It looked like e-commerce.
It ran like procurement.
Construction merchants don't shop — they procure, on credit, against project timelines, in an industry that runs offline and on trust. Designing TruMac using consumer-commerce patterns produced a product that felt familiar and failed operationally.
Familiar on the surface — by design.
The home screen used consumer-commerce patterns — search by HSU code, best-sellers, categories, brands — because adoption in an offline industry requires familiarity. The surface was deliberate. The machinery underneath it was not.
Home · best-sellers, categories, brand discovery
Category · plumbing, brand + size filters, Add+
The cart is where the disguise drops.
Deliver-to pincodes. MRP versus net price. CGST and SGST broken out. Wholesale discount. Express delivery as a procurement choice, not a consumer treat. This is procurement accounting — not a consumer checkout.
My Truck · GST split, wholesale discount, delivery to pincode
Before credit can exist,
trust must be established.
TruMac's onboarding captures the GST document and the shop's photo — verifying the merchant is a real, registered, physical business. This isn't a settings page. It is the front door. Credit doesn't exist without it.
Merchant verification · GST document + shop photo capture
The credit system wasn't a feature.
It was the entire trust relationship.
Verification unlocks credit, and credit is the real product. A merchant sees their limit, allocates how much of a purchase to charge against TruMac credit via a slider, pays the balance, then repays the revolving line. The credit limit isn't a number — it's the platform's expressed judgment of the merchant's trustworthiness, earned through verification.
Credit overview · available limit & repayment
Credit allocation · choose amount via slider · proceed
"The credit limit wasn't a number. It was the platform's expressed judgment of the merchant's trustworthiness — so it belonged before the order, not buried after it."
Referrals that pay back into the trust economy.
Referrals don't pay cash — they pay credits: 1 referral = 100 credits. New merchants enter the same verification-and-credit loop that retains existing ones. Growth and product are the same system.
Refer & Earn · 1 referral = 100 credits · claimed coupon history
From a storefront to a credit relationship.
TruMac shipped as a mobile-native procurement platform combining product discovery, GST and shop verification, embedded credit, repayment, and a credit-based referral economy — bringing trust-based purchasing to an offline construction-materials industry.
Discovery
Verification
Credit
Growth