QBIC Ltd is a UK trade supplier operating two specialized storefronts under a single brand — QBIC Heating (radiators, water heaters, electric heaters, air conditioning) and QBIC Washrooms (commercial hand dryers, soap dispensers, washroom equipment). Selby-based, with 20+ years of heating industry experience and 15+ years in commercial washrooms, supplying schools, hotels, offices, restaurants, and the wider UK trade. QBIC came to us approximately one month after we'd delivered the rescue and upgrade for [CNM Online](https://www.stagem.agency/projects/cnm-online) — a direct referral from a satisfied UK customer. Same technical profile (Magento 2.3.5 + PHP 7.3, well past end-of-life), different architectural challenge: this was a true Magento multi-store, with both storefronts running on a single installation, shared catalog, and shared admin. We delivered the rescue and upgrade in approximately two months: staircase upgrade through Magento 2.4.8, PHP 8 migration, infrastructure migration to dedicated server with LiteSpeed, payment integration fixes, and a strategic homepage/header/footer redesign across both storefronts.
The challenge
QBIC came to us through one of the trust signals that matters most in eCommerce: a direct referral. Approximately one month after we delivered the rescue and upgrade for CNM Online — another UK heating and bathroom supplier — QBIC's team reached out with the same problem profile and an explicit request for the same methodology.
The technical situation mirrored CNM closely:
Magento 2.3.5 + PHP 7.3 — both well past end-of-life, accumulating security exposure and stability issues
Payment integration friction affecting both consumer checkout and trade-account orders
Performance degradation typical of late-stage 2.3.x on aging infrastructure
Frontend that no longer reflected the brand — homepage, header, and footer in particular showing the age of the platform
But the architectural challenge was meaningfully harder than CNM. QBIC operates two distinct storefronts under one Magento installation:
qbicheating.co.uk — radiators, towel radiators, electric heaters, water heaters, air conditioning, hot water dispensers (975+ products across the heating range)
qbicwashrooms.co.uk — commercial hand dryers (Dyson Airblade, Aquarius, QBIC own-brand), soap dispensers, paper towel dispensers, washroom accessories
This isn't two separate Magento stores — it's a true Magento multi-store: single installation, shared catalog, shared admin, shared customer base, with website-specific themes, category trees, and configuration per storefront. That's the architecturally correct approach for a business operating multiple brand-aligned storefronts from one operations team — but it also means every upgrade decision, every module change, every theme update has to work cleanly across both storefronts.
Add the dual-audience reality on top of the multi-store architecture:
Trade accounts — bulk orders, purchase orders, proforma invoices, "Excl VAT" pricing display
B2C consumers — single-item purchases, "Incl VAT" pricing display, BNPL ("Pay in 3 interest-free monthly payments")
Own brand portfolio — QBIC washroom equipment, Aquarius hand dryers, Eclipse, Diamond — each requiring dedicated brand landing pages
Partner brand portfolio — Dyson Airblade, De'Longhi, Dimplex, Creda, Consort, Nobo, Redring, Zip — each also requiring indexable brand pages for SEO and merchandising
A two-month delivery window. Two storefronts to upgrade in lockstep. Brand identity refresh on the most visible parts of both sites. And a customer base of UK trade accounts who can't tolerate platform downtime during their working day.
The solution
We delivered the project across four phases over approximately two months, applying the same four-stage rescue framework we'd validated on CNM Online — adjusted for the multi-store architectural complexity QBIC required.
Phase 1 — Audit, Stabilization & Infrastructure Migration
Stage 1 of the rescue framework is "stop the bleeding." For a multi-store setup, that meant auditing both storefronts as one platform, then triaging risks across both.
Work in this phase:
Full technical audit — Magento 2.3.5 version state, PHP 7.3 runtime, multi-store website configuration, store views, full module inventory across both storefronts
Infrastructure migration to dedicated server with LiteSpeed — the same hosting profile we'd validated on CNM Online: UK-based dedicated server, LiteSpeed Web Server with LSCache for full-page caching, headroom for catalog and B2B trade-account traffic
Stabilization checklist — production mode confirmed, JS/CSS merging and minification, image conversion to WebP, lazy loading enabled, multi-store cache invalidation patterns verified
Security baseline — 2FA enforced for all admin accounts, automated backups configured and verified across the multi-store database, Content Security Policy applied to both storefronts
Multi-store stability triage — verified that cache, indexers, and cron behaved correctly across both websites; surfaced and fixed shared-resource contention issues typical of long-running multi-store platforms
After Phase 1, both storefronts stabilized on infrastructure ready to absorb the upgrade work without one website causing issues for the other.
Phase 2 — Magento 2.3.5 → 2.4.8 Staircase Upgrade & PHP Migration
The Magento upgrade followed Adobe's recommended staircase path. For a multi-store installation, each step carried additional validation overhead — every change had to work across both websites simultaneously.
Staircase path:
2.3.5 → 2.3.7-p3 (final 2.3 patch, mandatory pre-2.4 step)
2.3.7 → 2.4.0 → 2.4.3 → 2.4.6 → 2.4.8 (sequential through 2.4.x versions, with PHP and database compatibility checks at each step)
Critical technical transitions in this phase:
PHP 7.3 → PHP 8.x — runtime migration with full compatibility validation across both storefront themes and every module in the shared codebase
ElasticSearch → OpenSearch 2.19+ — mandatory as of Magento 2.4.8. Catalog index rebuilt for both websites; faceted filtering validated across heating product categories AND washroom equipment categories independently
Multi-store theme upgrades — Heating storefront theme and Washrooms storefront theme each validated through every minor version, with website-specific overrides preserved
Composer dependency resolution — third-party modules validated at each minor version; modules used by only one storefront flagged separately from modules used by both
Database schema migrations — applied through each staircase step with verification across all multi-store tables (websites, store_groups, stores, and the shared catalog)
Each staircase step ran first on staging with regression testing against both storefronts before proceeding to the next step. The multi-store architecture created the highest-risk asset in the upgrade — most Magento upgrade bugs surface only when a website-specific configuration interacts unexpectedly with a global change. We tested every category page, every product page type, and every customer journey on both storefronts at each step.
Phase 3 — Payment Integrations, Homepage Redesign & Brand Refresh
This was the phase that addressed the daily operational and brand pain points QBIC felt. Two parallel workstreams: payment integration fixes (same six-method stack as CNM) and the homepage/header/footer redesign across both storefronts.
Payment integration fixes — the same six-method UK payment stack we'd validated on CNM:
Credit/Debit Card (American Express, Visa, MasterCard, Discover)
PayPal Express Checkout
BNPL workflow — "Pay in 3 interest-free monthly payments" surfaced clearly across product and checkout pages
Proforma Invoice / Bank Transfer — preferred for trade accounts requiring advance documentation
Purchase Order — for B2B accounts under procurement frameworks
Phone Order — legacy and accessibility option
VAT logic validated for both Excl VAT and Incl VAT display modes — critical for the dual trade/consumer audience, where B2B buyers think in "ex VAT" prices and B2C buyers think in "inc VAT" totals. The pricing toggle works consistently across both storefronts.
Homepage / header / footer redesign — strategic scope, not a full rebuild:
Homepage redesign on both storefronts — refreshed hero treatments, category surfacing, brand highlights (own brands AND partner brands), trust signals (price match, bulk discounts, BNPL, trade account CTA)
Header redesign — unified UX across both storefronts with website-specific navigation reflecting the heating vs washroom product hierarchies
Footer redesign — consolidated trust signals, brand listings, payment method visibility, support contact paths
Brand architecture surfacing — own brands (QBIC, Aquarius, Eclipse, Diamond) presented as dedicated landing experiences alongside partner brands (Dyson, De'Longhi, Dimplex, Redring, Zip), each indexable for brand-specific UK search traffic
Category pages and product pages retained their existing structure — strategic scope decision, not under-delivery. The highest-conversion-impact pages on a UK trade supplier site are the homepage (first impression for new visitors) and the checkout-adjacent UX. Both received the upgrade. Category and product pages will receive their refresh in future engagements as the partnership continues.
Performance optimization ran alongside:
LiteSpeed LSCache configuration tuned for multi-store cache invalidation patterns
Image pipeline optimization across the combined catalog
Critical CSS inlining for above-the-fold rendering on both storefronts
Database query optimization for the multi-store catalog and cart paths
Phase 4 — Launch, Monitoring & Continuing Partnership
Both storefronts launched on Magento 2.4.8 with PHP 8, LiteSpeed infrastructure, fixed payment integrations, and the homepage/header/footer refresh live across both sites. Post-launch work continues as an active partnership: ongoing development, performance monitoring, quarterly audits, and the targeted improvements a multi-store UK trade supplier needs to compete in heating and washroom verticals.
QBIC is part of the UK trade-supplier referral chain we've built through CNM Online. Both partnerships are active; both demonstrate the methodology working across the same technical profile and similar customer realities. The work done well for one UK trade supplier sells the next one without a pitch deck.
Key Deliverables
Magento 2.3.5 → 2.4.8 full staircase upgrade across multi-store installation
True Magento multi-store: single installation, two storefronts (qbicheating.co.uk + qbicwashrooms.co.uk), shared catalog, shared admin
PHP 7.3 → PHP 8.x migration
ElasticSearch → OpenSearch 2.19+ migration (Magento 2.4.8 requirement)
Infrastructure migration to UK-based dedicated server
LiteSpeed Web Server + LSCache configuration tuned for multi-store
Homepage redesign on both storefronts
Header redesign on both storefronts
Footer redesign on both storefronts
Brand architecture surfacing — own brands (QBIC, Aquarius, Eclipse, Diamond) + partner brands (Dyson, De'Longhi, Dimplex, Redring, Zip)
Six-method payment integration fixes: Credit/Debit, PayPal, BNPL Pay-in-3, Proforma Invoice/Bank Transfer, Purchase Order, Phone Order
Excl VAT / Incl VAT pricing display logic for dual trade/consumer audience
Trade account workflow validation
Security baseline: 2FA, tested backups, CSP, CVE patching
Performance optimization: WebP, lazy loading, critical CSS, database query tuning
~2-month delivery window
Active partnership post-launch
Results
Both QBIC storefronts launched on Magento 2.4.8 with PHP 8 on the new LiteSpeed infrastructure, with the strategic homepage/header/footer refresh live across both sites.
Real user data — Chrome UX Report:
Performance metrics being measured as real-user traffic stabilizes on the upgraded multi-store platform. PageSpeed and Core Web Vitals data will be added to this case study as the dataset matures across both storefronts.
Operational outcomes:
Multi-store architecture operational on supported stack — both qbicheating.co.uk and qbicwashrooms.co.uk running on Magento 2.4.8 + PHP 8 + LiteSpeed, single installation, shared catalog, shared admin
Six-method payment stack working end-to-end — Credit/Debit, PayPal, BNPL Pay-in-3, Proforma Invoice, Purchase Order, Phone Order all validated across both storefronts
Trade vs consumer pricing logic stable — Excl/Incl VAT toggle working consistently across product, category, and checkout pages on both sites
Brand identity refreshed on the most visible touchpoints — homepage, header, footer across both storefronts
Security exposure closed — both storefronts now on actively-supported Magento and PHP versions
Referral chain validated — QBIC came from CNM, future UK trade suppliers can come from QBIC; the methodology that worked on CNM works on QBIC because it's a methodology, not a one-off heroic
Technologies & Tools
Magento 2.4.8 multi-store (upgraded from 2.3.5 through staircase: 2.3.7 → 2.4.0 → 2.4.3 → 2.4.6 → 2.4.8)
True multi-store architecture: single installation, two websites, shared catalog, shared admin
PHP 8.x (migrated from PHP 7.3)
OpenSearch 2.19+ (migrated from ElasticSearch)
LiteSpeed Web Server + LSCache (multi-store tuned)
Dedicated UK-based server
MariaDB
Custom Magento 2 modules: brand architecture, multi-store theme overrides
Payment integrations: Credit/Debit Card (Amex, Visa, MC, Discover), PayPal Express Checkout, BNPL Pay-in-3, Proforma Invoice/Bank Transfer, Purchase Order, Phone Order
Excl VAT / Incl VAT pricing display logic
WebP image optimization, lazy loading
Critical CSS inlining
2FA + automated tested backups + CSP security baseline
Related Reading
This project shares methodology and technical stack with:
→ CNM Online — Magento 2.3 → 2.4.8 Rescue (the referral that brought us QBIC)
→ Artizo — Magento 2.3 → 2.4.8 Rescue (parallel staircase upgrade methodology)
→ How to Rescue a Magento 2 Store Without Rebuilding It
