CytoRecovery

The challenge

CytoRecovery is a Virginia Tech spinout with a genuinely hard product to sell online. Its CytoR1 platform sorts, enriches, and recovers live cell populations label-free, and the catalog spans a full research system: the benchtop instrument, the CytoGenerator amplifier, microfluidic CytoChips, the ultra-low-conductivity CytoBuffer reagent, and CytoSoftware. The buyers are scientists at universities, hospitals, and research labs who need the technology explained before they will ever add anything to a cart. A generic storefront could take payments but could not carry that story.

What we built

We designed and built the CytoRecovery store on Shopify: a real e-commerce system where labs browse the product line, read the technology and application notes behind each item, and order with secure checkout, tracked shipping, accounts, and straightforward returns. The storefront leads with the outcome (“Label-Free Cell Sorting”) and routes technical buyers into the depth they expect, with dedicated Technology, Publications, and Careers sections alongside the shop.

The catalog is structured for a scientific line rather than a fashion drop: instruments, hardware, reagents, and software each presented with the specs, product sheets, and context a researcher needs to buy with confidence. The CytoRecovery team manages products, content, and orders themselves through Shopify.

Accessible by design

A research-lab audience spans every device and ability, and a storefront has to work for all of them. The store is built on an accessible Shopify foundation: a skip-to-content link, keyboard-navigable menus and product controls with visible focus states, labeled search and form fields, alt text across product and content imagery, layouts that stay usable when zoomed, and Shopify’s own accessible checkout.