Unique Magento theme & migration of a German food delivery service
Our team has developed a unique Magento theme and migrated Little Lunch’s store from Magento 1 to Magento 2, having completely revamped the solution with brand-new functionality to give it a whole different look and feel.
Little Lunch is a well-recognized food delivery service offering a selection of organic soups in
Germany.
One of the industry’s pioneers, the company focuses on bringing in high-quality, nutritious products and
eco-friendly packaging to promote and support healthy and conscious lifestyle and well-being among consumers.
Founded in 2014, the ambitious startup of two brothers, Denis and Daniel Gibisch, hit the german market
with the idea of healthy affordable lunches and soon attracted the first investment of €150,000 from
two investors, including a home shopping queen Judith Williams and a client of ours — Freigeist Venture Capital Fund.
Fast forward just a couple of years, the company grew to almost 20 employees and built a loyal clientele among both
individual customers and retail networks. The sales were increasing exponentially: with over one million organic soups
sold per month, the company outreached to over 10,000 supermarkets across the country.
With their business booming, Little Lunch had come to a stage where upgrading to a
modern, more
advanced
technology foundation was required in order to keep up with the head-spinning expansion and growth.
Implementation of a brand-new design was also put in the pipeline to enhance customers’ perception of the brand
with
a fresh look of the store. Besides, running a Magento 1 installation, Little Lunch wanted to take this opportunity
and
introduce next-gen capabilities along with the migration to Magento 2 to ensure that their buyers enjoy the best
possible experience.
In view of this, the company was looking for Magento developers who would assist them in completing the project within tight timeframes.
Thanks to the previous engagement with the company’s main investor, Freigeist Venture Capital Fund, Staylime has
proved its reputation as a reliable and professional partner. Given a highly positive reference from the fund,
Little Lunch had no doubt on who to entrust the delivery of this mission-critical project with.
Reasonable and sound for any ecommerce business, the key objectives the company pursued on the project were as follows:
Further improvement of brand’s reputation as a highly conscious, well-established organic food provider.
Enhancement of usability and increase of conversion rates with the help of a one‑of‑a‑kind design theme.
Increase of company’s business potential by leveraging the capabilities offered by the latest Magento version and introduction of custom features.
Unique Magento theme implementation
To give the store a distinct look and feel that would make it stand out from competition and further drive
positive customer perception, we delivered a custom Magento theme reflecting Little Lunch’s vision and
values.
However, before that our team faced an unexpected issue that made the development of the new frontend quite
challenging. Having engaged external designers before the migration, the customer shared the mockups they’d prepared
with our development team. However, the quality of the artifacts provided was far from being perfect.
Tailored to the specifics of Magento 1 frontend, the mockups failed to meet Magento 2 guidelines and
requirements and so didn’t fit the new installation at all:
Screens were used instead of objects
The order of layers was completely random
The logo image was partially rasterized
The icons were not sliced and were of different formats
The interface elements were inactive
In view of this, prior to getting the work started, our team analyzed the initial mockups and presented a comprehensive overview to the client outlining the pitfalls and specifics that required their attention. Little Lunch totally took our point, and so we went on through another design iteration together with their team and refined the mockups in accordance with official guidelines.
Using the upgraded mockups, we built a custom Magento theme leveraging the Magento 2 blank theme.
Our choice was evident: a flexible frame with no design, the blank theme acted as a great programming foundation
allowing for a fast and easy way of creating custom themes — so it fit the project needs perfectly.
Magento design was laser-focused on the UI/UX aspects to ensure seamless, engaging
and non‑conventional experience to online visitors.
However, this made the unique Magento theme go beyond the capabilities of the default Magento 2 layout. Thus, our frontend
developers had to give it their best to implement the custom functionality as required.
But it was worth it: we have delivered a robust, highly responsive frontend that embodies Little Lunch’s business concept through signature design, also providing for unparalleled usability and user experience. Upon finalizing the new theme and developing the frontend, we stepped up to the actual data migration to Magento 2.
Related serviceNeed to develop a Magento theme too?
We render the full spectrum of services related to Magento theme development, including the development of a unique theme from scratch, conversion of existing design into a theme, or theme customization.
Although the store’s migration to Magento 2 didn’t assume any difficulties early on and we had been steadily
transferring the data to the new installation, our team came across a serious issue during the
process.
Unintentionally, the customer introduced significant changes to the catalog of the Magento 1 version of the store
as we were working on design implementation. A natural part of any ecommerce business, new products and categories were
added, while some of the existing ones were gone. From a technical perspective, seamless and trouble-free migration
was now at risk.
With that said, just before the release
Staylime now had to resolve a complex task — that is to
migrate a modified catalog again.
It turned up the pressure that the standard Magento migration tool was incapable of handling
the migration of such catalog changes.
To carry out the migration in a proper way, we followed a staged approach and first moved the updated legacy store’s database to a clean Magento 2 installation. Having made sure that all the data was migrated correctly, we started to transfer the newly migrated database to the
implemented Magento 2 store with the frontend already in place.
When transferring the database to the required Magento 2 version, our team had to take care of a whole range of theme
and extension settings. A bunch of issues related to, among other things, product attribute inconsistency and
irrelevant cart rules arose. All of these had to be tuned up manually, and our team had to come up with smart
solutions to all the issues on the list.
As a result, we managed to migrate the store to the new installation successfully preserving the critical data from any damage or loss. Little Lunch highly appreciated the fact that we went the extra mile for the project, having helped them to eliminate the consequences of their actions.
Custom functionality development
When working on the system’s architecture, our team aimed at making the most out of the capabilities provided by the latest version of Magento 2 to deliver a secure and stable solution within a reasonable budget.
However, as per our client’s requirements, we also introduced a set of specific custom-built components
to the new store. Here is what our team produced from scratch:
We developed a custom Magento extension that aggregates customer data
(such as customer id, customer email, total revenue based on complete orders, first purchase
date, and last purchase date) daily. The solution allows to eliminate performance issues when
customer data of 200,000 users is pulled on the fly.
To provide site visitors with valuable content, various recipes are displayed on product
pages. This was made possible by integrating the relevant recipes through CMS blocks.
3 new widgets were added, including a product slider, product labels, and a static
title block.
Customizing Magento Commerce according to existing business requirements.
Based on Magento’s Bundle Product, we built a Combo Pack design wizard allowing buyers to
create and purchase custom multi-product sets.
We integrated Postfiliale and Packstation fields with checkout and customer accounts,
embedding them into all address forms on the site.
To create a flexible and fast checkout that is easy for customers to complete, we leveraged
IWD Checkout and customized it accordingly.
Results
Embarking on Little Lunch’s project we were excited to deliver it yet clearly understood the responsibility on our
shoulders. Our team had to move a successfully running store to a new platform, introduce new functionality and
completely redesign the interface while ensuring that the business keeps on operating without a hitch.
Despite the tricky challenges arising in the course of the project, Staylime managed to address customer’s requirements and expectations in full, having performed a smooth and fault-free migration to Magento 2.
To Little Lunch’s delight, the project was a total success. A new technology foundation together with a unique Magento theme have contributed to key website metrics growth, and helped the business to further expand its influence among customers and partners.
The upgrade has significantly improved site performance and contributed to business growth.
Staylime’s organized approach, transparency, and strategic advice made them a valuable partner.
Volodymyr MarynychevLead Developer, Little Lunch GmbH
In 2018, soon after project delivery, Little Lunch outpaced competitors and scored best in their category in the Top 100 successful brands by Top-Marke.
The remarkable success of the company didn’t go unnoticed with the media: Little Lunch’s founders have been invited to share the story behind Magento migration on Die Höhle der Löwen — a well-known reality show for young startups.
Related serviceConsidering migration?
From automated database migration to functionality redevelopment and manual resolution of compatibility issues, Staylime takes on all the pains associated with upgrade to Magento 2.
