WordPress website with a product catalogue

CREATING.LV built a WordPress website with a WooCommerce product catalogue in Latvian and English for the manufacturer Stikla Serviss, and later also rebuilt the company’s separate online store on Laravel 13. The core of the project was a website with a product catalogue: a clear site that presents the company’s glass products and related solutions in a structured way.

Stikla Serviss is a manufacturer of glass products. Before ordering or getting in touch, a manufacturer’s client needs to find a specific product and get its technical data. If this information is only available on request, time is lost on correspondence. That is why the catalogue had to be not just a list of products but also a place to find accurate information about each product.

The website was handed over in 2022. In this project CREATING.LV delivered:

• WordPress website development with an integrated WooCommerce product catalogue;
• a category structure and a filter system for selecting products;
• a product card with a detailed description and downloadable technical information;
• Latvian and English versions;
• entering all products in the catalogue;
• adaptation for use on different devices.

Later we also rebuilt the company’s separate online store e.stikla-serviss.lv, which had originally been built by another developer. This is separate work, described below. The footer of the stikla-serviss.lv website has a CREATING.LV credit.

On the website’s home page, visitors see the glass factory, descriptions of the company’s services and the product categories at a glance. The header has a menu with language selection, and the website also links to the company’s online store. This way someone seeing the company for the first time immediately understands what Stikla Serviss does and can choose their path: learn about the services, go to the catalogue or go to the online store.

The catalogue has a clear structure: products are grouped into defined categories, so visitors can open the product group they need straight away rather than looking through the whole range in order. The category is the first step towards a specific product, and it is understandable even to someone who does not know the company’s offer.

WooCommerce is used here as the basis of the catalogue: it provides a ready structure of products, categories and product attributes, which the company manages in the same WordPress admin environment as the rest of the website content.

To find a specific product faster, a filter system was developed. The visitor chooses a category and uses filters to narrow the choice by the parameters that matter for the product, until only matching products remain in the list.

Filters are useful when one category contains many similar products that differ in technical parameters. Then the client does not have to open each product card to find out whether it fits.

Each product has its own card with a detailed description and the option to download technical information about the product. A potential client or partner can save the technical data and use it in their work without contacting the company just to get documents.

This way both clients and partners get complete and accurate product information in one place — on the website where they also see the rest of the company’s offer. The path to the data is short: choose a category, filter the products, open the card and download the technical information. Each step narrows the choice, so even someone who does not know the company’s products reaches the product they need.

The WooCommerce catalogue works in Latvian and English, so partners who do not speak Latvian can also explore the products. We built both language versions, and visitors switch the language in the header menu.

We entered all the products in the catalogue ourselves, so the company received a ready catalogue with completed product cards rather than an empty structure. After handover, the WordPress website with a product catalogue lets the company add product information itself — add new products, edit descriptions and update data. The catalogue is maintained by the people who know the products best, and no change has to wait for a developer.

The website is adapted for use on different devices. Categories, filters and the product card can be used not only on a desktop but also on a tablet or phone — for example, when technical data is needed outside the office.

The company’s online store e.stikla-serviss.lv is a separate Laravel site originally built by another developer. Its architecture was outdated, so CREATING.LV rebuilt the store from Laravel 5 and PHP 7.4 to Laravel 13 and PHP 8.5, keeping all integrations and payment methods.

As a result, the company has two linked sites with different jobs: the WordPress website with the catalogue informs about products and provides technical data, while the Laravel online store handles purchases. Visitors go from the website to the store via a link.

A rebuild like this is relevant when an online store works but is based on versions for which the developers no longer provide security updates. On an outdated base it is harder to maintain the store securely and add new features. Because the existing integrations and payment methods were kept, buyers have the same payment options after the rebuild as before.

When to choose WooCommerce and when Laravel, we compare in the article WooCommerce or Laravel.

A website with a product catalogue suits a manufacturer or distributor whose clients need to find a specific product and its technical data before ordering or getting in touch — for example, a supplier of building materials, equipment or other technical products.

A catalogue is a good fit if the website’s main job is to show products and provide their technical information, while sales happen through individual quotes, through partners or in a separate store — as for Stikla Serviss. How we plan a site like this is explained on the page website development for businesses. If an existing online store is built on an outdated Laravel version, it can be rebuilt without losing its integrations and payment methods — more on the page online store development.

• Website development
• Online store development

stikla-serviss.lv

This portfolio entry reflects the solution as delivered at handover. The current website may have changed.