Michael Aram
is forging personal connections with custom designed and hand-made objects
Magento 2
Discovery
Development
Ongoing Support & Optimization
To keep up with the dynamic shifts in retail today, merchants have to be nimble. The team at Michael Aram, a retailer of craft-based design objects, understands this to the core. When they enlisted Command C’s development expertise, they were ready to upgrade their site to be much more robust and agile. Thus, we migrated the site to Magento 2 with added customizations, gave them tools to control site content, and built a custom engraving feature. We also set them up for long-term success through extensive training sessions on the new site’s admin functionality.
Simplifying the Admin Experience
Challenge: Eliminate onerous backend process for site management
Solution: Migrate to Magento 2 and add custom tools for site agility
Prior to Command C’s development work, the Michael Aram site required a lot of effort to make even basic changes. The marketing team could not update products or other content on their own. Every change required a long workflow – it had to travel through multiple departments to get completed. This process slowed down marketing and promotional work, as well as frustrated employees eager to share new content.
To address this core issue, Command C migrated the site with a new, custom design to Magento 2. The new platform includes tools to empower retailers to manage their own product catalogs, promotions, and marketing. Further, we developed additional admin tools that allow the marketing team to control components of the site layout. To this end, we worked closely with their team to determine what to automate versus what to give them full control over.
Now when the company debuts a product line, e.g. a new collection of jewelry, the marketing team can add the category, update products, upload images, create the call to action, create landing pages, and more to the site. They can curate the site pages anytime.
As a result, Michael Aram can pivot quickly to respond to customer wants and needs. Now, when a Michael Aram product is featured or promoted elsewhere, they can quickly update the site to emphasize it. Retailers want to take advantage of these kinds of opportunities, and they can’t do that unless they have nimble admin functionality.
Product Personalization
Challenge: Provide more opportunities for personalization
Solution: Custom functionality for engraving and personalization
Michael Aram needed very specific tools for their engraving feature, and Command C built them to spec. We built a custom extension for Magento that creates the product for the customer, and ultimately delivers the engraving information to the team that fulfills the order.
Different products have different engraving options. Command C created a mechanism that provides specific engraving configurations for every product that can be engraved. Tons of logic went into determining exactly what a customer can engrave within a given amount of space, based on the configuration that’s been set. For instance, if a customer wants to engrave a frame, they might be offered two lines of lettering at 12 font. But if they only fill one line of lettering, they’ll be offered the option to have it engraved at 24 font.
The engraving feature was one of the most technically complex parts of the project. Using Magento 2 as the platform, we were able to meet Michael Aram’s requirements without compromise.
Team Training and Documentation
Challenge: Empower current and future employees to fully use Magento’s functionality and custom tools
Solution: Provide screenshare learning sessions and recorded video trainings
As Command C’s Tech Lead, Tiffany, explains, “Magento comes with great power and great responsibility.” In other words, the platform offers vast functionality. Truly, anything is possible, but users can sometimes feel overwhelmed by the possibilities.
To ensure that the Michael Aram team takes full advantage of the site functionality, Command C held a series of training sessions via screenshare. We also recorded instructional videos so anyone can revisit the information anytime. (Super useful for new employees, too.) The sessions, both live and recorded, provided clarity for the whole team, especially on the topic of site presentation which is so important to everyone working on marketing efforts.
Lastly, the Michael Aram site now moves into the future on Magento 2 and the Magento Enterprise Cloud. This infrastructure has them poised for growth. Whether the company scales overnight or gradually, they are ready.
- Discovery
- Development
- Ongoing Support & Optimization
