Helmer Scientific
A digital platform matching the precision of their medical-grade refrigeration equipment — built for the way hospital procurement teams actually buy.
The Challenge
Helmer Scientific is an FDA GMP and ISO 13485 compliant manufacturer of medical-grade cold storage solutions — blood bank refrigerators, plasma freezers, platelet storage systems, ultra-low temperature freezers, and pharmacy vaccine refrigerators — trusted by hospitals, blood centers, laboratories, and research facilities in over 125 countries.
Their product catalog spans hundreds of SKUs across product lines like their GX Solutions and i.Series platforms, each with detailed specifications: temperature ranges, capacity, ENERGY STAR certifications, NSF/ANSI 456 vaccine storage compliance, and OptiCool™ technology details. But their existing digital platform wasn’t built for how healthcare procurement managers actually buy.
Hospital buyers couldn’t filter by the specifications that matter — temperature range, storage capacity, compliance certifications, or application type. Comparing a blood bank refrigerator against a pharmacy refrigerator meant opening multiple tabs and manually cross-referencing spec sheets. Multi-language support was missing for their global distribution network. And qualified leads were falling through the cracks because there was no connection between the website and their sales pipeline.
The result: procurement managers were calling sales reps for information that should have been self-service, and the site wasn’t converting the organic traffic it did attract.
The Solution
We built a complete e-commerce platform on Drupal 10 with Commerce, engineered around the specific workflows of healthcare procurement.
The centerpiece was a custom product comparison tool that lets buyers place any two or three units side-by-side — comparing an i.Series® Pass-Thru Blood Bank Refrigerator against an undercounter model, for example — with every specification aligned row-by-row: internal volume, temperature uniformity, energy consumption, door configuration, and regulatory certifications.
On the commerce side, Braintree handled payment processing, UPS integration provided real-time shipping calculations for equipment that ranges from countertop units to full-size upright refrigerators, and AvaTax managed tax compliance across jurisdictions. The HubSpot CRM integration was the final piece — every product inquiry, spec sheet download, and quote request flowed directly into Helmer’s sales pipeline, enabling their team to nurture leads with context about exactly which products and specifications each prospect had evaluated.
Key capabilities delivered:
- Faceted search powered by Apache Solr, with filters tuned to how hospital buyers think: application type, temperature range, capacity, ENERGY STAR certification, and product series
- Side-by-side product comparison across blood bank, pharmacy, laboratory, and research equipment with row-by-row specification alignment
- Multi-language support for Helmer’s global distribution network across 125+ countries
- HubSpot CRM integration connecting every product inquiry, spec sheet download, and quote request to the sales pipeline
- SEO optimization targeting long-tail medical device procurement keywords like “blood bank refrigerator FDA compliant” and “ENERGY STAR pharmacy vaccine refrigerator”
- Full commerce workflow: Braintree payments, real-time UPS shipping, and AvaTax tax compliance
The Results
Within 3 months of launch, the platform delivered measurable impact across traffic, engagement, and revenue — turning a product catalog into a procurement workflow that matched the precision of Helmer’s own equipment.
Organic traffic increase
Sales increase
Bounce rate reduction
Technologies Used
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