Object Source

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and founder of an online retailer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Object Source?

I wanted to change the backend of my website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Object Source initially migrated my existing site into Magento 1; then they convinced me to migrate again into Magento 2. They did a satisfactory job with the first migration. When we started the second initiative, we had a contract with specific deliverables. They failed to meet any of those requirements and did not live up to expectations at all. They developed the pure minimum viable product after a seven-month delay.

What is the team dynamic?

We worked directly with a project manager, and three developers were assigned to our project.

How did you come to work with Object Source?

I found them through an online search.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around £50,000–£60,000 (around $80,000 USD). They did stay within our budgetary limits, and there were no cost overruns.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together for about a year and a half. The collaboration first went astray after November 2017, when they started the Magento 2 migration. We expected a release date in February 2018, as per the parameters of our contract, but we couldn't launch until August 2018. We left them shortly after that, in September 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Describe the impact this engagement has had on your business.

The site was working on Magento 1, but failed badly after the migration. All the impacts of the second project are highly negative. Our sales decreased, and our payment gateway didn't work for the first two days after the launch, which was catastrophic. Our search engine ranking collapsed because of a badly drawn sitemap with broken links. No proper audit was done before the launch, and there were mistakes that should have been easy to spot. None of the new features we wanted to add worked after the Magento 2 launch.

I enjoyed working with them on a personal level, but I don't think they were qualified to do the work. Since leaving them, I hired someone else to make the fixes. The new company did a site audit and found some horrendous errors that needed urgent attention. We were partially hacked by Chinese and Russian hackers, and the experience was awful.

How was project management handled?

They were very slow to respond to questions or feedback. When we did get in touch with them, they wasted our time and made excuses. We mainly communicated via phone, email, and in-person meetings.

Is there anything that the vendor did well or that you would consider a strength?

If they had delivered on the contract, their pricing might have been honest and fair.

In what specific areas can they improve?

I wish they could have done the work we paid them to do. They stretched the project out seven months beyond what we agreed on, left the site in a complete state of disarray, and pushed things live before an appropriate site audit. They were recklessly underqualified for this job, and they endangered our business.

What advice do you have for clients with similar needs to yours?

Don’t hire them. I like the people that work there on a personal level, but I cannot recommend them. Working with them felt like a con, and the idea that other people will trust them with their businesses upsets me.