BroSolutions

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the leader of Traverse Group, a small consulting company that focuses on helping companies get into retail.

What challenge were you trying to address with BroSolutions?

We needed someone to do customizations and maintenance for our e-commerce website, which runs on Magento.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve hired them on a monthly basis to do any type of customizations that might need. For instance, if we wanted to change our checkout process, we would ask them to come up with a viable solution and then implement it after getting our approval. They also provide maintenance support to make sure our web servers, infrastructure, and other backend features are all running smoothly.

What is the team composition?

We work with 15–20 people from their side, including one main contact person.

How did you come to work with BroSolutions?

We found them through online research. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $26,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in July 2021, and our collaboration is still ongoing.

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

We haven’t experienced any downtime from our website since hiring them. Their team implements everything that we need quickly and doesn’t waste any time executing other tasks.

How did BroSolutions perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve met our deadlines and stayed within budget. We communicate mainly through Skype and phone calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their biggest strength is that they don’t act like they know everything — they listen carefully to what we’re trying to accomplish and provide us with their own feedback and ideas throughout the process. Their execution speed is impressive as well.

Are there any areas they could improve on?

I can’t think of anything. They’ve done exactly what we needed them to do.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very clear and concise with what you’re trying to achieve.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a busy e-commerce development agency, which builds e-commerce stores. I am one of the owners/partners within the business.

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

With the growth of our business, we sometimes require an extra pair of hands during the development process.

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

We were looking for a business partner to work with us, and after working with a few other development agencies - BroSolution provided us with the technical know-how that equals to our own, which is extremely important for our ROI.

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

BroSolutions are a business partner, who we call upon on various projects. As an equal development agency we find that they are an extension of our team, providing the quality of service that our clients expect from us.

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

We work with a range of team members, who gain access to our project management team, these team members range from backend developers to frontend developers.

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

BroSolutions have been at hand when we have needed them the most, we simply provide them with a brief, and they following our process on our project management team software. They deliver their work in a timely and professional manner, which is key to our business.

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

They are extremely efficient with their time, as we project manage the projects, we can vouch for the timings on each assignment.

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

BroSolutions provide a service that is exceptional, and as we are in the same business – we are extremely fussy about who we would work with; however, this has never been an issue with BroSolutions. We are very happy with the work they have done for us.

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

Nothing needs improving – we are extremely happy with their performance.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the IT and marketing manager of I Want Fabric. We’re an e-commerce business selling  textiles.

What challenge were you trying to address with BroSolutions?

We were migrating to a new e-commerce platform, which required us to rebuild our site.

What was the scope of their involvement?

BroSolutions supported us through the migration, making sure all of our data from the previous platform, Magento 1, made it onto the second one, Magento 2. From there, we had to build step-by-step each page of the site. 

The team mostly provided backend development — I would provide them with designs, and they would turn those into functioning pages.

What is the team composition?

I work with three resources: a backend developer, frontend developer, and a project manager.

How did you come to work with BroSolutions?

We found them up on UpWork. They were cheaper and faster than anyone else we spoke to, so we decided to partner with them. We initially only engaged them for the data migration project, but we were impressed with their performance and kept them on for the web development.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about £12,000 (approximately $15,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the project in May 2020. The project is mostly wrapped up, but they still help from time to time with smaller tasks.

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

BroSolutions has been very attentive. We never need to ask them to do something twice. They’ve also been very good at working with our busy schedule, which we were impressed with.

How did BroSolutions perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve done pretty well. The team always gives an estimate of how long each task will take, and they’ve rarely spent more time than they quoted. Overall, BroSolutions was quite efficient.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We haven’t worked with many developers, so I’m not sure if they have any super distinctive features. I’m happy with everything they’ve done with us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I wouldn’t say so.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Clearly define exactly what you need. From my experience, they tend to do exactly as they’re asked, so make sure everything is as defined as possible.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a mega-store that sells functional foods and fitness-related articles.

What challenge were you trying to address with BroSolutions?

We needed to convert a regular e-commerce structure into a complex marketplace allowing for multiple merchants to create inputs.

What was the scope of their involvement?

BroSolutions created a platform where different parties—after logging into a unified interface—have access to a dashboard. Merchants can independently control that dashboard in regards to products, prices, and promotions.

BroSolutions’ expertise is in Magento, but they’ve been flexible about incorporating different technologies, particularly on the backend. They built various systems and scripts to automate processes. We usually work in sprints.

What is the team composition?

I actually worked with one of the owners, Alex (Owner). I engaged with many of his developers on different aspects of the project. Most of them were backend developers, and there’s always a project manager who serves as my main point of contact.

How did you come to work with BroSolutions?

I found them through a freelancing platform, where we made original contact. Our relationship began because I saw that they had good reviews for their work in e-commerce development.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent somewhere within $100,000–$250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in September 2016, and it’s an ongoing partnership.

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

They’ve released several stores in various sprints, and there were always minimal bugs or errors. Their deliveries were always of good quality; I haven’t had any issues with them. Software issues come up occasionally, but they’ve always been positive in dealing with those issues. Overall, they’ve demonstrated their strong technical expertise in e-commerce development.

How did BroSolutions perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve never had any issues; their communication has been excellent. They’re very responsive and reliable. I’ve worked in software for over a decade, and I believe that you’d have to hire an in-house developer to get better communication than what they offer. We use standard tools like Slack and Skype to collaborate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re honest and fair. The quality of their work is also very good considering their price. I’ve always had a very good experience with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

In the world of software development, there’s always room for improvement. I can only recommend that they continue striving to be masters and geniuses in coding.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I don’t really have any advice. I’ve found them to be very reliable, compared to other providers I’ve engaged with.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Sotheby's Home is a subsidiary of Sotheby's - a Multi-billion dollar consignment company. We are an ecommerce website specializes in mid-market high quality art, furniture, and vintage consignments. I am the the Engineering Director responsible for the operation of Sotheby's Home (sothebyshome.com).

For what projects/services did your company hire BroSolutions?

Custom Magento development. We needed to build highly custom features that support our business.

What were your goals for this project?

Improve the performance and user experience of our site. This included highly custom ecommerce features (e.g. "Make an Offer"), responsive design, new checkout process, Analytics, and much more. The languages here were mainly javascript, PHP and shell. Libraries used were mainly Magento, Angular and React.

How did you select this vendor?

This vendor was highly recommended on Upwork.com. I considered at least 10 other vendores before choosing bro-solutions. Important factors were cost, quality and communications. Alex and his team are excellent at all of the above.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They were responsible for development, documentation, and gathering of technical requirements (in some cases). They interact with every part of our business - operations, tech, marketing and order fulfillment.

What was the team composition?

There were 1-2 resources involved from the Vendor. They worked closely with the dev team at Sotheby's and attended daily standup and other Agile meetings.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

The work that Bro-Solutions have done for us without a doubt contributed to increase in sales in consignment volume - all of which increased by orders of magnitude. We couldn't have done this without their help.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The vendor attended daily standup and operated like other full-time staff. They were incorporated into our Slack, Githbub and Product Board. Even though they are off-shore, their communication skills is excellent.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are really hard-working and honest. They always operated with the best interest of Sotheby's. I've never worked with such a vendor before. They are really flexible.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Marginal improvement, so small it is not worth mentioning here.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior managing director of JDS Partners Limited, which owns INQEO. INQEO is a retailer of home décor prints. We operate mostly as a B2B company, because we mediate between the manufacturer and vendors. We receive and process orders which are sent to the manufacturer, which then sends the products to either the business or end-user.

What challenge were you trying to address with BroSolutions?

We were initially looking for someone to fix some issues we were having with our Magento system.

What was the scope of their involvement?

While we initially contacted the founder to resolve some simple issues, they’ve since built out different, heavily-modified Magento systems from the ground up. These include our online store to our order-processing and accounting systems. They’ve delivered so many different modules and extensions that have saved us enormous amounts of both money and time.

In one project, they developed Magento integrations that automated our connection with our manufacturer. More recently, they created and integrated bespoke web apps that allow shoppers to create custom products tailored to their desired dimensions.

While focusing on backend work, using PHP, their team has also branched out to do some frontend web design work for us as well.

What is the team composition?

While Alex (CEO, BroSolutions) was our first and primary point of contact, we’ve worked with 4­­–5 developers over the years. For two years, we contracted Vlad (Backend Developer, BroSolutions) to work for us full-time. Alex has operated as an over-arching product manager, as well.

How did you come to work with BroSolutions?

We found Alex through a freelancing site, seven years ago; this was before he had founded his company. We hired him to fix a few simple Magento issues. We were so impressed with his work that we continued to rely on him, and eventually, his team, for different tasks.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent somewhere around $70,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve worked together since 2012, and it’s a happily ongoing relationship.

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

Without Alex and his team, we wouldn’t be in business today. They’ve been so central to our growth; throughout our partnership, our turnover has grown from $250,000 to roughly $2 million. We’ve been able to keep our own team very small (just 12 people) while achieving so many different milestones.

For instance, when they created that automated connection with our manufacturer, they saved my business partner four hours a day of processing time.

They’ve worked fantastically well because the things they can do with Magento are just incredible. They’re also intuitive and quick in understanding my requests—they seem to simply get it, every time. I don’t know where we’d be without them.

How did BroSolutions perform from a project management standpoint?

Communication with them has been absolutely fantastic. I have access to their ticketing system, where I can assign tasks to different team members, leave comments, upload files, and make updates.

I’ve worked with several different vendors in different countries, and Alex’s team has been the best, by far. I never have to waste time briefing them, because they understand my requirements immediately.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their availability and their quick response time are invaluable to us. Whenever there’s an issue, I just send them a quick message through email or Skype, and they’ll get back to me straight away—even if it’s after work hours, or on the weekend. I think that that level of their support has been one of the biggest advantages of our relationship.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Honestly, I can’t think of anything. I largely attribute our business’ success to them, and I can’t fault them for anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Decide early on how you’re going to communicate with them. With so many channels of communication, things can be overlooked if you don’t consolidate within one system. I’d request access to their ticketing system because that’s been an extremely efficient and faultless way for us to communicate.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the president of a web design and development company. We build and maintain sites for our clients, most of whom sell goods and services online as e-commerce and service-based companies.

What challenge were you trying to address with BroSolutions?

We've worked together for about five years now. When we first hired them, we needed a group of developers who could scale up and down with the size of our projects and the frequency of those projects. We needed a team with a lot of technical experience who could jump in and help us with development projects.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Most of our projects are custom Magento websites. Their tasks include customizing or modifying checkouts, providing new or unique customer experiences, and integrating with point of sales systems.

What is the team composition?

At any given point, we work with a team of four. We've wrapped up several projects, but throughout our relationship, we've worked with a total of ten developers.

How did you come to work with BroSolutions?

We met via a third-party marketplace. We posted a request for a freelancer to help us with a particular need. We hoped to integrate a point of sales system into Magento. We wanted something reusable that we could offer to other clients. After interviewing ten different developers, the price point, reusability, and knowledge that BroSolutions offered were far superior to any other quote we received. We gave them more and more projects over time, and our relationship turned into more of a partnership.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent $114,000 on their work for us to date.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in the middle of 2015. They still do work for us.

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

We're actively tracking our speed of production and bugs to improve our business. That said, we haven't identified exact numbers yet. Their timeliness, responsiveness, level of communication, accessibility, and general knowledge are all very good.

How did BroSolutions perform from a project management standpoint?

When our workload got busy, they brought in additional developers. We experienced no reduction in quality from one developer to the next, and our current development lead is very thorough. We managed the project internally with two different tools. When we switched to this newest project management tool, our process improved considerably. They are happy to work with a variety of tools, and they have an option on their side to fill any voids.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We've worked with as many as fifty developers. Their quality and timeliness are far superior to any other developer we've worked with. We can bounce business ideas off of each other, and we're constantly refining our process. BroSolutions is definitely a partner, and I can't imagine working with another company.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The improvements really lie within our own systems and processes. The quality on their side is very good, and I don't have anything that they could improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be systematic in your process. They'll follow your lead, and they’ll ensure good results.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the owner of a patio-heating specialty company with a presence in the US market.

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

We were operating on the out-of-date Magento One platform extension, called Safe Harbor, on Nexcess (host). BroSolutions was hired as Webmaster.

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

We were referred to Alex at BroSolutions.

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

Old Magento sites require a lot of maintenance due to their Open Source nature and all of the after market applications attached.

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

Alex worked with us.

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

Alex was very responsive and proficient at dealing with our maintenance and development needs. He was helpful right to the end, as we moved on to a Big Commerce platform.

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

We were on different time zones. It was easier to communicate by email and WhatsApp because Alex's accent was a little bit hard for me to understand, but that worked well.

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

They took care of our webmaster needs.

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

We are satisfied.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We're a Norwegian agency delivering development for eCommerce merchants and I'm the CEO.

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

We had a number of Magento 2 customers that needed custom feature development and upgrades.

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

Looked for experienced Magento developers, and after speaking to Alex a few times it was easy to see that they were really experienced with Magento and could deliver what we needed fast. Experience and expertise were the deciding factors.

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

1. Magento 2 module development: simple module to provide brand functionality 
2. Magento 2 upgrade: upgrade to the latest version
3. Magento 2 custom checkout: rewrite module code as the existing customisation was poorly written, which lead to errors in checkout. Javascript, Magento, PHP

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

Alex and his team of developers.

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

Reduced errors on customer site. Increased usability due to new features. More secure Magento store after upgrade.

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

Easy to speak to, always kept us up to date on the work.

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

Expertise and efficient delivery. They deliver outputs that are already tested and ready for production.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No

Please describe your company and your position there.

Digital agency

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

Custom Magento2 module development

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

They had a good portfolio, and proved they are highly skilled with Magento.

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

They developed a custom module in Magento2 for one of our clients.

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

Only one, the owner.

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

They delivered the module exactly like planned. We are very satisfied with the results.

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

We used Trello for project management, and had daily meetings on Skype.

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

We were amazed by their great service and highly skilled team.

Are there any areas for improvement?

nope, keep up the good work.