Thooja

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the co-director of an Irish pottery brand. We handmake ceramic cups using clay. Clay is a renewable natural resource which means a ceramic cup is a more sustainable choice of material than plastic, stainless steel or bamboo - which are all imported into Ireland.

We sell our cups and other related products on our Shopify ecommerce store.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Thooja to provide support for our Shopify store. We've known for several months about improvements we can make to our Shopify store but because we've been at maximum capacity with our product output, we haven't prioritised improving our store.

We're eager to grow our online store so we wanted an Irish-based Shopify agency with who we could work to take our online store to the next level. Thooja is this agency.

SOLUTION

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

I had participated in a marketing workshop funded by the Irish Government that was led by Ultan O'Callaghan, the founder of Thooja. I learned a lot from the workshop and from there, we were eager to work with Thooja.

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

We tasked Thooja with auditing our Shopify store's user experience, as well as analysing the data we've collected about our customers since we launched on the Shopify platform.

We outlined our issues with our current site design and tasked Thooja with redesigning specific pages of our website such as the Home Page and Cart Page.

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

We worked 1:1 with Ultan on this project. Ultan leads the Thooja team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've just pushed the Thooja changes live (and there's more to come as we continue to work into the future) so we're waiting to collect data about improvements in revenue and conversion rates. We've delighted with the improvements made by the Thooja team.

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

Ultan was quick to communicate updates about the status of our project.

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

Thooja's in-depth knowledge of all things Shopify is refreshing (having worked with other agencies in the past). Furthermore, They're transparent with their work and give it straight to you.

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

Honestly, not that I can think of. We're glad everything has worked out so well.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Ériu is a premium, Irish-based wool brand. We make handknit blankets and accessories using wool from Irish sheep. I'm one of the co-founders of Ériu.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Thooja to help us launch and promote our brand online. Our goal was for people in Ireland and our target markets such as Japan to know we exist. Furthermore, we wanted our ecommerce website to tell our brand's story using lots of images and gifs, as well as brand-focused copy.

SOLUTION

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

We spoke with a few ecommerce agencies in Ireland and Thooja was the runaway winner - they were willing to speak with us without expecting immediate payment and carried themselves more as partners than salespeople.

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

Thooja was asked to design and develop a Shopify ecommerce store for our brand. We went through a comprehensive onboarding process with the Thooja team to refine our deliverables. After onboarding, we starting into development of our store, followed by design.

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

We worked directly with James (Project Manager) on this project, who co-ordinated the delivery of this project's work with the Thooja team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've received amazing feedback from customers about our website design. It's always scary asking someone else to implement the ideas in your mind since they might not turn out how you expect. In this case, the final product exceeded what I had imagined our online brand could become.

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

James, as our project manager, was responsive and transparent throughout our project. He let us know about timelines and advised us of any potential for delays.

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

First and foremost, they're lovely people to deal with. We're really obsessed with our brand vision, and Thooja understood it well. It made for a fantastic collaboration. Secondly, they're experts at using the Shopify platform. We're not the most tech-savvy people in the world so having experts on-hand was really important for us.

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

I can't think of anything specific, which is a great sign!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We're an award-winning Irish cookie bakery that sells our products worldwide through our online store. I lead our company's ecommerce operation.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We wanted to migrate from PrestaShop to double-down on our ecommerce efforts, seeing as COVID-19 decimated our regular sales to the hospitality sector. We wanted to partner with a Shopify specialist to migrate our existing customer, product, and order information with zero downtime for our online store. Our goal was to double our sales as a result of the migration and new design.

SOLUTION

How did you select Elevate Digital and what were the deciding factors?

Our CEO was recommended Elevate Digital by someone who had worked with them previously. We like to work with people and firms who specialise in their area and for Elevate this is Shopify ecommerce so it was an easy choice for us.

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

Elevate started by backing up our existing store. Then, Ultan and his team imported all of our product, customer, and order information into Shopify. They then worked closely with our team to design a new Shopify store for us that effectively told our brand's local story.

We were delighted with how responsive they were to any questions we had and also with how they delivered our project on time - in my experience, it's the norm for these type of projects to run over time and budget but that wasn't the case with Elevate.

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

We mainly worked with Ultan, who then coordinated the tasks with his colleagues to get the migration, website design, content marketing, and email marketing completed.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our sales have increased by over 250% since June, when we started working with Elevate. Most of these sales are from organic searches on Google. Elevate clearly did an excellent job with our store's SEO.

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

They used Asana, a project management tool we've come to learn (easily) and love, to manage our project. Most of our communications happened directly in Asana - we would comment on any tasks if we had questions and we could see in real-time the status and deadlines of any project tasks.

Elevate's PM process was excellent, among the best I've ever dealt with. We had Zoom calls every month to discuss our project and progress.

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

Definitely how approachable Ultan and his team were. He's just a really nice person to work with and evidently excellent at what he does which makes working with Elevate a delightful experience. We're excited to be working with them now on an ongoing basis for our content marketing and email marketing.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not particularly. With a project like ours, it's better to have fewer people involved from the client's end, than more.

People want different things, so it can become confusing. It's nice to only have one person working on the project so we really liked that we were dealing directly with Ultan who then managed everything else on his side behind-the-scenes.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the director of a photography business. We are a New York Times featured photography brand selling prints to our fans all over the world.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Elevate Digital to co-ordinate our migration to Shopify. We wanted a website design optimised for mobile and that focused on featuring full-screen images of our photos. Our previous ecommerce platform wasn't scalable and our existing website design wasn't doing our photography brand any justice.

We also had a low conversion rate. Migrating to Shopify with Elevate was an easy choice for us, given their experience and also the scability of Shopify's ecommerce platform.

SOLUTION

How did you select Elevate Digital and what were the deciding factors?

Elevate co-ordinated the migration of our photo products from our existing ecommerce platform to

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

We tasked Elevate with helping us migrate to Shopify and create a new mobile-responsive website design that included all of the visuals, graphics, and layouts. We also wanted to understand which Shopify apps we should use to maximise our conversion rate. Finally, we wanted to be able to easily track and analyse our traffic metrics so we asked them to fully set up our Google Analytics.

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

We worked 1:1 with Ultan on this project. Ultan leads the Elevate team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I can’t share revenue figures of our store, but what I can share is that we've increased our sales by over 100% since Elevate helped us migrate to Shopify. Our photos are also increasingly featured on national newspapers, so our brand awareness has gone through the roof.

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

Having Ultan as our primary point of contact made such a difference. He was always available to answer any questions we had and did an excellent in explaining every step of the migration process. Elevate uses Asana to manage their projects which made it easy to see how our project was progressing.

If we ever had any questions about a particular task as part of the project, we could comment on Asana and Ultan would promptly answer. No problems whatsoever.

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

Besides their excellent design work, they’re super nice people. We really enjoy working with them and will continue to do so in the future. It's a relief to us that we've found a partner that we can rely on for the future of our brand's journey.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing comes to mind. They’re fantastic and easy to work with. We love their design work. I can’t think of anything that could use improvement.