Inverse Paradox

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Westway Electric Supply is a supply house selling electrical goods. I’m the owner and president of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Inverse Paradox?

We have been selling our products online since 2001. I had built a new website around 2012 with another company in Philadelphia. It was a bit of a challenge because of the size of our catalog. We currently have just under half a million different SKUs on our website. They were trying to do this in an affordable manner for me and ended up creating a lot of custom script on a Magento website. But the base model itself really couldn’t handle a lot of the stuff that we wanted it to do.

Because of this, as the years went on, we started running into indexing issues and some other things because all this custom stuff was written basically over the top of the Magento code. We couldn’t upgrade as new versions came out and it started creating more and more issues with the website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I approached Inverse Paradox in 2015, and what they convinced me to do was to rebuild the website using the most current version of Magento. They suggested redoing all that custom script that had been done on the previous website, but instead of hardcoding it into Magento, what they would do is they would try to find plugins or alternatives or create custom scripts that lived outside of the base website. If we did that, any time a new version of Magento came out, we would be able to update and stay current, and we would consistently be able to re-index and do all of the things that needed to be done to keep it functioning properly long-term.

It took a full year to do the rebuild. The breadth of our catalog is so large that things that are normally simple, turn into major projects for us. For example, when I want to manipulate the data on my website in large-scale, I will pull an export file out of Magento, move it into my local environment here, and then manipulate it using queries or macros that I’ve built, and then import that file back into Magento. That export/import function is actually highly complicated in that there’s many different rules that we’ve created over the years. Just as an example, if I had a new image, it’ll automatically overwrite the old image, but it will do this for every field possible.

Then when you start doing this with hundreds of thousands of records, it can become pretty tedious. We had to rewrite custom scripts that could handle that in a timely manner, not take two weeks to complete. That was one of the major hurdles we had with this project.

We also sell quite extensively through paid search, so we needed to create a shopping feed that would go into Google’s merchant center to update it regularly. That was a major undertaking also. We ended up having to create two separate files. One would be like an all-in file that would be updated monthly and then a second one would be a price file that gets updated daily, all of which is done automatically through different scripts. Those are just a couple of the issues that we had to tackle.

How did you come to work with Inverse Paradox?

I wanted to find a company that was local. I like to be able to drive to their office and talk to them face to face if I’m having issues or if we’re talking about new projects and things of that nature. I also wanted someone that was experienced and endorsed by Magento and someone that had built e-commerce sites.

I had my previous web developer outline everything that needed to be done to correct the issues, and I sent this document to the entire list of companies, trying to get an idea of who could handle it. The scope was so large that I only had two people reply back to me saying that they could handle it, and Inverse was one of them. After meeting with them, I was confident that they could, and that it could be done in a scalable manner where I didn’t have to build a brand new site; we could just do a rebuild of the current site.

How much have you invested with Inverse Paradox?

The initial rebuild cost $75,000. I now spend between $1,000 and $4,000 per month with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with them in 2015, and the project was completed in a year. After the rebuild, I’ve still maintained a relationship with Inverse. They perform maintenance, and then anytime I have special projects or I need something done, I give them a call. I’m still in routine contact with them for all sorts of different things.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

From the year 2015, online sales were just under $2.6 million. For 2016, it was a little over $3.2 million. I would say that they had contributed a good amount to that. The owner of the company, Neil, is extremely hands-on, even in the smaller projects. I feel no hesitation to call or email him directly whenever something comes up that I want to speak to him specifically about.

I’ve had many auxiliary projects that we’ve done since then, and he’s had his hand in all of them since. As a business owner, I really like that a lot. I like to be able to talk to the owner of the company that I’m working with.

Since Inverse rebuilt the site, everything has been much more streamlined and much more reliable. There have been issues, but I’ve never not had issues with my website. I now have someone that I can call at Inverse that can look into it and fix it in a timely manner. I’ve never had any issues that have brought my site down for any extended period of time.

How did Inverse Paradox perform from a project management standpoint?

It’s very organized. They have a system like Zendesk where every conversation that goes through there is monitored. I know that Neil gets pinged every time I send something through or I open up a ticket, so I know that he’s always watching.

I’ve been happy with the management of each of my projects. Normally when I communicate with them, it’s by email. My primary contact is our project manager, Alicia. I send her regular day-to-day stuff, and if it’s a more technical point, I will start up a ticket so that I know everyone who needs to be involved is involved.

For more large-scale things, especially when I’m thinking of a potential project that I’m considering or I’m wanting feedback from them, I’ll reach out to Neil directly, usually by email. If it’s something a little more complicated, I’ll request a call. If it’s something that I’m really interested in pursuing or something that they want to propose to me, then I’ll drive down to their Langhorne office and they can show me whatever it is that they’re thinking about.

What did you find most impressive about Inverse Paradox?

I really like how accessible Neil is. If I’m having an issue, I know that I can go to the top of the company and get a quick and reliable answer. I also like that they don’t get scared too easily. I had a whole list of companies that I thought could handle my project, but 90% of them didn’t even reply back. Inverse doesn’t get scared off by challenging projects. They look forward to trying things that they haven’t necessarily done before.

Are there any areas Inverse Paradox could improve?

Not really. I’ve been pretty happy with all facets of the business we’ve worked on together.