Variux

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the owner of a liturgical goods wholesaler.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Variux?

There were two primary objectives — increase the e-commerce portion of our overall business with an improved Magento website, and learn basic content management so we could manage more of this in-house.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Variux reviewed our existing website and gave us their recommendations while staying within our budget.  They developed our new website, and also did a very good job teaching us content management fundamentals, including adding, editing, and deleting content (both simple and configurable products), and optimizing search and navigation features to make our website as user-friendly as we can.

What is the team composition?

We work with David (President) and Bo (Project Manager).

How did you come to work with Variux?

Our previous developer did website development on the side, which I now realize was a mistake.  I spent a fair amount of time looking for a full-time developer experienced with Magento with a portfolio of successful websites I could review. Variux was recommended to me.

What is the status of this engagement?

The initial engagement with Variux, which began in early 2017, is now an ongoing relationship.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our cart continues to scale.  It performs well, is easy to navigate, and has user-friendly functionality (feedback from our customers).  I'll take a little credit for the content part, but most of this is attributable to Variux.  Any cart like ours that sells thousands of physical products really needs to manage content in-house to be competitive — Variux showed us how to do this.

How did Variux perform from a project management standpoint?

Variux uses Trello to manage our website development projects and tasks, which seems to work well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

As our cart scales and growth-related issues need to be addressed, David and his team take care of them. David is a very good listener.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Variux has clients much larger than us who keep them busy — sometimes, I have to wait my turn to discuss something, but they always circle back to me as soon as they're able to, and anyhow their systems monitor our cart 24/7.

Any advice for potential customers?

Talk to Variux about your e-commerce situation and objectives — there's a lot more to a successful e-commerce business than I first realized, and I'm very thankful that Variux is our cart developer.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO of a skydiving gear sales and service company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed to upgrade from Magento 1 that was hitting its end of life.

SOLUTION

How did you select Variux and what were the deciding factors?

Variux has helped us with a variety of web site services over the past 10 years, and have always provided a high level of service customized to our unique business.

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

Move and upgrade our e-commerce Magento 1 site to Magento 2, which included a long list of site changes and upgrades to 3rd party plug-ins.

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

One main point of contact, but also approximately 5 others that we communicated with throughout the project, which is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The site launched as planned and all minor launch issues were addressed and resolved quickly. Variux now continues to help us with new projects and upgrades to the site.

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

Trello was the main mode of communication for the project and the organization, responses and tracking was spot on.

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

I am impressed with their clear communication.

Are there any areas for improvement?

More detailed invoicing, but I think that's difficult for the kind of work this is.