keeping size and colour as options of one product gives buyers one page to compare and stops near-identical pages competing in search. Google’s product variant structured data supports grouping variants under one parent product.
Can one website serve retail buyers and dealers?
Yes. On g-kumar.com everyone sees the same catalogue and listed prices. Dealers apply for a trade account with their GSTIN and monthly purchase, and once verified they see trade prices and quantity breaks on every SKU.
How much does a B2B ecommerce website cost?
With DigiStreet Media, ecommerce websites start at ₹2,50,000 plus GST and B2B websites at ₹1,75,000 plus GST. A catalogue store with dealer pricing and thousands of SKUs is quoted on the number of templates, integrations and product data work.
References
- Product variant structured data (ProductGroup, Product), Google Search Central, last updated 8 September 2026.
- Managing crawling of faceted navigation URLs, Google Crawling Infrastructure, last updated 18 December 2025.
- Introduction to Product structured data, Google Search Central, last updated 10 December 2025.
- G Kumar Electro B2B ecommerce website case study, DigiStreet Media, November 2026.
