Building a Sophisticated Trade Platform for One of the UK's Leading LED Lighting Manufacturers

TLW Global – A Family Business With Decades of Manufacturing Heritage

TLW Global is one of the UK’s leading manufacturers and suppliers of innovative LED lighting solutions, based in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Established in 1996 and part of a family business with roots stretching back to 1966, TLW has spent decades building a reputation for quality, reliability, and genuine expertise in the lighting industry.

Operating from a 2.5-acre purpose-designed manufacturing and distribution unit in Doncaster, TLW serves the KBB (kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom) sector, commercial environments, and furniture manufacturers – supplying their exclusive VEW and Mark Lighting ranges to trade customers across the UK and internationally. Their current client base includes some of the largest UK and European manufacturers, and their products illuminate market-leading brands on a global basis.

TLW’s business model is built entirely around trade relationships. They don’t sell directly to consumers – they sell to verified trade accounts: kitchen fitters, bathroom installers, furniture manufacturers, commercial contractors, and wholesale distributors who rely on TLW for consistent product quality, competitive trade pricing, and reliable supply.

That trade-focused model is precisely what made the website brief so technically demanding – and so important to get right.

🏭 Est. 1996 Part of a family business since 1966

📦 Thousands Of products inputted and managed

🔐 Gated Pricing Login-only trade pricing throughout

🌍 Global Reach Products illuminating brands worldwide

A Website That Had to Work Completely Differently to a Standard E-Commerce Build

Most e-commerce websites follow a familiar pattern. Products are listed publicly with prices visible to everyone. Any visitor can browse, add to basket, and check out. The more transparent and frictionless, the better.

TLW Global’s requirements were the opposite of that – and for very good reasons.

Pricing is commercially sensitive. TLW’s trade pricing is the backbone of their competitive advantage. Showing trade prices publicly – where retail customers, competitors, and the general public could see them – was simply not an option. Pricing had to be visible only to verified, approved trade account holders who had earned the right to see it.

Not everyone qualifies as a trade customer. TLW doesn’t sell to just anyone. Their trade accounts are businesses – professionals in the lighting, KBB, and construction industries who meet specific criteria. The system needed to support a formal application process where prospective customers could apply for a trade account, have their application reviewed and approved by the TLW team, and only then gain access to trade pricing and purchasing functionality.

VAT treatment had to be handled intelligently. Different customers see pricing differently depending on their VAT status. The system needed to display prices correctly – with and without VAT – based on the customer’s account type, automatically and accurately, without any manual intervention.

The product catalogue was enormous. TLW’s range runs to thousands of individual products across multiple categories, variants, specifications, and ranges. Every one of those products needed to be accurately inputted, categorised, described, and made searchable – a task that required significant time, care, and systematic management to execute properly.

The public-facing site still had to be compelling. While trade customers needed a gated, login-protected pricing environment, the public-facing website still had to do its job – attracting new trade enquiries, communicating TLW’s heritage and expertise, showcasing the product range without revealing pricing, and driving prospective trade customers to apply for an account.

This was not a standard website build. It was a complex, custom-engineered B2B trade platform – and it required a team that understood both the technical requirements and the commercial logic behind them.

A Full B2B Trade Platform - Custom Built From the Ground Up

Website Design & Development

We designed and built the TLW Global website from scratch – a professional, brand-led B2B platform built to serve two distinct audiences simultaneously: the general public and prospective trade customers browsing the range, and verified trade account holders accessing the full gated catalogue and pricing.

The public-facing design communicates TLW’s credentials immediately and compellingly. Decades of manufacturing heritage, a global client base, industry-leading product quality, and the exclusive VEW and Mark Lighting ranges – all presented in a way that builds confidence and drives trade applications from the right kind of businesses.

The overall aesthetic is clean, authoritative, and professional – appropriate for a manufacturer whose clients include some of the largest UK and European furniture and KBB manufacturers in the world. This isn’t a consumer brand selling on emotion. It’s a trade supplier selling on quality, reliability, and expertise – and the design reflects that.

What was built:

Full custom WordPress website from scratch
Public-facing brand and product showcase
Separate authenticated trade environment
Product category architecture across full range
Individual product pages with full specifications
Trade account application and information pages
About, heritage, and credentials pages
KBB, commercial, and sector-specific sections
Contact and trade enquiry pages
Mobile-responsive design throughout
SEO-optimised page structure and metadata

Custom Trade Account Portal

The centrepiece of the entire build was the custom trade account portal – a fully bespoke backend system that managed the complete lifecycle of a TLW trade relationship, from initial application through to verified account access and purchasing.

Trade account application system Prospective trade customers can apply for a TLW trade account directly through the website. The application process collects the business information TLW needs to assess the applicant – company name, trading address, business type, industry sector, and any other qualifying information. Applications are submitted to the TLW team for review and approval before any account access is granted.

This gatekeeping is fundamental to TLW’s business model. Trade pricing is reserved for businesses that genuinely qualify – not for retail customers trying to access wholesale prices, and not for competitors trying to monitor TLW’s pricing. The application and approval system enforces that boundary automatically and professionally.

Account approval and management Once an application is submitted, the TLW team reviews it through the backend admin system. Approved applicants receive confirmation and their account is activated, granting them full access to the trade catalogue and pricing. Rejected or incomplete applications can be managed and communicated through the same system. The entire approval workflow was designed to be manageable by the TLW team without any technical knowledge.

Login-gated pricing throughout Once approved and logged in, trade account holders see a completely different version of the product catalogue to the public – one that includes full trade pricing, VAT-inclusive and VAT-exclusive figures, and the complete purchasing functionality. Before logging in, prices are hidden entirely. A logged-out visitor sees the product range, the specifications, and a clear invitation to apply for a trade account – but no pricing whatsoever.

This architecture protects TLW’s commercial interests completely while still allowing the public-facing site to showcase the full breadth of the product range and drive trade account applications.

What the trade portal included:

Full trade account application form and submission system
Backend admin interface for reviewing and approving applications
Automated approval confirmation and account activation
Login-protected trade pricing environment
Differentiated browsing experience for logged-in vs logged-out users
Account management and profile functionality for trade customers
Order history and account activity tracking
Trade-specific promotions and pricing visibility

VAT Display & Pricing Logic

One of the more technically nuanced elements of the build was the VAT display system – ensuring that prices were shown correctly, automatically, based on the logged-in customer’s account status and VAT registration.

Trade customers in the UK lighting and KBB sector operate across a range of VAT situations. VAT-registered businesses need to see prices both ex-VAT and inc-VAT for their own purchasing and accounting processes. The system needed to handle this cleanly and accurately without requiring TLW’s team to manually manage price displays or maintain separate product entries for different customer types.

We built a pricing logic system that automatically displayed the correct price format – ex-VAT, inc-VAT, or both – based on the customer’s account settings. Every product across the entire catalogue reflected this logic consistently, ensuring that every trade customer always saw the pricing information they needed in the format most useful to them.

What was built:

Automatic VAT-inclusive and VAT-exclusive price display
Account-level VAT status management
Consistent pricing logic applied across all products
Clear price display formatting across the full catalogue
Backend price management that automatically generates both display formats

Full Product Catalogue – Thousands of Products Inputted

The scale of TLW’s product range presented one of the most labour-intensive challenges of the entire project. With thousands of individual products spanning multiple lighting categories, product families, specifications, wattages, colour temperatures, fittings, and variants – building the product catalogue was a significant undertaking in its own right.

Every product needed to be accurately inputted with full product information – name, SKU, category, specification, descriptions, technical data, and imagery – structured consistently across the entire catalogue so that trade customers could browse, filter, and find exactly what they needed quickly and efficiently.

We built the full product catalogue architecture first – establishing the category hierarchy, the product template structure, and the data fields required to represent TLW’s range accurately. Then we systematically inputted thousands of products, ensuring consistency, accuracy, and completeness across the entire catalogue.

This wasn’t just data entry. Getting the product structure right – the categories, the filtering options, the relationships between product families and variants – determines how usable and how effective the catalogue is for trade customers who rely on it to do their jobs. A well-structured catalogue makes ordering fast and easy. A poorly structured one creates friction, errors, and lost sales.

What was delivered:

Full product catalogue architecture and category structure
Individual product pages for thousands of products
Consistent product data templates and fields
Technical specification display for all products
Product imagery management
Search and filter functionality across the full range
Product family and variant relationship management
Backend product management system for ongoing updates

Backend Admin System

Underpinning all of the above was a robust, user-friendly backend admin system – built to allow the TLW team to manage every aspect of the platform without needing technical support for day-to-day operations.

Managing a trade platform of this complexity on an ongoing basis requires a backend that makes the job straightforward. New products need to be added. Prices need to be updated. Trade applications need to be reviewed and approved. Customer accounts need to be managed. Promotions need to be activated and deactivated. None of this should require a developer every time.

We built a clean, logical admin interface that put all of these controls in the hands of the TLW team – with clear workflows for the most common tasks and a structure that made it easy to maintain and grow the platform over time.

Backend capabilities included:

Trade account application review and approval workflow
Customer account management and access control
Product adding, editing, and management
Pricing updates across the full catalogue
Category and catalogue structure management
Order management and history
Site content and page management
Reporting and account activity visibility

Testimonial

We are so happy with our website! The service we have received has been phenomenal. We will definitely be using Validus Media (Now Unavoidable Marketing) again!

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