SoftLoft

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am eCommerce Directory at VIG. VIG Furniture, Inc. is a wholesale center for home furniture inspired by European design with 80 employees and retail subdivision (three showrooms). VIG Furniture provides wholesale furniture for interior designers, real-estate developers, furniture stores, and online retailers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SoftLoft, and what were your goals?

With the help of SoftLoft, we were able to complete the following projects: Magento 2 migration (2 websites) including SEO work, data migration and development of multiple modules like "SHOP THE LOOK", Photo gallery with product tagging. Currently we are working or migration of the third website and enhancements to the existing two sites on Magento 2.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We selected this vendor after we have interviewed at least 6 different software providers who were able to accomplish one or more data migration projects successfully. Deciding factors: technical knowledge, price, speed.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

First we identified all the steps needed to accomplish our goals like design, theme building, import requirements, third party extensions and customizations. After that SoftLoft delivered a project plan with the timeline. When the project started, we were meeting at least twice a week to discuss deliverables, user testing and QA updates.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked closely with 4 people: Soft Loft project manager, technical lead, web designer and QA specialist.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

When we started working with SoftLoft, we did not plan to have a long term relationship. When we started working together, we noticed that SoftLoft team iwas not only capable of completing assigned tasks, but provided us with their feedback on how we could improve our business. We realized that we would benefit from the relationship that would last after the main projects are completed. SoftLoft provides us with the reliable 24/7 support when needed. We hope to continue our relationship in the next 2-3 years.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We used Trello project management system to accommodates Agile principles. It was easy to use and offered a visual approach to project management. We communicated using Skype, Slack, Viber and Zoom. Project management tools allowed us to quickly see the stages of the project, the roles of team members, and the due dates of tasks.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The most impressive was technical knowledge of the team leaders and ability to find very quick solutions when the problems happen. We were also impressed that time difference did not affect our communication at all. We were able to get a quick response when 24/7.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

We have requested that the company provided us with the detailed billing statement as the original invoices were missing details. SoftLoft improved their invoices by including all the necessary details.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Head of E-Commerce/Unit Lead E-Commerce for a large E-Commerce Agency focused on mid-sized to large industrial clients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SoftLoft, and what were your goals?

One of our clients tasked us with the development of an E-Commerce project aimed at industrial B2B clients in all of the Americas with the option to roll out additional regions in the future. A very tight integration with the existing web portal as well as the client's PIM and ERP were essential parts of the project. The tight deadline, imposed by the failing old shop system, was an additional challenge.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

After evaluating several possible partners based on interviews and reference projects we chose Softloft based on the overall best performance.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Starting from the project specification Softloft analyzed both the needs of our clients and our requirements which included the shop system (Magento 2), the payment solution provider and additional third party service poviders for shipping costs and tax calculation. They provided a comprehensive project and sprint plan and managed the project overall very professionally. In a very close collaboration we were able to deliver the project on time and budget.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Besides a senior project manager and business analyst the vendor provided a team of 5 persons including BE and FE developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The reliability of the new E-Commerce platform has increased the reliability of this distribution channel massively. The old solution had outages on at least a weekly basis where the new solution is running rock solid.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Weeklies for coordination and updates, JIRA for tickets, Slack for communication.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The duration from initial contact to project start was impressively short, their ramp up time was great.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Initially we had some slight issues in adjusting our project managemet style with Softloft's expectations regarding our input which were resolved quickly and professionally.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a project manager at an all-around e-commerce company that runs websites for retail companies. We also do fulfillment for various retail companies around the world. My responsibilities entail managing the creation of many new websites that we’re building with external agencies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SoftLoft?

They provided me with web development and design.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

There was an existing website that had been shut down for a couple of years, so we gave SoftLoft a few general concepts and ideas of what we wanted. It was still quite a new project, and we were willing to hear their ideas in terms of design and the look and feel of the website.

The ideas we gave them were vague, and they did a great job of coming up with a lot of the design work themselves, understanding the company itself and looking at us from an e-commerce perspective. They used micro boards to present us with their visualized concept, and then they built the site into a custom Shopify template. We worked them more closely with them on the development.

We have quite a unique set of collections of products, each with their own dedicated pages that populate themselves. SoftLoft created functionality where, as soon as we create a group of products on the backend, the site generates a new landing page filled with all the imagery needed to sell those products. It’s a very clever website design, as well as a customizable one. Since the project has finished done, we’re able to manage the website very easily ourselves. We have a few in-house developers, but even I, as a project manager, am able to work with it.

What is the team composition?

I worked with two people daily: Maria (CEO), who was my main point of contact, and Irina (Project Manager). There were also 3–4 designers on our stand-up calls. They brought on different designers and developers as needed.

How did you come to work with SoftLoft?

We created a business document that quite generally outlined what we were looking for. What we look for with our external agencies is proactivity, strong ideas, and a strong understanding of what we want. Vendors should go above and beyond.

We spoke to a few companies, and they would come back with a five-minute phone call and a one-page document. SoftLoft was eager and proactive, and they had a great price. There were some other, less costly offers out there, but we were expecting to pay their price.

We had a fairly small-sized retail website that we needed to design and build. We spent a while looking at a number of external agencies, and we settled on SoftLoft because of their promptness in communication.

We liked the look of the early designs that they provided to us. The deliverables that we wanted from them were a step-by-step design process with back-and-forth communication between our team and theirs.

We also wanted to run the website build projects over the course of two-and-a-half months, which is a fairly tight schedule and would require constant communication with myself — the project manager. They achieved all these deliverables in very good time.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost is around €30,000 (approximately $31,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from October 2021–April 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

This is a bit hard to answer, as the website has been disabled for over two years before this one launched, but within one month of the go-live those numbers were back to where they were before the old site went dormant. That’s just with the new SEO, so we were very impressed. We’d obviously like to keep improving, but we were very pleased with the immediate results of that project.

How did SoftLoft perform from a project management standpoint?

There is also the caveat that they’re based in the Ukraine, so during the final months of the build, they had to relocate much of the team. It didn’t stop them from working hard to finish the project, however, which was completely unexpected.

We communicated over Zoom and emails.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve worked with a number of external agencies over the past 2–3 years, and some of them haven’t delivered as promised. The best part about SoftLost was their communication and project management. We had standups 2–3 times a week, and they never wavered, even when considering the Russian Invasion. They added me to all their project management tools (Jira) and I was kept extremely informed.

Are there any areas they could improve?

A number of their developers are very good, but there were 1–2 that were below that standard, so maintaining a consistent quality of developer would be my only suggestion.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Communication is key from the other side as well. I think that they’re happy to receive some suggestions and changes from us. They were never protective over their work; even if we wanted something changed or altered, they were quite happy to do it. Being upfront, honest, and transparent is key from the communication perspective.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a digital agency that specializes in creative services, custom software development, and UX/UI design.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SoftLoft?

We needed someone to provide us with staff augmentation for software development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired SoftLoft for their expertise in Magento 2 e-commerce development. They leverage our business by supplementing our staffing needs as we look to improve our organization’s platform.

Some of our product’s core features include a checkout process, product listings promotions, and inventory management.

What is the team composition?

There are three people currently embedded in our team.

How did you come to work with SoftLoft?

We came across SoftLoft through my business partner’s network.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership started in November 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Overall, we definitely appreciate the velocity of their delivery, as they’re able to accomplish their tasks in sprints. I’m very satisfied with their work and I can say that they’ve exceeded our expectations so far.

How did SoftLoft perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re excellent from a project management standpoint, as they always deliver on time and on budget.

We typically use Slack, JIRA, email, and phone.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re impressed with their technical expertise, access to senior-level management, and ability to adapt to our process with agility.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything they need to improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would advise you to have clear roles and responsibilities for your tasks, and maintain transparent communication around project plans and expectations.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am VP Business Development at GFL company with 9 offices around the world and 1000+ engineers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SoftLoft, and what were your goals?

We need a good vendor who could help us with Ecommerce development as we need to scale in a very rapid mode.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We’re searching for a professional delivery team with deep expertise and delivery track record of Magento projects of high complexity and scale. SOFTLOFT seemed to be the best option here as they been very fast to deliver and then scale required team of developers and QA with desired tech skills and level of English communication.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

It was a big enterprise project for for Finance sector with the tight deadlines for the Middle East market. Originally it was expected to be delivered during 6 months but then it was extended for about a year because of scope changes.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

The total SoftLoft team headcount was 5 specialists which included 1 Magento tech lead, 2 backend and 2 frontend engineers + 2 QA for the initial 3 months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We’ve been working with SoftLoft’s delivery team for about a year now. That was an good experience - we’ve managed to implement the most challenging solutions with lots of customization, integrations and non-standard features implementation.

Working in a tight collaboration we’ve managed to do the whole delivery meeting the project's major milestones and deadlines. As a customer - we are fully satisfied with the final results.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We’ve been working with SoftLoft on Agile/Scrum best practices and project delivery approach. The project management was on our / Client side. The communication was held in Slack, where all the team members were sharing their daily operational questions and intermediary results.

We’ve also held daily meetings, sprint plannings and retrospectives on a regular basis. As for the kanban board - Jira was chosen. It helped us a lot to track all the tasks, their statuses, their completeness level etc. Confluence - for keeping all the project's materials in one place. In general, there were no major issues with the project management though working remote and the whole process was set up correctly and professionally from the very beginning.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

SoftLoft is a reliable company to work with. The level of transparency and trust, their responsibility and flexibility level and commitment to our project was impressive. This is what you’re looking for in your potential services provider - a reliable partner you can collaborate and achieve the planned results without any overheads. Highly recommend it!

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

We’ve been collaborating with the professional top-notch team of Senior Magento devs from SoftLoft. So, there were no major concerns on the deliverables and everything was pretty transparent both in terms of our scope of work and the acceptance criteria we’ve set up.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Distribution of security products, IT & Systems manager

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SoftLoft, and what were your goals?

Our website was developed when the company started up over 11 years ago, we have always tried to be ahead of the times but our website had always let us down. We wanted a website that would fully integrate into our CRM

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

One of our existing partners worked with SoftLoft, they recomended us

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We had alot of requirements and ideas, Softloft have develop and improve on what we wanted, it was decided we would use Magento 2 due to the complexity of the ecommerce platform we wanted.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We had 6 people in the team working with us, i dealt directly with our account manager and main developer

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

3 months after launching the website we have almost 10% of our orders online, previously our customers could not buy online, this figure is constantly increasing.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Fantasic communication from our account manager and the main developers, they have provided me access to their ticketing system allowing me to create and update tickets and reorder the priority if needed. We had weekly video calls and spoke daily.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They were very professional from the start, providing ideas and solutions.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

I couldn't fault Softloft, there have been software bugs but they have quickly resolved these issues.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

EMEA Director for global custom software solution provider.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SoftLoft, and what were your goals?

Client was looking for an experienced eCommerce development team with strong dev and soft skills to build a fashion marketplace for the UK and then the International market. The client had an idea of what do they want but not a particular idea of how to implement it technically. They needed guidance and support through the project lifecycle, from ideation to go live.

SOLUTION

How did you select SoftLoft and what were the deciding factors?

Needed strong Magento experience with a proven record and in a cost conscious environment.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

SoftLoft went through each step from business concept to project specification development and guided the Client design team. Provision of clear project plan delivered in 2 week sprints.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

3 Magento Back end, 1 Magento Front end, QA engineer, Business analyst + part-time architect

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

On budget on time, effective and communicative delivery

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

Communication through Slack for all team and client side. Jira for PM, google & Zoom for visual comms.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Great communication, They have a good-sized pool of hard-to-find, skilled resources (e-commerce) that is in high demand currently. Cost effective and focused group of people.

Are there any areas for improvement?

First engagement which went well, nothing springs to mind just yet.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

CEO - marketplace for one of a kind goods

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SoftLoft, and what were your goals?

Rebuild back end bespoke solution.

SOLUTION

How did you select SoftLoft and what were the deciding factors?

reviews, other client recommendations

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Complete product information management system build.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

worked with 5 members of the team

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Some language barriers, but delivered project on time and in budget.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

Language is a barrier at times. They use jira.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They are a cost-effective team.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Improve communication

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

CEO of a german Advertising Agency

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SoftLoft, and what were your goals?

We developed a light marketplace Shop, linked to a retail store with a new concept. Light markeplace, because the vendors are not able to add stuff on their own, everything in this shop is curated, also brands and products that they offer.

We also had another team in this job to implement a crm system which also works with the offline store. Some custom development was needed to have a working vendor management in the backend.

SOLUTION

How did you select SoftLoft and what were the deciding factors?

We where talking about a partnership since some months and this was our initial project.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Magento 2 + CRM, Payment, some extensions etc.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked mostly with the PM and Lead Developer. In peak times we had 5 devs at once on the project and worked over the weekends together to be in time with the launch.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Delivered on time, full shop done with custom development in around 10 weeks. Nothing more to say i think.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

We worked on Slack and Jira. We connected our Jiras with a sync tool so that everyone can stay in his tool.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They were ready to work on the weekends and makeover hours to deliver on time.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We need to book too much hours for maintenance, i ant smaller packages.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a branding, design and digital marketing agency serving retailers with complete web development, SEO & SEM services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SoftLoft, and what were your goals?

We needed reliable, high-quality developers to help bring our vision to life online.

SOLUTION

How did you select SoftLoft and what were the deciding factors?

These guys are complete developers who understand the importance and power of bringing together beautiful design UI/UX with

1. the right eCommerce platform,
2. build for SPEED and
3. customized coding that sets us apart from other sites.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We've done several Magento 2, Laravel and Shopify projects with Soft Loft. Their deep understanding of the platforms and input of HOW to best achieve our goals with code has always been on point.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We have worked with the managing partners, CTO, Project Managers and some developers directly. Professional and clear communication through our preferred channels like Asana, Slack, Gdocs, Jira, Git and others.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Sites built in a timely fashion, QA'd and launched on time and on budget. Such a rarity in this industry!

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

Professional and clear communication through our preferred channels like Asana, Slack, Gdocs, Jira, Git and others. Regular video conference calls on Google Meet, and generally available/responsive!

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Trustworthy. Do what they say. Say what they do. Clear communication.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Perhaps faster onboarding, but a couple of weeks to asign a team and bring everyone up to speed is still pretty good.