E-Commerce Platform Redesign Magento Enterprise Edition (alias Fleurance Nature)
Full redesign of fleurancenature.fr on Magento Enterprise Edition - multi-site architecture with 60 custom modules across 3 websites.
Custom Modules
60+
Magento custom modules
PHP Files
1040
Modified or created
Websites
3
FR, International, Mincifine
Environments
8
From local to production
Presentation
Project scope and business context
Fleurance Nature is a French company founded in 1972, specialized in natural and organic products (health, beauty, food supplements). The company sold through its website fleurancenature.fr, running on Magento Enterprise Edition 1.10.
The project was a full redesign of the e-commerce platform, carried out at Smile (Open Source Solutions agency). The scope covered 3 websites (Fleurance Nature France, International, Mincifine) and an overhaul of ERP data flows.
The existing codebase was heavily customized with 60 Magento modules, 1040 PHP files, and complex pricing rules involving 4 customer groups across 3 storefronts. The B2C business model targeted consumers looking for natural health and beauty products.
A significant part of the work involved Magento's EAV (Entity-Attribute-Value) database architecture - a schema design where product attributes were stored as rows in separate tables rather than columns in a single table. This approach gave maximum flexibility for adding custom product attributes (like "natural actives", "min/max weight", "virtual category identifiers") without altering the database schema. The trade-off was query complexity: a simple product read can require JOINs across 6+ tables (one per attribute type: varchar, int, decimal, text, datetime, and the main entity table).
Magento's XML configuration and class override system let the 60 custom modules rewrite core behavior (models, blocks, controllers, helpers) without changing a single line of core code, through XML declarations merged at bootstrap.
B2C e-commerce - natural and organic products (health, beauty, food supplements)
End consumers (France and international) purchasing natural products online. Back-office users managing catalog, orders, and promotions.
- Autocomplete search and faceted navigation with ElasticSearch
- Mobile-responsive redesign and international storefront with localized pricing
- Complex pricing rules (4 customer groups x 3 websites)
- ERP bidirectional data flows
Objectives, Context & Key Considerations
Strategic goals and constraints
- Redesign the front-end and back-office of 3 Magento websites with a modern responsive theme
- Migrate the search engine from Solr to ElasticSearch with autocomplete and faceted navigation
- Integrate the WordPress blog into Magento via RSS feed synchronization
- Overhaul the ERP data flows for product catalog, stock, and order synchronization
- Set up the marketing platform integration (tracking, emailing, analytics)
The platform ran on Magento Enterprise Edition 1.10, the state of the art for enterprise e-commerce at the start of the project. The codebase had accumulated 60 custom modules over the years, a natural reflection of a platform actively maintained in production.
Pricing was particularly complex: 4 customer groups (anonymous, general, loyalty subscribers, company committees) each had different price catalogs across 3 websites. This created a matrix of 12 pricing combinations, each with its own set of rules and promotions.
The specifications went through 7 versions over 2 months (from v1.0 at 30 pages to v1.6 at 50 pages), reflecting the progressive discovery of edge cases and business rules encapsulated in the existing code.
Backward Compatibility
60 accumulated custom modules: each change required regression testing across all 3 websites.
Performance Thresholds
Live production site: no performance degradation tolerated, Varnish caching operational throughout.
WordPress Blog Integration via RSS
RSS feed parsing, consistent with 2008-2014 integration practices before REST APIs and headless CMS. 512 articles to migrate without data loss.
ERP Data Volumetry
Full catalog synchronization: any error could corrupt product data, prices or stock levels across all 3 storefronts.
Implementation Phases
Chronological breakdown over 13 months
- I reverse-engineered the existing ERP flows and redesigned the bidirectional sync (products, stock, orders, customers)
- On the martech side, I integrated the marketing platform with its tracking pixels and email triggers
- To make deployments safer, I set up automated tests to validate the flows before any production release
- I produced the wireframes and responsive layouts (mobile, tablet, desktop) for all the key pages
- On the design side, I drove the iterative validation of visual mockups with the client
- To frame the design teams, I wrote the graphic specifications for the 3 distinct website themes
- I wrote and iterated the detailed functional specifications (7 versions, 30 to 50 pages)
- On the search side, I drove the migration from Solr to ElasticSearch (autocomplete, facets, virtual categories)
- On the content side, I integrated the WordPress blog via RSS and shipped the responsive front-end theme across the 3 storefronts
- I ran the internal Smile testing and then coordinated the client acceptance cycle up to the formal PV sign-off
- To migrate the content, I drove the contribution phase: transfer of 512 blog articles and product data
- On the release side, I coordinated the production deployment across 8 environments
- I provided the post-launch support throughout the 58-day warranty period
- On the operations side, I monitored ElasticSearch indexing stability and shipped the production fixes
- To secure the handover, I transferred the documentation and maintenance procedures to the TMA team
The Team & Stakeholders
Who I interacted with directly and how I collaborated
I operated inside a structured agency workflow with formal validation gates. Every deliverable went through a signed acceptance document (PV - proces-verbal) before moving to the next phase - an approach that reduced ambiguity but lengthened every iteration cycle.
Day to day, I held weekly progress meetings, used a shared ticketing system, and took part in formal specification reviews. On the client side, I relied on a dedicated project contact (Philippe B.) who centralized all business decisions.
Smile team - my day-to-day teammates
- •Nicolas C. - Project Manager with whom I framed planning, client relationship and budget tracking
- •Richard B. - Specification Author with whom I co-wrote the functional analysis, the requirement gathering and the specs
- •José DA COSTA - My role - Senior Software Engineer: I drove the Magento development, the ElasticSearch migration and module customization
External stakeholders I interacted with
- •Philippe B. - client project contact at Fleurance Nature, with whom I framed business decisions throughout the project
- •I collaborated with the marketing platform provider for tracking and emailing
- •On the ERP side, I coordinated with the vendor on product catalog and order synchronization
- •For specific integrations, I worked with Ideematic as an external partner
I operated inside a formal validation frame: at each phase I secured a signed PV (proces-verbal), I had the specifications reviewed and approved before development, and I obtained written client acceptance before any production deployment.
Results
Skills acquired and deliverables
- ElasticSearch search engine with autocomplete and faceted navigation across 3 websites
- Complete responsive redesign of fleurancenature.fr, international, and Mincifine storefronts
- Overhauled ERP bidirectional data flows (products, stock, orders, customers)
- Marketing platform integration (tracking, emailing, analytics)
- Mobile-responsive theme with international storefront support
- WordPress blog migration (512 articles) integrated into Magento via RSS
- I consolidated my mastery of the Magento EAV architecture (6+ tables per attribute, optimized queries, custom attributes)
- On Magento XML class overrides, I learned to ship rewrites in config.xml without touching core and to debug merged configs
- On the search side, I gained hands-on ElasticSearch experience (indexing, mapping, queries, autocomplete, facets)
- I got a grip on e-commerce pricing complexity (multi-group, multi-website, catalog and cart rules)
- This project changed the way I work: it embedded the agency workflow (formal specs, PV sign-off, warranty periods) into my practice, and I have replayed it on every engagement since
- On the writing side, I leveled up on specification writing (7 versions, 50 pages of functional requirements)
- On the release side, I sharpened my multi-environment deployment management (8 environments from local to production)
The Project Aftermath
What happened after delivery
The redesigned site went live and continued serving Fleurance Nature customers in production. The ElasticSearch migration improved search relevance and autocomplete response times compared to the previous Solr setup.
Magento 1 reached its official end-of-life in June 2020. Adobe (which acquired Magento in 2018) stopped providing security patches - part of the natural technology lifecycle, leading the Magento 1 community to plan a migration to Magento 2 or an alternative platform.
Retrospective Analysis
With hindsight, how I judge this project
- •Specification Quality - With hindsight, I stand behind the effort on the 7 spec versions (30 to 50 pages): that upfront work let me catch most edge cases early and limit surprises during acceptance.
- •Backward Compatibility Approach - I championed a methodical preservation across the 60 modules: production stayed stable throughout the migration, with no major regression hitting end users.
- •Structured Deployment Pipeline - I now measure the value of the 8-environment pipeline with formal validation I put in place: issues were caught early, in integration or preprod.
- •Magento 1 in 2017 - I picked Magento 1, the proven state of the art for high-traffic enterprise e-commerce at the time. Magento 2 still carried stability risks - with hindsight, betting on proven reliability reflected the constraints of the moment.
- •WordPress Blog Integration via RSS - I chose an RSS integration, consistent with 2008-2014 practices before REST APIs and headless CMS became standard. The 512 articles were migrated successfully.
- •Faithful Reproduction of the Pricing Matrix - I decided to reproduce the 12 combinations rather than simplify them: a pragmatic call that I would make again to preserve business continuity during the redesign.
- •I take away that well-written specs massively reduce surprises during development - the 7-version process I held proved its worth.
- •I measured that backward compatibility multiplies complexity exponentially - testing coverage grows quadratically with the number of preserved modules.
- •I learned that e-commerce pricing is far more complex than any initial briefing suggests - hidden rules surface during implementation, and I now hunt for them starting from the framing phase.
Related journey
Professional experience linked to this achievement
Skills applied
Technical and soft skills applied
Hard Skills
Software & System Architecture
Multi-site architecture (3 storefronts), Solr to ElasticSearch migration with faceted search, ERP bidirectional flows redesign, 8-environment deployment topology, Magento XML rewrites pattern, MVC, Observer and Strategy patterns applied across 60+ modules without touching core code
Fullstack Development
60 custom Magento modules (1,040 PHP files), responsive theme across 3 storefronts, end-to-end ownership of backend + frontend
DevOps, Cloud & Production Industrialization
8-environment deployment pipeline (local to production) with Git tags, delta scripts, SCP transfer and Varnish cache preservation during live migration. Internal Smile testing + client acceptance testing (recette client) with formal PV sign-off, regression testing across 3 sites for each change
Data, AI & Machine Learning
Magento EAV schema (6+ tables per product), MySQL, 4 customer groups x 3 websites pricing matrix (12 combinations with catalog + cart rules)
Soft Skills
Problem Solving & Adaptability
Led solo a project scoped for a team, backported ElasticSearch to unsupported Magento EE 1.10 via autoloader rewrites, 7 spec iterations to uncover hidden business rules, Mastered ElasticSearch indexation and autocomplete on a Magento 1 context plus the 4x3 pricing complexity at Smile agency
Pedagogy & Communication & Collaboration
Weekly progress meetings, iterative client reviews across 7 spec versions (30 to 50 pages), coordination with Smile PM, spec author, client PO and external providers
SEO & Growth Hacking
Image gallery
Project screenshots and visuals
Need to evolve a Magento platform?
I delivered many Magento projects, both Enterprise Edition and Community Edition, for enterprise clients (Fleurance Nature, Bricorama, GIFI, Cultura): multi-site redesigns, custom module development, advanced EAV architectures, ElasticSearch search engine migrations, bidirectional ERP flows and multi-environment deployment pipelines. Let's talk about your context.
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