HeartWellMed — Streamlining Product Management for American Medical Supplies Distributor
HeartWell Medical Supplies is a leading national distributor of medical equipment & supplies, physical therapy & rehab supplies, laboratory equipment, mobility equipment, and aids for daily living.
They sell both direct-to-consumer and direct-to-business.
Their mission is to distribute world-class products which focus on innovation, functionality, and value to improve the quality of life for patients and caregivers.
They offer some of the industry’s top brands, like Welch Allyn, Covidien, Roche, Sekisui, Zoll, Cardinal Health, McKesson, Seca, Rice Lake, BD, GE Healthcare, Health-o-Meter, Riester, Quidell, Seimens, and many others.
The client was initially selling medical supplies to primary care centers, Govt. agencies, surgery & dialysis centers, urgent care centers, EMS, hospitals, and consumers via his physical store.
Then the client wanted to expand the reach and hence went online using the Shopify platform.
Shopify platform provides a lot of benefits for those who want to go online or upgrade their existing e-commerce platform. It is one of the best e-commerce platforms.
Webkul also provides Shopify development services to businesses to reach new pinnacles.
eCommerce Healthcare Market in the USA
According to The Business Research Company, the global healthcare e-commerce market size will grow from $309.62 billion in 2022 to $366.94 billion in 2023 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.5%.”
Ken Research Analysis has stated that the North America Healthcare E-Commerce Market is expected to record a positive CAGR of ~15% during the forecast period (2022-2027).
This is due to an increase in technological advancement in healthcare e-commerce coupled with an increase in internet penetration in the healthcare sector.
The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has benefited the healthcare e-commerce industry, notably in 2020, as due to an impromptu lockdown the traditional supply chain of the healthcare industry got disrupted and led to the transformation of the supply chain by implementing digitalization.
How Did Webkul Help to HeartWellMed?
HeartWellMed is a medical supplies company that is a leading national distributor of medical equipment & supplies in Lakewood New Jersey.
They were already using Webkul’s Akeneo Shopify connector to manage their product description and specification using the connector.
Akeneo is a Product Information Management (PIM) system that helps businesses manage and centralize their product data and provides a user-friendly interface for managing product information.
Akeneo allows businesses to easily distribute that information across various sales channels such as e-commerce websites and marketplaces.
The connector helped them by setting up product descriptions and more. Thus they could sync the product data created in Akeneo with their website based on Shopify.
They required a few customizations in the Akeneo Shopify connector which Webkul helped. They also purchased a few more plugins that sufficed their need.
Some of the features that were added to the Akeneo PIM were – Custom CSV import, Amazon S3 Integration.
Apart from that they also used the Auto SKU generator, and custom action rule conditions.
Apart from that, they wanted to migrate their old Akeneo data to the new Akeneo 6. With this requirement, Webkul helped them out with their data migration services.
Product Information Management Via Akeneo
The client was already using Webkul’s Shopify Akeneo Connector plugin to manage product information such as descriptions, images, attributes, etc.
Below find the customizations that the client wanted in the Akeneo Shopify Connector.
Search Category via the search box in Akeneo
The client wanted to search the categories via the available search box in Akeneo.
So, Webkul helped the client to achieve this. Now, the client is able to search the categories via the Akeneo search box as well.
Export the Akeneo category to Shopify tags & Export Dimensions
The client wanted that the category and product types when created should be assigned to Shopify tags.
Webkul helped the client with this requirement. Now, whenever a category is created in Akeneo a tag is assigned to the same. The tag is then visible at the Shopify end after product import.
Thereafter, the client also had a requirement for product dimensions. The dimensions created at Akeneo should be mapped with the Shopify dimension fields.
Webkul helped the client with the same. We allowed the mapping of Akeneo dimensions with the Shopify dimensions.
Export Youtube Links
The client wanted that the YouTube links that were added at the Akeneo end to be reflected at the Shopify end. We helped the client achieve this feature.
Now, whenever the YouTube links are added at the Akeneo PIM end and then when the products are exported to Shopify, the links are visible on the product page at the Shopify end as well.
Product Deleted from Akeneo Gets Deleted from Shopify
There was a requirement from the client wherein the client wanted that when a product is deleted from the Akeneo end it’s deleted from the Shopify end automatically.
Webkul helped with this requirement. Now, the products get deleted from Shopify when deleted from Akeneo.
Export PDF files / Brochures
The client wanted that the pdf files for the products at Akeneo to be exported to Shopify as well.
We helped the client with this requirement. Now, the product pdf files added at Akeneo are visible on the product page at Shopify.
Enable/Disable Export of Product Description
The client required that there be an option at the Akeneo end to allow or disallow the product description to be exported to the Shopify end.
We helped the client with the requirement by providing a yes/no option. Selecting yes will export the product description from Akeneo to Shopify.
Also, selecting a no will not export the product description from Akeneo to the Shopify store as required.
Akeneo Amazon S3 Integration
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) is a cloud-based storage service offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Amazon S3 is designed to provide scalable and durable object storage for a wide range of data types, including images, videos, documents, and data backups.
The client was using the Akeneo Amazon S3 plugin and wanted a few customizations in the same.
The client wanted to export the PDF URL(Amazon S3) from Akeneo to Shopify with Products.
The customization as per the client’s requirement was to be done by making the Akeneo Amazon S3 Module compatible with the Shopify Akeneo connector.
Webkul solved this problem by generating the Amazon S3 URL whenever a product is being saved at the Akeneo end.
After that, when the products are exported from Akeneo to Shopify the product images and PDFs are having the Amazon S3 URL in them.
This saves a lot of server space at the Akeneo and Shopify ends.
Akeneo Custom CSV Export
The client was using Webkul’s Akeneo Custom CSV Export plugin and wanted a slight change in the working of the plugin.
The HeartWellMed client wanted to export the CSV product data from Akeneo to Shopify. But here, the issue was that the CSV file was from 3rd party suppliers.
So, this was to be brought into a standard so that the 3rd party CSV file could be mapped with the Akeneo attributes.
Here, Webkul helped by making the 3rd Part CSV file compatible with the Akeneo Attributes. Now, the client is able to import products into Shopify from Akeneo using the 3rd Part product data CSV file.
Akeneo Old to Akeneo 6.0 Data Migration
Apart from the above customizations and requirements, the HeartWellMed client also wanted data migration services.
Here, the HeartWellMed client required that all the customization and all assets be migrated to the newer version of Akeneo.
So, Webkul helped the client by providing data migration services at an hourly cost.
The assets and the customizations required by the client have been migrated to the new Akeneo 6.0 version seamlessly.
Summarizing It All
HeartWellMed always wanted to provide the best product descriptions for their medical supplies products. That would then be available to their customers.
The Webkul team understood their requirements in a clear manner after the discussions. Thus, Webkul helped them achieve their goal of product information management itself.