Launching a Global Healthcare Ecommerce Platform for Butterfly Network

At the start of our collaboration, the challenge was clear but complex - Butterfly was on a mission to "distribute health worldwide." To do that effectively, it needed a solid ecommerce platform capable of selling medical devices and subscriptions directly to customers around the globe.

Complexity

The core difficulty lay in managing complexity at scale. The platform had to handle multiple currencies, dynamic tax rules, and a wide variety of international purchasing scenarios.

On top of that, Butterfly's business model involved intricate subscription management, including upgrades, downgrades, and bundled product offerings. All of this had to work perfectly across different customer types and organizational structures.

Design

Design-wise, this presented an additional layer of challenge. The platform needed to support a variety of purchase flows for different user groups, from individual practitioners to large healthcare organizations, without compromising on clarity or user experience.

Thanks to a well-designed system for managing bundled purchases - not only products, but also user roles, plan types, and subscription states - Butterfly can easily adapt its offering as the business evolves. Over the years, this flexibility has allowed new ideas and changes from the client's team to be implemented quickly and confidently, without disrupting the existing system.

Mirumee was trusted to design, build, and launch the global ecommerce platform from the ground up, starting in March 2019. We applied a composable commerce strategy to ensure flexibility and scalability.

A custom build of Saleor (powered by Python and GraphQL) was used for the backend to handle the client's unique requirements without restriction. The frontend was built with React and TypeScript, creating a slick, responsive, and mobile-first interface.

We integrated best-in-class third-party services, including Avalara for dynamic tax, Stripe and Affirm for payments, and Smartling for translation.

Since the initial launch, our partnership has continued to grow. We've provided long-term technical support, introduced a complete redesign in 2021, and delivered a checkout overhaul in 2023 to improve performance and usability.

Milestones

• Full platform redesign - a complete visual and UX refresh that elevated every page of the store.
• Continuous evolution - as Butterfly launched successive generations of its devices, the platform has been continually adapted to support new product lines, bundles, and business models.
• Checkout transformation - a significant rebuild of the checkout experience, optimizing flow, flexibility, and conversion.