Coalesce

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm an investor with Acumen America

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

We needed web development and maintenance on a website we launched as a part of a new strategic initiative.

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

We worked with a branding agency that had a good relationship with Coalesce. After the initial web development was completed, we elected to hire Coalesce to continue to provide development and maintenance support.

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

The project was a full website design and development on WordPress with Hubspot/Disqus/Google Analytics integration.

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

We worked directly with 3 members of their product team, including their Director of Product, Product Architect, and Product Strategy. Our contacts act as the liaison to the broader Coalesce team that works on our project.

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

Our website has enabled us to engage more deeply with our partners and networks. We secured a feature on The Atlantic, in partnership with one of our funders, that featured the website Coalesce developed for us.

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

The Coalesce team is proactive and timely in their project management/communication. All projects are properly scoped and it's clear when and how changes will get pushed. I've also appreciated their dedication to client service.

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

Coalesce has brought a spirit of creative problem solving and adaptability to our project. Rather than pushing for expensive development changes, Coalesce was willing to work with us to identify solutions that fit our timing and budget.

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

No.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder and editor of The Creative Factor.

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

Our publication needed a brand refresh, as we looked elevate the look and feel of our publication and channels to something more compelling and professional-looking. Our goals were to create the kind of branding that impresses the design community--since they are a core audience--which is no easy feat. Coalesce delivered on that in a big way.

How did you select this vendor?

I knew their Head of Strategy and kept hearing about all the cool things they were working on. In short, Coalesce thinks like me. They are dreamers and doers. They have the kinds of original ideas that push boundaries in the best possible way. They are bold and daring. These are all characteristics I resonated with and knew I just had to work with them.

Describe the scope of their work in detail, including any steps and the final deliverables.

Coalesce did a full rebrand for The Creative Factor including brand statements, style & function, personas, visual identity and brand applications. In total, a 41-page brand book that includes our beautiful logo, the Triad of Creativity, with several real-world applications on how to use it. All told, the process took one month, with a series of weekly meetings that took us from blank page to brand book.

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

We worked with their:

• Head of Product Strategy
• Head of Brand Strategy
• Head of Design
• two graphic designers

Five people total.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Coalesce exceeded our wildest expectations. Though it's still early, we know their branding work will have a meaningful impact on our publication in the months and years ahead. It will earn the respect of the design community, which is a huge goal.

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

I would describe their management style as being in the best possible hands. Supportive, reassuring, and timely. Project was done via meetings, calls, and email. Everything unfolded like clockwork and on time.

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

The way Coalesce was able to take our half-baked thoughts and turn them into something visually-captivating and boundary-pushing. We always worried we couldn't articulate our thinking well enough, and they did an amazing job interpreting what we meant to say and translating that into the final product.

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

No. I am someone who looks for longterm partners--that's how I like to work with people. I would love to be a longterm partner of Coalesce.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the founder of Sparrow Corporation, which provides data acquisition, instrument control software and integration services to the research, industry, and university communities.

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

Sparrow Corp hired Coalesce to design and maintain our website and associated digital footprint. We needed a cohesive place to promote our services and our software that was easy to update and communicate our offerings.

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

Coalesce was recommended through a consultant; very clear and timely communication w/ the team

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

Coalesce offered suggestions for the update of the site plus advised on how to host it and provided a maintenance schedule that would allow us to step away and work on the product versus the website itself. We wanted to utilize some existing graphics from a previous build and they plug in those assets in a seamless way.

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

We worked with a strategy and architecture lead as well as designers when needed.

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

Our site is functional and reliable and performs the functions we need to keep our business running.

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

We relied heavily on Coalesce to let us know what needs updates and when. We make a great team and appreciate their guidance so we can focus on the product.

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

Coalesce seems to have their fingers on the pulse of best-in-class technology and always has a suggestion for us that we wouldn’t have discovered on our own. With their combined manpower, we feel comfortable knowing our site is going to communicate what we need to, when we need it to. They are easy to get a hold of and great communicators.

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

Potentially, but not sure about specifically.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a picture framing manufacturer that has been in business for over 40 years. We are located in NY and NJ. We manufacture frames, prints, displays, and more. I am the business development manager.

For what projects/services did your company hire Coalesce?

We hired Coalesce to help strategize increased fluidity in our processing of orders, and how to place Skyframe into the digital world. What technology can do to improve our processing and relationships with current clients.

What were your goals for this project?

To find a platform for our online environment, and identify areas of processing that can be improved by use of technology.

How did you select this vendor?

I extensively interviewed companies around New York that I found online. After hearing the well rounded expertise in all areas of business processes, not just website dev, I chose them

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They provided a roadmap that based each step on data collected from our processes, client interviews, employee interviews and more. The roadmap discussed which ecommerce platform would solve most of our issues and needs, and what necessary back end components would be needed as well.

What was the team composition?

I worked with all members of their team during the process. They worked with all employees in key positions, IE Managers, sales reps.

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

We are now more confident on where we go from here. It has educated us on our company's needs more than we could have done alone. Experienced and educated guidance..,..

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

They had different sprints and exercises that made the process fun and easy...It also answered their questions perfectly.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

How thought through their processes were. They had a plan to come to an answer...Each person had a lot of knowledge of how companies work at large, especially manufacturing. All business processes. Good guidance on multiple levels, not just e commerce.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nope - was very happy.

Please describe your company and your position there.

BBQ Films is an NYC/LA event production company that creates immersive cinematic experiences in extraordinary locations. We produce large-scale immersive experiences for film and television properties with the goal of marketing the project to die-hard fans as well as the public at large.

For what projects/services did your company hire Coalesce?

USA/Universal engaged our company to produce an immersive experience for the season 3 premiere of "Mr. Robot" at 2017's New York Comic Con. Coalesce was hired to build certain key technical aspects of the hybrid theatrical show/marketing experience. Details below.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goals were to a) engage fans of the series and bring them into the world of their favorite show; b) generate awareness excitement for MR Robot for attendees at New York Comic Con who were unfamiliar with the show; c) garner earned media and social shares of the experience; d) assist overall with the marketing of season 3 of Mr. Robot.

How did you select this vendor?

We selected this vendor through personal recommendations as they had both the technical capability and the creative expertise to deliver an authentic experience.

Describe the project in detail.

We invited 1k+ fans to this free event, billed as an in-world corporate gala hosted by the show's villainous company E Corp. There was food, drink, music, and special guest speakers. However, for true fans who dug deeper into the event's narrative and explored the space, they were rewarded with special missions from the show's hero group of hackers called F Society. That group's mission is to topple the evil bank, and guests were recruited into F Society with a variety of mission to secretly disrupt this big gala. One of the critical missions was for guests to enter a room with a server stack with a functional interface and "hack" into the program to alter the E Corp presentations given later in the evening.

Coalesce was hired to design and install a realistic interface that would allow guests to feel like they were actually hacking into a system and replacing a key video file. This experience was integral to the event and USA/Universal insisted the interface was based in realism, since the show is also authentic to the world of computer hacking. The event was a big success, exciting for fans and press, as well as leading to an eventual Emmy nomination for our company BBQ FIlms. (The category was "Outstanding achievement in interactive media for a scripted program").

What was the team composition?

We were able to access the talents of the full team in creative ideation, digital design, and UX implementation. The team was supervised by the show technical advisor and Coalesce was able to deliver the experience that was both accessible to attendees with a knowledge of computer coding and hacking, as well as fans who were novices but wanted to feel like a hacker. (Coalesce designed a step-by-step guide on how to access the backdoor to the server and the guide was hidden in the server room for novice fans to discover and be able to "hack" as well).

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

It was a pleasure throughout the whole experience. They made an intense project fun and made our guests happy. The Emmy nomination we received would not have been possible without them.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very effective. They were always responsive and met every deadline. They were total professionals.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their creativity and personalities. Again, they made it fun and also put the time into learning about the show and making sure what they designed was authentic and more importantly would be a fun game for the audience to play. It felt like they designed the experience with the true fan at heart, and it showed.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I just hope we have another chance to work with them. Nothing to be improved from the last project.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an operations manager for Financial Investment News. We cover the defined benefit plan space for foundations and endowments within the United States.

What challenge were you trying to address with Coalesce?

We used to have three different publications: FinDaily, Nonprofit News, and Emerging Manager Monthly, as well as a search database. We decided to combine FinDaily and Nonprofit News into a new site called FinNews. We wanted a one-stop shop for all our customers to get the institutional news that they need.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They originally helped us mostly with the backend of the FinNews site. We did a Salesforce integration for our sites and they helped us re-engineer and remodel our customer portal. Our portal is for users who want to sign up for a trial purchases subscription, check their transaction history, update their own personal information, add on subscriptions, or remove subscriptions. It was completed around April of last year.

From there, we moved on to creating a new system for our newsletters. Coalesce built an export tool called Campaign Monitor that allowed us to take any of the stories that are uploaded onto our site and create an export into HTML with a few clicks of a button. Those stories can then be uploaded to our mass mailer for e-mail marketing.

We then started to work on the frontend design of FinNews. It took a little under a year for us to complete that. Coalesce added different types of features that we didn't have on the previous site and gave it a facelift to draw in more customers. Our new site provided more “freemium” type content and added features that we thought would add more value to our own product, increase our subscription rates, and hopefully draw in new customers. We wanted to take users who previously looked at our old site, which was pretty archaic, and draw them in through viewing this content and feeling more connected to the brand.

We’ve been sharing a server with our database site, so Coalesce has worked with a different development team over the last couple of weeks to update the servers so that they can push different changes through. There was a point where somebody made a mistake on the server end and brought the site down, so we’re still trying to work through that.

What is the team composition?

Igor (Developer, Coalesce) works on the bulk of the tasks with a mediator, Tucker (Product Strategy), between him and us. I work with Tucker throughout the day, when I find bugs or when I come up with ideas for things that we want to have added, and he relays that information. Igor then makes any needed changes to our staging site and Tucker goes back and does the testing.

We’ll often have Justin (Director of Architecture) go through and test these updates before going live. Alex (Designer) works on any frontend changes that we are interested in making. He'll QA those, make them in Zeppelin, and then Tucker will review them. Tucker sends the changes to me and then tells Igor to publish them.

How did you come to work with Coalesce?

I did a lot of research a couple of years ago in search of local developers. We wanted someone within a short distance who would come through for us and do in-person meetings, but also someone with experience in the publishing space. When I came across Coalesce’s website, I learned they had worked with a similar site in the real estate space, which has a similar subscription model to ours—premium content that's blocked by a paywall. I thought that would be an easy transition.

I also found that Coalesce had received positive reviews on Clutch as well as praise elsewhere, so I decided to give them a call.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $300,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in August 2017 and the engagement is ongoing.

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

We’ve had about four times as much traffic since the launch compared to what we used to get on FinDaily. User session durations have also increased by about two minutes, and we found that pages per session had increased by about 1.5.

How did Coalesce perform from a project management standpoint?

They're very professional and easy to communicate with. We use Slack to communicate quickly throughout the day. We also use Asana as a project management organization tool, so I can go through there and check what's in development and see their notes. I can track the progress of different projects and different fixes that we have to go through.

They’ve been very good on that front. They definitely spend a lot of time in the staging process making sure that everything is correct before they move projects to the production side. Sometimes it does take a little bit of time for them to push through fixes that sometimes may seem to be pretty simple. Everything is tested, even if it's as simple as changing the padding on a section header. They’re very cautious, but for the most part, it works pretty well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They stand out for their ability to connect with us and get a sense of what we're looking for without making it too technical. We’re not really a big group of developers and we just know the basics, for the most part, so we're looking for somebody that we trust. We wanted somebody that understands what we're looking for and can get the technical part of it worked out without invading us too much, and that’s what Coalesce offers.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’d like them to spend less time in the staging and testing process and deploy fixes to the site more quickly.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you’re diligent with tracking the tasks and their progress and follow up at least once per day to ensure things are getting pushed through at a good rate. Feel free to keep an open dialogue and speak your mind to them and they'll be sure to listen if you have any concerns or if you have any ideas. They're very willing to help you. They take their expertise and try to improve a good idea.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m a partner of Essex Manufacturing, a company that manufactures and supplies consumer goods across multiple areas to all major international retailers. We are working on expanding our Beach division, as well as diversifying our scope and reach by creating our own brands.

For what projects/services did your company hire Coalesce?

We hired Coalesce to help us come up with an authentic brand—including guidelines and identity—that would fulfill a need we saw within the market. 

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted an easily understandable brand book, a web page, and a clear direction for where the brand would go as it grows. We also wanted to set up social media platforms to build awareness and a customer base.

How did you select this vendor?

We’d previously consulted with Coalesce. They were extremely accommodating on a time-sensitive project. Their ideas are fresh and on point. Everyone on our team felt comfortable selecting them and continuing with their services.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Coalesce began the process with a couple of discovery sessions where we brainstormed about ideas for the brand. We filled out a document and discussed it as a group. They did market research and analysis to come up with the ideal spot for our brand to live. Together we came up with brand characteristics, and collectively narrowed them down to the key elements. 

Next, we went through a detailed naming conversation. Coalesce supplied a variety of names and we voted on some of our favorites. After we narrowed it down to four names, they created mockups of logo concepts and design imagery to solidify the feel of the brand. They created a brand book and guidelines once we selected the final name. They’re now working on a landing page for the website, as well as sharing design inspiration and samples for building out our media presence.

What was the team composition?

We’ve worked closely with three members of their team since the start of the project.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We’re still in the product development stage, but the Coalesce team has provided everything we asked for.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They were excellent, even when we were not. Coalesce was always right there to catch when we let non-urgent items slip by. They made sure the project kept moving, and did so in a friendly and supportive way. Each team member has a specific role, which ensures a seamless process and easy working environment. 

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their style and quality of work are unparalleled. I’d recommend Coalesce to anyone looking to start a big or small project, in any field.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, it’s been a lovely experience.

This review was updated by the client on January 28th, 2020. New content is below. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the co owner of a family owned business

For what projects/services did your company hire Coalesce?

We hired them to come up with a brand name, logo, and ID. They also will next probably be working on a website. They also helped with general company ideas.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to come up with a marketable brand that felt authentic and really went after a target customer. We want to gain traction in a new market as well as build on what we already do. We want to eventually get e commerce and ge placement into new retailers.

How did you select this vendor?

They came highly recommended and met with them and immediately felt it was the right fit. They have also done other projects for different branches at our company. We felt comfortable working with them right away.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We have just chosen a logo and design and we already have a ton of positive feedback on it. We are showing our products within the brand at a show in March and we hope this will result in more concrete evidence. The logo and name look amazing and we feel very confident in it.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I thought they are so fun to work with. They have all angles with an amazing vibe but also business knowledge and helped guide us towards our customer. Every brand ID and name/ logo had a reason and a ton of thought behind it.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m a PR and marketing consultant at Air Liquide, a world leader in gases, technologies, and services for industry and health. A lot of my work focuses on local education and awareness.

For what projects/services did your company hire Coalesce?

Air Liquide is a global corporation that supplies industrial gases and services to various industries, one of which is hydrogen fuel for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCV). Our goal was to educate the public and change perceptions about the safety and benefits of hydrogen as a fuel. We wanted to target the next generation of drivers in areas where new fueling stations would soon be opening. We hired Coalesce to create engaging content about hydrogen for a young audience.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to showcase hands-on activities and guests who are fluent in the science at several of our live events.

How did you select this vendor?

After reading their pitches for ideas, we decided they would be a good fit for the scope of the project and the audience.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Coalesce designed and developed live event concepts and content to promote hydrogen for young audiences. They produced two independent campaigns in California—one for high schoolers and another for children ages 5–12 at a science festival.

Both campaigns were created to be scalable for future activations. For the high school event, Coalesce produced custom video montages and sourced hydrogen fuel cell kits to donate to the science department for hands-on training that would outlive our visit. At the science festival, they designed easy-to-find, responsive iPad content well-suited for small hands, as well as a custom 360-degree VR video that took visitors inside a hydrogen fuel cell via lightweight viewing headsets. In addition to the digital touchpoints, Coalesce supplied ball-and-stick wooden models to encourage discovery, as well as various giveaways with lasting power. Children visiting the booth could interact with the technology and toys at their own pace, providing ownership over the experience and real-time reactions.

What was the team composition?

We worked primarily with a strategist who managed the entire project. Two designers created all of the print and digital assets. And we also worked with their talent—the scientist—who performed at both events.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The campaigns were fun, educational, and effective in communicating the importance of hydrogen as a fuel source to the next generation of drivers. The multimedia experiences and products combined to help showcase our technology to more than 1,000 students in two days. The VR video and implementation was especially seamless and helped elevate our offerings at the live event.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We formed an efficient collaboration process from the start.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Coalesce’s pitch decks were clear and contained well-researched products and a design direction that would be viable by the event deadlines. They moved quickly and had the skills and judgement to make decisions on the fly when needed. Plus, their team was present to manage and monitor the technology touch points at the events, ensuring each visitor could enjoy a VR video experience or use the touchscreens.

Coalesce has a varied and desirable set of skills that truly sets them apart. They understood our mission and our tight timeframe, and they ensured the components were working throughout the entire process.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing specific comes to mind as needing improvement.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CEO of a small business that provides training and test prep for different exams. A lot of our work is linked to our online platform, which we use to train people online.

What challenge were you trying to address with Coalesce?

Our website was outdated and not mobile responsive, so we wanted to redesign it. There were a lot of components — the frontend, an eCommerce portion, online training tools, and the backend. Redesigning everything was a big task. We also wanted to rethink who we were and be more strategic in our branding, so we began looking for a strong partner to address those needs and help us overhaul the entire website and user experience.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They recommended that we simplify our eCommerce solution and our package structure,  focusing on the real value we provide. We got rid of all the additional things we were offering, which were complicating our eCommerce and training experience. They offered a new eCommerce solution that was fast, sleek, and mobile and user friendly.

They also created a new experience for students – a more intuitive training center that integrates with different platforms we use. Our website had different components that students could access but it looked clunky and disjointed. Coalesce brought that all under one roof for a more seamless integration.

For the backend experience, they enhanced the speed, making the website more robust and enabling us to manipulate data with ease. They had worked with a lot of startups, new websites, and projects that function in sprint or agile methodology, but our situation was more challenging since we already had an existing functioning system. They successfully tackled this challenge. We were impressed with the strategic game they brought to the table and all the designs and specs they put together. We launched our new site in November 2017.

What is the team composition?

We had an incredible strategist who managed the entire project, but also worked directly with the director of architecture, designer and UX experts. 

How did you come to work with them?

I found them through a Google search. At first, I thought they were a random company (they were not referred to us), but I was impressed by the high SEO they achieved in a crowded space in Manhattan. That was a good prospect.

We went through a lengthy vetting process and met with lots of potential vendors. We had a few conversations with Coalesce and I shared our vision for the website, which they respected. Their ideas also impressed us and everything just clicked. On top of that, we liked the fact that we could have face-to-face meetings with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around March of 2017 and the major launch was in November of 2017. We are now working with them on an ongoing basis on additional projects. 

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

Within the first week, our website traffic increased by 7% and our overall SEO rankings shot up 22%. Our system's functionality has significantly improved. Now it's a pleasure to log in and use the system. They've also created a new brand book for us.

Everything they do they take one step beyond the new look and feel for the website – they dive in and try to understand what that really means for all facets of the business. They made everything more congruent and displayed our branding throughout the website.

How did they perform from a project management standpoint?

They've been great. We were wary of this project because of our past experiences with other vendors, so we were very pleased with how they handled everything. They stayed on track with the project and gave us access to their tools, so we knew exactly when things were happening.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're strategic and critical thinkers with a lot of experience, insights, and knowledge. They're invested in our product and our brand and want us to succeed as a business. We're a small company, so we really needed a partner and not just a developer who builds a project and goes away. And they've been that product partner for us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't think so.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Gain an understanding from the beginning about what different members on the team handle so that you know who you need to talk about what. You have to be involved and give feedback to make the project successful. Also, throw a lot of information at them to let them see a bigger picture and fully grasp your goals.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Zarin Fabrics is a third-generation family business since 1936 that sells fabric and decorating services such as custom window treatments and upholstery. I'm the president.

What challenge were you trying to address with Coalesce?

We were trying to create a new inventory system that worked well with a POS [point of sale] system and an e-commerce platform so that when we create purchase orders and receive the inventory, those items go directly into the POS and the website without having to manipulate the data several times during the process.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Coalesce interviewed us to formulate a strategy in order to see what our needs were, and then they did all of the research on our behalf, coming up with all the different platforms that would work for us. Once they discovered what would work best for us, they did the testing, manipulated it, and then helped us implement and train our salespeople and other people who work here on how to use it.

We wanted something that was cloud-based. We had recently switched to a Shopify e-commerce platform. Since that was something that we had just done, they went out and discovered that the Shopify POS would work well for our in-store sales. They found an inventory management system called Stitch that worked well with the Shopify platforms as well.

There were two main people who were working on the project: Tucker [Strategy, Operations & Architecture, Coalesce] and Justin [Director of Architecture, Coalesce]. They seemed to have been overseen by Staton [Director of Strategy & Product, Coalesce].

How did you come to work with Coalesce?

They work in a co-working space above us. I was speaking with the owner of the co-working space about our needs and he referred us to them. I spoke with Coalesce, and they seemed to really know what they were talking about along with being professional and knowledgeable, so I went with them. Part of it was the convenience that they were in the building, so I would have access to them all the time, and they would be able to come right down the stairs and troubleshoot for us whenever we needed help.

How much have you invested with Coalesce?

We have invested around $30,000–$40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with them in July 2016. The work is ongoing. They helped us with choosing the platform and with implementing it. Now, over the next few months, they're going to be training all the employees and providing support. Half of it is implementation and finding the right platforms that work, and the other half is making sure that everyone here knows how to use it and uses it the right way.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Since using the platform, it's been very good for us as far as the inventory goes, because we didn't have a very good handle on tracking what or how much we had. Our fabric comes on a bolt of 50 yards, and we weren’t inputting specific SKUs in and deducting, so it was always difficult to know how much we had of anything—if we had any. Now it's become a lot easier to track what we're selling and also know that we have more of it on the shelf.

There are issues with the solution, though. Part of it is that Shopify wants you to use their payment system to process payments, and we were happy with our merchant processor. Theirs was less expensive and easier because it's fully integrated, but there were problems with it. If we had a chargeback, with Shopify, you just have to submit what is in the system and you can't speak with anyone. With our old processor, I'm able to provide backup. We do a lot of custom work, so we have a lot of signatures on paper. We have a lot of detail written down that's outside of the system. With our old processor, we were able to send all that in, and we would never lose a chargeback. With Shopify, that didn't work for us, so we had to switch back to our old processor, who actually matched the rate which is good, but the third-party merchant processor doesn't work as well with the system. The Shopify system has the card chip readers; if you use a third-party processor, you have to use the old swipers. We're getting a lot of declines because they think it's fraud.

There's another issue, which they knew wasn't going to be able to be solved without putting in a larger investment, and that is that we sell fabric off the bolt. We cut 1¼ yards, 1½, and 1¾ yards. With our old system, we were able to input 0.25. With the new system, we can only sell in whole units. If we're selling something, we try to sell it as full yards, which is good because we sell half a yard more. A lot of our customers who have been coming to us for a while are not used to that. Let’s say they buy 5½ yards. We have to sell 5 off the SKU, and then we enter the ½ yard as a separate item. That messes up the inventory a little bit, so we have to stay on top of how much we have and make adjustments every so often.

To fix these things, we will need some custom programming, and we're not ready to spend the money on that now. It's something that is just becoming part of our sales process, and we're going to leave it be for now. However, we just met with them today about potentially fixing the issue of the chip card reader.

How did Coalesce perform from a project management standpoint?

They are excellent. They're really knowledgeable and on top of things, doing a lot of research into how the systems work and what would be best. They take into consideration the people who work here and their skill level. Although recommending something may not be as good as another solution, it would be better for us because of the skill level of the people who work here. They take all of those factors into consideration.

All of their work was delivered on time, but it wasn’t within budget. It definitely cost more than what we had expected. As they got into it, they realized that the scope of the project was larger than they had anticipated.

We just used email to communicate with them.

What did you find most impressive about Coalesce?

They're very organized and goal driven. They're not just trying to sell you their services, but rather really want to find the best solution. They operate on a very high level. We're a small business, but I think they can provide services to large corporations who would be happy with their reporting, follow-up, and attentiveness.

Are there any areas Coalesce could improve?

If they could try to come in within budget, that would be helpful. They work on an hourly basis, so they could provide a little more detail on what they're billing for.