Gate-Software

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the e-commerce specialist at Ergom, an electrotechnical company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Gate-Software?

We used to work with another company, but we weren’t happy with them. We were looking for a company to work on Magento 1.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Gate-Software provides IT and cloud consulting services and proposes solutions.

What is the team composition?

We have a project manager, a tech lead, a developer, and a tester.

How did you come to work with Gate-Software?

We shortlisted seven companies and spoke with each of them. We chose Gate-Software because their portfolio included some big brands on Magento 1. Also, they were precise in their communication.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $50,000–$100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2021, and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re satisfied with Gate-Software’s cooperation. We’ve never had such good communication with a company. Also, their technical knowledge is good, and the tasks are completed quickly. Overall, we’re really happy with every aspect of their work and the bug fixes they make.

How did Gate-Software perform from a project management standpoint?

Communication is their most significant advantage. Gate-Software’s team is willing to communicate in any way that works for us. They’re very flexible, and we’ve built a friendly relationship with the project manager.

We use Jira and Trello and communicate through calls, email, tasks on Jira, and text messages.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their communication is impressive, and they’re always quick to respond. It’s crucial to have that in a partnership.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They call me every month to ask this, but I always tell them there’s nothing I’d have them do differently.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Trusting them pays off. They give different opinions on issues, and they’re right almost every time. We often ask them for advice.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the brand manager of a retail company. We design and manufacture women’s clothing to sell in the Polish market.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Gate-Software?

We wanted to increase our sales by developing some functions on our website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Gate-Software provided us with technical support and added new functionalities to our site. First, they did a UX audit for us. As a result of the audit, they made some changes that our website really needed. For example, they integrated our ERP system with our store and rebuilt the site’s menu because it wasn’t user-friendly. Additionally, they created a wishlist functionality and improved our UI/UX designs.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a project manager, a frontend developer, a tester, and another person. My main point of contact was the project manager.

How did you come to work with Gate-Software?

I was too busy to be part of the procurement process, so I had someone else look for a company that could help us. We wanted to find a company with experience in our business, as well as with experience in Magento 1. Their services weren’t costly, so I went with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from June 2020–November 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Gate-Software made our website more user-friendly, which helped increase our visits. As a result, we also had an increase in sales and customer satisfaction — we were very happy with the results.

How did Gate-Software perform from a project management standpoint?

Gate-Software knew exactly what I wanted, and both the owner and one of the project managers were very understanding. My team communicated with them on Jira, and I was in contact with them via phone and email. They were very flexible and agreed to my conditions on how I wanted to communicate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Working with the one project manager I mentioned was absolutely brilliant; this person’s performance was impressive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Every company has something that can be improved. However, there wasn’t something I had to complain about or that I wasn’t satisfied with.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Explain what you’re looking for, what your goal is, and how you want to achieve it from the start.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m Yuriy and my position is Head of Business development department in Lionwood Software which is a team of over 70 specialists with a rich technical background in delivering digital solutions for a wide variety of domains.

We offer dedicated remote development teams and full-circle software solutions. Lionwood.software is people-first business and is known to be extremely customer-centric. The majority of our Partners are from Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, the USA, Latvia and Ukraine.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Gate-Software, and what were your goals?

We cooperated with the Gate-Software team on a project that included creating headless e-commerce to speed up the loading time of a Magento platform. Lionwood.software worked on the Angular part of the project. The developer from Gate-Software team worked on the Magento part.

SOLUTION

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

We didn't have any developers experienced in Magento at our company. Our developers have been working in Gate-Software for a long time, and we knew that Gate-Software is a trustworthy business partner with a solid experience in Magento, so we decided to join our forces on this project.

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

Since the Magento front-end was too slow, the project included bypassing the default Magento template. Front-end, the so-called head of Magento has been cut off. We used the Magento Rest API to connect fast user interfaces created in the Angular framework. They use Magento’s Modals to download data via Magento web services and load them in the form of views.

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

We worked with one Magento Senior Developer from the Gate-Software team throughout the whole project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The speed performance of the store increased significantly (2x) and the page navigation of the online store became much faster. Gate-Software was a team of IT professionals, the whole cooperation process with their Magento developers was smooth. He provided all the materials and documents needed for work thanks to which together we could perform tasks with the highest quality.

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

The communication was very transparent. We could contact Gate-Software at any time. We had daily meetings, during which we went through progress and associated next steps. We also communicated via Rocketchat, and we used Jira for tasks overview in the project. Moreover, the developer from the Gate-Software team provided additional suggestions for further improvements for the store.

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

They are well-organized and prepared for the work. The communication with them is clear and transparent.

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

Our collaboration was very efficient and there is nothing major I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the e-commerce manager at Koszulkowo.com. We’re one of the biggest online stores in Poland that prints and sells on-demand t-shirts. We have over 1,000 products in a variety of configurations, with around 6,000 different patterns, and we cooperate with different influencers and artists who create these designs for us. I supervise the technical support of our web platform, coordinating with the marketing department.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Gate-Software?

We needed their team to help us boost our marketing through UX optimization.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our main goal for onboarding Gate-Software’s team was to improve the visual aspects of our e-commerce website. There were already too many bugs impeding the performance of our site, so we thought it was time to address this problem. 

Apart from optimizing our site’s UX and rebuilding our e-store’s search engine, their team is also in charge of handling our marketing needs to give us better results. As a way to address this, they’ve implemented Facebook pixel to collate and monitor our marketing and advertising data.

What is the team composition?

My main point of contact is the project manager.

How did you come to work with Gate-Software?

Gate-Software was recommended to us by other companies that we were associated with. Upon the reliable recommendations, we decided to look their team up on the internet — we saw that they had a lot of positive reviews from customers and most of their projects were very interesting. They presented concrete solutions to improve the performance of our platform and met our financial capacity, so we were happy to onboard them.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent around $50,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in August 2018, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve seen our orders increase visibly through Gate-Software’s help. As a result of the platform’s optimization, our conversion rate has doubled as well — we’ve exceeded our goal conversion rate on Google Analytics by 250%.

How did Gate-Software perform from a project management standpoint?

We mainly communicate through emails and phone calls. We have regular meetings every Monday, and each phase of the project is listed and tracked on Jira.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Gate-Software always comes up with impressive ideas to help us improve every deliverable. Their customer service is also top-notch — they always keep our team updated.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There is nothing that comes to my mind. Personally, I am very satisfied with our collaboration, and I’m more than happy to sustain it.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Discuss the goals that you want to achieve from the very beginning. Once you create this roadmap of your goals, Gate-Software will find it easier to make these happen for your business.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the e-commerce manager for Almidecor. We’ve created a platform to sell products for interior designers. I’ve been working here for one year and am responsible for the functionality of the website, taking care of updating the products, availability of the products, and development and cooperation with Gate-Software.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Gate-Software?

Gate-Software recommended a new solution for us. We wanted to gain more traffic to the website and optimize the ease of use.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

They did rebranding, changed our logo and our documents, and worked on the website. We wanted to optimize the speed of the website, and we added a login from Facebook and Google for the website. All these tasks were recommended by Gate-Software.

What is the team composition?

There were around five people assigned to the project. We worked with a project manager and one to three developers, as well as the CEO.

How did you come to work with Gate-Software?

They were recommended to us.

How much have you invested in them?

We have spent around $100,000 over the three years.

What is the status of this engagement?

They have been working with us since around February 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Everything has been okay. We now have around 100,000 users and around 500 transactions on the website. There has been a big increase in traffic.

How did Gate-Software perform from a project management standpoint?

Everything is excellent. The cooperation has been very nice, and we don’t have any problems. We texted and had calls every day, and we also had a video call once per week.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their service is at a very high level. They have the most experience working with Magento and e-commerce projects of all the vendors we considered. We felt that they would be the best fit for this project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

 I’m in contact with the project manager and CEO all the time, and everything is very good.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have good communication with them. With every project, there are tasks, and I can see the status of those tasks. I’m in contact with them all the time, and they’re a very good company to cooperate with for an e-commerce project, website development, or similar projects.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a project manager for Trendmaker. I deal exclusively with the e-commerce side of our business. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Gate-Software?

We were unhappy with the company who had begun development of our e-commerce site, and were looking for a new vendor to finish development. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

First, Gate-Software finished developing the e-commerce site. They finished programming certain elements of the online store in Magento, readying it to go live. Their team added new plug-ins and extensions, as well as advanced analytics.

They also created the functionality of a module to correctly calculate delivery costs for customers, showed usage scenarios, connected with Google API, and implemented it into the online store. Their team is currently helping with improvements to the site, and further development, such as adding functionalities.

What is the team composition?

We work with a project manager and two developers. 

How did you come to work with Gate-Software?

They were referred to us when we were looking to change development companies.

How much have you invested with them?

We have invested about $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together around January 2020, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

When it comes to results, the most concrete proof of the success of the project is that we were able to start selling in our online store. They helped us accomplish our goals of finishing the site by April 15th.

We use Google Analytics and we can see that conversion and bounce rates are good. Our customers are happy with the site. One of the most important things they’ve done was the functionality regarding delivery cost calculations. We’re happy that customers are being billed correctly, and that the company isn’t losing money.

How did Gate-Software perform from a project management standpoint?

The project manager is experienced and does a good job. We have frequent calls, and they provide email summaries and quality reports. Communication is good. They are available and responsive throughout the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are willing to answer calls and fix mistakes later into the night, which is not found to be true with a lot of companies. This is something I value about the team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, everything went great

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Take time to talk with them and come up with a plan to follow. Focus on that cooperation; they realize it’s a crucial step for a successful outcome.