Hydraulic Supply Company
History and Summary of HSC
Since its 1947 founding as Aero Hardware and Supply Inc. HSC has been an innovative leader in bringing fluid power product lines to the market. Initially focused on supplying hardware and tools to the burgeoning airline industry, the company helped popularize such recognizable brand names as Aeroquip and Proto tools. Hydraulic Supply Company now carries more than 100 brands, and employs more than 200 team members in its central office and distribution center, repair and service center and 24 retail locations. They are recognized as a premier distributor in the fluid power industry.
Our Services
- Custom Magento (Adobe Commerce) Design & Development
- Custom Integrations
- Custom Shipping Logic
- Checkout Optimization
- Personalized Location Information & Mapping
The Challenge
To understand the state of HSC’s Magento (Adobe Commerce) site, prior to their contacting InteractOne, we could use an analogy: Let’s say you leased a car. You told your mechanic you needed to be able to drive in the snow and that you frequently take long trips. But, when your car was returned to you, you were surprised to find the front wheels had been replaced with a set of skis and that a massive gas tank now occupied the space where the back seat had been. The car’s inherent flexibility and usability had been compromised by permanent modifications. Further, because of the mods, you will not be able to turn the car in and get an updated vehicle when your lease is up. Similarly, in an attempt to meet HSC’s complex pricing requirements, their Magento (Adobe Commerce) site and integrations had been changed in ways that crippled important functions of the softwares, the integration with Epicor P21 and would not allow for routine updates or upgrades. Customers had difficulty finding products on the site when using particular browsers or device formats. Pages took more than 7 seconds to load, on average. In other words, users had to adapt to the clunky conditions they found on the site, instead of the site being adaptive to all users. This is the specter that is raised when you hear InteractOne talk about “core hacks” or “technical debt”!Our Solution
Understanding HSC’s business, the Epicor Commerce Cloud and the Epicor P21 integration was key to untangling the knots of modified code. InteractOne worked with the client to define the intended functionality of each required feature – where the data originated and how it needed to be used – both by the customer and by HSC. In this way, the customizations could be rebuilt while preserving the full functionality of each moving part (eCommerce, Epicor P21, API and PIM).In this case, the process had to begin with a clean instance of Magento (Adobe Commerce) on the Epicor Commerce Cloud. Complex, real-time pricing required InteractOne to build the means for Magento (Adobe Commerce) to talk to the API in real time as the page loads, using pricing rules pulled dynamically from HSC’s Epicor P21 instance. The net result for the user is a searchable, nearly instant display of grouped product grids – drawing from HSC’s massive 60k-SKU catalog! Integration of the Akeneo PIM was required to enrich the data coming into Magento (Adobe Commerce). InteractOne refactored and extensively reworked the integration code before launching the site. All of this effort goes beyond technical correctness, of course. The improvements in the code translated to vastly improved page-load speed, increased user engagement, cart value and ultimately revenue. Click here to see the completed site.
Drop Us a Line At:
Or, if you prefer an old-fashioned phone call:
Phone (USA): (513) 469-3362
Proudly headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio
