Planning
Catalogue website or online store: which one?
Many businesses ask for an online store when they need a catalogue that brings in enquiries. The difference is who completes the sale, and it changes the cost, the risk and the provider you need.
“We need an online store” is often the first sentence of a project, and about half the time what the business actually needs is a catalogue: a site that shows what it makes or sells and lets a buyer ask. The two look similar on screen and are very different to build and run, so decide which one you need before you ask for quotes.
The difference in one sentence
On a catalogue website the buyer finds the product, reads the specification and then contacts you; you agree price, quantity, delivery and payment yourselves. On an online store the buyer chooses, pays and receives an order confirmation on the website, and the website records it.
Everything else follows from that.
What an online store adds
An online store has to do things a catalogue never does:
- A cart and checkout, with prices, stock, delivery charges and tax worked out by the site.
- Payment, taken through a payment provider, with its own approval, fees, refunds and failed-payment handling.
- Orders and records: somewhere that stores each order and tells you about it.
- Customer accounts or guest checkout, and the privacy duties that come with keeping personal details.
- Ongoing operations: updating stock and prices, handling returns, answering “where is my order?”.
These are backend and business-process questions, not design questions. The note on frontend, backend and what your site needs explains the backend part in plain language.
What a catalogue website needs instead
A catalogue needs structure and trust more than machinery: categories that match how buyers think, a page for each product with its specification, documents to download, and a quick way to ask. How to organise a product catalogue website covers that in detail. The enquiry itself can be a phone call, a WhatsApp message or a form, and the sale is completed outside the website.
Which one fits? A quick test
Answer these about your own business, not about what competitors do.
| Question | Points to a catalogue | Points to a store |
|---|---|---|
| Is the price fixed and public? | Prices vary by quantity, grade or buyer | One price per item, the same for everyone |
| Who buys? | Businesses that negotiate or ask for a quote | Individuals or small buyers who expect to pay at once |
| Is the product configured per order? | Yes: size, grade, packaging, delivery place | No: standard items |
| Do you want to talk to the buyer first? | Yes | Not usually |
| Can you handle orders and returns online today? | Not yet | Yes, with someone responsible |
| Is stock tracked in one place? | Not really | Yes |
If most of your answers fall in the first column, a store would add cost and risk before it added sales. Many manufacturers and B2B suppliers are in that group.
Not every website with prices is a store
A catalogue can show prices, or “from” prices, or “price on request”. Showing a price does not make it a store; accepting payment does. If you do show prices on a product page, the page should be able to keep them accurate. A price that is wrong on a public page is worse than no price.
A note on search markup
Google’s guidance for product rich results says the markup is meant for pages that focus on a single product, and not for pages that list many products. It also says a product snippet needs name plus either a review, a rating or an offer. In practice, a catalogue should add product markup only where a page honestly describes one product and the facts in the markup match what the page shows. Adding markup to every category page, or inventing ratings to qualify, is not allowed and will not produce price snippets.
Where I fit
My packages are for catalogue and enquiry websites. A shopping cart, payment, customer accounts or links to a stock system are not part of any package, and I would say so plainly if your project turns out to need one. If you are not sure which side you are on, send a short description of what you sell and who buys it, and I will tell you which kind of site it points to. The product catalogue page shows what I build, with two live manufacturer websites.
You do not have to choose forever. A catalogue that produces steady enquiries is also the best evidence for whether an online store would be worth building later.