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magento customization

Magento + Scene7 Case Study: theClassWatch.com

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A combination of outstanding partner, client, and technology collide from time to time to form incredibly interesting projects. One such project for Elias has been theClassWatch.com, which involved integrating two popular web tools: Magento + Adobe Scene7. Our client, Josh Fendley, recently sat down with me to talk about his experience with Elias:

Background

Josh is a partner at an agency in Cincinnati, OH called Ample. His client, ClassWatch, wanted to create a shopping experience that personalizes high-end wrist watches with school logos, initials, and graduation year. Adobe Scene7 seemed like the perfect tool to manage images. And Magento is one of the most powerful ecommerce platforms on the market today. But there was just one problem: no one had integrated the two web services with each other yet.

Solution

Not one to back down from a challenge, Elias rolled up its proverbial sleeves and went to work setting up a store, installing a custom theme, and integrating the watch configurator with Scene7. It was a tight deadline, which required outstanding teamwork between Elias + Ample. Personally, I’m proud to have met and worked with the Ample guys. (disclaimer: I tend to think that way about all of our clients)

Lee is documenting the technical side of this story in a series of posts. Our current project load has stalled the remaining posts in the series so far, but I’ll update the following list as he adds the next two posts:

  1. Part 1 of 3: Scene7 Integration with Magento Ecommerce

Results

The final product is an impressive personalized shopping experience. Eric made a quick screencast to showcase the integration with Scene7 + Magento.

Magento Service Packages Design

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Estimating service pricing on a client-by-client basis can be difficult and time-consuming. It’s risky for the service provider because they invest time before receiving a commitment from the client. And clients can get annoyed when they have no expectation for cost early in the relationship.

Houston, we have a problem

Elias faces this tension on a daily basis. Let’s say we receive an estimate request with project description from a new potential client. Ok, now what? We try to get more information. The potential client is trying to understand price. And agency partners want a faster way to incorporate Elias development costs into their bids for client Magento ecommerce opportunities. So I created packaged services to frame scope and help clients see the effects of feature configuration/development on price.

Solution (v1)

  • Package services for typical client requests to quickly set expectations for scope and budget.
  • Reduce package variation to minimal number of factors.
  • Establish a conversational starting point when discussing a project with a new client.
  • Make the purchase decision easier for clients.
  • Distill scope differences between packages into an easy to consume format.

Result (v1)

Packages v1
Packages v1

While this initial version of our Magento service packages did set expectations for scope and budget upfront, it failed on multiple levels of design:

  • The pricing was not simple.
  • Awful borders held the table captive.
  • Don’t even get me started on my poor original names

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Solution (v2)

Tyler Tate recently featured a fantastic article in Smashing Magazine about minimizing complexity in user interfaces. He illustrated one of his points with a pricing chart from Typekit. Their example gave me the inspiration I needed to create version 2 of Elias’ packages:

Result (v2)

Packages v2

Lesson: Why Team Conflict is Good

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We recently met with a potential partner who is admittedly clueless about Magento development and has a project that keeps dragging on. He asked us to step in to help.  Being the sales guy that I am, I was ready to jump right in.  Being the responsible developer that he is, Lee was hesitant to even be a part of the discussion.  We both felt some rub with the approach.

The great part about healthy teams is that a foundation of trust and respect makes it easier for conflict to lead to a better outcome than any individual could arrive at on their own.  In our case, Lee’s concern slowed down the conversation and made for a very healthy reality check with the partner .  After a quick conversation with his client, the partner modified the project scope to something more realistic and asked us to throw together an estimate for it.  Not only will we create an immediate benefit for the partner by finishing the project and creating cashflow, we will also built a solid relationship with this partner who likes us and will most likely choose to work with us on future Magento stores.

I am convinced that this type of interaction would not have happened even 2 months ago.  This is the sort of trust and mutual respect that is developed over time.  If you are looking for this type of team to interact with for your Magento store, theme, customization, or module then we would be happy to speak with you.  Just drop us a message on this form and we’ll be in touch.

Open Source Infiltrating Enterprise Marketplace

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Open Source is infiltrating the Enterprise marketplace.  O’Reilly radar featured an interview today with Jeffrey Hammond of Forrester Research on the topic.  We have been bumping into more enterprise clients in Magento-land here at Elias and were recently approached about writing a Magento-for-enterprise book.  This leads me to believe that Hammond’s insight is becoming increasingly relevant for Magento. With that in mind, one of Hammond’s answers is very important to understand for those enterprise retailers who might be considering the wonderful world of open-source with Magento:

James Turner: Just to be balanced, what are some of the perils that companies need to watch out for when they start to adopt open source?

Jeffrey Hammond: I’ll tell you: The number one peril that I run into is an overinflated set of expectations. And it usually goes something along the lines of, “Well, we’re going to dramatically reduce our software costs.” And there are some scenarios where that can happen. But in reality, what open source does, especially at the start, is it tends to shift your software costs. So, yes, you’re reducing the capital expenses and expenditures that you are paying for software bits and bytes. But, in most cases, firms that are starting with open source are still buying support contracts from organizations.

Given the typical expense for ecommerce systems, an enterprise etailer will still come out way ahead in the switch to Magento.  But it is important to note that the spending shifts from software costs to labor cost.  This is why it is imperative to work closely with your selected development team on the front end of a project to map out a solid solution.  As our lead developer at Elias, Lee, likes to say, “We want to have this project won before we get started.”