Please describe your company and your position there.

We design and manufacture firearms and accessories. I am the founder and owner of the business.

For what projects/services did your company hire Inventive?

We wanted to redesign our existing e-commerce website on a new platform.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to increase our conversion ratio and average order size by implementing a website that was better looking and easier to use, for under $10,000 and within a 2-month turnaround.

How did you select Inventive?

Inventive came highly recommended from a family member of one of our senior employees--he had worked directly with Greg for years, and vouched for his professionalism.

I trust the employee, so we made the initial contact and consult. I knew after a couple of meetings, that these are the sort of people I would want to work with. They were polite, transparent, and thorough.

Describe the project in detail.

We had two initial meetings to discuss the scope of the project. I presented Inventive with some mockups from my graphic design guy, and they came back to me with a proposal. First we worked on selecting an appropriate platform; they recommended BigCommerce and explained why.

Then we selected an appropriate theme to build upon. That was followed by the basic layout, product import, rebuilding of the old pages, and tweaking. The final steps were to select the BigCommerce membership level, and sign up for Authorize.net.

Inventive pushed most of these processes and was clear about when they needed me to act. There were weekly meetings and progress reports.

What was the team composition?

The team composition was a project manager, overseeing a lead developer and a specialist developer.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Overall, the project is a success: our conversion rate increased from 3.5% to roughly 5.5%. In the world of e-commerce, that's enormous. Frankly, I was hoping for a single percent, so to double that is truly excellent.

The average order has stayed static, but that's moreso because we have been out of stock on our core products than any deficit in the website construction.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Overall, very effective. Each week, on Monday, I had a meeting with the project manager and lead developer. We would review the progress, check-in, get any questions answered, and make decisions about moving forward.

I had occasional direct calls and emails with the lead developer to address any more urgent issues. These were smooth and effective.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Everyone was overwhelmingly easy to communicate with. Everything was explained up front, they were completely transparent in their processes, and they delivered. The final project was within 10% of the estimated hours, and was absolutely built to my satisfaction.

Are there any areas for improvement?

This is a bit of a nitpick. Inventive made such an overwhelming effort to be polite and to manage my expectations, that I found myself occasionally becoming impatient. That's moreso a style preference -- I tend to prefer blunt communication.

That being said, having spent thousands of hours dealing with customers, I understand erring on the side of being diplomatic!