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We have recently overhauled the ecommerce website of one of our longest standing clients Go-Electrical, refreshing the web design and porting the entire site to the Magento ecommerce platform.

Regular Go-Electrical customers will have noticed a number of new features, many of which pretty much come as standard with Magento. Including:

• Filtering products by attributes (price bands, brand, colour, dimensions, power, etc)
• Side-by-side product comparision
• 1 page checkout (via SagePay Direct Payment Gateway)
• Product suggestions (Cross-selling) from within the basket
• Redeamable Promotion codes

We also had to flex our web developer muscles to produce some bespoke Magento tools and provide the following:

• Rich Configurable Products*
• Sage Integration (Accounting Software)
• Price Comparison Engine Product Information (feed) Management
• Migration of legacy data (incl. URL mapping to ensure no search traffic was disrupted)
• Wordpress Integration

*Configurable products within Magento allow customers to choose alternative product options from within a single product page, (for example for a fridge providing a choice of colour and whether the door has a left or right hinge). Normally the product photo and information remains the same when alternative choices are made, however, using AJAX (Javascript) technology Go-Electrical.co.uk customers see the product page refresh with photos and info that corresponds to the choices they have made.

A major challenge in this project was migrating this large ecommerce site (3000+ products) with a minimum amount of disruption to customers and marketing programmes. To this end we performed the migration in the early hours of December 23rd as the period following the last Christmas delivery slot is relatively quiet.

Working with the team at Go-Electrical was a real pleasure (as always) and together we managed to deliver a new incarnation of the site with a mimum of disruption and maximum benefit to their customers.

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Our work with Augere Holdings on the Qubee project is featured in the latest DBA (Design Business Association) Insight 10 magazine. A transcription of the article is below or you can check out the final article by downloading the PDF.

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When it comes to collaboration, is it really the case of the more the merrier? Monica Tailor, Client Services Director at Leeds-based consultancy kilo75, tells us about working with two other teams to launch new brand, Qubee.

Bringing together a tribe of experts in their field resulted in the birth of Qubee, a new international brand for Augere Holdings. Augere was established by Sanjiv Ahuja (formerly CEO of Orange) with a vision to deliver 'broadband for all' by providing reliable broadband in emerging markets. They launched successfully in Bangladesh and Pakistan last year.

Augere engaged Sean Lewis of Brands Applied to work closely with them to develop an international brand. He brought in Mark Smith of Marksmith Design for his brand identity expertise, and Monica Tailor and Matt Seward of kilo75 for their web expertise to collaborate on the project.

"It’s not just about blending complimentary expertise, it’s also about blending the right personalities." says Lewis.

From day one this client and agency collaborative established a shared vision. Previously local perceptions of the internet had been shaped by poor service, terrible connectivity and ageing infrastructure. Qubee's vision was to make broadband work with a magical branded experience. "This helped us make design and technical decisions every step of the way." adds Tailor.

As the new brand crystallised Mike McNeilage and Nick Patchett were added to the collaborative to help deliver the brand through retail spaces.

By trusting, dividing and conquering the client agency team were faster, more efficient and informed. Getting the right experts in the room at the right time, sharing local knowledge and dynamic project management all helped to ensure the brand could be created and applied in the most effective way.

This collaborative mindset has continued beyond launch. The central team designed the brand in a way that invites local agencies and marketing teams to take part. They gave clear parameters and guidance, then let go to enable local marketing teams to breathe further life into the brand. "This is less about the creators of the brand hogging the limelight and more about genuinely facilitating successful branding at a local level." comments Smith.

For Qubee this means they have local ownership beyond the original creators, which is critical to the successful rollout of any international brand. 

"Many of us will have endured very different experiences of collaboration. Sometimes it's amazing that collaborative projects get finished at all when the parties involved battle to protect their patch and struggle with hidden agendas and issues of trust. Successful collaboration requires a grown-up approach. Shared passions married to honest, direct and respectful dialogue helps a lot (obviously), but a tribal mentality is crucial. In the tribe all members are valued for their talents and are willing to support each other. Most importantly, everyone has a genuine desire to work together. If you want to make it work you can."

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We would love to connect with other agencies looking to work collaborative, why not get in touch.

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