A colorful digital illustration of neurons and viruses, featuring blue, purple, and orange elements

Universal Biologicals

Universal Biologicals needed a Magento 2 upgrade that combined both design and functionality. We delivered bespoke templates, custom migration and advanced import tools.

Client Link

universalbiologicals.com

Services Used

KEY RESULTS.

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Increase in Homepage desktop performance

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Increase in PLP mobile performance

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Increase in PDP mobile performance

BACKGROUND.

Strengthening operations with a Magento 2 upgrade.

Universal Biologicals, previously operating on Magento 1, required a migration to Magento 2. This upgrade was required to enhance security, introduce modern functionality, and better support the marketing and distribution of high-quality, innovative research biochemicals and labware to the European Life Science Research Market.

The project also aimed to strengthen their scientific supply operations and streamline ecommerce workflows, leveraging the Hyvä theme to deliver a flexible, modern frontend and enable advanced product management across their large and diverse catalogue.

BRIEF.

An upgraded Magento 2 website created to secure scalability, simplify operational workflows and elevate the user journey.

The core brief for this Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration centred on creating a scalable, visually engaging platform equipped with powerful administrative features and advanced data migration capabilities. Key objectives included ensuring the seamless transfer of extensive product and customer data, developing custom import tools to support grouped product management.

These requirements would enhance layered navigation and category filtration, delivering reliable order processing to improve the overall customer experience. Additionally, modular theme adjustments were implemented to align the platform with Universal Biologicals branding.

Laptop on a desk with a colorful website for Universal Biologicals following a Magento to Hyvä migration

HOW WE HELPED.

A design process built around workshops, bespoke Magento templates and Hyvä theme enhancements for a modern user experience.

Bespoke Magento templates

We worked with Universal Biologicals to define their requirements for the site, focusing on both design and custom import functionality.

In particular, we developed a system that enables the upload of supplier pricing lists and data sheets, automatically updating the product catalogue at scheduled intervals. This ensures that product information remains accurate and consistently reflects the latest specifications.

Bespoke Magento templates

During the design stage, we began with a workshop to capture Universal Biologicals frontend requirements, exploring the functionality and layouts they preferred as well as reference sites from within their industry. From this, we created bespoke designs for the homepage, category page (PLP), and product page (PDP), going through several iterations to refine the look and feel. The final designs drew inspiration from their previous site while introducing modernised elements provided with the Hyvä theme to deliver a cleaner, more engaging user experience.

Custom data migration

A key part of the project was the bespoke import of product and collection data. This required tailored data mapping to ensure product attributes and collections were transferred cleanly.

Third-party integrations with Magento

Universal Biologicals required the ability to import several different formats of grouped product data into the Magento 2 site. Each supplier provides their data in different formats. From this data products need to be imported into Magento, which would also include the generation of products that would list the imported products from the supplier in groups on the frontend.

Their previous Magento 1 website used a heavily customised PHP application based on a Magento 1 product importer application module, which was accessible through a separate portal that allowed the client to upload their data to and trigger imports.