Over 200% higher revenues in the e-store, i.e. e-commerce recovery

What was our task?

Our Partner, Makalu, came to us because he was planning to develop the store, and the Magento agencies previously working for the brand did not deliver satisfactory results and were unable to cope with the technological support of the sales platform. The e-store sold, but did not provide the appropriate aesthetic impressions, including user experience at the expected level. It was also characterized by quite outdated solutions in the context of customer navigation around the store and the entire shopping path. The store’s infrastructure and security also left much to be desired.

As Fast White Cat, we took up the challenge of bringing the Makalu e-store to the highest possible quality and improving its conversion.

Initial goals

The initial goal of our activities was to improve the condition of the e-store – both its visual layer, visible to the end customer, and its back-end, i.e., among others. infrastructure and security, which also influence conversion. We have adopted the quick win method, which allows us to improve the results in the store in the shortest possible time.

How did we manage to achieve this?

  1. We started our adventure with Makalu with a technical and UX audit and workshops with the client, which were to allow him to better understand the situation of the e-store and the technological condition, as well as processes that could reduce its effectiveness. This is our standard action, even before signing the final contract, so that our partner knows what situation he is in, what caused it and how to get out of it.
  2. After the audit, we knew that we had to take at least 3 key steps
    • new infrastructure design and platform migration – due to the fact that the store was launched on the minimum hardware parameters required for Magento 2 without using Magento Best Practice, the first step we took was to transfer the Makalu project to a technological stack proven and recommended in many our projects and migrate it to a new, more efficient and more scalable infrastructure.
    • Magento update – upgrading the Magento version from 2.3.7 to 2.4.6 in order to ensure the stability and security of the entire technological base, which turned out to be a challenge due to the complexity of this e-commerce, a large number of additional, often custom modules, implemented by the previous Magento agencies. We also had to take care of organizing the code and managing modules, which were often incorrect or repeated their functions. We also upgraded the PHP version – we took over the project in PHP version 7.4.32, for which full security support ended in November 2022. Upgrading the PHP version was of great importance for further development of the system and reducing technical debt.
    • UX changes – optimization of user paths with an emphasis on the purchasing path – we examined the store in terms of good e-commercepractices and introduced modern solutions that were to increase conversion and be more attractive to end customers. We have optimized the shopping path, the entire product card, and category listing. We have proposed a new search engine based on elastic search, focused on suggesting products dedicated to customers. We rebuilt the home page for the native Magento solution, i.e. Page Builder.
  3. We replaced poor quality third-party modules with proven internal solutions or native Magento capabilities.
  4. We have taken over the coordination of the integration of the e-store with the ERP system, which will have a significant impact on maintaining the product base and automating and optimizing product management processes, and therefore – the entire e-store. We want to improve and shorten our Partner’s working time.
  5. We have implemented an appropriate backup policy for the database and critical files by implementing dedicated mechanisms for making copies from the system level.
  6. We have implemented an Anti-DDoS / Anti-DoS security policy.
  7. We have prepared the store in accordance with the Omnibus Directive.

Karolina Nowak

Makalu Creative Director

Cooperation with Fast White Cat is not only business benefits, but also pure pleasure.

The implemented change project is running very smoothly and brings us real benefits. Very important aspects of cooperation are reliability and looking at the project globally, focusing not only on improving the functioning of the online store, but also on a number of other elements affecting sales. For the Makalu brand, the most important thing is the customer, and the changes introduced in cooperation with Fast White Cat affect their satisfaction with purchases, which is the most valuable benefit for us.

ProThe project that we, as Fast White Cat, conducted and completed for the Makalu brand required a fast pace of work and full commitment.

The business goal set by the company’s CEO required changes to the infrastructure, store facilities and its front-end part, and we managed to accomplish all these tasks in just 3 months. The improvement in sales results is significant, and we are pleased that our experience in the field of Magento and e-commercecould contribute to the realization of Makalu’s development vision.

Joanna Kocur

Project Manager

Effect

In 3 months, we completely transformed the Makalu store, working both on its frontend and backend. Taking care of the infrastructure, code and organizing the backend of the Makalu e-store, as well as a new product presentation, shortening and simplifying the shopping path and a better functioning search engine brought our Partner the following results year on year:

  1. over 200% higher revenues
  2. over 100% higher e-commerceconversion rate
  3. over 200% more transactions
  4. over 5% higher average order value

Development?

Naturally! At Fast White Cat, we work to ensure that our Partners’ stores constantly increase their capabilities. We are still working on improving the checkout, rebuilding it and improving the Makalu e-shop to the maximum.

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