MageDirect

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO at an IT company in California. We were looking for an experienced Magento team to create a fashion store for our client.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what reason(s) did your company hire MageDirect?

We had to migrate the old website to Magento and create a custom theme. We needed the website to be responsive and to handle large amounts of data and transactions. Since our engineers don't have web development experience, we decided to outsource this project.

What were your goals for this project?

With the new website, the goal was to double sales within one year. We also wanted to have a unique theme and design to stand out among competitors.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Finding local Magento experts proved to be difficult, so we decided to hire developers from Ukraine. My colleague had worked with MageDirect to upgrade his old website. He recommended them due to the high-quality results they produced. At that time, we were discussing this project with three different agencies. We gave each of them a small test to compare and contrast the results. MageDirect provided the best and quickest solution to our test.

Describe the project in detail.

The project involved data migration to Magento, which was a custom script for data export. It also required integration with existing ERP and CRM. The theme was developed from scratch and the B2B portal for wholesale customers had to be developed as well.

What was the team composition?

MageDirect assigned a project manager and three full-stack developers to our project. All communication was through the project manager. Working with full-stack developers was an ideal solution, instead of having separate frontend and backend developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project optimized website performance, improved the customer database using Magento extensions and provided a better user experience with the custom theme implementation.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

I am very happy with MageDirect's project management. We communicated on a daily basis and used Trello for task tracking. Although my primary point of contact was the project manager, sometimes I would speak with the lead developer as well. They always responded in a timely manner.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

MageDirect team consists of not only project managers and developers, but also designers and QA testers. Their diverse team allowed them to deliver well-designed and tested results. For us, this was an ideal solution, since we didn’t have to find other agencies to design or test the website. I am also impressed with their technical expertise; they provided detailed information about every feature released to help us choose the best-suiting extensions.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Everything is great! No suggestions for improvement as of now.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Pantry Zen is an online organic and healthy foods grocery store based in New Zealand.  I am the General Manager for the company and look after mostly all aspects of the business.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mage Direct?

Being a new company and me being new to Magento, we had a lot of improvements that needed to be made to our in-house system. We needed a company that understood the fact not everyone understands technology processes and terms.  They were extremely helpful with deadlines and simplifying procedures and instructions to suit us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The website is our in-house system. Orders that customers place on our website get transferred to the system and this system is also linked to our accounting software. It keeps a history of customer details, orders, product details/popularity, etc. MageDirect is there to help us with our existing system. They aid us in adding and removing features that may or may not be useful to our company. Their team has about four people. There is one person in charge who we go to if there are any issues. Otherwise, we deal with techs directly depending on what we need them to work on.

How did you come to work with MageDirect?

The owner of the company had used them before and was happy with their service and abilities.  We send them tasks as needed with a deadline and the deadline was always met.  They would normally help us outside of their normal hours if need be.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did MageDirect perform from a project management standpoint?

MageDirect is excellent at project management. They know what they are doing and they always finish on time.

What did you find most impressive about MageDirect?

MageDirect is distinct from other providers because they are real people. They're always ready to help even outside of business hours. They are able to provide simple instructions and are very patient. We are very happy with the service they provide.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Stallard Technologies Inc. (STI) is in enterprise IT hardware resale and we are located in Overland Park, KS, USA. We specialize in Dell servers, storage devices, PC's and laptops.  My role is Creative Director, heading up marketing and e-commerce operations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with MageDirect?

We needed someone who knew their way around Magento, enough to help where needed, without a six-figure price tag.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have used NetSuite for ERP/CRM and e-commerce website hosting since 2008. While the web landscape has matured, the website platform we've been on with NetSuite has not. We decided to begin developing an external Magento 2 website to then sync with our NetSuite backend. The real challenge for us was our budget and manpower. After interviewing many Magento solutions partners, with outrageous price tags on even the most rudimentary template-based site builds, we decided to forge our own path, and develop our new website with as much self-guidance as possible. Along the way, we discovered how tricky Magento can be, so began looking for freelance help.  

How did you come to work with MageDirect?

We stumbled across MageDirect, and after asking for some references, decided to give them a shot.  My goal was to utilize their skills as a support network for the technical aspects of the Magento 2 build, while I focus on content and overall design of the website.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with MageDirect in February 2017 and the engagement is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What did you find most impressive about MageDirect?

Their expertise has been invaluable.  I was hoping they would be able to solve problems that were beyond my abilities, and in that regard, they have yet to disappoint.  Every challenge I throw at them, they get done within a very reasonable amount of time, and with very little back-and-forth.  Aside from coding, they've also introduced a huge number of coordination tools and best practice sort of aspects to the collaboration that I wouldn't have even thought of.

Are there any areas where MageDirect could improve?

One of my initial concerns was whether the language barrier would be an issue, but their communication is always excellent.  I'd highly recommend them to anyone.