Up at Five

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the co-owner of Skiis & Biikes, a speciality outdoor sports retailer that sells over 150 premium brands. We operate 4 brick-and-mortar stores and 2 online store fronts. We have been in business for 44 years and selling online since the 90s.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Up at Five, and what were your goals?

We have worked with Up at Five for a couple years and wanted to move our Shopify site to a Dawn 2.0 theme. We took the necessary change as an opportunity to update the UI of the site and add features that tied in the in store experience. The other major area of focus was to create PDP, landing page and PL templates that could be fast and flexible to change as our selling season is short and very dynamic.

SOLUTION

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

We have worked with Up at Five in the past and there was no reason to look at other vendors. They have been an excellent partner to work with.

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

Our team provided a Figma model of the key pages, templates, integrations, micro interactions and other UI we wanted. After sending this to Up at Five we had a kick-off call to go over timeline, potential bottlenecks and costing. From there, Up at Five worked to develop the theme for about 3 months with weekly status calls. After some minor tweaks to the design and functionality the 3rd party integrations; there was an issue with Searchspring but we found a work-around. The site then launched only a couple days after schedule, on budget.

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

Two, primary developer at assistant developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Post launch we saw a 22% increase in Sept-Oct sales YoY. NPS for web is up 8 points YoY. Site speed is up 10% (3.85 vs 4.26 sec)

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

Communicated both over email and video calls. The check-ins were helpful.

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

The team at Up at Five has an intuitive sense of what we are looking for as a final result. By building in finer level of control over our Shopify template, which wasn't spec'd in the brief, we are able to create, change and maintain pages at a faster speed and with more flexibility.

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

Reaching out to current 3rd party integrations and making sure the current apps are compatible with the new platform and timelines match proposed launch dates.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Digital Marketing Manager at Miracle 10, a family-owned, women-led and Canadian-made skincare company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Up at Five?

Our site needed a refresh that was going to reenergize our most loyal customers and entice new ones.

SOLUTION

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

After chatting virtually with a handful of agencies and reviewing a few proposals, it was clear that working with Trudy at Up at Five was the most natural fit.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

• Series of discovery calls
• Design proposals
• Approvals and collaborative edits on designs
• Implementation of design
• Troubleshooting and completion of fine details

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

In total, we worked with 3 people.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our new site has just launched with Black Friday being the true test of our efforts, however, we've received many compliments on the redesign including the ease of user experience.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Trudy's availability made back-and-forth conversations easy and natural. Her team was just as passionate about the redesign as ours and we were able to assign work and complete tasks effortlessly.

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

Trudy's ability to take our concerns and find solutions without hesitation.

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

Working with Up at Five was such a smooth experience that it didn't warrant any areas of improvement.