Every business that sells things has an inventory. Most of them are renting it back from a marketplace.
The engineering is the same whether the thing is a tractor or a tile: stock in, priced, searchable, one page each, an enquiry that reaches you first. What changes is the words, the filters your buyers use, and which marketplace is charging you for your own leads. Pick your sector and the page speaks your language.
Machinery, plant and equipment
Your stock is on the marketplace within an hour and on your own site whenever someone remembers.
Farmers search at night and at weekends, and your stock list is a PDF from March.
Customers ring to ask whether you have something, because the site does not say.
Stock is on a classified site with your competitors and on your own site nowhere.
Vehicles, marine and leisure
Every van is on the marketplace with your competitors' vans beside it.
The marketplace ranks above you for your own dealership name.
Riders search by model and year, and your site has a gallery called “Stock”.
Buyers travel hundreds of kilometres to view, so they want every photo and layout first.
Buyers are international and your site is a brochure that loads slowly from another continent.
Provenance and history sell the car, and your listings have four photos and a price.
Property and auctions
The portals own your listings, your leads and increasingly your vendor relationships.
The bidding platform takes a cut of every hammer and owns the bidder list.
Industrial units, retail and offices all need different fields and the site has one form.
Wholesale, trade and industrial
Your trade customers order from the national chain at 9pm because you have no way to take the order.
Orders arrive by phone, email and WhatsApp and someone retypes all of them.
Contractors price a job at night and you are closed.
Buyers search part numbers and your site has categories.
Every part is listed on a marketplace that takes 10% and owns the customer.
Drivers search their tyre size and land on a national retailer, not on you.
Showrooms and specialist retail
People browse online first and your range is not there to browse.
The job is won or lost on the gallery, and yours has twelve small photos.
Customers search by look and size and your site has brand names.
What is in stock changes daily with the season and the website is frozen in spring.
Each piece is unique, so each one needs its own page, and you have a gallery.
Ring buyers research for weeks online and visit once; if you are not in the research, you are not in the visit.
Customers want to know if you have their size in stock before they drive over.
Service businesses with a diary
The booking platforms take 15% and own the guest.
Grant-driven demand means you are drowning in quotes, and half of them go cold in the paperwork.
Every job starts with a phone call the workshop cannot answer because it is under a car.
Reception spends the morning on the phone booking what a form could book.
Or start from the problem
Not on the list?
If you sell things and have a website, the audit applies and so does the build. Run it, or tell us what you sell.