Achieving a vision for the future of natural health

Headquarters: Sheffield, United Kingdom
Technology stack: Shopify, React, Next.js, Vercel

Functional Nutrition (opens in a new window), founded in 2007 by David Brassey, aims to help people live healthier and longer lives using natural healing methods. However, the pandemic and Brexit negatively affected their business. As a result, their clients faced higher costs and shipping difficulties. Due to this, Functional Nutrition decided to move to the Netherlands. The next step was to upgrade their B2C platform - Supplement Hub. It had to offer more payment options, flexibility, and multilingual availability to accommodate the changing market.

Story of AMS (opens in a new window) used Storyblok to create a specialized system for Functional Nutrition. The agency used the CMS to update the company's storefront with desired payment options and multilingual features. The change was also beneficial for content creators. They finally got the possibility to flexibly update and change the content at a moment's notice. Overall, the changes made to Functional Nutrition's platform turned out to be a remarkable success. The new website got a 92% in best practices, an impressive 85% in page accessibility, and a high 92% score on the SEO ratio.

Functional Nutrition’s B2C platform rebranding challenges

Functional Nutrition began as Amrita Nutrition. Initially, it was a platform for professionals, practitioners, and their clients. But, they noticed that there was a lot of interest from consumers. To get clients to buy their products, they created Supplement Hub as their B2C solution. It was launched as a copy of their current platform with a Shopify template and Shopify Plus.The company faced a couple of challenges:

• Functional Nutrition was unsure if they should stick with Shopify (opens in a new window) or try other options like Magento. They wanted to find a tool to expand their online store's features.
• The company needed a solution that was easy to use and could adapt to their project needs.
• The previous platform lacked the ability to support local payments and multiple currencies. Additionally, it didn't offer multilingual features. This was blocking the company's international expansion.

Storyblok contributing to the B2C eCommerce expansion

• Story of AMS suggested using a modern tech stack while integrating Shopify (opens in a new window) as the main tool.
• The agency created a system that can adapt to Functional Nutrition's technological needs. At the same time, it offered the flexibility of managing content for marketers (opens in a new window). The agency implemented Next.js and React.js as a frontend, hosting all the data on Vercel.
• With Storyblok's API functionalities, it was possible to rebuild the platform's storefront. It provided the company with the payment and currency options they needed. Also, they could implement multiple language features.
• Functional Nutrition's team enjoyed Storyblok's Visual Editor and its functionality. Its live preview gave them complete control over content creation workflows. Moreover, it streamlined the UX building process.
• The company was delighted with Storyblok's easy-to-use and intuitive nature. Story of AMS provided them with simple instructions on how to use the CMS. The team learned how to add images, populate their store, and work on translations. The ease with which their people learned to use Storyblok proved that their initial fears and hesitations weren't obstacles at all.

Functional Nutrition’s journey towards their vision

Story of AMS used an agile approach to give Functional Nutrition's B2C platform a new look. They designed the UX based on the client's feedback and used Figma to show the UI layer. After the design approval, they developed and tested the platform with the client. Functional Nutrition handed the reins to Story of AMS back in August 2021. Back then, they committed to a launch in the first week of December of the same year. Not only did Supplement Hub go live in the first week of December 2021, but they've already managed to localize 4 storefronts and add payment methods. Moreover, they've also launched their UK version of Supplement Hub, which serves as the main hub for their clients in the United Kingdom. They also opened an office in Taipei to service the Asia Pacific market. The company will go live with the Asian storefront (opens in a new window), which already has traditional Chinese and English versions with more languages to add. Today, the platform operates in 8 languages in total.

Shaping the future of natural health

Integrating the main page of Functional Nutrition with its online store was an exciting challenge. To achieve this goal, Story of AMS had to find the main problems and plan a digital strategy. The agency also wanted to pick the best solution to make the platform flexible, reliable, and fast. Storyblok helped Functional Nutrition create an online store that worked well with their website. As a result, the platform has all the features the company desired. Some of them are payment options, different languages, and easy content changes. Storyblok was the best partner for Functional Nutrition's developers and marketers. They are now ready to further revolutionize the world of natural health.