An electronic commerce system includes one or more seller databases that store product data for one or more products. The system further includes a seller selection interface operable to receive seller requirements from a user and generate one or more custom global content directories based on the seller requirements. The custom global content directories include a plurality of product classes organized in a hierarchy with the product classes categorizing a number of products from sellers satisfying the seller requirements and associated with attributes of the products categorized in the product class. At least one of the product classes has associated pointers that identify the one or more of the seller databases. The system further includes a search interface that communicates a search query to the seller databases for product data.