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B2BCMarket uses a connected catalog architecture to represent businesses, companies, branches, and products as related public entities.
The catalog is designed so that each major public entity can be independently identified and accessed while remaining connected to its related entities.
The B2BCMarket catalog is the public representation of marketplace entities and their relationships.
Instead of treating every product as an isolated marketplace listing, the catalog provides context around the product.
A product can be connected to a branch, company, and business. Likewise, a branch can expose its products and identify its parent company.
Business
↓
Company
↓
Branch
↓
Product
The catalog architecture follows the B2BCMarket Connected Entity Architecture (BCEA).
BCEA defines how public entities are independently identifiable, independently accessible, and contextually connected.
The catalog therefore represents the same relationships that exist within the marketplace itself.
The four primary public catalog entities are:
A Business represents the broader business context within B2BCMarket.
A Business can contain one or more companies participating in the marketplace.
The Business catalog representation provides:
Each connected company can be reached through its own public catalog URL.
A Company represents a company-level marketplace presence within a Business.
A Company can contain multiple branches and their associated marketplace products.
The Company catalog representation can provide:
A Branch represents a company's branch or operational location.
Branch information provides additional geographic and operational context for marketplace offerings.
A Branch catalog representation can provide:
A Product represents a marketplace offering connected to its business context.
The Product catalog is the most detailed catalog level and can contain information required for product discovery and marketplace participation.
Product information can include:
Products are connected to branches through marketplace assignment.
A product may be available through a particular branch, while another branch of the same company may have a different product assortment.
Branch
↓
Assigned Products
↓
Product
This relationship allows the catalog to represent where a product is actually participating in the marketplace.
A product is not represented only by its product information.
The Product catalog can also identify the Business, Company, and Branch associated with the product.
Product
↓
Branch
↓
Company
↓
Business
Each major catalog entity has its own public identity.
Internal database identifiers are separate from the public identifiers used by the catalog.
Internal Database Identity
↓
Public Identifier
↓
Public Catalog URL
This allows the public catalog to remain understandable and independently accessible without exposing internal database implementation details.
Public catalog URLs provide direct access to individual entities.
The important principle is that a Business, Company, Branch, or Product can be reached directly through its public catalog address.
At the same time, each catalog page provides links to related entities.
The catalog supports hierarchical navigation.
Business
↓
Company
↓
Branch
↓
Product
This allows a visitor to move from a broad business context toward a specific marketplace offering.
The architecture also supports navigation in the opposite direction.
Product
↓
Branch
↓
Company
↓
Business
This is particularly useful when a buyer discovers a product first and then wants to understand the business context behind it.
The B2BCMarket catalog can be understood as a connected graph of public entities.
Business
|
+--- Company
|
+--- Branch
|
+--- Product
The entities remain independently accessible, but their relationships provide context and navigation between them.
B2BCMarket also represents catalog information through machine-readable resources.
These resources can include:
These representations are not intended to create a separate marketplace relationship model.
They represent the same underlying relationships that are available through the public catalog.
B2BCMarket maintains XML representations for the major catalog entities.
Business XML
Company XML
Branch XML
Product XML
These XML resources provide machine-readable representations of the public catalog.
The logical relationship represented by the catalog is:
Business
↓
Companies
↓
Branches
↓
Assigned Products
↓
Products
This relationship is reflected by the public catalog and its machine-readable representations.
The XML catalog is maintained through a change-driven refresh architecture.
Changes to product-to-branch assignments can trigger catalog refresh operations.
BranchAssignedProduct
↓
BranchMappingChange
↓
Catalog XML Refresh
The system determines whether a mapping was added, updated, or removed and refreshes the affected catalog entities accordingly.
A change at the product-to-branch relationship level can affect multiple catalog entities.
Product
↓
Branch
↓
Company
↓
Business
The affected product representation can be created, updated, or removed. Parent representations are then rebuilt from the current database state.
Catalog files are not necessarily created for every database record. Marketplace availability determines whether an entity should be represented in the public catalog.
A Product XML representation exists when the product-to-branch mapping exists and the branch is available.
A Branch XML representation exists when the branch is available and it has at least one assigned marketplace product.
A Company XML representation exists when it has available marketplace branches containing marketplace product mappings.
A Business XML representation exists when it contains at least one company participating through an available marketplace branch.
The catalog is rebuilt from current database state rather than relying only on incremental modifications to existing XML content.
This approach helps ensure that parent catalog representations reflect the current state of their related entities.
Public catalog pages and machine-readable catalog resources can provide structured information that search engines can discover and process.
Human-readable pages provide information for visitors, while XML, sitemaps, JSON-LD, and other machine-readable resources provide additional structured representations for automated systems.
The most important principle is consistency: the machine-readable representation should describe the same public entities and relationships that exist in the B2BCMarket catalog.
Buyers can use the catalog to understand not only what is being offered, but also the business context surrounding the offering.
A buyer can discover a product and then examine its branch, company, and business relationships.
Sellers can establish a connected marketplace presence through their business, companies, branches, and products.
The catalog provides a public representation of those relationships.
Merchants can participate in marketplace opportunities while the underlying marketplace entities remain represented through the same connected catalog architecture.
One of the key architectural principles of B2BCMarket is that different public representations should not invent different relationship structures.
The website, catalog pages, XML resources, sitemaps, JSON-LD, and future public interfaces can all represent the same underlying entity relationships.
Database Relationship Model
↓
Public Catalog
↓
XML Catalog
↓
Sitemaps
↓
JSON-LD / Structured Data
The complete catalog relationship can be summarized as:
Business
↓
Company
↓
Branch
↓
Product
While the hierarchy provides a natural navigation path, the entities remain connected in both directions.
This creates a connected public marketplace rather than a collection of isolated listings.