Sell the lighting by explaining the lighting
01 — The brief
Two buyers, one catalogue, very different questions
Specialized Lighting Concepts has supplied New Zealand with fibre optic and LED lighting since 2004, first to the swimming pool industry and then to designers, architects, electricians and sign makers.
An electrician arrives knowing the part number. A homeowner arrives knowing they want the pool to glow and nothing else. The same catalogue has to serve both without patronising one or losing the other.
The brief was a site that carries a technical range of nearly three hundred products, keeps trade ordering behind an account, and still lets a first-time buyer work out what they need before they spend anything.
Start with the job, not the product Pools, fountains, gardens, signage, home theatres, marine, nightclubs, public spaces. Each application is its own page, so people who cannot name the product can still find it.
By the numbers
A deep catalogue with the knowledge attached
Feature
The trade side is where the volume is. Account customers log in to a B2B portal wired to their own account, so the ordering they used to do by phone and email now happens on the site at their own pricing, without a separate system to maintain.
- Trade portal linked directly to the customer's account
- Credit account application handled online
- Account pricing on the same catalogue the public sees
- Retail checkout running alongside, no second website
- Dispatch, freight, warranty and returns terms published, not emailed on request
Bespoke
Fourteen categories, one honest menu
Strip, profiles, neon flex, downlights, bulbs, garden, power supplies, pool, control systems, pond and fountain, sign illumination, starfield ceilings, night lights and clearance.
A range this technical dies in a generic shop menu. The mega menu puts every category one hover away, with promoted lines and current deals sitting inside it, so the depth of the range is visible instead of buried three clicks down.
Underneath it, products carry the specification detail the trade needs, connectors and power supplies are cross-linked to the strip they belong to, and the client manages the whole thing from the same admin that runs the accounts.
02 — The process
How we got there
- 01
Separating the two journeys
Trade wants price, stock and a fast reorder. Retail wants to understand. We mapped both paths before touching a page, then let them share a catalogue.
- 02
Rebuilding the brand online
A contemporary design for a business whose products are visual, with the product photography and dark-on-light contrast doing the work the old site could not.
- 03
Structuring the catalogue
Nearly three hundred products organised into fourteen categories, with application and design content sitting beside them rather than in a forgotten blog.
- 04
Wiring the trade portal
Account login, account pricing, online credit applications and reordering, all tied to the customer record already in the system.
- 05
Search work on the long tail
Application pages, design guides and tutorials built and optimised to catch the specific searches this industry runs on, then kept growing after launch.
The shop, kept legible Categories first, then products, with the specification detail an electrician needs and enough plain description for everyone else.
03 — The outcome
A wholesaler that sells retail without confusing either
One site now carries the full range, the trade accounts and the expertise that used to live only in phone calls.
Trade customers order themselves. Retail customers arrive through an application or a design guide already half-sold. The team adds products, articles and promotions without a developer.
Twenty years of lighting knowledge, finally published where buyers can find it.
Ready for a website like this?
Let's build the next one together
Design, build, content and search, handled by one Auckland team.
