iWeb

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

They built our first sales-enabled website using Magento. The development solution was recommended by them.

They provided a team of four to six people for us. We communicated both with the developers themselves and with the project lead. Their project manager put together the team.

How did you come to work with iWeb?

iWeb seemed to have a lot of experience working with third-party databases, so they were the right provider for creating a website that would link to the database that we already had.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The total cost so far has been 60,000 British pounds [approx. US$85,000].

What is the status of this engagement?

We're constantly working with them but, in the next six months to two years, in particular, we'll be having significantly more development work done on the site.

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

Aside from Scruffs.com, they've made three other websites for us. One of those is called VanVault, a site for a storage box that fits in the back of a van, designed for high-end tools that a tradesman might have.

Defender Power is a site that should be going live within a day, more or less. It's for a lighting solution for building sites, which we manufacture, including power solutions, generators, and so on.

Another website is Punk Power Accessories, centering on accessories for power tools, such as drill bits, miter, and circular saw blades, and so on. All of these sites were built using Magento. We designed the visual elements in-house and delivered the collateral to iWeb and then they implemented the front-end. 

One example of what they worked on is our locator tool. If a customer prefers to visit our distributors instead of buying items online, they can type in their unique postal code, retrieve all the shops in the area that sell our products by proximity and then get directions. We were very happy with that particular feature because we knew it was going to be important for a subsegment of our customers, especially those that do research online but prefer to inspect the product in-person before deciding on the purchase. 

Another example is the graphical imagery located on our competition page. People would submit their entries via social media, and we would implement that onto the page. iWeb implemented the ability for us to add content as we required. Both examples are custom pieces of work that they did for us.

Many of the visual elements of the site were designed in-house. We have a design team for that. iWeb was in charge of the coding and, at the same time, gave us feedback on what could be done better from a usability layout perspective. That was very advantageous. 

The team working on our site consisted of two to three developers. The developers assigned to us were selected by iWeb, based on individual skill set and what each one was doing. We interacted with the developers all the time, and with Neil [Broughton, technical director at iWeb] himself, more than once a day on average.

The Magento platform was selected as a joint decision. iWeb recommended it as their solution of choice, and we considered it the right platform for our business.

How did you come to work with iWeb?

They were found before I started working for the company. We have a longstanding relationship with them in web development.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The total for the three sites they've worked for us recently is between $15,000 and $20,000. We work with them on a project-by-project basis. They offer us fixed prices, and we have a monthly retainer. There can also be ad hoc work for which they charge us separately. They're very flexible in that sense.

What is the status of this engagement?

We're always working with them on different projects. We're currently assessing one of our websites, Scruffs.com, looking at different verticals and potential redesign. Once we've decided on those, we'll ask them to quote us a price.

Could you describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail?

Once we selected iWeb, we had a scoping meeting and went through the detailed brief that we’d prepared beforehand. We needed to do database input, which was moderately complicated. We’ve got four pricing systems, we’ve got trade and retail clients, and we’ve got different currencies. It was a fairly complex project with a lot of moving parts. With the design, we very much liked how they worked because they started off by creating a design guide. Once that was agreed upon, that was the basis for everything else that was done. They also helped with the quality assurance.

After our initial meetings, the entire job was loaded onto the Trello project management system. This gave us complete transparency of what was going on, and who was doing what, where and when. This was incredibly useful because we could see the process of all the different tasks that had to be conducted, and how they were conducted. Once the design had been signed off, the next issue was adapting elements of Magento. Then, quite a bit of testing took place as well to ensure users could use the system effectively.

How did you select iWeb as your partner for this project?

We did a Google search, and we came up with a long list of developers. We wanted somebody who was relatively close to us, because we wanted to meet with them onsite. We wanted to check out the number of sites they had successfully deployed. It seems a lot of people are working from the back room, and they’re subbing work out to lots of other people. We got the list down to about five companies, and we did telephone interviews and narrowed it down to three. Then, we did face to face interviews and selected iWeb. The most important criterion was that they have significant experience working with Magento e-commerce.

Could you provide a general cost estimate for this particular engagement?

We invested between £10,000 and £15,000 for the basic website. We continue to use their services for ad hoc improvements and customizations.  

How long has this engagement remained ongoing?

We started in June [of 2013], and completed the project in September. It probably could have been quicker, but my client tends to do things slowly. We’re still working with them for some additions and amendments.