Wholesaler Integrations for European Trade Contractors: Rexel, Sonepar, Würth and Beyond

Ask a plumber in Brussels, an electrician in Frankfurt, or an HVAC engineer in Stockholm how long it takes to prepare a detailed quote, and the answer is almost always the same: too long. The bottleneck is almost never the labour pricing — most experienced contractors can estimate that quickly — but the materials section, which requires looking up current prices from one or more wholesaler catalogues, checking stock availability, calculating margin, and typing the descriptions into a quote template. For a comprehensive quote on a medium-sized commercial project, this process can take two to four hours. Wholesaler integrations that pull live prices directly into the quoting tool eliminate most of this work, and they are available today for the major pan-European distributors and many national players.

Rexel: Twenty-Four Countries, One Integration

Rexel is one of the world's largest distributors of electrical supplies, operating in twenty-four countries including Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Austria, and others. For electrical contractors who regularly quote for panel installations, cable runs, lighting fit-outs, or EV charging infrastructure, Rexel's product catalogue contains millions of SKUs with real-time pricing tied to the contractor's account and negotiated discount schedule. A QuotCraft integration with Rexel allows the electrician to search for a product by name, EAN code, or Rexel article number directly within the quoting interface, retrieve the current price net of their account discount, and add it to the quote line with their chosen margin. Because the integration pulls from the contractor's own Rexel account, the prices shown are the actual purchase prices — not list prices — which makes the margin calculation accurate. The integration is available across all the countries where Rexel operates and where QuotCraft is deployed.

Sonepar: Forty-Plus Countries Including Eastern Europe

Sonepar is another global electrical wholesale giant, present in more than forty countries, with particularly strong presence in Central and Eastern European markets including Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, and Hungary, in addition to the major Western European markets. For Polish and Czech electricians who may not have access to Rexel in their market, Sonepar's subsidiary brands — Watt+Volt in Greece, EWL in Poland, Häfele in parts of Europe — provide equivalent product catalogue breadth. The Sonepar integration in QuotCraft works on the same principle: the contractor authenticates with their Sonepar account, and live product prices are available for search and import. For contractors operating across multiple countries — a German firm managing projects in Poland, for example — the ability to price materials from different national Sonepar accounts within the same quoting platform is a significant operational efficiency.

Würth: The Tool and Fastener Giant Available Everywhere

Würth is the world's largest specialist dealer in assembly and fastening materials, operating in eighty-plus countries and used by virtually every trade contractor in Europe for fasteners, anchors, cutting tools, safety equipment, sealants, and adhesives. Unlike Rexel and Sonepar, which focus primarily on electrical and plumbing materials, Würth serves all trades — roofers, tilers, carpenters, painters, plumbers, and electricians all use Würth products regularly. The Würth integration in QuotCraft allows any trade contractor to pull Würth products and current account prices into their quotes, covering the fixings, sealants, and consumables that often represent a meaningful portion of the materials cost on a small installation job. Because Würth operates its own dedicated sales force model — most contractors have a named Würth representative — the negotiated account pricing varies by contractor, and the integration respects this by pulling the contractor's specific account prices rather than published list prices.

National Wholesalers: Van Marcke, Technische Unie, Richter+Frenzel, Point.P

Beyond the pan-European giants, the most important product sourcing relationships for many trade contractors are with national or regional wholesalers that offer specialist expertise, local stock, and personal service. In Belgium, Van Marcke is the leading plumbing and HVAC wholesaler, with a catalogue covering everything from boilers to bathroom fixtures. In the Netherlands, Technische Unie is the dominant electrical and technical supplies wholesaler, used by the majority of Dutch electrical contractors. In Germany, Richter+Frenzel (now part of Keuco/Masco) and SHT are major HVAC and plumbing distributors alongside international players. In France, Point.P (part of Saint-Gobain) is the largest building materials distributor, with hundreds of branches across the country serving builders, roofers, and tilers. In Denmark, EL-Salg and Solar serve electrical contractors; in Sweden, Elektroskandia and Ahlsell are the leading electrical distributors. Each of these national wholesalers has its own catalogue structure, product codes, and account pricing, and each is a candidate for integration with a quoting platform that serves that national market.

How Live Pricing Changes the Quoting Process

The operational benefit of live wholesaler pricing is most visible in the time and accuracy dimensions of the quoting process. A Dutch HVAC engineer quoting for a commercial ventilation system that requires forty-seven distinct product lines — from duct sections to fans to mounting brackets — can previously spend three hours checking prices on three different wholesaler websites, cross-referencing product codes, and entering the prices manually into a spreadsheet. With a live integration, the same engineer completes the materials section in under thirty minutes: they search for each product within QuotCraft, which returns the current price from Technische Unie or Sonepar, adds a percentage margin, and the line is complete. Across a business issuing fifty quotes per month, this saving compounds into hundreds of hours per year — hours that can be redirected to additional jobs, client visits, or simply personal time. Pricing accuracy also improves: manual transcription errors, where a price is misread or miskeyed, are eliminated when the price is pulled digitally from the source.

Margin Management and Quote Profitability

Beyond speed, wholesaler integrations give trade contractors much better visibility into the relationship between their material costs and their quote prices. When the purchase price is pulled automatically from the wholesaler account, the contractor can apply a consistent margin percentage across all material lines — or differentiate margins by product category — and see the gross profit on the materials section of each quote before sending it. Over time, this data reveals patterns: which job types have the highest material margin, which products are consistently underpriced because list prices have not been updated in the contractor's template, and which categories of work should be priced more aggressively. For a Belgian electrician whose quoting tool previously contained static material prices updated annually, switching to live prices from Rexel Belgium immediately corrects any price drift that has occurred since the last manual update — a drift that, in periods of materials inflation such as 2021 through 2023, can represent significant margin erosion.

How QuotCraft's Wholesaler Integrations Work in Practice

QuotCraft connects with wholesaler catalogues through a combination of direct API integrations (where the wholesaler provides a commercial API), eProcurement standards (where applicable), and account-authenticated catalogue access. For Rexel, Sonepar, and Würth, the integration is direct API-based, with the contractor linking their wholesaler account credentials once in QuotCraft's settings. For national wholesalers where a direct API is not available, QuotCraft uses EDI or catalogue import mechanisms. Once connected, the contractor accesses wholesaler products through the materials search in the quote builder: they type a product name or code, QuotCraft searches the connected catalogues, and results appear with current account prices. The contractor selects the product, sets their margin, and the line is added to the quote. Product descriptions from the wholesaler catalogue can be used as-is or edited. For contractors who regularly use the same products, a favourites list accelerates repeated quoting. The integration is included in QuotCraft's paid plans, with wholesaler connections available for the markets where QuotCraft operates.