Druid Delivers 1.5-Week Migration and Overhaul of Kirami’s Multilingual Website

Kirami Oy’s website is a busy place. It’s where resellers log in to find product details and marketing materials, where customers browse hot tubs and saunas, and where all of it is kept consistent across seven languages. It has to work smoothly for people in different countries, on different devices, and in different time zones.

In the middle of updating the site’s look and feel, Kirami chose to move its maintenance and development to a new partner. The handover needed to be quick, handled during the company’s summer break, and completed without affecting the people who used it every day.

That’s when Druid stepped in. Known for their work with Drupal and open-source solutions, they were tasked with taking over the site, assessing every part of it, fixing what needed fixing, and putting in place a process for ongoing improvements, all within a week and a half.

Speaking to The Drop Times, Yevgeniya Kobrina, Senior Developer, and Kirsi Vatanen, Marketing Manager, shared more technical details about how the migration was carried out, the challenges they faced, and the solutions that prepared Kirami’s website for future growth.

How Druid Migrated Kirami’s Website Mid-Summer—and Transformed It into a High-Performance Platform

Kirami Oy, a family-owned company and the world’s largest hot tub manufacturer, is renowned for its high-quality hot tubs, pools, and saunas. Its website is central to the business, serving resellers and customers worldwide in seven languages. It offers not only detailed product information but also lifestyle content, downloadable marketing materials, and reseller tools. Visitors can seamlessly switch between languages to access the same content in their preferred language.

In 2024, Kirami made a bold move: transferring its entire website maintenance to Druid, right in the middle of the company’s summer break. The transition was completed in just 1.5 weeks, without disruption, downtime, or customer-facing issues.

A Transition Under Tight Timing

When Druid stepped in, Kirami’s site was in the middle of a brand-new look that was scheduled to go live in the coming weeks. Yevgeniya remembered how the timing shaped their process:

“When we started the handover with Kirami in early June 2024, their website was getting a new look, and it was supposed to go live in the next few weeks. So, we couldn't really get a full grasp of the site until we officially took over in mid-June. That kicked off with some meetings, and then we did an audit of the site once we got access to everything. At Druid, we use a special handover form to make sure clients give us all the key info we need to support their site, like main features, technical stuff, integrations, our audit plan, and hosting details. Plus, we've got a structured process to make sure the handover goes as smoothly as possible for everyone involved.”

The team carried out a series of audits to understand the site’s condition: database inspection, log review, system status checks, automated security scans, code quality assessment, web performance tests, manual UI and admin panel checks, and a custom theme audit.

A late-June meeting with the previous supplier proved valuable, allowing Druid to clarify the biggest issues, gather background on the site’s development, and fill in gaps caused by the lack of technical documentation.

By the end of June, Druid had access to the codebase and database, set up its development environment and project tools, and began tackling critical issues immediately. A content freeze and transfer date were agreed in early August, and by mid-month, production environments were ready for testing. The full transfer took place on August 27, 2024, on time and without disruption.

Once in control, Druid focused on stabilising the platform: fixing critical bugs, tightening security, optimising site speed, cleaning up deprecated code, and removing unused functionalities. They also built a backlog of “nice-to-do” enhancements to guide future development.

Improving the Multilingual Experience

Kirami’s website operates in seven languages, with a domain-based setup for each. Druid’s first priority was ensuring consistency in translations across all content types from product details and taxonomy terms to media files and their alt texts.

However, they faced several immediate technical challenges. Field labels appeared in the wrong language; switching the default language from Finnish to English resolved this. Changing language negotiation from URL prefixes to domains caused broken links, which they fixed with server-side redirect rules.

Adding the seventh language exposed a missing configuration for URL alias patterns, which made some products hard to access. Druid collaborated with Kirami to overhaul and translate the entire URL structure, standardising alias patterns, adding categories into URLs, and ensuring every part was translated correctly.

“The goal was to make navigation easy for any user, in any language, while also improving SEO,” says Yevgeniya. “It meant getting into the weeds of URL structures and making sure they worked consistently for all seven languages.”

Solving Long-Standing Limitations

Before Druid, some changes had been considered “impossible”, particularly fixing the accessories page. This section, and other product listings, had been difficult for visitors to navigate and hard for Kirami’s team to manage.

“When we started working with the client, they were a bit worried about managing and updating their website,” Yevgeniya explains. “The client really cared about the Accessories section and their other product listing pages. Our main aims became twofold: make the site easier for visitors to browse different product types and make it simpler for the client to manage content.”

Druid created a proof of concept, refined it based on feedback, and ultimately removed the custom code for product listings, replacing it with Drupal best practices. This allowed automatic creation of URL aliases for all product categories in all seven languages, improved breadcrumbs and redirects, and made use of taxonomy-based filters for easier navigation. The accessories page’s filters were also visually upgraded to match other categories.

The change not only streamlined management but also boosted SEO, turning previously clunky filtered links into clean, descriptive URLs.

Faster, Friendlier, More Reliable

Druid’s agile, iterative approach quickly resolved site issues. Within three weeks of starting weekly meetings, the site was faster, more responsive, and better aligned to Kirami’s needs.

“The site was previously rigid, slow, and confusing, but by our third joint weekly meeting, these challenges had already been resolved,” says Druid Project Manager Jesse Tikka. “We communicate openly and actively, and we’ve been able to make the site faster and better aligned with the customer’s needs.”

Brand Refresh and Beyond

In 2024, Kirami rebranded to Kirami by Harvia. Druid updated the site to reflect the new identity, implementing design and usability changes on a tight schedule.

With technical burdens reduced, Kirami could focus on marketing and education, particularly in the U.S. sauna market.

“Now we can focus more on marketing and telling customers about Kirami’s products and the experiences they create,” says Mikko Samuli from advertising partner doop. “For example, the U.S. is experiencing a sauna boom, so we’re providing clear educational content on sauna basics — how to pour water on the stones, how long to stay in the sauna, and what hot tubbing is all about.”

Keeping Strategy in Focus

Druid’s Magical Support service includes an annual “Big Picture” meeting to align website development with business strategy. Marketing Manager Kirsi Vatanen explains:

“The Big Picture agenda: Summary of accomplishments so far; Reflection on collaboration: What’s working well, and what could be improved; Outlook on customer’s business: Are there any upcoming changes we should be aware of?; Upcoming technical updates, such as Drupal updates and new features.”

The first session with Kirami set priorities for more automation, richer visual content, and better tools for resellers.

An Improvement Process Built on Trust

Druid’s way of working encourages open conversation and full visibility into progress. They involve the right roles from the start — developers, project managers, QA, and product owners — and use Jira so clients can track tasks and priorities.

“We love brainstorming with clients, whether it’s for a quick tweak or a major change,” says Yevgeniya. “Clients trust us to suggest site improvements they might not even know about because they’re not tech experts. That trust is huge for us.”

Kirami’s leadership puts it simply:

“Druid has never responded with ‘That’s not possible.’ Instead, they always provide a solid suggestion and deliver results. That speaks volumes about their expertise,” say Heidi Olá and Mikko Samuli.

For Kirami, the move to Druid wasn’t just a change in who maintained their website; it was a shift in how the site supported their business. The migration was fast, the improvements were measurable, and the working relationship continues to uncover new opportunities. It’s proof that with the right partner, even a complex, multilingual platform can be stable, easy to manage, and ready to grow.