Industrial B2B · manufacturing
Beattys Driveline
A driveline specialist trading since 1963, with a deep technical catalogue organised so engineers can actually find the part they need.
- Role
- Design & front-end build
- Year
- 2024
- Location
- New Zealand
The situation
Beattys have been driveline and driveshaft specialists since 1963. The challenge was structural rather than cosmetic: an extensive range of driveshafts, componentry and services spanning multiple industries, all needing to be navigable by trade customers who know exactly what they're looking for — and by those who don't.
What I did
- 01A structured product architecture across driveshafts, componentry, services and industrial balancing
- 02Industry-based navigation so customers can arrive from their own sector and find relevant products
- 03Technical resources and project examples presented as credibility, not clutter
- 04Prominent 'talk to an expert' routes on every level, because this is a consultative sale
- 05Multi-region support built into the navigation
A closer look
The parts worth showing.
Technical catalogue
Driveshafts organised by industry, not by part number
A marine engineer and a mining buyer need different things from the same catalogue. The range splits by industry first — marine, automotive, heavy transport, mining, agriculture — so a specialist lands in their own world instead of scrolling a generic parts list.
Technical catalogue
Driveshafts organised by industry, not by part number
A marine engineer and a mining buyer need different things from the same catalogue. The range splits by industry first — marine, automotive, heavy transport, mining, agriculture — so a specialist lands in their own world instead of scrolling a generic parts list.
Capability
Service pages that prove the workshop behind the parts
Beattys does dynamic balancing, modification and rebuilding, not just supply. Each capability gets its own page so a procurement manager can verify the company can do the specific job in front of them — the thing that turns a browse into an enquiry.
B2B routing
Every path ends at a technical conversation
In industrial B2B nobody adds a driveshaft to a cart. The site's job is to get a qualified engineer talking to a specialist, so 'talk to an expert' stays reachable from every level of the catalogue rather than sitting on a contact page.
On a phone
Where most of the traffic actually is.
How it went
From first conversation to live.
- 01
Discovery
Sixty years of trading leaves you with a lot of product. The real work here was information architecture, not visual design — mapping how driveshafts, componentry, services and industrial balancing actually relate, and how a customer in agriculture versus mining versus transport would each expect to find their way in.
- 02
Look & feel
For an industrial specialist, credibility comes from looking competent rather than fashionable. We used a restrained palette with a single strong accent, generous space around technical content, and photography of real machining work — the equipment does more for trust than any illustration would.
- 03
Build
Two parallel entry paths were built: browse by product category, or arrive through your own industry and see only what's relevant. A 'talk to an expert' route sits on every level, because at this level of specification most enquiries become a conversation, and the site's job is to start it rather than to close a sale.
- 04
Launch
Launched with the full catalogue structured, multi-region support in place, and technical resources organised so the sales team could point customers at them directly.
- 05
Support
A catalogue this size is never finished — new componentry, new industries, new project examples. The structure was built so additions slot into the existing architecture rather than requiring it to be reworked.
The result
A technical catalogue that stays usable at depth, and puts a specialist conversation one click away from any page.
Notable
- Product architecture spanning four top-level categories
- Parallel navigation by product and by industry served
- Persistent 'talk to an expert' route on every level
- Multi-region support built into the information architecture
- Technical resources and project work as trust signals
Delivered through a New Zealand agency
Let's see what your website could be.
Tell me a bit about your business and I'll show you what's possible — no obligation.
Prefer email? sam@digitalhouse.nz