Engage Interactive Blog

Site launches are about to start coming thick and fast over the next couple of weeks, so I thought I’d just take a few minutes out to tell you about the latest one for the guys over at Soundzones.

Soundzones.com specialises in selling Sonos products – high end multi room sound systems.  They came to us with a brief to create the best Sonos reseller site out there, including all the standard eCommerce functionality you’d expect but wrapped around a very clean and contemporary design. A long spec list and a tight deadline meant our usual approach of a bespoke solution didn’t really fit and whilst we’ve never been especially keen on using ‘off the shelf’ packages before (as they tend to restrict creativity and functionality, and force the business to work around the system rather than with it)  there’s a relatively new kid on the block, in the form of Magento, an open source eCommerce platform which we’ve been keen to get to grips with for a while now.

Magento offers a huge amount of flexibility and expandability compared to every other platform we have seen.  It does have a few specific requirements of its own, especially in terms of hosting speed, but it has a lot of the built in eCommerce functionality such as cross selling products, user reviews, discount coupons etc, so you can get up and running quickly and concentrate more of the available budget on design rather than reinventing the wheel.

That’s not to say the system suits everyone though.  By definition, the platform has to appeal to the widest possible audience, and the back end administration reflects this.  There’s a lot of learning to be done by the client to use an admin area that is very much ‘designed by developers’.  This is an area we pride ourselves on here, putting the same level of care and thought into the Content Management System so its as intuitive to use for the client as the front end of the site is for the customer.

It also starts to lose its speed of development as soon as any form of customising needs to take place.  As a developer you’re effectively learning a whole new platform, and the level of abstraction means there’s quite a steep learning curve, so what might be a couple of hours work on your own bespoke system turns into a few days of hair pulling and googling to find out how to make it work in Magento.

So in summary, we’re very impressed with what the system can do, and it definitely warrants consideration for clients that want a standard eCommerce site with a lot of advanced functionality, and are happy to get to grips with a technical administration area. The further the clients requirements fall outside of the built in functionality then a bespoke solution starts to become the favoured choice, which does mean its important to not only consider the launch requirements, but also look further down the line so there are no big shocks 6 months later when the clients wants something that the system just cant really cope with without a huge amount of development work.

Back to the launch, the Soundzones site has already started taking sales and the client is delighted with the results. We’d include a testimonial, but they’ve gone on holiday to Barbados so business must be good!