Rift Systems
Rift Systems distributes seismic and geotechnical monitoring instruments across the US and Canada. We replaced their basic Wix site with a WordPress catalogue, advanced filtering and an RFQ wizard built for engineers.
Replaced a basic Wix site with a scalable WordPress catalogue and RFQ system, launching with 50 products and an architecture that has since grown to five manufacturer brands.
What we were solving
Rift Systems is a specialist distributor of seismic, geotechnical and structural health monitoring instrumentation, founded to fix a specific problem: North American engineers faced long lead times ordering this equipment from overseas manufacturers. With local stock in California, Rift Systems bridges global brands (Güralp, Worldsensing and Sanlien at project start) and buyers across the US and Canada.
Their basic Wix site could not carry that pitch. The buyers Rift Systems serves (engineers, procurement specialists, project managers and government infrastructure operators) judge a supplier by whether they can find a specific instrument, read its datasheet and request a quote with technical specifications attached. The site also had to support growth from three manufacturer brands to five or more without a developer touching it each time.
Success meant a credible B2B presence, qualified quote requests through a clear RFQ system, and a catalogue the team could manage themselves.
How we tackled it
A catalogue structured the way engineers search
We built the platform on WordPress with Advanced Custom Fields and FacetWP, with custom post types for products, brands, applications, resources and case studies. Products sit in categories that mirror how buyers think (seismic solutions, wireless nodes and gateways, geotechnical and SHM sensors), cross-referenced by application, from earthquake early warning to dams, tunnels, bridges and rail. Filtering narrows 50-plus products to the one instrument an engineer needs, and datasheets download from the site rather than sending buyers off to manufacturer websites. Because product data lived in spreadsheets, we built a CSV upload so the team adds or updates products in bulk, without a developer.
An RFQ system that captures specifications, not just contact details
A generic contact form wastes a technical buyer's intent. We configured a floating RFQ wizard in Gravity Forms with conditional logic: product category selection, technical specification capture and automated routing to the sales team. Rift Systems asked for fewer steps than the examples we reviewed together, so we cut the wizard back to the fields sales needs to produce a quote.
Clean, cool and nothing that looks like a disaster
The design direction was what the client called "California freshness": cool tones, no disaster imagery (no collapsing buildings, no excessive red) and none of the generic reseller look. Trust signals (manufacturer partnerships, certifications) run from homepage to product detail to quote request, so a buyer who lands on a single product page still sees who stands behind the stock.
What we delivered
Rift Systems now presents as the specialist it is: a searchable catalogue of seismic instruments, geotechnical and SHM sensors, wireless nodes and gateways, data management software and NDT equipment, with local stock in Irvine and fast US delivery front and centre. The expandable brand architecture is doing its job. The site today carries five manufacturers, up from the three the project started with, and product additions happen by CSV upload, not developer request.
What we learned
Distributor websites live or die on findability. If a buyer cannot filter down to the right instrument in a few clicks, the local-stock advantage never lands. Category structure deserves as much strategy time as visual design, and it needs the client's product knowledge. Rift Systems did their own categorisation before design began.
Build for the roadmap, not the launch list. Fifty products and three brands was Phase 1. The custom post type architecture and CSV workflow cost little extra, and brands four and five slotted in without a rebuild.
Impact & outcomes
Google Search impressions in nine months, climbing month on month
