11,000+ Products, No IT Department: How a B2B Label Distributor Runs Spec-Driven Collections with Searchanise
By Stacy
Oct 27 2026
5 min to read
- 11,033products indexed
- 7 yearswith Searchanise
(since 2019) - ~1,000clients in 46 states and 4 countries
- 30 yearsin business
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What changed: Searchanise gave Labelmatch collection-specific filters and site search on Shopify, replacing a setup where every filter change meant calling a developer.
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The outcome: A stable, self-managed storefront for 11,000+ spec-driven B2B products, and a team that says it wouldn't switch even at half the price.
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What you'll learn: How a B2B merchant with exact-spec buyers runs a large catalog without an IT department, and why collection pages matter more than ever.
About Labelmatch
Labelmatch is a distributor of labeling products, focused on on-demand print, and this year it celebrates its 30th anniversary. About 40% of what it sells is stock products. The other 60% is custom work, and the website feeds that side too: with an inside-sales team and no outside reps, it's where prospects call, start a live chat or request a sample.
Labelmatch's roughly 1,000 clients are mostly small and mid-sized manufacturers, many of them suppliers to much larger household-name companies. Last year, they produced enough labels to circle the globe eight times.
Labelmatch's roughly 1,000 clients are mostly small and mid-sized manufacturers, many of them suppliers to much larger household-name companies. Last year, they produced enough labels to circle the globe eight times.
Labelmatch store
The Challenge: B2B buyers don't browse, they match specs
Most e-commerce advice assumes shoppers wander, compare and get inspired. Labelmatch's buyers do none of that.
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“People don't browse for our products. We're that simple barcode label on the side of a box. So generally, when they're coming to our website, they're looking for a product to replace what they already have.”
Matt Villenauve, President, Labelmatch
Matt Villenauve, President, Labelmatch
1. Buyers arrive with exact specifications
Customers are replacing a specific label, and they know its width, length, labels per roll and roll size. Without precise filters, they can’t confirm a match, and a doubtful match means a lost order.
2. A large catalog, run by a very small team
Labelmatch sells 11,000+ products across four families: labels, thermal transfer ribbons, hardware components and laser labels. Each family has its own specs, and the catalog changes constantly.
Customers are replacing a specific label, and they know its width, length, labels per roll and roll size. Without precise filters, they can’t confirm a match, and a doubtful match means a lost order.
2. A large catalog, run by a very small team
Labelmatch sells 11,000+ products across four families: labels, thermal transfer ribbons, hardware components and laser labels. Each family has its own specs, and the catalog changes constantly.
The Solution: collection-specific filters, built once and reused
Searchanise was recommended to Labelmatch by their developer during the move to Shopify, and Labelmatch has used it since launch in 2019. Matt also looked at competitors' websites and tried a couple of other apps in the Shopify App Store. Most were clunky or lacked features, and he preferred to manage fewer apps rather than more.
His must-haves were specific:
His must-haves were specific:
- Search results that look relevant to buyers
- Filters that can differ by collection
- Control over the order of filters and of the values inside them
- The ability to rearrange values by hand, because some numeric specs are stored as text
- Maintenance without programming
Filters on collections powered by Searchanise
The features Labelmatch relies on most
Three Searchanise features do most of the work for Labelmatch’s spec-driven catalog. Here is how the team uses each one and what it changes in practice.
How Labelmatch's setup evolved
Labelmatch's use of Searchanise has been steady rather than flashy: set up carefully, then refined as the business grew. Because every product has many individual specifications, building the filters was the biggest job. Today, Labelmatch keeps a filter template for each product family. For a new collection, Matt copies the template and refines it for the products in that collection.
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“I can do that within five minutes.”
Matt Villenauve, on setting up a new set of collection filters
Matt Villenauve, on setting up a new set of collection filters
Why not Shopify's native collections?
As Shopify rolled out its own collection and filtering tools, Labelmatch looked at whether it could save money and simplify. It quickly pulled the plug.
Two things ruled it out. First, Shopify’s native filters don’t display on collections with more than 5,000 products, a real constraint for a catalog of 11,000+ items. Second, rebuilding customized collections would be a big job, and the setup process felt cumbersome to him.
Two things ruled it out. First, Shopify’s native filters don’t display on collections with more than 5,000 products, a real constraint for a catalog of 11,000+ items. Second, rebuilding customized collections would be a big job, and the setup process felt cumbersome to him.
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“How we set up a new set of filters for a collection within Shopify with your product, I can do that within five minutes… In their case, it almost feels archaic.”
Matt Villenauve, President, Labelmatch
Matt Villenauve, President, Labelmatch
The Results
Independence from developers
Labelmatch now manages its own filters and collections. “It was empowering because with Searchanise we could manage all on our own and manage it simply,” says Matt.
Stability, year after year
Matt says no update has felt like a step backward, and support has been quick on the rare occasions he needed it.
Collection pages that matter more every year
Matt has noticed that SEO and LLMs seem to favor collection pages over individual product pages, which makes the filtered collections Searchanise powers more important than ever.
Labelmatch now manages its own filters and collections. “It was empowering because with Searchanise we could manage all on our own and manage it simply,” says Matt.
Stability, year after year
Matt says no update has felt like a step backward, and support has been quick on the rare occasions he needed it.
Collection pages that matter more every year
Matt has noticed that SEO and LLMs seem to favor collection pages over individual product pages, which makes the filtered collections Searchanise powers more important than ever.
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“If somebody came in and said, ‘we have something that's really similar and it's going to cost you half as much,’ we still wouldn't make the change, just because it wouldn't be worth the risk and the effort.”
Matt Villenauve, President, Labelmatch
Matt Villenauve, President, Labelmatch
Closing thoughts
For a B2B distributor with more than 11,000 products, exacting buyers and no IT department, Searchanise has become the backbone of the storefront: set up carefully once, managed by one person, and quiet enough that Matt says he doesn't think about it much.
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“I don't think about you all that much. And that's a compliment. You're in trouble when you're on the forefront of my brain every day.”
Christian, Owner, LETZ Go Shop
Christian, Owner, LETZ Go Shop
Stacy
Stacy is a content creator at Searchanise. Her professional areas of interest are SaaS solutions and ecommerce. Stacy believes that quality content must be valuable for readers and achieve business goals. When she is not busy writing, which does not happen often, she reads passionately, both fiction and non-fiction literature.
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