The Problem

Reagents suppliers in the Life Science markets are essential for enabling researchers at universities, hospitals, and companies to carry out bench research to advance basic science and develop novel diagnostic tests or therapeutic drugs.

The diversity and number of reagents is in the 100s of millions spanning a broad range of product ranges such as antibodies, ELISA kits, buffers, biochemicals, molecular biology, and consumables. It is of paramount importance that suppliers offer an easy-to-navigate, searchable front-end website that allows the end users to find a reagent quickly by using search terms, attribute filters, pricing, and additional information.

The amount of products also necessitates a robust and secure back-end solution that manages all the product data, allows bulk updating of product information and pricing, and facilitates order placing. It is also mandatory to keep customer data secure and safe.

 

Our Solution

TDI has created various front- and back-end solutions that can be adapted for the above purpose. For three clients, installed Magento 2, a powerful and flexible e-commerce platform, which:

• Is a highly functional open-source platform with integrated resources such as discount codes, pricing, import/export functionality, ecommerce capabilities, elastic search, product filters, and customer profiles.
• Offers flexible solutions with a powerful API that integrates with 100s of solutions in shipping, accounting, billing, ecommerce, and marketing.
• Is ideal for suppliers with less than 100k products.

 

TDI has created more bespoke website solutions using:

• Laravel 7+ and Vue.js
• Apache SolR search algorithm
• Bespoke CMS pages with a searchable database

 

The advantages of these solutions compared to Magento are:

• They are highly customisable – no need to follow pre-configured templates.
• The product database can search and hold over 30 million products (which is not possible with Magento 2).
• CMS content can be bespoke to customer requirements.

 

No one solution is better than the other – each has advantages and disadvantages. The strength of TDI is to advise our clients on what is most suitable for them. With the deep background knowledge in the Life Science industry, we are able to highlight dangers, pitfalls, and problems before they occur.