Do You Make What I Need? Ten Questions a Buyer Settles on Your Product Pages

Every industrial buyer settles one thing before anything else: does this company make what I need? Purchase managers, design engineers and consultants all begin here. If the website does not answer in the buyer's own terms, he never reaches your capacity, your clients or your price. He closes the tab and opens the next supplier.

Ten questions sit under that first one. They come from the 62 questions industrial buyers ask, a list we keep for our work on manufacturers' websites. For each, this article sets out what the buyer is really checking and what a good answer looks like on a product page.

Is this the exact product, in my size and grade?

"Do you make this exact product, in my size and grade?"

He is checking whether you are a maker of his item or a general supplier who might arrange it. The answer he wants is a page for that product, named the way he searches for it, with the size range, grades and standard set out in a table. One line can settle it: "We make C and Z purlins from 1.0 to 3.0 mm, web depth 80 to 300 mm."

The name matters as much as the figures. If buyers call the item a "cable tray" and your page calls it a "cable management solution", neither he nor Google will connect the two.

"What is the largest and smallest you can make?"

He wants to know whether his requirement sits comfortably inside your range or at its edge. Write the limits out: longest length, heaviest casting, widest coil, thinnest wall, largest diameter. A range with its ends stated is far more convincing than "all sizes available", which tells him nothing and sounds like a trader.

"Which standards do you manufacture to?"

He needs to write your product into his specification without asking for a deviation. Name the IS, ASTM, EN or customer standard on each product page, with the grade, and add a line on which standards you can test to in your own plant. A standard named on the page is also a phrase buyers search for.

"What material and coating do you use, and from which source?"

On project work the raw material often has to come from an approved list. State the material grades and, where it is relevant, the mills or approved sources you buy from. If mill test certificates go with each dispatch, say so. It answers a question he would otherwise have to telephone about.

Can I use what is on your page?

"Can you make it to our drawing?"

He is checking whether you take made-to-order work, and what you need from him to quote. Say plainly what custom work you take and what you need: drawing, quantity, material, delivery point. Then give him a quote form that accepts the drawing. A form with no place for the one document that defines the job sends him to a supplier whose form has one.

"Is the figure on your website the same as on your datasheet?"

This is rarely asked aloud. He compares the two, and decides quietly. If the page says one thickness range and the downloadable datasheet says another, he trusts neither. Take the figures for both from the same source sheet, and put a date on the datasheet so he can see it is current.

"Do you have a datasheet I can forward to my consultant?"

Buyers pass products up the line. A short, dated, text-based datasheet for each product or family, one tap from the product page, lets him do that without rewriting your specifications himself. The easier you make it to forward, the further your product travels inside his organisation.

"Do you have CAD or BIM files we can use in our design?"

A designer who can place your product straight into his layout tends to keep it there, and the product stays in the specification. Where it applies, offer DWG or DXF drawings, STEP models for components and equipment, and BIM objects for building products. They should download from the product page and match the current datasheet.

Do you understand my use, and are you really the maker?

"Which of your products suits my application?"

He is checking whether you understand his use and not only your own catalogue. Industry and application pages answer this: which product goes where, and why. So do short guides to real choices, such as which thickness suits a coastal plant. These pages also match the way buyers put questions to Google and to AI assistants.

"What do you actually make, and what do you trade?"

Many firms calling themselves manufacturers are not, and buyers know it. The first heading on the home page should say what you make, and the plant page should show the lines that make it. If you trade some items alongside your own, say which. Buyers respect the candour, and it protects the credibility of the products you do make.

How do manufacturer websites do on these questions?

We read 30 mid-sized Indian manufacturer websites as a buyer would and marked each on 18 points. On 19 of them the first home page heading said what the company makes. 16 gave product specifications as numbers. 11 offered a brochure, catalogue or datasheet to download. Only 2 had a form that let the buyer attach a drawing or file. The full study is here.

So a little over half answer the first question at all, and very few make it possible to send a drawing. A manufacturer who puts sizes, grades and standards on a page for each product, in text, is already ahead of nearly half the field.

Why must the answers be in text?

Because the buyer is not the only reader. Google and AI assistants such as ChatGPT read product pages to decide which suppliers to show or to name, and they read text. Specifications that exist only in a photograph of a brochure, or inside a PDF catalogue, are largely invisible to them. Written on the page, the same figures serve the buyer and bring him to you in the first place.

Where should you start?

Take your three best-selling products. For each, open the page on your phone and go down the ten questions above as if you were the buyer. Wherever the answer lives in a catalogue, in a salesman's head or nowhere, write it onto the page from your own specification sheet. Nothing new has to be invented. The facts exist already, and the work is to put them where a buyer and a search engine can read them.

Questions manufacturers ask about product pages

What should a manufacturer product page contain?

The product named the way buyers search for it, the size range with its limits, grades and standards, material and coating, applications, a dated datasheet to download, and a quote form that accepts a drawing.

Why is one Products page with photographs not enough?

Because it gives no figures. A buyer cannot tell whether you make his size and grade, and neither Google nor an AI assistant has any text to match to his search. Each main product needs a page of its own.

Should I say which items I trade and which I manufacture?

Yes. Buyers often suspect that a so-called manufacturer is a trader. Saying plainly what you make and what you trade protects the credibility of your own products.

Do CAD or BIM files really matter?

Where your product goes into a design, yes. A designer who can place your product directly into his layout tends to keep it in the specification.