Manufacturing & Industrial research

Which businesses are included?

• Industrial distributors
• Component and parts manufacturers
• Engineering and MRO suppliers
• Packaging and materials suppliers

What does The Index measure?

Five jobs a customer needs a website to do. Each is scored out of 20, giving a total out of 100. For manufacturing & industrial, the journeys can include:

1. 1. Find the product

   Search and filters that handle part numbers and technical attributes.

2. 2. Choose the right one

   Full specifications, documents and configuration options.

3. 3. See the price and availability

   Prices or a clear route to a quote, with stock or lead-time information.

4. 4. Buy it

   Ordering online or converting a quote into an order on account.

5. 5. Buy again and self-serve

   Repeat orders, order tracking and account documents online.

How is a review carried out?

1. We visit the business's public website as a customer would, on desktop and on a phone.
2. We work through the five jobs using real products from the business's own range.
3. We record what we find with dated screenshots and the pages checked, using four evidence statuses: Detected, Observed, Not found in this review and Not checked.
4. Checkout and logged-in journeys are reviewed only where access is available and authorised.
5. A reviewer checks the findings before anything is published.

What the score means, and what it does not

The Index score describes what a customer can do on a business's public website on the day it was reviewed. Each of the five jobs is scored out of 20, giving a total out of 100, using dated evidence that anyone can check. It does not rate the business, its products, its staff or its service, and it is not a measure of size or sales.

Who uses it

• Manufacturers and distributors benchmarking their websites
• Engineers and procurement teams choosing suppliers

Why this matters for manufacturing & industrial

Industrial buyers need exact information before they commit. Missing specifications or a hidden lead time send them to another supplier or back to email.

How we keep it fair

• Every published review uses the same five jobs, from public evidence that anyone can check.
• Not found in this review means we looked and did not see it on the pages checked. It is not proof that a feature does not exist.
• Recommendations are hypotheses to test, not claims about lost sales.
• Existing iWeb clients are represented through a case study, not a public critique.
• If a detail is wrong, the business can tell us and we will check it.

Key terms

Lead time

How long an item takes to dispatch when it is not held in stock.

Configurable product

A product built to options the customer chooses, such as size or finish.

MRO

Maintenance, repair and operations supplies.

Questions about The Index

Is the Manufacturing & Industrial edition live?

Not yet. It is coming soon. No records, scores or reviews are published for this sector.

What will the Index score measure?

The Index score describes what a customer can do on a business's public website on the day it was reviewed. Each of the five jobs is scored out of 20, giving a total out of 100, using dated evidence that anyone can check. It does not rate the business, its products, its staff or its service, and it is not a measure of size or sales.

• How we review and score
• The Index Awards