Bio-Works have increased their online sales from zero to more than 20.000 euros, just a few months after launching the new Shopify webshop which is integrated with their HubSpot CRM. Now they have the tools they need to create seamless and personalized buying experiences for their customers, while making sure they have a clear overview of all customer data and incoming orders.
About Bio-Works
Bio-Works is a developer and manufacturer of chromatography resins and the company is located in Uppsala, Sweden. These resins are used to purify biological drugs such as vaccines, antibody treatments and peptides.
Bio-Works was founded by four leaders in protein purification back in 2006 with a mission to make important medicines available and accessible to everyone.
Ever since the start the company has grown rapidly and today the company has a team of more than 50 employees, with rich experience within the Swedish life science industry. Commercially, Bio-Works is active in Europe and North America, they have a global sales team with a focus on these specific markets and receive orders mainly within these markets.
Use case: Creating a seamless buyer experience for online customers and reaching a modern global market, by integrating Shopify webshop with HubSpot.
Products: Operations Hub Professional.
In need of a modern solution for buyers
The sales team at Bio-Works have been working with a sales process which requires the customer to be in contact with sales representatives in order to make a purchase, a process which quite is conservative and time consuming.
A few years back, Bio-Works had a webshop solution but from a user experience perspective, it wasn’t a seamless experience since it was obvious that the customers were directed to another platform in the transaction and check-out phase. This solution didn’t meet the expectations and wasn’t a powerful solution to driving online sales.
Investing in a modern solution
Bio-Works decided that they needed to implement a modern solution. A webshop, where their customers can go through the entire buyer’s journey online. Before, they only had their different products listed on the HubSpot website as a product catalog, but without pricing or the option to perform a transaction and check-out.
Commercially, this decision was important because they have a goal to reach the global market in a cost-effective way where they can meet the needs of modern customers who are entering the market themselves, and are used to the buyer’s journey happening online. Even though they have a global sales team in place, they are focused on specific markets and know that there are markets they aren’t reaching effectively.
“Our goal for this project was to have a seamless integration of the webshop experience of our customers in our existing website”.
Jonathan Royce, CEO at Bio-Works.
Choosing the right platforms and partner
Bio-Works were already committed to the HubSpot platform before the start of this project, but they were evaluating different options for the webshop. Given the excellent integration opportunities that exist for a HubSpot - Shopify integration, they decided that Shopify is the best solution for them.
“Our choice of iGoMoon was based on previous experience with the company and the successful implementation of our new website last year.”
Jonathan Royce, CEO at Bio-Works.
Early in the project, the team at iGoMoon team were able to provide Bio-Works with a lot of suggestions on how to improve the user experience in the webshop, which they might have overlooked if they didn’t have a proactive partner.
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Integrating the two systems
To make the integration between HubSpot and Shopify, the iGoMoon team downloaded the Shopify app which is provided by HubSpot as a native integration in their App marketplace. This integration makes the 2-way synchronization of data possible between the systems.
The project contained a few key phases:
- Replacing the product catalog in HubSpot and migrating the content to Shopify
- Implementing Operations Hub Professional and installing the programmable automation
- Developing a new header with a mega-menu for the products section
- Pipeline automation in HubSpot which uses Shopify sales data
The first part of the project was to replace the existing “product catalog” section of Bio-Works’ existing website and migrate the content into the Shopify webshop and also add pricing and the possibility for customers to register and check-out on the site. In addition, the development team at iGoMoon also developed a new header for the HubSpot website with a mega-menu for the products section.
“The team at iGoMoon automated a lot of the content migration, and literally saved us weeks of what we thought was going to be manual labor. This was the biggest challenge of the project, which never turned out to be a problem because we had chosen the right partner.”
Jonathan Royce, CEO at Bio-Works.
Programmable automation for the best user experience
Bio-Works wanted the look and feel of the Shopify platform to be identical to the HubSpot website, so that the visitors wouldn’t notice that they have left HubSpot and been redirected to the Shopify platform. To make this possible, Bio-Works had to upgrade their HubSpot licenses and purchase the Operations Hub Professional license because it includes programmable automation.
The programmable automation enabled the development team at iGoMoon to install their own script in the backend of the HubSpot server and implement it in a scheduled workflow. This workflow is built to synchronize the theme assets (the new header, footer etc.) from the HubSpot platform to the Shopify platform automatically and scheduled daily. Since it is a 2-way synchronization, it doesn’t matter in which platform the update is made, it will update the other platform automatically.
Automated pipeline
iGoMoon also set up automation for the synchronization from Shopify to HubSpot, when an order is placed in Shopify a deal is automatically created in the HubSpot sales pipeline and set to stage “closed won”. It also synchronizes the information about the customers into the CRM, like any form of conversion. This allows Bio-Works to have a real-time overview of all their customer data as well as all their sales numbers.
A seamless customer experience
Now Bio-Works have the needed tools in place, to create the seamless experiences they want for their modern customers. Because the integration is built to synchronize the theme assets from the HubSpot website to the Shopify platform and scheduled daily, customers won’t notice that they have been redirected to another platform in the transaction and check-out phase.
Bio-Works is not an "early adapter" of having a webshop solution in the life-science industry but on the other hand there aren't many competitors with such a modern sales process. This gives them an opportunity to move away from the conservative processes and position themselves as a modern player in the market who are able to meet needs of all potential customers.
Rapid growth in revenue
The integration was launched in June, just before the holidays and only a few months later Bio-Works increased their online sales from zero to more than 20.000 euros. This has all happened without remarkable marketing activities, leaving Bio-Works with huge potential to increase their online sales even more.
A digital buyer’s journey
In addition to having a powerful online sales machine, Bio-Works have also had orders from customers whom they haven’t had any contact with previously. These customers have gone through the buyer’s journey completely on their own in a digital way, which gives Bio-Works the opportunity to reach this segment of customers who prefer not talking to salespeople.
With the integration they can also capture new data about potential buyers since they have an “aband and check-out” feature, which also saves their latest actions in the webshop, such as what they had in the shopping cart and their recently viewed products.
The webshop is designed to only show the price when a potential buyer is logged in to the portal and for some of the products the customers will need to request a quote which requires contact with sales people.
Easy to use tool
Now that they have an online sales tool with an online product catalog Bio-Works have experienced internal benefits of the platform integration as well. It is easy for all team members to make updates about product descriptions etc. without having to wait for an expert to do it. This has become a real efficiency game for the team, according to Jonathan Royce, CEO at Bio-Works.
“We have not only been able to scope the project well in the beginning, and then actually deliver on time and budget. But what’s been even more helpful, is the suggestions the iGoMoon team proactively has come up with and how we can implement them.”
Jonathan Royce, CEO at Bio-Works.
Are you interested in integrating your Shopify platform or another e-commerce system with your HubSpot CRM? Get in touch with our team to learn more about the process!
