Double hierarchy in B2B product catalogs: why one structure isn’t enough?

On the customer-facing side, this results in five different product categories on the front-end:
SK DIN 69871 • MAS-BT • SK DIN2080 • HSK • PSC

At the same time, the internal product management team views these as one unified product type: Tool Holders for CNC Milling. All variations, such as an ER32 collet chuck exist across the five mounting types but are considered technically similar from a product management perspective.

Front-End vs Internal Catalog Structures

• The Front-End Hierarchy is marketing-oriented and hierarchical, reflecting how the catalog is structured for users and search engines.
• The Internal Product Type Reference is flat and non-hierarchical, used by the product team to group items by technical similarity (e.g., all hammers with hammers, all types of screwdrivers with screwdrivers).

Unlike many traditional B2C platforms that offer a single-layer structure, E4B2B allows you to build a complex hierarchy on the front-end without complicating your internal product structure.

• The Front-End Hierarchy is marketing-oriented and hierarchical, reflecting how the catalog is structured for users and search engines.
• The Internal Product Type Reference is flat and non-hierarchical, used by the product team to group items by technical similarity (e.g., all hammers with hammers, all types of screwdrivers with screwdrivers).

Unlike many traditional B2C platforms that offer a single-layer structure, E4B2B allows you to build a complex hierarchy on the front-end without complicating your internal product structure.

Let's take a closer look to the both types:

Front-End Hierarchy (Folders) is built for two main goals:

1. User Experience
This could be a separate article itself - marketing and sales teams often debate for years over the most convenient catalogue structure. Should the website have a minimal number of folders with powerful filters, or highly detailed folders with simplified filtering? There’s no universal answer.

2. SEO
Search engines and language models don’t like empty or content-poor pages. On one hand, you can create a landing page for each specific search query. On the other, this forces you to create unique content for every one of those folders / pages / URLs.

Example: "Short" vs "Deep" Categorization for Tool Holder “HOLDER1”

• Short URL: Catalogue/Toolholder/Product-HOLDER1. Here the product sits in the second level of the hierarchy.
• Deep URL: Catalogue/Toolholders/Milling-t-h/SKDIN69871/ER-collet-chucks/Product-HOLDER1. Here it’s placed in the fifth level.

This article doesn’t argue which approach is better - we leave that decision to our clients.
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Internal Product Type Hierarchy is built for data consistency and compatibility with internal systems like ERP/CRM and others...

It may works as a key back-office differentiator:

• Product Attributes & Site Filters. Attribute types conected to Product Type Hierarchy. The values of each attribute is recorded for the product. By the end user it looks like: customer selects three attributes and narrows their search from hundreds of items to just a few.
• Discount Groups. Assigning a discount to all products within a certain type and brand.
• Pricing & Margin Calculations. Some types of products may fall under different discount structures or margin levels depending on competition.
• Logistics Coefficients & Admin Logic. Type-based rules for packaging, shipping, or lead times.
• Sales and Purchase Reporting. Tracking profitability by product type, not by front-end folder.

Final Thought

We described a common B2B scenario to show you one key point: With E4B2B, you don’t need to adjust your internal systems to match the structure of a client-facing portal.
Instead, we flexibly build your front-end on top of your existing structure - including full integration capabilities.