Lavo: Rebuilding a Bathroom Showroom Website Without Changing Its Look
Lavo Bathroom Concepts runs a bathroom and kitchen showroom at 2 Gordon Street in Gardens, Cape Town, selling premium, mostly Italian brands such as Ceramica Globo, Fantini, IB Rubinetterie, Crosswater and Quadrodesign. On 7 October 2026 lavo.co.za moved off WordPress and onto a platform we built for Lavo, and the brief came with one unusual rule: the site had to look exactly the same.
This case study covers why Lavo wanted to keep its look, what changed underneath it, and what the new platform does that the old one could not.
About Lavo
Lavo’s customers are homeowners planning a bathroom, kitchen or laundry, and the interior designers and architects who specify products for them. Many of them browse on a phone before they visit the showroom. A smaller group buys selected in-stock items, such as clearance stock, online.
That mix matters. For most visitors the website is a catalogue that leads to an enquiry, a quote or a showroom visit. Online sales are a second job, not the main one.
Where it started
The previous site was WordPress with a premium theme, the WPBakery page builder, Slider Revolution, WooCommerce and a cache plugin layered on top. It was slow, and every change meant working through the page builder.
Lavo liked the way the site looked. The clean lowercase type, the greys, the generous white space and the product photography all said what Lavo wanted them to say. So the brief was not a redesign. It was:
- keep the layout and content identical, including every page title, description and image description
- keep the existing web addresses, so pages already ranking or bookmarked would not break
- show products inside their ranges, never as one flat list
- add a basket that can take payment, and a wishlist that is sent to Lavo rather than just saved
- let Lavo’s staff edit every page, product, price and SEO field themselves, with a preview before they save
Why rebuild rather than speed up WordPress
A page builder and a stack of plugins can be tuned, but the things Lavo needed, such as products grouped by range and brand, wishlists for designers working on several projects, and stock shown only for items sold online, would each have meant more plugins on top of an already heavy setup.
We rebuilt it on Laravel, a widely used PHP framework, with a Filament admin for Lavo’s staff. The look is Lavo’s own, reproduced in clean, hand-written CSS rather than carried over from the old theme.
What we built
A much larger catalogue, still grouped by range
The old site had about 100 individual products and 474 collection pages. On 8 October 2026 the new site holds 3,631 published products across 551 collection pages and 29 brands. Whole ranges from makers such as Crosswater, Ceramica Globo and Fantini are now in the catalogue, with product information researched from each manufacturer’s own sources rather than guessed.
Every product still sits inside its range. A product page shows its trail, for example range, brand and collection, so a visitor always knows where they are, and products show their own code so a designer can specify them exactly.
Project wishlists for designers
The wishlist was the feature Lavo cared about most, because interior designers and architects work on several projects at once. Signed-in customers can:
- keep a separate named wishlist for every project or room
- add notes to each product
- share a list with their own client
- request a quote for a list when they are ready
A finish chosen before a product is added stays with it on the list, which matters when a designer has specified brushed gold rather than chrome. Visitors who have not signed up can still build a list and send it to Lavo.
An online shop inside the catalogue
Instead of a separate shop section, buying happens inside the existing product and clearance pages. Products Lavo sells online have an “Add to basket” button and a price, with card payment through Yoco and delivery priced by province. Everything else shows “price on request”. Every product, buyable or not, can also be enquired about or added to a wishlist.
A faster, smarter search
Search now suggests results as you type. It matches product names, descriptions and product codes, including the code for each colour, and puts an exact code match first. Each suggestion shows the product, its range, its brand and its code. Typing a code such as BSW0104C brings up that exact Crosswater basin waste.
An admin Lavo runs itself
Lavo’s staff edit pages, products, prices, page titles, descriptions and image descriptions in the admin, with a live preview beside the form. They do not need us to change a price or add a product.
Search, AI search and Google Shopping
Keeping the look did not mean standing still on search:
- Page titles, descriptions and image descriptions from the old site were carried over, and old web addresses were kept, with redirects for any that changed.
- Each product page describes itself in structured data (Product and BreadcrumbList, alongside the business details), which helps search engines and AI tools read the catalogue correctly.
- The sitemap lists 683 pages.
- At Lavo’s request the site is linked to Google Merchant Center through a product feed, so products Lavo sells online can appear in Google Shopping. On 8 October 2026 the feed carried 69 products. Products only go into the feed when they have a large enough photo, because Google rejects small images.
We ran Google PageSpeed Insights on the live home page on 8 October 2026:
| Performance | Accessibility | Best Practices | SEO | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mobile | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| Desktop | 99 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
Both runs passed all four of PageSpeed’s Agentic Browsing checks, which look at whether AI assistants can read and use the page. These are lab scores from a single run; scores move a few points between runs.
What Lavo gets out of it
- The site it liked, without the weight. Customers see the Lavo they know.
- A catalogue that matches the showroom. Far more of what Lavo can supply is now on the site, still organised the way people shop for a bathroom.
- Tools for its best customers. Designers can manage a list per project and ask for a quote in one step.
- Online sales where they make sense, inside the catalogue rather than in a separate shop.
- Control. Lavo’s staff make their own changes, with a preview.
This is another example of our custom web application development work. For a similar move away from WooCommerce, see the iOrganic case study. More of our Cape Town work is on our page about website design in Cape Town, and everything else is on the portfolio.
Considering something similar?
If your website looks right but is slow or hard to manage, a rebuild can keep the look and replace what is underneath. The cost depends on the size of the catalogue, what has to move across and the features you need. Our E-Commerce Website package is the starting point for a standard store, and a platform like Lavo’s is quoted on scope. Request a quote and we will tell you honestly which one you need.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a website be rebuilt without changing how it looks?
Yes. Lavo’s new site keeps its original layout, type, colours and content, while everything underneath, from the platform to the code, is new. The look is reproduced in clean, hand-written CSS rather than carried over from the old WordPress theme.
Will a rebuild lose my Google rankings?
Not if it is planned for. On Lavo’s rebuild the page titles, descriptions and image descriptions were carried over, and old web addresses were kept or redirected, so pages that already ranked keep their place in the site.
What is a project wishlist?
A wishlist a customer can keep per project or room, with notes on each product, which they can share and send for a quote. Lavo built it for interior designers and architects, who work on several projects at once.
How does a website get products into Google Shopping?
Through a product feed submitted to Google Merchant Center. Lavo’s site generates the feed automatically from the products it sells online, and includes only products with photos large enough for Google to accept.
Is Lavo still a WordPress site?
No. Since 7 October 2026 lavo.co.za runs on a custom Laravel platform built by JWD, with a Filament admin that Lavo’s staff use to edit the site themselves.
Can a showroom website sell online and still take enquiries?
Yes. On Lavo’s site, products sold online can be bought, while every product, including those for sale, can still be enquired about or added to a wishlist. Products not sold online show “price on request”.
