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10.12.2021
Recently the team at SmartaStudio took control of the website maintenance, monitoring and support of Stoke-on-Trent based fashion business, Terraces Menswear.
We were approached by a referral partner of ours, Fifteen Group, with a view of providing fully comprehensive support and server maintenance over one of Terraces’ busiest periods of the year.
With the client in a desperate position, we set aside other projects and dedicated our full time efforts into supporting the website with its sale over Black Friday weekend. Here’s a breakdown of how it went…
Terraces Menswear is a men’s fashion retailer turning over circa £8m per annum through its website alone. With 5 stores across Stoke-on-Trent, Terraces is an established name in the men’s fashion industry and continues to expand its network of stores and online customers year-on-year.
The results were astounding. Terraces Menswear experienced a steady level of online visitors over the weekend, with many orders coming into the site across the 4 days of sale.
The numbers speak for themselves:
orders
products sold
sales
A record-breaking Black Friday sale for Terraces Menswear, we are so pleased it went smoothly for them and that they are happy with the support we provided.
From Rob Adams, Director of Fifteen Group Limited
“Fifteen Group Limited is a Technology Company operating in Stoke on Trent with a wide breadth of clients across multiple sectors. One of the solutions offered is bespoke Server Hosting solutions for complex eCommerce websites operating multi-million £ turnover businesses. Recently we had one of our long-standing eCommerce websites operating in the Designer Clothing sector move to a larger eCommerce Agency, the website was operating at circa £8m per annum and so the move needed to go smoothly especially with the annual Black Friday event happening in November which accounts for a significant amount of the overall income for the Website.
The move wasn’t as successful as had been hoped with the new Agency underestimating the complexities of the site and the Server Hosting that was required. The result being a site that suddenly became almost unusable from a user’s perspective, turnover dropping to unsustainable levels and constant angst from the customer base looking to place their orders for their designer clothes. Our client persevered with the new agency for 7 weeks, trying in vain to rectify the website but, with the Black Friday weekend only 1 week away and the risk to the business of not being able to trade and sell their stock, they called us and asked if they could move the website back to Fifteen Group.
Unfortunately, Fifteen Group was unable to provide the assistance needed in such a short time frame using our own team, as we had other clients gearing up for Black Friday and our resource was already stretched to the maximum. However, believing the mantra that “every problem is a solution waiting to happen”, Director, Rob Adams turned to his BNI Network, made some phone calls and was able to quickly form a POWER TEAM consisting of Ryan McCandless of SmartaStudio and an ex-employee of Fifteen Group and now self-employed web developer Rob Allport of F9Web.
The three jumped onto a Video Call and discussed the challenge ahead; the need to construct a Hosting Environment to support the website, the physical move of the website back to us and all of the Domain Name settings involved in the transfer together with ensuring that the 5,000+ products and images were correctly displaying and linked to the companies EPOS system and Stock Records; the last thing that they wanted was to sell stock they didn’t have!
Rising to the challenge, Ryan McCandless of SmartaStudio took the lead and worked diligently for almost 48 hours solid with Rob Allport, training himself in the way that Fifteen Group create Server Configurations and all the unique support challenges that are posed by high end eCommerce websites linked to EPOS and Stock Control systems. The website was moved back to the Fifteen Group eco-system and thoroughly tested with a day to spare before the Black Friday promotions started.
Ryan’s involvement then continued throughout the BLACK FRIDAY weekend, we created a WhatsApp support group consisting of Fifteen Group, our Client and Ryan so that any support issues could be identified, reported, and resolved immediately. Ryan made himself available to monitor the Website and the Servers for 18 hours each day from the Thursday through to the Tuesday after Cyber Monday. Every detail was covered off and from the end client’s perspective the Website operated flawlessly throughout.
The result was that the Website was moved back to Fifteen Group, a structured support solution was implemented utilising Ryan McCandless both now and for the foreseeable future and the Website was not only able to trade through the Black Friday promotions BUT exceeded ALL previous records for Sales over that weekend!
Fifteen Group has worked with Ryan McCandless on several solutions, but this is the first time that we have called upon Ryan to support us with almost zero notice and for one of our largest eCommerce Websites. Ryan showed true professionalism throughout, his ability to absorb the knowledge required quickly was incredible and he was an absolute pleasure to work alongside. Ryan was able to offer insight for the client in their UX and CX experience together with show his creative and graphics skills. Our client was so impressed that they have asked if Ryan can remain as part of the overall team going forward and we of course would be delighted for that to happen to.
Fifteen Group has no hesitation in recommending the services of Ryan McCandless of SmartaStudio.”
The maintenance and support for Terraces Menswear has been one of our most exciting and valuable projects to date, so thank you to Rob Adams and the team at Fifteen Group for the introduction and opportunity of handling this project.
We will continue to support and provide assistance to Terraces Menswear for the foreseeable future in order to help them grow as a business and break even more records!
