Praella

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Pillows.com. If you sleep in a hotel and really like their pillow, then there’s a good chance that that pillow is available on our website.

What challenge were you trying to address with Praella?

They provided website development and design for us.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our website was hosted on Yahoo Small Business, which was sold to Verizon. It lacked a lot of the features that Shopify had. Because we didn’t see Yahoo’s platform changing, we decided to switch over to Shopify. In the transition, there were over 10,000 unique items and data that didn’t flow over well, so they had to be migrated manually. Praella helped us move all that data over and then structure it in a logical way to help our customers find it.

We reduced a lot of clutter from our old site, and then we were able to build our filtering function and a pillow finder, which makes navigating the website much easier than it was. All those 10,000 items are now laid out in a much more SEO-friendly way than they were prior to the migration.

In terms of design, we took what we liked from our old store and then integrated some of Praella’s suggestions based on Shopify’s strengths and weaknesses. One example is that they recreated our pillow finder quiz, which helps customers find the pillow that will allow them to sleep the best. This required a custom build on Shopify. Additionally, they created a lot of infographics and other design elements to visually convey the features of the pillows. They worked with CSS to help the general design of the website.

What is the team composition?

We worked with quite a few people. Alex (Strategic Account Manager) was our main point of contact, and he would assign out to our team lead. There was a main technical developer in India would did quite a bit of the work. They brought on other specialists as needed, including a lot of Google experts around Analytics and Tag Manager. The total was probably around 15–30 people.

How did you come to work with Praella?

Our former CEO was responsible for hiring Praella and she left at the beginning of the project, after which, I picked up the baton. I’m not sure how they were found, but I know we got quotes from a few other companies and we liked them the most.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent close to $40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from February–September 2021. Our contract shifted to a retainer after the launch, but that agreement also ended and we’re kind of going our separate ways now. They’ve said the door is always open though, and we can message them on Slack whenever.

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

Our average value per order has gone up by about 7%. We’re 100% satisfied. They’re one of the best contractors I’ve ever worked with. Their communications were perfect; they didn’t over or under communicate but were extremely clear. They offered examples and were technologically literate. As they’re experts in their field, we couldn’t have done this without them.

How did Praella perform from a project management standpoint?

They never exceeded the budget. As far as timelines go, they delays came from our side. They were on time.

We communicated over a weekly phone call and then emails in between those calls. There was also a platform called Path, which essentially held our deliverables. Praella would tag us with what they needed and let us know the status of projects from their end. We also had Slack to communicate instantly if anything came up.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their knowledge of Shopify is exceptional and being able to code custom solutions was extremely helpful.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Version control is not one of their strong suits. We would occasionally have updates wiped off because the update was stored on a separate branch, and then the production version would skip a previous change. We would notice it and have to get the other branch merged onto the production branch.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Bring concrete examples to the discussion of what you’re looking for and how it can be achieved on Shopify. Then, ask about what externalities are there from doing the implementation that way.  

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of an e-commerce company that sells lacrosse equipment. We provide customer support and ship most of the products on our site from our warehouse.

What challenge were you trying to address with Praella?

After a decade with NetSuite, we wanted to redesign our site and move it to Shopify. We wanted the new site to be at least as fast as our previous one, and for it to be a little edgier than our old site. We’re a small company, and we don't have engineers on staff, so we needed a reliable partner that’s on the cutting edge of new features and best practices.

We wanted to move our site to the Shopify platform with a minimal setup first, then improve the new site from there using Shopify’s apps and ecosystem. Also, fulfilling bundles and discounts required too much manual intervention on our old site, so we wanted bundles to pull seamlessly from the correct SKUs and inventory on our new site.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Praella first put some tracking code on our old site to evaluate its performance. That code told them where people were clicking, how far they were scrolling down, and which elements to keep in the new design. They then proposed new designs and began implementation. They also provided new graphics and designs for our automated emails, such as order confirmations, abandoned cart reminders, rewards program updates, and other drip marketing emails.

We initially kept NetSuite as our backend, working with connectors to pull data. Within six months of switching to Shopify, we got rid of NetSuite and started using a different backend. Praella helped us with the data extraction to move products, prices, costs, commentary, and images.

We’ve kept them on as our agency to keep evolving the site. They look at our Google Merchant Center to ongoingly fix errors and make sure pages are performing correctly. They’ve also recently updated our site using the Shopify Online Store 2.0 system.

What is the team composition?

We currently have two main points of direct contact. During the initial site design process, we probably dealt with three different people. Praella has about another half a dozen people working behind the scenes.

How did you come to work with Praella?

I was referred to Praella from Shopify Plus. They provided me with a few developers, and I received bids from three different agencies. I liked the process that Praella outlined and decided to hire them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $100,000 with Praella.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with Praella in January 2020, and we now have them on retainer.

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

Our conversion rate has increased by a little more than 5% on the new site, and our average order value has increased by 25%. Praella improved our load time, bringing it down to about two seconds, compared to 3–4 seconds on our old site. 

With Praella’s recent Shopify Online Store 2.0 updates and speed improvements to the new site, our load time is down to about two seconds according to Google Analytics, which is pretty cool. Moving to our new backend was seamless. Praella has been able to make orders with bundles and discounted items fulfill with less manual intervention via our new site, which is great. That feature saves us an hour per day on our busy days, so we’re really happy about that.

How did Praella perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management has been pretty good, the timelines have worked well, and they’ve delivered within budget. It hasn’t been like dealing with other agencies, who sometimes let projects slip and slip. We launched within a couple of weeks of our target date.

Whenever we present Praella with a request, our contact talks to all of their teammates and proposes 2–3 possible solutions based on their expertise. They’ve always been able to execute whatever we decide on and bring it to fruition.

Praella used Basecamp during the design phase, and they currently use Path. I can sign in to get status updates on tasks, start a discussion, test something, look at screenshots of what they’re working on, or provide feedback. We have a biweekly 20–30 minute check-in call with our main contact, and we communicate via email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Praella has a good knowledge base and a lot of resources for projects, but it’s nice to be dealing with our one main point of contact to explain what new features and additions we want. 

Other companies I’ve worked with in the past have overpromised in order to make a sale. Praella hasn’t promised too much or too little. They feel like real partners with the technology and the depth to really give us a great solution. We feel we can trust them with the details of our business.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s always something to improve upon, but for these past 6–9 months, things have been going really smoothly, and projects are progressing at a reasonable pace.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My general advice with any partner is to express what you really want, define it well enough, and have realistic expectations.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior director of e-commerce and digital marketing for Parlux, a large fragrance company that sells designer and celebrity fragrances.

What challenge were you trying to address with Praella?

We were creating our first direct-to-consumer website, so we were in need of someone to build and develop it.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Praella is helping us develop a dedicated Shopify website — the design was done by another agency, and Praella’s main responsibility is to manage the front- and backend development.

What is the team composition?

I work closely with Amer (CEO & Co-Founder), KerriAnne (Director of Client Services), and several members of their team in India.

How did you come to work with Praella?

We immediately liked Praella after they were recommended to us by Shopify Plus, so we decided to work with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership started in May 2021.

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

The quality of their service is absolutely great. We’ve sold out our product through the website and we haven’t been able to keep inventory in stock, so we’ve far surpassed our revenue goals. 

Moreover, our conversion rates are high thanks to the thoughtful and reliable work that Praella has put in. 

How did Praella perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very good at organizing the project and keeping the process in motion.

We manage the project through JIRA, and we mainly communicate through Slack, Google Meet, email, and they would provide us with charts and timelines through Spreadsheets.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re very impressed with their dedication and kindness. They’re just very nice partners to work with and it always feels like we couldn’t ask enough of them.

No task is too difficult for Praella and they go above and beyond just to provide us with what we need — they’ve built everything we needed them to without any complaints and without nickel-and-diming us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There were minor issues here and there, but they weren’t really major drawbacks to the partnership.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

We briefed them on this project very late, so everything was in rush mode.

My advice is to be timely with your briefing and have direct communication with their developers to ensure the project’s success.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I consult with multiple companies in Ecommerce strategy, development, automation, growth and optimization.

For what projects/services did your company hire Praella, and what were your goals?

Nine Twelve United were experiencing exponential growth with their Shopify store that was initially set up with a free template. Praella (Hulk Apps ) Redesigned the Shopify Website with custom theme development, outlined and set up the sitemap of the site, QA testing of the desktop and mobile versions of the Website.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

The vendor was recommended via a colleague and industry expert.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Website Design Phase Praella (HulkApps) coordinated with the Client regarding the design direction via Design Survey The Client was directed to only have one Single Point of Contact to provide feedback during design and development. Praella (HulkApps) will provide high-fidelity mock-ups for Web Pages After coordinating with the client regarding design direction and brand positioning guidelines our design team will put together static mock ups of the main pages on your new website, starting with the homepage, for you to review.

Mockups for the project delivered were desktop and mobile mockups of the following page types:

Desktop:

For the project they delivered desktop mockups of the following pages:

• Homepage
• Includes header, footer and mega menu
• This will also include:
  • Banner image design
  • pop up design
  • Collection Page Template
  • Product Page Template
  • Cart Page
  • Account page template

Mobile:

Since the current landscape heavily emphases a focus on mobile traffic they created mobile mockups for the core pages being designed to make sure the new layouts are effectively responsive on mobile. Once approved the project moved into the design phase. The Site Mapping phase of the projects began upon completion of all designs and upon approval of all designs by the Client.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

4 in total

• Nick Mann - Chief Sales Officer
• KerriAnne Lucero - Director of Client Services
• Rachael Harwell - Strategic Account Manager
• Sheetal Shah - Project Manager

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The only hold up on any deliverables were the clients end in responding to Praella in approving mockups and changes. Conversion rates jumped significantly with the custom theme over the free temlate.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

The client had a 2 week (10 day) onboarding process to set up all projects with daily contact followed by weekly / biweekly meetings and follow-ups for feedback and approvals.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Praella (HulkApps) were efficient, professional and flexible with the clients time constraints and expectations.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

There was a little confusion with mockup variations on one occasion but this was quickly rectified and not a further issue.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Director of Marketing for a Natural Products Company.

For what projects/services did your company hire Praella, and what were your goals?

Our previous website was on a different platform and instead of spending time working on revenue growth opportunities, we were constantly fixing broken pieces. Our goal was to migrate to Shopify and set our business up for future success and growth!

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Praella was recommended to us via our Shopify Account Manager. The timeline, budget and most of all personality of the company was a fit for the project.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We had a clear timeline from the onset of the project and different aspects of the team were looped in as we designed and built the new Shopify website. We met with Design, had weekly meetings with our Account team, and more in order to outline the needs and have those be met by our launch date.

Key Technologies implemented were Shopify Plus, ReCharge, Accelerated Checkout, Integration with our ERP and Email platform.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked with an account manager and project manager. They looped in Design or Development when needed.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Customers and partners loved the updated design. We have a base for KPI metrics to move forward with. Great adoption of accelerated checkout and subscriptions among customers within the first month.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We were able to communicate on the weekly meetings for checkins and used email and Path for additional communication.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Very responsive and eager to meet our needs! In the end, they delivered a high-quality end result.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

We took on the bulk of our ERP integration internally due to prior history and knowledge. It would have alleviated a little stress on my end if we leaned on them more!

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We have a pet industry e-commerce site and I’m the website and marketing manager.

What challenge were you trying to address with Praella?

I built our website using Shopify, but I needed someone with development experience to provide us with custom coding and the site’s overall management.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Aside from web design and development, Praella also helped us with Google Analytics since we sell our products on both Shopify checkout and Recharge Payments. Other than that, they also helped us build a subscription option for our products, as well as ancillary items such as dog treats and toys.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Amer (Founder) and Alex (Strategic Account Manager).

How did you come to work with Praella?

I believe Praella is a Shopify partner, and they were recommended to us from there. Amer was the one who initially contacted us and we just clicked.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested around $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked from July–August 2021.

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

They increased our AOV by about 10%, improved our retention rate, and lessened our cancellations.

How did Praella perform from a project management standpoint?

They integrated themselves well into our company, and they were always available whenever we needed them. They used Path as their main project management tool, and we mostly communicated through email, text, and their ticketing system.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We like that they treated us with high priority. They’re good friends at this point, and we just got along well — we were just really happy we found them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing they could’ve done differently.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Amer and his team are extremely knowledgeable and they're always looking out for our best interest. Amazing partners to have and I highly recommend hiring them.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Founder/President of our company that is in the pet vertical.

For what projects/services did your company hire Praella, and what were your goals?

We hired Praella to handle the migration from our old platform (magento) to Shopify.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We did a thorough search of Magento verified partners and then also looked at Shopify partners and after doing a very drawn out interview process we selected Praella based on their experience and capabilities but most importantly on their sincerity, flexibility and honesty. They seemed like a very relatable agency that wasn't into turning and burning clients.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We had a very detailed process to ensure that all of our current fucntionality would be migrated over. We had several calls for them to make sure they understood our business needs and were very thorough about this part before they started work knowing that this was the foundation they were building and it was important for them to make sure they understood everything.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We had the main contact which was the owner and then 1-2 other people that were in calls but Amer was the one we dealt with as our immediate contact.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

I can't believe that the transition went seamlessly. I was anticipating that there were would be glitches everywhere. Amer and his team were so detailed and so thorough that nothing slipped through the cracks. How they handled everything was a dream and they're absolutely wonderful to work with. They are genuinely good people that are fantastic to work with. So much so that we decided to have them maintain our site on an ongoing basis.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

They are very good at communicating. They have a project management tool that they use and good at working with us as if they were our inhouse team. They never lie and always tell us to it straight. I'm emphasizing this so often b/c we've had teams that cover up their mistakes, lie about how easy things are when they're not and aren't truthful about what they can and can't handle. This is the opposite of Praella.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They are the true definition of a partner, and we love growing with them as our business grows. We can depend on them always.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Nope.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a partner and Chief Marketing Officer with BattlBox. I oversee sales, marketing, technology, and customer expierence.

For what projects/services did your company hire Praella, and what were your goals?

Initially, we engaged for a migration from CrateJoy to Shopify Plus / Recharge. We were so impressed with the work, we continued with a monthly retainer to consistently make improvements to the site.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We met with 3 vendors that all came recommended to us. Deciding factors were costs, confidence with the vendor via our experience during the sales process, and examples of similar work.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

This was a migration of both our website and our data. We had around 50,000 customer profiles that needed to be migrated. We wanted our site to be identical post-migration (front end). We were going to do a site redesign in part 2 after the dust settled from migration.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We had interaction with a half dozen members, our main POC was our account manager and project manager.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The migration was completed in the actual timeframe we had requested. Our previous experiences with OTHER development agencies were not great, we were not used to working getting done with the expected timeframe. On top of that, everything was done exceeding our expectations. These guys are great!

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We used a tool called Path for the management of the project. It is a tool they built and it worked really well.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They did what they said they would, every time. Great communication and you could tell they really cared.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

No, super impressed.

Please describe your company and your position there.

UNFORME is an interior design studio and e-commerce site retailing decorative home objects, art, and furniture. I am the Creative Director for the company.

For what projects/services did your company hire Praella, and what were your goals?

We enlisted Praella with developing the website we designed. Our goals were to produce a top-tier Shopify site with great UX.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We selected Praella after researching several firms. They were highly recommended by Shopify and their customer service was impressive. Pricing was also a factor in our decision.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Our project scope was to build the entire Shopify website and customize to match our designs. We needed social media app integrations and marketing/retargeting/upselling integrations as well.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We had an impressive project lead, Momo Besic, who was our primary contact and took the initiative as our go-between with developers.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Most deliverables/site pages were met immediately with no obstacles. A few key pricing display issues occurred along the way and we were able to successfully communicate and talk through the fixes. Our team, specifically Mo, was fantastic in providing videos, calls and messaging to achieve our outcomes. The final result is excellent and we are thrilled with the site.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

I was extremely impressed with the turnaround and quick response time from Praella on virtually every task on our project. The main outcome of producing a beautiful, functional website to our specifications was well met and the entire experience exceeded my expectations. They easily understood all our requests and had great communication.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The outstanding communication, ease and speed of getting things accomplished. Overall, they translated our designs into reality and turned feedback into results quickly, easily and kindly. They are top-notch professionals who are just great people to work with generally.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Not that I can think of. I really enjoyed working with this team and hope to continue our partnership well into the future.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the owner of Henry's House Of Coffee, where we roast and sell delicious coffee online and in-store.

For what projects/services did your company hire Praella, and what were your goals?

We needed to move our website from WooCommerce over to Shopify and wanted a better subscription experience.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

The subscription flow, as well as the overall web design, felt clean, fresh, and super simple.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Essentially had to build a new site from the ground up.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

1 project manager, 5 developers and 1 designer.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The site looks amazing and the flow was super simple and fast!

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We used slack and had weekly meetings.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Their communication and thorough understanding of my asks.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Nope