Copious Creative - Out of Business

BACKGROUND

Could you provide a brief description of your company?

We are a retail and e-commerce seller of home improvement goods, including lighting, hardware, and home utility items.

What’s your role?

I’m the vice president of e-commerce, stores, and marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenges you were trying to address when you approached Copious?

We had launched a new site and we were having production issues. We hired Copious to come in and be our backup as we worked to stabilize our site.

SOLUTION

Could you describe the scope of the project?

We have a homegrown Ruby on Rails platform. While we brought them in for site stabilization, they really expanded their role into both backend as well as front-end site management. They really are our third-party Web administrator.

Is this an ongoing relationship?

Yes.

When did you start working with them?

It was about two years ago, before my time here.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in monetary terms or work-hour figure?

We probably have two to three people full time a month.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of results, could you share any metrics or feedback that would demonstrate the effectiveness of the work?

Site stability has improved. Sales are rapidly increasing. They’ve been a key part of all of that.

How would you describe their performance?

Really responsive and quick.

When working with Copious, is there anything you’d consider unique or special about them that distinguishes them from other companies with which you’ve worked?

One, they’re local. But, they have national ambitions. They have high talent levels, with a really personal touch.

In retrospect, are there areas that you think they could improve on or that you would do differently?

They need to add more resources over time, to be able to provide more services.

BACKGROUND

Could you provide a brief description of your company and your role there?

CD Baby is a music distribution company. Our main goal is to help artists monetize their music in any way possible. We work with about 350,000 artists. I’m the director of marketing. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenges you were trying to address when you approached Copious?

We have two key websites. One is cdbaby.com, which is our music retail site. That’s the site where we get artists’ music everywhere, and we have our own retail store where we sell CDs and other things. Then we have the site where artists actually go to sign up and find out about the services we offer them. Our whole business is based around helping artists. Even though we have the retail site, we’re not like iTunes because all the music we have is provided by the artists themselves who choose to sign up.

Our main site where artists go to sign up about our services is our key driver of our business. We had an old version of that site that’s been around in various forms since 2009 without any major overhauls. The task we had for Copious was to help us create a much more engaging version of that website that drove more conversion. It has a better information hierarchy, making it easier to find information. It looks modern and represents the brand.

SOLUTION

Did they update the existing site or did they create a new one?

They created a new one.

Could you describe the scope of the project?

Before, the site seemed very random in terms of how information was laid out. You could definitely tell that some things had just been added on to it through the years. Copious said, “We were going to take everything and put it into three main buckets: Sell your music, make more money from your music, and promote your music. Everything we do is going to fall in one of those things.” They helped us create a new site map.

We have some internal developers that were going to take what they did and build out some of the pages that are less important. But, they designed five key pages and really set the design style for the site. They built the style guide for us.

How long did their work take?

I think it was three months. They did a wireframing process and they did a design proofing process and everything like that. I will say that the project ended right on schedule.

It started last summer 2013 and ended in the fall. We’re using them again for another project that’s running right now.

What type of project are they working on currently for you?

This one’s a little different. The initial project they did, that was just to address the marketing pages, the external website you see before you log in. We haven’t yet updated once you log in and create an account and start the sign-up process to submit your music. That process is getting a complete overhaul from them right now. This first project that we’ve already completed is more of a design, site mapping, and look and feel type of project. The one we’re working on now, it’s more of a sign-up flow, UI/UX [user interface/user experience]-type project that will reflect a lot of the look and feel that they’ve already created.

How did you select them as your solution partner?

When I interviewed five different companies, all of them had various price ranges. Copious ended up being in the middle, but the reason we chose them was because they were the only one in the process that actually said how they would address our specific issues, how they would go about finding solutions. They were the only one that showed us any work that they’ve done in the past where they said, “This company came to us for X reason. Here’s how we solved that problem for them and here’s the result.”

For this dashboard project that we’re working on now, I did the same thing. We interviewed about five companies. There were some different companies in addition to Copious. Again, Copious was the only company that addressed our specific needs with, “This is your need, here’s how we solved this problem for another company.”

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in monetary terms or a personnel work-hour figure?

The first project ended up being about $95,000. This project that we’re working on is probably going to come in at the $125,000 price range. It wasn’t a price issue. It was whether or not they had the ability to solve the problem. At the end of the day, when my bosses say, “Why did we spend so much money on this?,” I want to know that we got a better result, and Copious was the only one that gave me that confidence.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback that would demonstrate the effectiveness of the work they’ve delivered?

The user feedback has been extremely positive. Frankly, we’re a music company. We deal with musicians. People tend to think that you’re going to have a cool look, and our old style was really poor. Now, it represents the brand better. It definitely makes it easier to find information. There was no real logical flow to the old site. It was just a bunch of random things put in random sections that didn’t really tell you what they were. Now, it has a nice flow.

The company’s still growing. One of the metrics we wanted to have is increased conversion. That one’s been a little tougher to measure because of the state of the industry. It’s in a tough spot now. But, we’re still growing and the heart of the project that they’re working on now will complement what they did in the previous project.

How would you describe their performance?

I thought it was great. They’re super knowledgeable and they have a good team. They had a really strong process to make sure that we got results. They believe that you get the results by stating some goals and, all along the way, holding the project to those stated goals and not just letting it drift off. They were the first one with that strong process. That really made a huge difference.

In retrospect, are there areas that you think they could improve on or that you would do differently?

The only negative feedback we gave them was in the proofing process. They would want to reveal them to us while we were all on GoToMeeting or something. It just seemed long and tedious. But, since we gave them that feedback, they have since changed how they do that. Now they just send us links, then we review it [on our own], then we’ll have a meeting to talk it over. It’s a minor thing. It was a very positive experience. The current project is going very nicely as well.