Overview

VITOfilter.no is the official Norwegian website for VITO oil filtration systems. While we’ve been VITO’s distributor in Norway since 2016, most of our sales came through trade shows, direct contact, and word of mouth. We previously had a simple website and some social media presence, but never a proper webshop — until now.

Platform & Hosting
The site is built on Mystore.no, a Norwegian e-commerce platform chosen because of its seamless integration with Tripletex. Since we already use Tripletex across all our companies, Mystore was a natural choice. Both systems are now part of Visma, which makes handling accounting, sales, and inventory much easier. Domain registration and DNS are handled through Fastname.

Technical Work
This project let me bring together business and IT, with plenty of hands-on technical tasks:

• Design → Began with a Mystore template, deleted about 95% of it, and rebuilt the site almost from scratch. Created custom graphics in GIMP, while adapting everything to VITO’s bold black and yellow color scheme (#000000 / #FFDD00). This was more complicated than expected, especially with transparent graphics and sections where plugins assumed a white background. Product listings, shopping carts, account pages, and checkout were particularly challenging.
• DNS & Email → Configured A-records, CNAMEs, and MX through Fastname. Added SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records for secure email authentication.
• Security → Set up and validated SSL certificates (took a few days to activate), ensuring the entire site runs on HTTPS.
• SEO → Added custom meta tags and descriptions for all pages and products, optimized content, and linked Google Search Console with Google Analytics for performance tracking.
• Performance → Optimized images using a mix of PNG and WebP for faster load times.
• Payments → Integrated Klarna for transactions, with plans to add Vipps as an alternative.
• Shipping → Connected the webshop to Bring.no using API keys, so shipping costs are calculated dynamically based on our company’s rates.
• Responsive Design → Made sure the layout works across mobile, tablet, and desktop.

Background Note
Other than working on Huth.nu, this is the first web project I’ve done in years. My earliest experience with websites goes back to when I was about 15 years old, building my high school’s (Thindlund ungdomsskole) site together with a classmate — coded entirely in Notepad. Our “payment” for the project was pizza and soda, which felt like a fortune at the time. Around the same period, I also made a small personal website — back before proper social media existed.

One big difference compared to those days is the need to design for mobile, tablet, and desktop. Back then, a single static page was enough, but now responsive design is essential — and a completely new experience for me.

Outcome
With VITOfilter.no, VITO finally has a proper online shop in Norway. Restaurants and professional kitchens can now learn about the machines, place orders directly, and contact us for support.

One of the big wins of the project was successfully adapting VITO’s bold black and yellow color scheme across the entire site. Making it work consistently in product listings, shopping carts, account pages, and checkout — all while keeping the site clean and user-friendly — was a real challenge, and one I’m proud of overcoming.

I’m still waiting on Mystore’s developers to solve a few remaining areas I couldn’t access for color changes. They even joked that I was a “challenging customer,” since nobody quite knew how to override those defaults.

Ongoing Development
The webshop is about 99% complete, but like most projects, it will probably never be truly “finished.” As I keep learning and experimenting, I’ll continue tweaking the design, improving usability, and testing new features. It’s a work in progress — and that’s part of the point.

Note on DIY
I built the webshop myself, and by doing that we’ve likely saved in the range of 70-100k NOK in development costs. More importantly, it became a valuable learning experience, combining business needs with my IT studies.

👉 Visit the project at VITOfilter.no.

“I also covered the background story in a blog post about launching VITOfilter.no.”