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Case study · Professional tool distribution
Tool distributor e-commerce case study: Iberline's whole catalog in view, no phone call needed
Its entire professional tool catalog, organized and in full view in an online store connected to its management system. Customers buy whenever it suits them; sales reps focus on what really needs them.
Iberline distributes tools and consumables to carpenters, woodworking and metal shops, installers, and contractors. Its catalog, huge and constantly growing, only existed at the counter and in its management system. This tool distributor e-commerce case study shows how we built an online store connected to that same system, with the full catalog organized by category and product pages with technical data, prices, and images. Today it sells even when the physical store is closed. And we didn't just build it and hope for the best: before adding a single product, we studied how professional buyers search, and organized the catalog around that so the store shows up on Google when someone searches for what Iberline sells.
100%
of the catalog, published online
24/7
store open, even at night
1
a catalog connected to your management system
0
manual catalog updates
* Catalog metrics verified in the store; sales results pending confirmation with the client.
The context
A professional tool distributor runs on three things: the counter, the sales rep, and the phone. Iberline has all three, and they work. Its customers are carpenters, woodworking and metal shops, installers, and tradespeople who come in, order what they need, and come back the next week.
Selling wasn't the problem: the size of the catalog was. Iberline handles a huge, constantly growing catalog: tools, woodworking, shop equipment, metalworking, measuring, construction, workwear and PPE, lighting, cleaning, packaging. That volume doesn't fit in a print catalog, especially when it changes every week.
Until now, it lived in two places: the management system, which nobody outside the company can see, and the team's experience. That means every sale depends on someone being available, and customers never see everything Iberline can supply: they buy what they already know is there.
Then there are the hours. A shop professional works the same hours as their supplier. By the time they finally sit down to check what they're running low on, it's eight in the evening or it's Sunday. All that time was time when nothing was being sold.
The challenge
Every small repeat order (a box of discs, a tub of glue, a few saw blades) eats up a phone call and several minutes of a sales rep's time. Multiply that by every day of the month and it's a huge chunk of the workday for people whose time is worth far more advising on a big purchase or visiting a new customer.
There's a second, less visible cost: availability and price inquiries. “Do you have this?” “How much is it?” The challenge was to take everything that doesn't need a person off the phone, without losing anything that does.
- A huge catalog customers couldn't browse on their own.
- Repeat orders that ate up phone calls and hours of sales reps' time.
- After hours, nothing sold: not at night, not on weekends, not in August.
- Keeping that volume of part numbers and prices at hand without duplicating work.
- Launching an online store without taking the spotlight off the counter.
The solution: a B2B e-commerce store with the entire catalog out in the open
We built a new online store on one clear principle: it's not a showroom, it's the complete catalog. No uploading the hundred best sellers and hiding the rest. And to make that sustainable with a catalog this size, the store had to practically run itself.
1 · Putting the entire catalog online
The entire catalog is published. All of it. From machinery by leading professional brands (Festool among them) to everyday consumables: abrasives, glues and adhesives, staples, saw blades.
The sales impact is immediate: someone who comes in looking for a jigsaw finds out Iberline can also supply the workbench, the dust extractor, and the discs. Before, they had to ask.
2 · A catalog that keeps itself up to date
The store is connected to Iberline's management system. The two talk to each other: whatever is added or changed in the system shows up on the website. There's no second catalog to update by hand.
It's the piece that makes everything else work. With a catalog like this, maintaining the store by hand would be a full-time job. This way, the catalog updates itself.
3 · Products buyers can find fast
A big catalog nobody can navigate is a useless catalog. The detailed work was in the structure: product families, categories, and subcategories with names professionals recognize: jigsaws, edge banders, nailers, routers, miter saws, drills.
On top of that, there's a search bar for buyers who go straight to what they need. If you know what you want, you type the part number and get there in one step; if you're comparing, you work down through the categories and see the options side by side.
4 · Product pages that answer before anyone asks
Every product has a page that's been properly built out: a real technical description with features, dimensions, compatibility, and recommended uses, plus the catalog number, the price with VAT included, and images. Many also include video.
That's what people used to ask over the phone. Every question the product page answers on its own is one less call coming in and one less sale held up because the customer wasn't sure the part would fit.
5 · Built for the repeat buyer
Professional buyers don't browse: they reorder. They often buy the same items and want it done fast. That's why there's a customer area with its own login, a cart, and a short path to checkout.
The classic case is the carpenter who realizes on a Friday afternoon that they'll be out of discs by Monday. That used to mean a phone call first thing Monday morning. Now it's a two-minute order from their phone.
6 · Organized to be found on Google
There are two ways to organize a catalog: the way the company sees it internally, or the way customers search for it. We chose the second. Before building anything, we looked at what carpenters and installers actually type when they're looking for a sander, a disc, or glue, and the words they use to ask for it.
That's why the catalog is broken down much further than it would be internally: each category answers a real search, with its own page and its own copy. So when someone searches for a specific product, they can land right on it instead of on a homepage where they get lost. It's the difference between having a store and having people find it.
7 · The store doesn't replace the sales counter
Iberline has physical stores, and they're an essential part of the business. The website doesn't compete with them: it supports them. There's a store locator page so people know where they are, and the customer service number is easy to find for anyone who'd rather talk to someone.
The approach is simple: let every customer buy however works best for them that day. Some will come to the counter, some will call, and some will order at night from home. They all see the same catalog.
The shop from the inside
Visitors find a store that gets straight to the point: at the top, the search bar and the main product families. From there, they drill down in two or three clicks: from Tools to sanders, from Shop Equipment to workbenches. Each category shows the photo, name, part number, and price.
The product page has the detail a professional needs to decide: what the machine does, what it's compatible with, its dimensions, and what it's recommended for. Where video adds value (a router, a miter saw), there's a video.
The cart and the customer area handle the rest: register once, log in when needed, and order. And if they'd rather check something with a person, the phone number is right there. The website never leaves a customer stuck with an unanswered question.
Results
The most immediate result is also the biggest: the entire catalog is available around the clock. Iberline has gone from selling only when someone is there to take the order to having its full catalog working seven days a week. Hours that used to be dead time are now selling time.
The second change is internal. Repeat orders and price inquiries no longer have to go through a phone call. That frees sales reps from the most mechanical part of their day and gives them time for what actually sells: advising on a major purchase or visiting a new shop.
The third is about image. A distributor with a catalog this broad and this well presented sends a different message to anyone comparing it with two other suppliers. And it strengthens the counter: plenty of people browse online and buy in store, with their mind already made up.
On sales figures, we'll be upfront: the store needs time before the numbers mean anything. We'll publish order data once there's enough history and the client signs off on it. What we can measure today is the catalog: complete, organized, and in a store that never closes.
Why this case matters
- In distribution, the catalog is the asset: if it only lives in the management system and in your sales rep's head, customers never see half of what you could sell them.
- An online store doesn't take customers away from the counter: it takes away repeat calls and gives hours back to the sales team.
- With a catalog of thousands of products, design isn't what makes or breaks the project. What matters is that the catalog keeps itself up to date, connected to the system the company already uses.
- Putting the catalog online is pointless if nobody finds it: organizing it around what customers search for is half the work.
What it includes
It's not a template you plug in and forget: it's a professional tools online store built on the company's real catalog and designed for a buyer who knows what they're looking for. Here's what we put in place at Iberline.
Its own online storeThe full catalog onlineConnected to their management systemCategories built around the customerProduct searchProduct pages with technical data and photosProduct videosCustomer area and cartBuilt to show up in Google
“What we value most is that the store runs itself. We keep working in the same system we've always used, and the website follows along without anyone having to babysit it. And the customer who used to call to ask for a price now looks it up themselves, at any hour.”
— Iberline management
Frequently asked questions
Won't selling online cut into my counter sales or my margin?
You're not slicing up the same pie: you're making it bigger. Much of what comes in through the website is business that simply wasn't happening before: the Friday-afternoon order, the Sunday order, the order from the customer who needed something and didn't call.
You set the margin: it's your store and your terms. What does change is the cost of handling a small order, which today costs a phone call and a few minutes of a sales rep's time. That same order costs less when it comes through the website.
How do you keep such a large catalog up to date?
Automatically. That's the key to the project. The store is connected to the management system: whatever is added, changed, or discontinued there is reflected on the website. Nobody has to enter products by hand.
Otherwise, the project wouldn't be viable. Maintaining a catalog like this by hand always ends the same way: the website is out of date within three months and nobody trusts it. That connection is what keeps the store accurate two years from now.
Will my professional customers actually buy online?
They already do, just sometimes somewhere else. The carpenter who buys at your counter also orders supplies online when it's convenient. The question is whether you're there when they want to.
And the professional buyer is the best online customer there is: they know what they want, they know the part number, and they place the same order again and again. They don't come in to browse; they come in to get the job done.
How long does it take to build something like this?
It mostly depends on the state of the catalog in the management system. If part numbers, prices, and descriptions are in order, things move fast. If product families need reviewing or technical data needs filling in, that phase sets the timeline.
It's work that pays off on its own. Organizing a catalog of thousands of products brings duplicates and empty descriptions to light. That order pays off on and off the website, including at the counter.
Can I set different prices for different customers?
Yes, and it's standard practice in distribution. A customer with a negotiated agreement shouldn't see the same price list as a one-time buyer. The store supports different terms depending on who logs into their customer area, based on what's set up in the management system.
The key is deciding the policy up front: which price lists exist and what visitors who aren't registered can see. At Iberline, prices are shown with VAT included, so customers see right away what they'll pay.
Who maintains the store afterward?
The client can maintain it in-house, or we can, or any other provider. It's built on PrestaShop, a standard and widely used platform, and we chose that on purpose: Iberline isn't locked in to us to make changes to its own website.
Day to day, there's almost no maintenance: because the store is connected to the management system, products and prices update automatically. What's left is the usual (reviews, improvements, the occasional campaign), and that gets decided without any rush.
And what good is the store if nobody knows it exists?
Not much, and it's the most common mistake: launch the store and wait for customers to show up on their own. That's why the project doesn't start with design. It starts with understanding what people search for and the words they use, and organizing the catalog around that.
Every category and every product page is built to answer a specific search. That means the store keeps bringing in visits on its own, without relying only on advertising or on reaching out to regular customers one by one.