CommerceShop

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Marketing Director of Vape Craft LLC

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Biggest online vape retailer selling thousands of products per day between many of the top websites ranked on Google.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire The Commerce Shop to accomplish?

• do a difficult custom migration from a proprietary platform to BigCommerce
• setup custom integration to connect our subscription app to BigCommerce

SOLUTION

How did you find The Commerce Shop?

Online Search, Referral

Why did you select The Commerce Shop over others?

Good value for cost, Referred to me

What was the size of The Commerce Shop’s team?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Commerce Shop has been tasked with migrating our proprietary platform to Bigcommerce, our website is the biggest subscription service in the vape industry and with that, the project includes building out a secure and reliable custom application that connects with our vaulted data and enables the use of subscription data/orders on the BigCommerce checkout so we can continue servicing our subscription customers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• created the base website with pre existing extensions on the BigCommerce platform
• Created a custom application to host our subscription data for new and old customers on the BigCommerce platform
• Successfully enabled the use of subscriptions and migrated payment tokens from our old platform to our new one

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Commerce Shop delivered difficult items to us within a timely manner consistently and were always friendly.

What was your primary form of communication with The Commerce Shop?

Virtual Meeting

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

They've never turned down a challenge and resolved problems even the most seasoned developers have yet to encounter.

Are there any areas for improvement or something The Commerce Shop could have done differently?

more communication/updates between bi weekly meetings. Seemed like i would only get an update a day or two before our next meeting and wouldn't know work was being done until our next meeting.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the IT Manager of the company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Developers and manufacturers of specialty printing equipment including the Bravo-Series CD/DVD/BD Disc Publishers, LX-Series Color Label Printers, AP-Series Label Applicators, Signature Slide and Cassette Printers, and Eddie, the Edible Ink Printer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire The Commerce Shop to accomplish?

• Migration from Magento 1 to Magento 2
• Development of custom solutions to match our internal process
• CRO and SEO management

SOLUTION

How did you find The Commerce Shop?

Online Search

Why did you select The Commerce Shop over others?

Pricing first our budget, Great culture fit, Good value for cost, Company values aligned

What was your primary form of communication with The Commerce Shop?

Virtual Meeting, Email or Messaging App

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Migration from Magento 1 to Magento 2 CC and integration with our existing ERP/CRM solutions. Our Magento store began as an experiment and quickly became an integral part of our day-to-day business.

We were looking to upgrade the design/style and the infrastructure supporting the store. Integration with our existing internal systems, payment solutions, fraud protection, international sales, and conversion optimization we the essential items we wanted to be addressed.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Revenue
• Site Traffic
• Conversions

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

The development team was international, with a project manager based in the US. Our project manager has always been very responsive and available to fill in the gaps when the international team was unavailable. The international team worked through the time difference and made themselves available as I needed them.

They were always timely with responses and gave me a thorough break down of the time frame for our various projects.

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

During our initial meetings to understand the scope of work, I was very impressed with The Commerce Shop's ability to identify all the pain points we had on our existing site. We were presented with a thorough analysis that reflected exactly what we hoped to accomplish with our project.

Additionally, The Commerce Shop has understood the needs of our business and continually goes above and beyond with the solutions they create for us.

Are there any areas for improvement or something {provider_name} could have done differently?

I don't have any recommendations for improvement.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the owner of a cosmetics manufacturer and wholesaler.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire The Commerce Shop, and what were your goals?

Our website was under continual attack due to being on a shared server and we needed a better user experience. But we've been working with The Commerce Shop for 5-6 years and will continue to work them on future projects.

SOLUTION

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

We visited The Commerce Shop in Atlanta after a trade show and everyone was so nice and professional. We felt they were competent to solve our problems and help us reach our goal.

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

We eventually migrated our entire site to Shopify Plus. Which allows the best design and security features that exist.

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

We not only utilized the web development team, but the marketing team and email team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our website is now at the cutting edge and easily changeable if we desire improvements.

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

The Commerce Shop delivered everything we asked, including developing wholesale site for our b2b customers.

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

They can work with any platform and are very flexible and easy to reach.

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

The most important thing to us is that they are in our same time zone, so they aren't sleeping when we need them the most.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We're a custom printing company of labels and graphics for the trucking industry, and I also partly own an e-commerce site selling truck parts. I am the web development manager for the printing company and a part-owner of the e-commerce site.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Commerce Shop?

We needed an affordable web development solution. We had an in-house PHP programmer who had built a Drupal website for us. When he left the company, we started searching for a replacement but could only find people looking for $100,000+ salaries, which we weren't willing to pay. Commerce Shop offered us the opportunity to partner with a professional web development team at a rate that we could afford.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our e-commerce store was a Drupal 6 platform, but that is no longer supported after the release of Drupal 8. Commerce Shop quoted me for a migration to the new version, and development began there. We found out that many of the modules in use on the Drupal 6 site weren't stable enough to allow a move. We ended up choosing Drupal 7 and reinstated every bit of functionality on our new site.

Commerce Shop performed all development on their in-house servers, to which I was given access. I was able to step in where needed, give feedback, help test, and so on. Commerce Shop recently moved the work to my server to ensure that it would work in that environment and performed a full-load test of the site. I was given the results a few hours ago, and everything looks great. We have a few loose ends to clean up and will probably make the Drupal 7 site live next week.

Our company also has a Drupal 7 site which was built by the in-house developer, as well as a Magento one. We had a ton of ideas for the Drupal 7 site and submitted tickets for these adjustments to Commerce Shop. One of the main tasks was creating a web portal where larger customers could log in and access their parts center. The parts center lists all the products ordered regularly by the customer. One of our main offerings put forth by the sales team is the ability to consolidate parts and support clients' inventories. We have everything on shelf, and when they place an order, we will ship the products and not have them deal with inventory management.

One particular airline company purchases thousands of decals from us on a yearly basis. We have a 15-20 page catalog with each one of their products in it. The client can fill out a sheet with their requirements and securely fax it to us. Commerce Shop has created a private products listing, allowing customers to log in from different locations or submit purchase orders. We're giving larger clients an online product ordering portal. It will be finished within the next few days, and I'm very excited about it.

I manage the trucking parts site through Dreamweaver and local files on my computer. It was given to me by our local IT person, who built it using custom HTML code. We've signed a contract with Commerce Shop for building a Magento-based website. I never used that technology, but one of the reasons for choosing it was that, sometime down the line, we may have a need for selling directly to end-users. Currently, we have a distribution model of reps and store fronts, but over the past few years, we've seen other manufacturers with the same model sell directly to end-users. We wanted to have a platform that could be easily converted to an e-commerce website if we decided to make that move. We've been working on this project for the last 5 months.

At the moment, we need to fill the platform with content, and make it live. It will have a couple different critical features, including location information and descriptions for our products. It will also allow dealers to log in and place orders online. Depending on what type of a dealer someone is, there will be different price levels, identified by their account information. We have a dealer center on which our marketing collateral will be placed, allowing clients to download it directly instead of having to email us and wait for a reply.

How did you come to work with Commerce Shop?

We were using a local developer in Sacramento for our truck parts site. Their business model moved from Drupal to WordPress development. When we needed to get some work done, our partner ended up introducing us to Commerce Shop. I wrote a lengthy and in-depth RFP [request for proposal]; Commerce Shop gave us a quote and delivered on every single item in our request.

How much have you invested with Commerce Shop?

The total cost of Commerce Shop's services has been between $45,000 and $60,000 so far. We are looking to build a few mobile apps and other features, so the price will go up.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Commerce Shop in October 2015. We started our Drupal 7 upgrade project in December. We have ongoing work for other projects with Commerce Shop.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Projects take a long time, and they also have launch dates that get pushed back. I can't say that Commerce Shop met all deadlines, but there are unknowns in our work, so it hasn't been a negative situation. Commerce Shop accomplished everything that they've committed to, but I have no key metrics to share.

How did Commerce Shop perform from a project management standpoint?

Commerce Shop has been fantastic in general, but there are a few things that they can work on. I have access to a US-based project manager who is available during my business hours, and Commerce Shop has generally been available when I needed it. Emergencies get resolved, no matter when they occur. Commerce Shop has called me during Thanksgiving, helping resolve a situation.

There has been a bit of scope creep on directions that were outside of the RFP. I was fine with this, as long as the approach taken by Commerce Shop achieved what I was looking to achieve, but I was still billed additionally.

We wanted to give dealers on our truck parts site the ability to bulk order. When the site was first released, it only featured a normal check-out process, which wasn't what I wanted. Commerce Shop also built a bulk check-out option, but I was billed for both functionalities. Things in this line have happened before, and my project manager from Commerce Shop agreed that we shouldn't be billed for the extra work. I assume that the same outcome will occur here, so it's not a very big deal, but I will still need to have that conversation.

There's scope creep in every project, and Commerce Shop is in the business of making money as well. I want them to be successful from our relationship, but there are limits.

What did you find most impressive about Commerce Shop?

I enjoyed the fact that Commerce Shop's team was available when I needed them. It's very important to have contacts one phone call away and take care of emergencies fast. Commerce Shop has done this multiple times in the past.

When we were exploring going overseas, we looked at 10-12 options. My boss showed me ads for $5/hour developers, but they didn't have a US-based contact. I would have to be up at midnight, call the other side of the globe in order to talk to someone with bad English skills, and be billed for additional time because they misunderstood what I needed. The fact that Commerce Shop is based in the US and has the ability to address my needs are important.

Are there any areas Commerce Shop could improve?

Outside of the scope creep, no. Commerce Shop has done everything that we've asked for, had weekly calls with our team, and the project managers are intimately familiar with our products. I felt that my needs were met; I don't consider the negative aspect to be very significant. Commerce Shop always worked with me, and billing hasn't been a problem in the past.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Commerce Shop?

I’d advise clients not to look anywhere else. Commerce Shop is what they need. We've had in-house resources, I've outsourced the work to a US company, and we've interviewed 15 different opportunities overseas. Commerce Shop has been the best available option.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

 I am the Marketing of a retail company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Store Fixture Company 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire CommerceShop to accomplish?

• Increase online revenue

SOLUTION

How did you find CommerceShop?

Referral

Why did you select CommerceShop over others?

They already did our web maintenance for years so I went with their ad team as well.

How many teammates from CommerceShop were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The Commerce Shop works on meta and google ads. They go over graphics, captions, and all the specifics needed for the ad. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

They present our ROI every week! 

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

always on time! 

What was your primary form of communication with CommerceShop?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

They go over in detail why things work and why they don't. They listen and provide feedback. I have really enjoyed working with this company.

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

Nope! 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the General Manager of Nancy's Floral

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Full service retail florist and gift shop serving the greater Portland metro area for over 45 years!

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire CommerceShop to accomplish?

• Increase page loading speed
• Increase functionality and better the customer experience
• Create more options for cross-selling on site

SOLUTION

How did you find CommerceShop?

email

Why did you select CommerceShop over others?

High ratings

How many teammates from CommerceShop were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The project scope started with increasing homepage loading speed from a fail score to a pass.  This was followed by finding errors, tracing customer habits and creating oportunities to add functionality thus increasing the customer experience and sales opportunities.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We have increased functionality and sales.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

The team layed out a plan and then exectuted that plan in the timeline provided.  During our meetings, we reviewed the progress of these projects and then looked ahead to new projects on the horizon.

What was your primary form of communication with CommerceShop?

Virtual Meeting

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

We had a great collaboration with all team members, great ideas and the ability to execute those ideas in a timely manner.

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

None to think of....

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the President & CEO of BioOptimal

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

e-Commerce retailer of wellness goods and health supplements 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire CommerceShop to accomplish?

• Improve and manage our websites as well as creating content for social media and marketing on Google and more.
• Create as much traffic as possible to our websites
• Improve conversion rates and increase sales revenue

SOLUTION

How did you find CommerceShop?

email campaign

Why did you select CommerceShop over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from CommerceShop were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

SEO, Google ads, web site design , optimasion and maintenamce , content creation , visualizations

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Increased sales, impressions, return on investment and ACOS

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

All was satisfactory and professional

What was your primary form of communication with CommerceShop?

Virtual Meeting

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

Professional and experienced personell meeting deliverables on time

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

N/A

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Marketing Coordinator of Maxon Lift Corp.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We manufacture liftgates for loading and unloading cargo vans, trucks, and trailers

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire TheCommerceShop to accomplish?

• Customize Applications
• Reliability
• Communication
• Support

SOLUTION

How did you find TheCommerceShop?

Online Search

Why did you select TheCommerceShop over others?

Company values aligned

How many teammates from TheCommerceShop were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

To develop a Web Warranty and RMA system to communicate with our in-house Epicor CMS. Using API and customized scripts

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

On-time deliverables and met all expectations.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

They are a great team to work with. All milestones were met on time and responsive to our needs.

What was your primary form of communication with TheCommerceShop?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

A very knowledgeable team. Delivers what we asked.  

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

It's been great working with TheCommerceShop. Would not want it differently.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Executive Assistant of Awesome Diecast

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Awesome Diecast is the largest diecast distributor on the eastern seaboard with 8,000+ limited edition models.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire TheCommerceShop to accomplish?

• SEO Service
• Website Traffic
• Lead Generation

SOLUTION

How did you find TheCommerceShop?

Online Search

Why did you select TheCommerceShop over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• They worked closely with us on our website development.

How many teammates from TheCommerceShop were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We were provided a 6-month plan to work on SEO and had a 1 month free trial for PPC service. We saw an increase of traffic and leads throughout working with TheCommerceShop. Thanks to them, we were ranking higher than our competitors in search engines and for the most part, our numbers were on the positive side during the holiday season.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Our analytics were showing positive results throughout the time of working with TheCommerceShop and we saw an increase in traffic and sales throughout our holiday season.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

For the first few weeks, we had weekly meetings where they would achieve the goal for that week according to their week-to-week plan. After all the initial set ups were done for the first few weeks, we switched to bi-weekly meetings where they delivered goals in a reasonable time as there were a lot to do and fix on our website. If there were something that needed to be fixed immediately, they will prioritize it and notify us within the next few days once it's been resolved.

What was your primary form of communication with TheCommerceShop?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

TheCommerceShop provided SEO service for both on and off site. Other companies that offered SEO service would only focus on one aspect of SEO. We were looking for someone that can offer us all aspects of SEO within our budget.

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

We would like to receive a more thorough report of performance. Presentation reports are good but hard to follow as it contains screenshot reports of the analytics and we would like to see where they got the information from exactly, and not just a screenshot. A previous SEO service used a platform where it tracks the progress of all of their objectives and provided reports and links of posts submissions. Google Spreadsheet is good to keep everything organized but sometimes can be hard to follow when trying to see what progress was made.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

 I am the Sales of a consumer products & services company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Medical Textile Distribution.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire TheCommerceShop to accomplish?

• Website Creation

SOLUTION

How did you find TheCommerceShop?

Referral

Why did you select TheCommerceShop over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from TheCommerceShop were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We needed website development from start to finish.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Project went smoothly, communication was amazing.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Everything was delivered in a timely manner and needs were responded to very quickly

What was your primary form of communication with TheCommerceShop?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The team we were assigned to work with were phenomenal and such a pleasure to work with.

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

Unsure at this time.