In April 2024, web-vision took over the Magento project from Biketime with the clear aim of significantly improving the online performance of the existing shop. At the start of the project, the platform posed a major challenge, particularly in terms of loading times: Long waiting times led to early purchase cancellations and significantly impaired the user experience as well as the conversion rate.

After a comprehensive analysis by the web-vision team in close coordination with the technical contact at Biketime, the decision was made to completely relaunch the website based on the Hyvä theme. This modern front-end framework not only enabled noticeably faster loading times, but also laid the foundation for a high-performance, easy-to-maintain and future-proof shop architecture.

A look at the sales figures before and after the relaunch clearly shows the resounding success of the measures: in the first month after going live in January 2025, Biketime recorded almost twice as many orders as in the same period of the previous year. What is particularly remarkable is that the increase in sales took place at a time of year that is traditionally weaker in terms of sales; experience shows that the actual peak in demand is in spring and summer.

Hyvä Checkout was implemented as part of the relaunch to ensure a smooth and customer-friendly checkout process. This modern one-step checkout reduces the number of steps required in the payment process and thus minimises the bounce rate during the purchase. Unnecessary elements such as navigation and marketing information have been removed and form entries have been reduced to the essential data to create a clear sales funnel without distracting users.

The result: a noticeably simplified, intuitive and efficient checkout process that has a positive impact on the conversion rate.

As part of the technical optimisation, the shop was not only visually and functionally revised, but also streamlined. The use of third-party extensions was reduced by around 30% through the targeted elimination of third-party extensions. The result: a significantly improved page quality and noticeably faster loading times. The increased performance pays off on several levels: it improves the user experience, reduces bounces and has a positive effect on the ranking in various search engines.

With a website loading time of less than one second and Google Pagespeed scores of over 95 points, the biketime shop is now one of the fastest online shops in the industry.

By introducing a Hyvä theme, a new automated feature has been added to the website which allows customers to see a real-time view of their chosen product whilst selecting a variant, which not only shows them an image of the model with the chosen size or colour, but also presents the updated price of the product, enabling a faster and smoother display for customers and preventing customer abandonment due to frustration by minimising loading times.

The Magento PageBuilder has been expanded to include custom fields that offer more flexibility for optimising content for search engines. This makes it easier for shop owners to add and manage SEO content such as meta descriptions, keywords and structured data directly in the content editor. This integration enables better on-page SEO management and helps the website to rank higher in the various search engines.

In addition, merchants are provided with tools that help them predict and respond to upcoming SEO trends by optimising the site for search engines.

Our team has integrated a native blog management function into the Magento platform to make the previous third-party platform WordPress redundant. This helps the customer to reduce security risks and simplify maintenance. Magento's internal blog tools allow shop administrators and editors to have full control over content creation, SEO measures and customisation of the overall design of the blog area. Another positive aspect of the integration is the fact that product promotion is directly linked to the e-commerce shop, providing a consistent experience for the owner and the customer

The Magento team managed to optimise the deployment pipelines and automated migration tools to reduce this from 4 hours to less than 15 minutes, allowing for significant time savings during updates and the offline phase of the website. This minimises the amount of time potential customers are unable to access the site and also allows for more frequent releases for upcoming features without the risk of disrupting the shopping experience for customers.

By using the Hyvä theme, we were able to significantly reduce the number of JavaScript requests from the biketime store, resulting in a huge improvement in website load time. The reduction in requests speeds up the rendering of the page, which helps to make the website more responsive for customers. This results in visitors spending longer on the site, engaging with the products and completing more purchases.

As part of the relaunch of the Biketime Magento 2 shop by web-vision, accessibility was also taken into account in accordance with the requirements of the German Accessibility Improvement Act (BFSG) and developed in accordance with WCAG 2.1 AA. The BFSG, which comes into force on 28 June 2025, obliges operators of online shops to make their digital offerings accessible in order to provide equal access for people with disabilities.

Accessibility measures implemented:

• Use of the Hyvä theme: the modern front-end framework Hyvä offers a lean and high-performance structure that forms a solid basis for accessible design.
• Optimised navigation: The page structure is clear and logical to ensure easy orientation.
• Keyboard operability: All interactive elements are fully accessible via the keyboard, which is essential for screen reader users in particular.
• High-contrast design: Colours and contrasts have been chosen so that content is also easy to read for visually impaired users.
• Alternative texts for images: All relevant images were provided with descriptive alt texts to make information accessible even if the image is not displayed.
• Form optimisation: Forms have been provided with clear labels and comprehensible error messages to make input easier.

Thanks to these measures, the Biketime online shop fulfils the legal requirements for accessibility and offers all users an inclusive shopping experience.

Biketime is an established specialist dealer for bicycles based in the heart of Hanover. For over 40 years, the company has impressed customers with its in-depth expertise, high-quality product range and personal customer service. The stationary local presence has established itself over decades as a contact point for bicycle enthusiasts.

The product range not only includes bicycles from well-known manufacturers, but also a large selection of accessories, spare parts, clothing and accessories for every requirement. In order to transfer this successful business model to the digital world and reach a broader target group, Biketime decided to expand its online presence with a powerful online shop based on the Hyvä theme.