Natural Curiosities is an artwork brand with a massive online catalog. Over more than a decade, Endertech has been their Magento partner, first building their Magento 1 site, then migrating to Magento 2 and continuing to maintain and enhance a complex, search-driven ecommerce experience.
Client Context
Natural Curiosities offers a very large catalog of artwork, with tens of thousands of SKUs (historically cited at over 40,000). The site must support a wide range of product types and options: collections of related pieces, configurable and grouped products, vintage and wallpaper lines, and custom framed offerings with many variations.
For a catalog of this size and complexity, ecommerce is not just a storefront—it is an operational system. Product data quality, search performance, shipping accuracy, and integration with marketing and reporting tools all directly affect day-to-day business.
The Challenge
By the time Magento 1 was nearing end-of-life, Natural Curiosities needed both a platform migration and a modernization of how their catalog and workflows were structured. The challenges included:
Platform risk and technical debt: A Magento 1 site approaching end-of-support, plus the need to keep Magento 2 core and extensions current over time.
Very large, complex catalog: Tens of thousands of SKUs across collections, grouped and configurable products, vintage lines, wallpaper, and custom framing options.
Search and indexing issues: Periodic search failures, indexing problems, and front-end errors that could undermine product discoverability.
Complex shipping and pricing rules: Residential surcharges, international rules, and nuanced rate logic that had to be implemented reliably.
Multiple third-party systems: Marketing, analytics, tax, reporting, and import/export tools that needed to work smoothly with Magento and remain compatible through upgrades.
Natural Curiosities needed not just a one-time migration, but an ongoing technical partner able to handle this complexity and keep the platform evolving.
The Opportunity
Solving these challenges would give Natural Curiosities a more stable, maintainable foundation for ecommerce operations. Specifically, a well-planned Magento 2 implementation and ongoing upgrade path offered the opportunity to:
Protect the business from platform end-of-life risks and security concerns.
Improve how a large, intricate catalog is modeled, searched, and managed by internal staff.
Provide customers with more reliable search and browsing across tens of thousands of products.
Align shipping charges and tax calculation with real-world costs and rules.
Connect ecommerce data to reporting, marketing automation, and product feeds for better decision-making and promotion.
Endertech’s Role
Endertech has served as Natural Curiosities’ long-term Magento development and support partner. Our responsibilities have included:
Planning and executing the Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration, including data migration.
Implementing new themes and updating front-end templates.
Refactoring product data, product types, and attributes for a more scalable catalog model.
Configuring and supporting third-party extensions and services.
Designing and maintaining complex shipping rules and algorithms.
Providing ongoing maintenance, troubleshooting, and stability improvements through many sprints of work.
Our Approach
1. Discovery and Data Understanding
We began by analyzing the existing Magento 1 implementation and its product data model. Natural Curiosities’ catalog relied heavily on custom product groupings and attributes, including a large number of “Collection” products that did not map cleanly to Magento 2 best practices.
We worked with the client to define how these products should behave on Magento 2—determining when to use grouped products, when to rely on configurable products, and which attributes and attribute sets needed to be cleaned up or restructured.
2. Planned Migration Using Proven Tools
For the data migration itself, Endertech used UB Data Migration Pro (v3.1.8), a well-established tool for Magento 1 to Magento 2 migrations. We treated migration as a phased, test-driven process:
Designing a detailed data migration plan and mapping strategy.
Running test migrations to validate data integrity and catalog structure.
Refining attribute sets and product types to align with the new model.
Iterating until we were confident in both data quality and performance.
3. Theme Migration and Front-End Alignment
In parallel with data work, we handled the theme migration and new theme setup for Magento 2. This included adapting templates to support complex product presentations, product detail layouts for vintage and framed items, and clear navigation across the large catalog.
By separating theme work into its own structured scope, we were able to keep visual and UX updates aligned with the evolving product model and search behavior.
4. Iterative Core Upgrades and Maintenance
After the initial Magento 2 launch, the relationship continued as a sequence of planned core upgrades and maintenance sprints. Endertech led multiple Magento 2 core upgrades across the 2.4.x series (including versions such as 2.4, 2.4.3-p1, and 2.4.6-p4), each time:
Reviewing extension compatibility and upgrade notes.
Testing critical flows such as catalog browsing, search, checkout, and shipping calculations.
Addressing any regressions or integration issues discovered in staging before deploying to production.
Ongoing sprints dedicated to maintenance ensured that search issues, indexing errors, and front-end bugs were addressed promptly, keeping the site reliable for both customers and staff.
What We Delivered
Magento 1 to Magento 2 Migration
Data migration: Executed with UB Data Migration Pro, moving product, customer, and order data from Magento 1 to Magento 2 according to a carefully tested plan.
Catalog restructuring: Converted many "Collection" products into grouped products, aligning the catalog with Magento 2 conventions and making it easier to manage related items.
Attribute and attribute-set cleanup: Reduced clutter, normalized attributes, and created clearer attribute sets tailored to the different product lines.
Complex Catalog & Product Templates
Support for multiple product types: Implemented and refined grouped, configurable, and other complex product types to match Natural Curiosities’ real-world product offerings.
Custom templates for vintage and specialty products: Built and refined product detail templates to handle vintage artwork, wallpaper, and other lines with unique data and imagery needs.
Frame Shop and dynamic options: Configured advanced options using tools such as Mageworx-style dynamic options and Web2Print-style integrations so customers could specify framing and customization choices without overwhelming the catalog structure.
Search, Indexing, and Front-End Stability
Search reliability: Addressed issues where searches could return errors or empty results, tuning configuration and index behavior so customers can reliably discover products in a very large catalog.
Indexer fixes: Investigated and resolved indexer failures that affected product visibility and performance.
Front-end error reduction: Ongoing work to resolve template, JavaScript, and layout issues, improving stability and user experience across devices.
Shipping Rules and Pricing Logic
Residential and commercial logic: Implemented rules to handle residential surcharges correctly, ensuring shipping costs align more closely with carrier charges.
International shipping: Configured international table rates and rules, giving the client better control over cross-border shipping while avoiding surprises at checkout.
Bug fixes and refinements: Iteratively diagnosed and fixed edge cases in shipping logic discovered through real-world orders.
Integrations and Operational Tooling
Marketing and email automation: Integrated Klaviyo so that ecommerce events and customer data could power targeted email campaigns and flows.
Analytics and advertising: Implemented Pinterest tags and product feeds, enabling better tracking and promotion of artwork across channels.
Tax and compliance: Configured TaxJar for automated sales tax calculation, reducing manual effort and risk.
Reporting and product feeds: Deployed Amasty tools for advanced reporting and product feeds, helping the client analyze performance and share catalog data with external marketplaces or partners.
Import/export and catalog operations: Supported tools such as Firebear-style importers and advanced product options extensions to streamline large-scale catalog updates.
Ongoing Maintenance and Support
Natural Curiosities continues to engage Endertech for ongoing maintenance. Dedicated maintenance sprints focus on:
Regular platform upgrades and security updates.
Monitoring and fixing search, indexing, and performance issues.
Improving admin workflows for catalog and order management.
Supporting new initiatives, campaigns, and product lines as the business evolves.
Complexity We Handled
This engagement highlights Endertech’s ability to manage real-world ecommerce complexity beyond basic theme work:
Large-scale data migration: Moving a massive catalog while restructuring product types and attributes without losing relationships or data integrity.
Multiple Magento core upgrades: Keeping a live, complex site current with the Magento 2.4.x series while preserving integrations and customizations.
Custom product logic: Managing advanced options, grouped and configurable products, and specialty templates for different artwork lines.
Integration surface area: Coordinating many third-party extensions and services—marketing, reporting, tax, feeds, and import/export—so that they work together on a single platform.
Ongoing operational stability: Providing a reliable cadence of maintenance and incident response so that issues can be addressed quickly without derailing day-to-day business.
Business Outcomes & Value
While specific metrics such as percentage improvements were not part of the provided data, the qualitative outcomes for Natural Curiosities are clear:
Modern, supported platform: A Magento 2 implementation kept current through planned upgrades, reducing platform risk compared to an aging Magento 1 site.
Manageable large catalog: A more coherent product model and cleaner attributes that make it easier for staff to maintain tens of thousands of SKUs.
Improved discoverability: More reliable search and indexing behavior, essential for customers navigating a vast, visually driven catalog.
Aligned shipping and tax logic: Rules and integrations that better reflect real shipping costs and tax obligations, helping avoid surprises for both the business and customers.
Better-connected marketing stack: Integrations with email automation, analytics, reporting, and feeds that let Natural Curiosities use their ecommerce data across channels.
Long-term partnership: A stable relationship with a technical team that knows the business, the data, and the platform history, making future enhancements less risky and more efficient.
Why This Work Matters
Many growing brands and distributors face similar challenges: aging ecommerce platforms, sprawling catalogs, and a patchwork of extensions and integrations. The Natural Curiosities project shows how Endertech can:
Plan and execute a complex Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration with minimal disruption.
Reshape a large catalog and product model to work better for both customers and internal teams.
Balance upgrades, integrations, and customizations in a maintainable way.
Provide ongoing support, not just one-off project delivery.
If your organization is running a complex Magento store—especially with a large catalog, custom product types, and multiple integrations—Endertech can help you modernize, stabilize, and continue to grow on a solid technical foundation.
Related Services
Magento Development & Support
Magento 2 Migration & Upgrades
Ecommerce Development for Large Catalogs
Systems Integration (Marketing, Tax, Reporting)
Custom Product & Catalog Modeling
Ongoing Hosting, Maintenance & Support
Have a similar ecommerce challenge or a Magento platform that needs to evolve? Endertech partners with businesses to design, build, and support the digital systems that power growth.