Comerix (formerly MageCloud) rescued Northern Industrial’s post-COVID Magento 2 site after the in-house team left — optimizing speed, custom checkouts, analytics, multi-store (big catalog, 6 languages), and international optimization.
+ From £7M to multinational growth
+ 300+ new business leads per day
+ Magento migration with a 2–3 million SKU catalog
+ 60 → 145 employees
Northern Industrial (NI Controls) supplies top-quality industrial automation parts/repairs (PLCs, HMIs, temperature controllers, VSDs from Allen-Bradley/Yaskawa), exporting to 138 countries annually — even to Antarctica — with UK/Germany/Mexico offices; acquired by Radwell Intl (70+ US branches) in 2023.
NI Controls built their Magento 1 platform in-house. Still, they faced Magento 2 migration challenges after their sole developer departed for Boohoo, leaving speed issues, Varnish problems, and botched multi-language/country implementations for their massive 150K-3M SKU catalog.
Local Manchester agencies proved expensive and a poor cultural fit. At the same time, big-name solution partners demanded long-term contracts — leaving David seeking a flexible Magento expert amid the pre-COVID transition chaos.
“The challenges we were facing: we had speed issues, which is pretty common with the Magento platform at the time. We had a large catalog, so I think in the end our catalog was somewhere in the region of two or three million SKUs. We had an international focus to the business, so of the seven million in revenue, fifty percent was UK-based, and fifty percent was the rest of the world. We exported to about 112 countries with about 60 staff. So these were the issues we were looking to resolve.”
David discovered Comerix through SEO/Magento content (possibly a conference talk), bypassing expensive local agencies and contract-heavy enterprise partners. The no-contract “gentleman’s agreement” model eliminated risk — pay only for delivered work — while immediate hot fix success proved deeper expertise than in-house hiring or smoke-and-mirrors agencies that overpromised and underdelivered.
“We looked at big names first — not impressed by huge fees and contract ties. Then I don’t know how we found you. We saw your experience. It resonated. Research showed you were strong in Magento and e-commerce. A bit of trepidation since you were based in Ukraine, but no contracts — just a gentleman’s agreement: if you don’t deliver, we leave and pay the bills.
We signed up for hot fixes. They worked well, and it continued. Paul and his team had the expertise on tap, felt like part of the business, not consultants or agencies.”
Starting with urgent hot fixes, Comerix evolved into NI Controls’ integral technical partner, delivering comprehensive Magento 2 optimization: speed enhancements, custom checkouts, analytics upgrades, multi-store management across 6 languages, and international functionality for 138-country operations.
Paul’s team provided holistic service during Ukraine’s darkest moments — literally meeting from bomb shelters to resolve critical outages — demonstrating unmatched dedication beyond typical agency boundaries.
“Optimising speed to customising checkout and improving analytics, internationalisation. I do not believe there is anything that we have not done with Paul nd his team.”
Paul’s team drove 30% overall revenue growth alongside 300+ daily high-value web leads that shifted business constraints from website capacity to sales/engineer fulfillment.
“During the time Paul was involved, the business grew significantly. From a financial results basis, it worked well. We generated a large number of web leads and traffic.
We never reached the absolute end of optimization, but toward the end, we were getting over 300 new business leads per day — high-value ones.”
Operations scaled dramatically — staff doubled to 145, offices expanded to Germany/Mexico, fulfilling global demand across 138 countries — culminating in acquisition by US private equity while maintaining strong SEO, site speed, and performance throughout.
“Multi-language/country implementation — we botched it initially, but you fixed it. Speed issues, optimization, layouts — holistic service, not siloed. Vast dedication.”
Post-acquisition, David maintains he’d return for personal projects, citing Comerix’s crisis-proof reliability, on-demand availability, and genuine business partnership. The bomb-shelter commitment during Ukraine’s invasion represents a service level unmatched by any competitor, building unbreakable trust for future endeavors.
“If something comes up for me personally, we’d use you again. I can’t speak really highly enough of that kind of dedication.”
