Recipe for E-commerce with 3 Million Ingredients

Needs

In the world of e-commerce, what defines a company’s strength often becomes the source of its greatest challenges. For Horeca Parts, the enormous number of SKUs (3 million products) provided customers with an unmatched selection on one hand, but on the other, created a range of technical and usability issues.

• The website was slow, frustrating potential customers.
• The product search engine struggled to handle such a massive database.
• Building a logical category structure, easy for customers to understand, turned out to be a real challenge.
• The lack of a mobile version cut the company off from the growing group of smartphone users.

These problems directly translated into the loss of potential orders – something Horeca Parts could not afford.

Project Challenges

The key challenge in this project was transferring data from one platform to another without losing traffic. Any mistake at this stage could have resulted in losing customers, dropping search rankings, and consequently, a decline in revenue.

Another challenge—surprisingly—was not related to technical issues or system integrations, but rather to understanding the specifics of the hospitality industry.

At first glance, it might seem simple, but once we encountered categories such as combi ovens, percolators, vacuum packers, or spiral mixers, it became clear that we were stepping into unfamiliar territory.

The vast number of categories and products required the implementation of specific functionalities:

• Simplified navigation and product search.
• A new website architecture, introducing a clear division between parts and equipment in menus, search, and filters.
• A more transparent categorization of products.

Additionally, a major challenge was the client’s need to add a massive collection of 3D technical drawings to the system. We had to find a way to efficiently manage this graphics database and present it effectively to users.

Solutions

After carefully analyzing the client’s needs and studying user behavior, we implemented a series of dedicated solutions that transformed the new Horeca Parts website into not only a fast and mobile-optimized platform, but above all an intuitive and user-friendly one.

1. Advanced search engine - the heart of the new system. It allows users to search by parts or equipment and displays related products in the search results. This approach makes it significantly easier for customers to find exactly what they need, even if they don’t know the exact name or part number.

2. Intuitive filters on the homepage - here we introduced a small revolution. Instead of a traditional main banner, we implemented four filters that guide users step by step to the right product. Customers can select the type of part, the type of device, the manufacturer, and finally the device model. In the same view, they can also easily download technical documentation, which is invaluable for industry professionals.

3. Part localization on technical drawing- an innovative feature that makes identifying each component much easier. The first step allows the CMS operator to assign a technical drawing to a specific device. The second step lets customers search within that drawing for the required part and go directly to its product page. This not only streamlines the purchasing process but also minimizes the risk of ordering errors.

4. New layout - we designed simple shapes and strong contrasts, refreshing the brand colors to make them more vibrant and visually appealing. The central visual theme became the nut graphic from the company’s logo – a subtle nod to the brand’s line of business.

5. Mobile version - a fully intuitive mobile version was developed, supporting all custom functionalities. This is crucial in today’s market, where more and more professionals rely on mobile devices, even at work.

6. Product and order data migration - since the old and new platforms differed significantly, we created a dedicated migration tool. This ensured the smooth transfer of both product data (descriptions, prices, photos, attributes, etc.) and transactional data (order history, customer accounts).

7. Integrations - we integrated the Horeca Parts store with its ERP system by developing a custom API. This integration streamlined sales and logistics processes, ensuring full data control and real-time information updates.