Bringing back a legacy B2B ecommerce business from the brink of stagnation

From a static legacy website to an innovative ecommerce powerhouse, we tackled Convectronics' challenge head-on. In a world of old-school paper catalogues, we ushered them into the digital age. Our journey began with meticulous data extraction, ensuring precision for engineers seeking their critical heating elements. A tedious yet rewarding migration to Magento, coupled with the magic of Magento Page Builder, revolutionized content creation.

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The Challenge

X2Y had an interesting challenge on our hands; our teams didn't have much to go off on—a static legacy website and a PDF document used to publish a paper catalogue to distribute to vendors and customers. Convectronics was an old-school business; customers would read the paper catalogue, pencil in the specifications, and call up Convectronics to place their order. As you can imagine, it's not a scalable process.

The Brand

Convectronics, a US-based business founded in 1985, is focused on manufacturing custom flameless and tubular heating elements, temperature sensors, thermocouples, and RTDs, along with the software and programming needed to control heating and temperature control processes. These elements are critical components of our everyday life to which we pay little to no attention, but they are responsible for the cars we drive, the heating of our homes, and the cups we use to drink our morning coffee on the way to work.

The Discovery

We've inherited the project from another junior development team who bit off more than they could chew. We ended up picking up the pieces and putting together a roadmap to get the build over the finish line. The whole project spanned from May 2021 to April 2022.

Google Search Console Statistics

Graph labels have been redacted due to sensitive information.

The main challenge was to learn and understand Convectronics' products and the customers. These were not some simple apparel or typical consumer products; the products Convectronics manufactures require an understanding of electrical engineering, manufacturing, and mathematics that you don't typically see in the wild. The typical customer has a degree of understanding in engineering and is looking for precision for their applications.

The Data

Taking the time to understand Convectronics' products and business, we've compiled a list of all pages, resources, and products to begin extraction of technical information from AutoCAD diagrams and PDFs into editable pages. There was no way to automate this process, and attention to detail was critical, as 0.01 and 0.001 make an astronomical difference to an engineer.

To keep things simple, we stood up a production instance in parallel to the legacy production website while we worked behind the scenes, page by page, product by product, bringing the legacy site to modern ecommerce capabilities.

A number of important areas needed to be kept in mind while going through the process:

Did our input data match the data in the PDF catalogue?
Was the information effectively presented across all devices including print?
Are pages Search Engine Optimized, and ADA compliant?

A simple Google Sheet allowed both teams to keep track of each of the critical points for each of the pages and products. In the end, we completed our milestone of migrating all content and products to the Magento platform; a tedious and time-consuming task nonetheless, but it was worth the effort and the finished result.

Page Rerwite & Quality Assurance Sheet

Old URL	New URL	301 Rewrite	In Hierarchy	Matches PDF	Mobile View	Tablet View	Desktop View	Print View	SEO Optimized	ADA Compliant	Ready For UAT
/TechInfo.php	/technical-information
/TechInfo1.php	/operating-instructions-for-flameless-electric-air-heaters
/TechInfo2.php	/air-heater-performance-characteristics
/TechInfo3.php	/air-heater-power-and-flow-graphs
/TechInfo4.php	/electrical-data-connections-and-wiring
/TechInfo5.php	/time-and-temperature-data
/TechInfo6.php	/temperature-conversion-and-element-melting-points
/TechInfo7.php	/properties-of-refractory-and-ceramic-materials
/TechInfo8.php	/refractory-metals-corrosion-resistance-guide
/TechInfo9.php	/tubing-sheath-protection-tube-well-materials-guide
/TechInfo10.php	/rtd-and-thermistor-resistance-vs-temp-table
/TechInfo11.php	/thermocouple-reference-tables-n-i-s-t-c
...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...

The Redesign

One of the challenges Convectronics team faced is the ability to create and manage content. In this case, Magento Page Builder delivered. Instead of focusing on the intricacies of development, wireframes, and mockups, the teams were able to quickly build a new homepage and other content pages through a drag-and-drop grid/row/column approach bypassing the traditional design, development, and delivery lifecycle. This in turn freed up time for us to focus on truly unique, and custom features of business requirements.

Before

After

_{Custom Tools}

The Calculator

One such unique requirement was to build "The Calculator" to help users quickly calculate Ohms, Pressure, Power Flowrate, various resistances, and phase units based on multiple variables of the application.

Standard Flow Rate (SCFM)
Power Flowrate (Used in calculating the electrical power, flow rate or temperature requirement)
Temperature Conversion
Ohms Law
Pressure Conversion
Three Phase Unit
Single Phase Unit
Parallel Resistance (Used in calculating the total resistance in ohms of resistors that are in parallel)
Series Resistance (Used in calculating the resistance in ohms of resistors connected in series)

Each calculator was vetted by multiple Convectronics engineers to make sure it was ready for use. Props to Andrii Cherneha for developing this powerful tool.

You can play around with this calculator on convectronics.com, just look for this icon:

Notable Improvements

There were, of course, other areas that have been drastically improved over the legacy website, such as navigation, search, category pages, quick quoting, dynamic distribution finder, and checkout. Now that Convectronics is on Adobe Commerce, the possibilities are endless, and our focus at X2Y continues to be on improving user experience, feature development, implementation of business requirements, and overall continuing to add value to Convectronics.

The Result

Our dedicated efforts have successfully reinvigorated Convectronics' online presence, positioning the company for growth and innovation. This transformation, marked by technical precision, enhanced user experience, and expanded functionality, represents a remarkable turnaround from the brink of stagnation. Convectronics now stands ready to excel in a competitive market, with a dynamic ecommerce platform that mirrors the precision and excellence of its products.

The team at X2Y has become more than a partner. They are an extension of our company and are committed to helping us grow and thrive on every level. We are two sister companies, both running Magento/Adobe Commerce websites which pull inventory and pricing from our ERP. X2Y has succeeded where past partners have failed, and in doing so, they have saved us an enormous amount of time and money. They are responsive, creative, and thorough, and we benefit tremendously from their input and experience. Collaborating with X2Y means we not only resolve any issues that come up, but we end up with innovative solutions that enable us to provide the best experience for our customers. We could not recommend their services highly enough.

⸻ Patricia Kungie, Everything ecommerce and Marketing - Merrimac Industrial & Convectronics

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Next To Come

Our next task at hand is converting all complex products, such as this Standard RTD Temperature Sensor below, into Configurable Product types to allow users to select an exponential number of variations and configuration options. This will generate unique part numbers and visual schematics based on user input and selected values. This project is a work in progress, and once complete, it will make Convectronics stand out from the competition.

Standard RTD Temperature Sensor Example

Sheath Material	ANSI Type	Junction Type	Part Number
304 ST. STEEL	J	G = Grounded U = Ungrounded	T☐AG☐-☐☐☐
	K
	T
	E

Credits

Credits go out to the X2Y Dev Team, Leslie, and Patti from Convectronics for this collaborative effort to transform the Convectronics.com online presence into an online business. A shout-out to our friends at Trellis.co team for a successful partnership referral.

Summary

Convectronics, a traditional heating element manufacturer, faced a challenging transition from paper catalogs and a static website to a modern ecommerce platform. The project involved meticulous data extraction, careful migration to Magento, and the implementation of Magento Page Builder for efficient content creation. Notable improvements included enhanced navigation, quoting, and dynamic distribution options. The introduction of custom tools, like "The Calculator" added practical value to the user experience. The successful collaboration between the X2Y Dev Team and Convectronics, reinvigorated Convectronics' online presence, positioning them for growth and innovation in the competitive market, with a dynamic ecommerce platform reflecting the precision of their products.