Naturbutikken

The Challenge

Naturbutikken undertook a significant project to modernize its online presence by redesigning its webshop and migrating from a Magento platform to a WordPress & WooCommerce solution. A critical aspect of this project was the integration with Microsoft Dynamics Business Central, aimed at enhancing business operations and customer experience. Additionally, maintaining Naturbutikken’s high SEO ranking — a legacy from being one of the first webshops in the world — was a key challenge addressed during the migration.

Approach

To address these challenges, a strategic approach was developed, focusing on careful planning and execution across various aspects of the project.

1. Data Migration: A detailed migration strategy was developed to transition from Magento to WordPress & WooCommerce. This included data extraction, transformation, and loading processes, along with thorough testing to avoid losing any information
2. SEO Strategy: A SEO audit was made in order to get an overview of the URL mapping, necessary 301 redirects, and metadata migration to ensure that search engine rankings were maintained throughout the transition.
3. Custom Checkout: The entire checkout process was custom-made to ensure it was highly intuitive, offering customers a smooth and straightforward purchasing experience, including a custom shipping process that dynamically calculates taxes for multiple countries (Faroe Islands, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Greenland).
4. Avanced Features Integration: To enhance the site’s search and product recommendations, HelloRetail was incorporated. Additionally, a pickup shop system was integrated via the GLS API, a member login feature was added to offer discount prices, and EmbedSocial was used to display reviews from Google and Facebook, as well as to integrate Instagram feeds.
5. Integration with Business Central: To tackle the challenge of real-time data synchronization, we built a custom integration system that sits between the webshop and Microsoft Dynamics Business Central. This middleware ensures accurate inventory management and order processing by facilitating seamless data flow between the two systems.

Technical Details

• Migration Tools and Techniques: We developed a custom Python script that scrapped the content of the old web pages so we can carefully migrate SEO metadata, titles, product content, images … etc into the new WordPress solution.
• Custom Checkout: This involved implementing custom logic and modifying the default WooCommerce templates (using PHP and JavaScript), and dynamically apply tax rates based on customer shipping location. Additionally the checkout was designed to be intuitive and user-friendly, reducing friction in the purchasing journey.
• API Integration: A custom middleware was developed to integrate Microsoft Dynamics Business Central with WooCommerce for real-time data and bi-directional synchronization. EmbedSocial API was also integrated to enhance major social media platforms and the client’s review sites. And lastly, the GLS API was integrated to allow customers to select pickup locations with an intuitive user interface for pick-up shop selection.

Results

Naturbutikken’s revamped webshop is now more efficient, user-friendly, and equipped with advanced features to support future growth. The project successfully addressed the challenges and delivered a modern, seamless online shopping experience for customers.

See the website

**Disclaimer**: This project is owned by the digital agency Twentyfour. I, Alberto Dorta, served as the lead developer.