Northern Commerce

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the owner of a motorbike company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Northern Commerce?

We needed to increase the speed of our site and work through challenges on it. It was very important to us that we be able to sell motorcycle parts online. We worked on improving the speed on our website with other vendors, but it was only better for a week. It felt like we were in a constant cycle of moving backward. We hired them because of their specialty in e-commerce, in particular, their Magento expertise.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Northern Commerce started working through our challenges of building a Shopify plugin and completely redesigning our website. They did several different Magento plugins and rework to customize different integrations that way.

Currently, we’re working on transitioning our Magento 1 (M1) site to a Magento 2 (M2) site. We are working together to integrate our POS system and we are doing a Canadian post-integration. They are putting a lot of new features on our website, so they are integrating all of that data.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Mitch (Marketing Account Manager, Northern Commerce) and our project manager.

How did you come to work with Northern Commerce?

We originally found them online. After discussing, we went to visit and meet the people we would be working with face to face.

How much have you invested with them?

So far we have spent $50,000, but it's estimated to be $120,000–$150,000 from start to finish.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2019 and the relationship is currently ongoing.

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

We have definitely received fewer customer complaints about speed and pricing glitches. We have also experienced a 20% gain and are expecting to see more growth this year. This has been a significant change from previous years when our numbers were flat.

How did Northern Commerce perform from a project management standpoint?

It has been really nice and flexible. We use Basecamp to keep tickets organized and everything in one place. Some things are easier to keep in email, so we always use that. They've worked through our needs to find the best solution.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are responsive when there is a problem and they aren’t dismissive about it or place blame. They immediately deal with the problem. Throughout the process, they have been accommodating and organized. It is really nice that they take care of the whole picture. They tell us they value our business and like making it successful.

Are there any areas they could improve?

When we hired them for both the website and advertising, we weren’t sure how much the teams communicated. So, we learned how to navigate that, but we needed to be communicating with both teams and not assuming they were communicating with each other in the background. It’s not necessarily a criticism, it just took us some time to figure out.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a project manager in the IT department at Andrew Peller, Limited. Our organization sells wine, with 100 retail stores in Ontario and nine estates in Ontario and British Columbia.

What challenge were you trying to address with Northern Commerce?

We’re really trying to promote our business online, and stay on top of the newest trends. It’s a little bit new for the industry that we’re in specifically, so we’re trying to push our estates, stores, and wineries into the digital environment to create new revenue streams.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Northern Commerce was originally brought on to help build some of our estate websites. Those sites were more informative than transactional, and showcase our wines, estates, and our process.

More recently, we completed a rather large project to build out a website that consolidates the bookings for our travel and tourism component. Each of our estates offers tours, tastings, and events. So, the website consolidates all of those events and allows users to build out their itinerary, make those bookings, as well as schedule reservations.

It was a completely new implementation across the board. They built the platform on Magento with a SQL into PHP backend. We provided our requirements, and they gave us wireframes for us to approve. They created the databases that come along with Magento and built up the frontend consumer journey. The scheduling aspect was the toughest part they had to build out, because we needed to program an event to happen every 20 minutes. They completed everything seamlessly, and we’re looking forward to our next project together.

What is the team composition?

Colton (Director of Production, Northern Commerce) was our initial point of contact, and Paul (Project Manager, Northern Commerce) was our point of contact after the project was initiated. Paul had a team that we didn’t interface with at all. There were also designers, developers, and a DBA (Doing Business As) team.  

How did you come to work with Northern Commerce?

We evaluated the Magento developers in Canada, since there aren’t many. We compared Northern Commerce against some of their competitors, and after speaking, they seemed eager to take on the project. They’re a young company, and they have their thumb on the social media, which is vital to our marketing strategy. It was clear they’re on the cutting edge of what digital commerce and e-commerce is. They had no issues with resourcing, and were ready to start right away. Based on the work we’ve seen them do, we were comfortable that they’d be the right partner firm for us.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in August 2017, and our engagement is ongoing.

They work on a number of initiatives for us, but our last project they probably spent about eight months on.

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

We haven’t had any issues whatsoever with the product they delivered. It’s been great, they delivered according to our specifications, and they’ve been nimble with change requests. From a technology standpoint, they’ve been great. Everything was on time and within budget. 

They’ve provided a core piece of our business, especially for our busy summer season. The stability of the system has been key in the smooth operation of the tourism business this summer.

There’s nothing quantifiable yet, but things have been pretty smooth so far.

How did Northern Commerce perform from a project management standpoint?

There have been no issues from my perspective, whatsoever. They use basecamp as a project management tool. They’ve been open and forthcoming with any sorts of milestones that were coming up or issues that may have come up or requirements that may need clarification. We have no issues with their communication with their project management

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their personability is excellent. We’ve had their president come down several times to discuss this project and many others. They’re always willing to jump in and take new initiatives or discuss any problems we’re having. They care about our success, which we appreciate.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t have any feedback in that area at all.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Northern Commerce knows what they’re doing with digital marketing and e-commerce. I would follow their advice when it comes to design and layout. It’s important to believe what they tell you.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of e-commerce at West Coast Kids, a retailer in Canada that sells baby gear, furniture, and products. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Northern Commerce?

When I began working for my company about four years ago, we had an old e-commerce platform. We needed to find a future-proof platform that would help us grow as a company, especially on the e-commerce side.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Northern Commerce built our Magento 2 site on AWS. The team went through our existing site to determine what needed to be changed to meet our needs. They were responsible for all site design, development, and strategy. Northern Commerce built wireframes, developed the front- and backends, and implemented everything. They improved the checkout process and made it mobile-responsive.

The team also built out a registry, a key part of our business, and developed a product configurator, which allows customers to customize products. For instance, when a customer is building their stroller, they can choose the frame, frame color, handlebar grips, etc.

Northern Commerce launched the new site. Now, they manage our paid ads.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with a project manager, who is our main point of contact, and a lead developer. I’m not sure how many people work behind the scenes, but the president and VP of technology have made themselves available to us.

How did you come to work with Northern Commerce?

I did some research and looked for Magento partners. I reached out to Northern Commerce and 2–3 other vendors. When I spoke with Northern Commerce, they seemed agile, knowledgeable, and eager. They also provided us with examples of other Magento sites they’d built.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $100,000 building out the new site. Our monthly spend is $5,000–8,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with Northern Commerce in February 2016, and the work is ongoing. The site development and migration to Magento 2 took around six months. They continue to make frequent site updates and changes.  

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

They did a wonderful job making sure our site would be successful. For instance, not many other company platforms have built-in registries. Over the last four years, we’ve experienced 40–50% year-over-year online growth. The paid ads have also been a huge success. For every ad dollar we use, we receive a return of 17–19-fold. We’ve gotten positive feedback from users that it’s easy to find products and checkout. Similarly, suppliers like how their products are displayed on the site.

Our old platform often crashed when there was heavy site traffic, such as on Black Friday and Cyber Monday; once, the platform was down for two weeks. Now, our platform’s server is as stable as a server can be and doesn’t experience slowdowns. The site is running 99.9% of the time. If there is an issue, Northern Commerce fixes it before I can even notice it. They’re monitoring the site 24/7.

How did Northern Commerce perform from a project management standpoint?

The team is very responsive. If we reach out to Northern Commerce and can’t get ahold of somebody, we can call the president, and he responds right away. They ask lots of questions and use their vast experience with e-commerce platforms to make suggestions or propose ideas. When we pursue a new project, they provide us with a project plan that includes a timeline and quote.

There are unavoidable hiccups with technology, but Northern Commerce lets us know if they run into an issue. Many of these issues are Magento-related and out of their control, but they quickly find a solution and fix it. During development, they used a scrum framework to manage the project. They also have quick turnaround times and have always been agile about completing work on time, even after growing quite a bit over the past four years.

Our main collaboration tool is Teamwork, which we use to track projects and report any bugs or issues. We also communicate via email and calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve been impressed by Northern Commerce’s fast pace; when I ask for something, they work on it right away. They’re agile enough to make anything happen. Also, if they exceed the number of hours that they originally quoted us, they don’t charge us more.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We could have more in-person meetings; I think we’ve only had two. Other than that, I can’t think of anything that stands out.

Any advice for potential customers?

Be as detailed as possible about what you want done.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the president and founder of Kre'Adiv house, a marketing and advertising firm. We represent anywhere between 2-10 clients depending on the time of year. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Northern Commerce?

We needed web development support for a client’s digital platform and overall marketing and advertising strategy. Their needs exceeded our capacity as a boutique agency, so we hired Northern Commerce as a partner to help manage that project. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Northern Commerce built two distinct WordPress sites for our franchise client’s operations in Canada and the U.S. Each platform has built-in customizations and is integrated with Google Maps. My team can make minor edits and changes, but we task them with any substantial programming for new features. 

For almost five years now, Northern Commerce has been buying and managing our paid digital advertising including Google AdWords and social media. As the client liaison, I focus our priorities for each location while they target overarching strategy. In collaboration, we create content and push the brand in new directions. We generated almost 1,000 extra pages of copy to showcase product offerings. 

An integrated system runs our call tracking partner’s services through the site. It produces metrics for specific ads and links that help us track progress. All this data migrates into the management system that the sensors use at each location. Northern Commerce sends us detailed reports that break down these results. They use SEO techniques and build add-ons to improve our organic footprint and support online sales. 

What is the team composition? 

Anywhere from 5-15 resources from Northern Commerce have worked on our project at a time. There are two distinct teams for web development and digital marketing. They also assigned us a lead project manager, and I contact specific people based on the topic we need to discuss. 

How did you come to work with Northern Commerce?

We had gotten to know Northern Commerce when they were a different, smaller company. Our first project was experimenting with a basic iPad app. They programmed code for the creative house where I worked previously.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost totaled between $250,000–$500,000. We pay a monthly retainer for management and SEO services. 

What is the status of this engagement?

This project started in October 2013. Northern Commerce is still providing ongoing development work for our website. 

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

Northern Commerce’s digital marketing has increased our trackable online leads, inquiries, and new business between 10%–20% annually. We've seen close to double-digit growth for the past 5-6 years. Both organic and paid web traffic has consistently improved. 

We've received an excellent ROI on cost per click. Even if the price increased in individual years, it's definitely gone down as an overall trend. Our conversion rates have also increased, which makes these ads more valuable and useful.

We use many different marketing methods for this client, but Northern Commerce's services account for about 35% of our annual spend. They’ve continued to fine-tune our strategy and coach my team on content creation and SEO techniques to bolster our organic search results. 

How did Northern Commerce perform from a project management standpoint?

We haven't experienced any issues at all. I send an e-mail whenever I need something, and someone from Northern Commerce will follow up and take care of my request. They complete changes, fixes, and updates very quickly and send us monthly reports.  

Northern Commerce offers flexible scheduling rather than fixed meetings. I can reach out to them to set up an appointment based on our agenda. Instead, we discuss reports and new client needs. They send quotes based on specific projects before we decide to move ahead. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Northern Commerce has worked hard to help us grow. Managing marketing for a franchise organization is a difficult challenge. Overall, I've been impressed with the team growth we've throughout our partnership. They've been highly responsive and rapidly complete our requests. 

Even though they've grown substantially in our time together and I know they have much bigger clients than us now, we’ve always felt taken care of.  They provide a consistently reliable service. I've done my due diligence and have never found a team that comes close to what Northern Commerce offers. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Northern Commerce is professional, effective, and collaborative. The team is easy to meet with and communicates well. They’ll offer useful ideas and take feedback well pointed in new directions. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CTO of Life Design Analysis, a financial planning software dedicated to the insurance space. The platform aggregates all life-insurance rates from across Canada, helps advisors compare them, and produces a visual report at the end.

What challenge were you trying to address with Northern Commerce?

I had designed and developed a prototype for our software solution, but I’m not a classically-trained programmer, so it became a bootstrapped sort of solution.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve used them for everything from development and maintenance, to digital marketing—ads and remarketing—logo development, and branding.

They were involved from the prototyping stage, taking the product from my Excel macro all the way to what it is today—a national bilingual service in Canada and the U.S. They turned it into a full enterprise solution. The main feature is aggregating rates from across Canada. We work with various APIs and languages like XML, and the whole site is coded in PHP.

We needed to build the e-commerce side of it—billing, checkout, and converting trial users to paid ones. They did great work on advertising the site, creating awareness around it, and, most importantly, taking in and getting money from customers.

They also work on digital mailer ads, Google Ads retargeting, and SEO. They’ve also helped us develop our blog and some of our content.

What is the team composition?

I worked with three dedicated developers, and with five people on the marketing side. We’ve probably worked regularly with 15–20 members of their team.

How did you come to work with Northern Commerce?

I did a Google search and came across their page. I was specifically looking for people in the London, Ontario area. Northern had worked with a lot of large partners, and they had a nice portfolio. They had a combination of marketing and full-stack developers, which was a great fit for us.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost so far has been around $500,000 CAD (approximately $380,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them around January 2014 and the prototype went live in July of that year. They continue to provide development and marketing work for us.

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

We went through a conversion rate optimization and website rebranding in our first year, following Northern’s leadership. We saw 1,000% growth that year, and, since then, we’ve had 300% growth, year-over-year. We’ve continued to invest in the platform and build it out with them, and the results have been phenomenal. Being able to grow the company and provide new features equates to a good relationship.

They’re top-notch in terms of the processes used for anything from project management to code reviews. Northern has a team of incredibly talented people and they find the things I haven’t thought of. It’s beneficial to work with people smarter than yourself.

How did Northern Commerce perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve performed extremely well and they're easy to work with from a project management standpoint. They haven't missed a deadline so far, and they’re always organized in terms of expectations and deliverables.

They stay on point and they have great tools, but they work in the style of the client. I wanted to be more hands-on with the development team and the project managers, and they accommodated that style.

We’re both fairly local, so much of the work is done in-person or through email. We also use different project management tools, including Basecamp and a home-built one from Northern, which is quite useful in tracking projects, keeping everyone on the same page, and inviting different team members. We can use the tool to remain organized and keep a log of everyone’s thoughts.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The quality of the products that come from them is impressive. Our customers always reference us as providing a beautiful, top-notch product, and a lot of that is the result of working with Northern. They stand out for the polish of the product, the thoughtfulness beforehand, and surfacing issues before they even come up, through proper project management.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There are always areas to improve, but they’re constantly enhancing their internal resources through training. They have a forward-thinking dev team.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I’d highly recommend them to anyone, but the client needs to be prepared to spend more money with Northern. After getting a budget, we always want to develop more and more. I’m excited to build new products because they always turn out successful.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of Pulp and Press. Our cold-press juice company has been producing raw, fresh, organic juice for five years. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Northern Commerce?

Our initial challenge was to create an online presence for our e-commerce site. Northern Commerce has done extensive work for us since we began this effort.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Northern Commerce helps us with all of our branding work. They take the lead on wireframing and create imagery on-site using multiple photographers. Once we present an idea, the project manager will assign tasks to the relevant teammates. We hold meetings along the way to gauge progress and prioritize next steps. Once things have moved far enough along, they bring me in to work hands-on with content production. I work with the senior members of Northern Commerce to give approvals and indicate what improvement.

Northern Commerce is continuing to help us grow through all our social networks. We’re focused on attracting new customers and incentivizing existing ones. They’ve held contests and worked on geotargeting our user base on avenues like Facebook. Previously, customers had to call or email us to place an order. Northern designed and developed a Shopify e-commerce platform to make purchasing products much more accessible. Integration with an ERP system lets us access essential details like shipping information to process orders faster.

What is the team composition? 

We’ve worked with about 10–20 resources in total. It’s been a team effort; almost everyone from Northern Commerce has engaged with our project to varying degrees. A typical plan includes project managers and resources working underneath them. I have a central point of contact for my questions and input. She assigns tasks to the appropriate developers and designers from there.

How did you come to work with Northern Commerce?

My business partner at the time’s wife had worked with Northern Commerce previously. They were so pleased with the work that he suggested approaching the team about furthering our company’s brand.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $350,000–$400,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Northern Commerce in November 2013 and officially launched our company in January 2014. Our collaboration is ongoing. They’re doing similar work for all the other lines we’re starting to launch.

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

Northern Commerce is very much a part of our success over our past five years in business. We launched the new Shopify site they built in 2018. Our sales went up year over year from 50,000 to an estimated one million. This statistic sticks out to me the most.

Northern Commerce is second to none in terms of quality. They take all the guesswork out of the equation. We’ve had a tremendous amount of lead generations on social media this year, and it’s all due to their work. I couldn’t imagine achieving these results without their team.
 
How did Northern Commerce perform from a project management standpoint?

Northern Commerce’s communication is fantastic, and their project management is second to none. We correspond using phone and email along with weekly face-to-face meetings at the office. They provide regular updates on keyword movement, but they’re also happy to explain anything I ask about in-between.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have extensive experience with everything digital marketing, and their creativity is unbelievable. It’s not surprising that Northern Commerce wins awards every year.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There are none that  I know of. I’ve only ever worked with Northern Commerce, but the fact that they regularly win awards truly makes me feel I’ve made the right decision.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

If you’re aiming for growth alongside a collaborative and creative team, Northern Commerce is the company you want to work with.