Web Development & Technical Support for Fashion Brand
-
Web Development
-
Other frameworks and CMS
- Confidential
- Jan. - Feb. 2019
- Quality
- 5.0
- Schedule
- 5.0
- Cost
- 4.0
- Willing to Refer
- 5.0
“They worked fast and wanted to make things even better than we expected.”
- Other industries
- Moscow, Russia
- 5,001-10,000 Employees
- Phone Interview
- Verified
IMAGA (formerly AGIMA) provided web development services for a fashion brand. Their team built a website, focusing on mobile-friendliness and lead generation. They also handled integration with the partner's main website.
The website received praise from stakeholders and customers as well as had a direct positive influence on sales. IMAGA (formerly AGIMA) consistently met tight deadlines as well as understood and met the partner's needs well. Effective, modern communication and responsiveness are hallmarks of their work.
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
BACKGROUND
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the head of marketing and brand communications of Snow Queen, one of the biggest fashion retail chains in Russia. I work with our contractors and am also responsible for branding, web design, and digital presence.
We operate more than 120 stores in 50 of our country’s cities. Our company has a 20-year history, which is quite old for our market. We’re the number-one retailer in Russia in the outwear segment, specifically leather and ship-skin goods. Our main season is winter.
OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE
What challenge were you trying to address with AGIMA?
Our team launched our first-ever collaboration in early 2019 with a world-famous Russian fashion designer. We’d seen how this worked with our competitors, but it was completely new for us. Our goals were to attract a new audience and show a strong fashion image.
The Snow Queen brand in general is quite classical, and we wanted to make a small upgrade in the fashion market. One of the solutions we thought would work was to create several promotional websites, different from our main site, which would be relevant to the fashion audience.
Our basic site is a big marketplace where users can shop and see collections. We needed to have something completely different for this collaboration, and we had limited time for the project. We also had to keep the DNA of the designers’ personal brands — which was different from our main brand — and to make the execution of the whole project modern and in-fashion.
SOLUTION
What was the scope of their involvement?
AGIMA’s main goal was to create a mobile-friendly website. We understood that most of our new audience would come from Instagram, using mobile phones. It was placed as a subdomain of our main site.
The new site needed to show all the beauty of the collections and all the details of the project. We also told AGIMA that it should engage visitors and give them a wow effect. The site was done on Bitrix24. Our main site is on Magento, and the two are connected.
They also handled technical integration with our main website, for online purchasing. We had no time to create purchasing functionalities on the promotional website, so we made a redirect to our main site.
Their team made an automatic emailing set-up for news, with the system we’re using. We have fully integrated Google Analytics between the subdomain and the main website. This is in order to trace the full path of every visitor and see what the subdomain is doing for our business.
AGIMA also had to configure data collection for our remarketing communication channel. The site needed to work fast because the people coming from Instagram want everything fast, and it had to work properly across all country territories, where mobile internet isn’t very speedy.
They also implemented three seasonal updates. Our collections change and the page design updates accordingly. AGIMA provided 24/7 technical support for a whole year.
What is the team composition?
I worked with their account manager. They also had a designer, 2–3 programmers, and a PR manager who helped us with the release of the technical specifications. The team was quite small, but certain people were connected with us for a whole year.
How did you come to work with AGIMA?
Being a big and older company in Russia, our company was a desirable client for anyone, so we always had a good choice of contracting agencies to work with. We’d had a short project with AGIMA in 2018 — a digital quest that lasted one month — and we were fully satisfied with their work.
We did a price check with several possible contractors for the new project. The pricing was very important for us, and we found AGIMA’s offer in line with our expectations. Their previous work was good, and they had a strong portfolio in general, so our decision was quite easy.
How much have you invested with them?
Our investment was on par with Russian prices for similar work. AGIMA wasn’t overpriced at all, otherwise, our business owners wouldn’t have allowed us to work with them.
What is the status of this engagement?
We launched the project in January 2019, and we had around a month to do everything from start to finish because we had a presentation for the fashion community in March of that year. We were under very crazy deadlines and didn’t know whether it would work, but AGIMA made it happen. They gave us a couple of design options from the very first meeting, and we chose one.
RESULTS & FEEDBACK
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
Our project was successfully finalized in January 2020, and the website received lots of appreciation from our customers, who wrote a lot of comments on our social profiles. The fashion community was very impressed by our event, and the fashion designer herself found this site to be the best one among her numerous collaboration projects.
The site attracted new consumers, who spent more time on it than even on our main website. We got a lot of positive response from customers, and the collection sold much better than our regular ones — even better than we expected. We had no problems with the site’s loading speed. It was quite fast on every device type.
Most products from this collection were successful even before discount periods started, and the demand was greater than our stock. This happened through the promotional part of the site, where people could see how beautiful the goods were and become inspired to buy them.
We didn’t have any problems with new releases. We always had short deadlines for implementing changes for upcoming events, but AGIMA managed to do everything in time.
We used the same site for our spring collection, and we’re going to load another one in September 2020. Most of the work is done, so we only have to change the design, which is really good value for us.
AGIMA was well-connected with us, and they understood our needs. They showed a good understanding of the difference between this collaboration brand and the main one.
How did AGIMA perform from a project management standpoint?
I enjoyed their project management. We’ve worked with multiple providers and had no difficulties staying connected with AGIMA or asking them questions. They even pushed us to meet the deadlines and demonstrated a deep immersion in our needs in fashion.
This is a difficult field, and it’s even more difficult to find a web designer that can understand it. We had no problems with AGIMA in this area. They were really involved and interested in building the site in the best way. It was a pleasure for us to see this.
They gave us a schedule, and we communicated through Telegram. They were available 24/7, and no one complained. They often exceeded our expectations in this project, and the design reflected the brand DNA nicely. They kept deadlines very well.
What did you find most impressive about them?
AGIMA has a very modern type of communication. They worked fast and wanted to make things even better than we expected. The quality of their team is really high. They’re very careful about the people they onboard into their team.
Are there any areas they could improve?
No, I can’t think of anything. I hope they continue to work as well as they have. I’m quite happy with this project, which doesn’t happen often. I was nervous about the deadline and because we were doing something new, but everything was done fast. I can say only good things about AGIMA.
Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?
We’ve already recommended AGIMA to some of our colleagues. I know that someone started negotiating a project and a couple of companies started something. I hope they’ll be really happy with AGIMA as well.
If the client has a good brief, understands what they really want, and can say it in words, it will work with AGIMA. They really understand us and can give us good professional recommendations.
RATINGS
-
Quality
5.0Service & Deliverables
-
Schedule
5.0On time / deadlines
-
Cost
4.0Value / within estimates
"Maybe we could find someone cheaper, but we don’t know what the results would be."
-
Willing to Refer
5.0NPS
"We’ve already referred them.
