Featured customer: APHID CONSULTING
IT Agency
Victoria & Vancouver
Canada
Canada
5+ years of partnership
in technology
in technology
Magento Open Source
Magento Commerce
Magento Commerce
IT Consulting agency in Victoria and Vancouver
In a quiet building in downtown Victoria sits Aphid Consulting’s office, where a multi-disciplinary team of IT professionals works hard solving clients’ business challenges with technology. Aphid Consulting aims to provide businesses in all industries with world-class project management, business consulting and analysis, and IT solution design services. The agency also focuses on SMEs, governmental services, and startups throughout Vancouver Island and the lower mainland.
Following its purpose to help clients thrive and communities prosper, Aphid Consulting—as an all-in-one IT solution agency—is always seeking the best systems. They want to provide a variety of best-fit solutions for their customers from different business types.
A 5-year partnership in technology
Aphid Consulting and Magestore have been partnering for more than 5 years. The first project from Aphid Consulting was also the time when the new Magestore POS solution was introduced to the market. By 2022, the partnership has grown to include quite a lot of projects; first on Magento 1 and now on Magento 2.
“We have been very satisfied with both the product and the company.” — says Solution Architecture Director Shane Doerksen.
5 years of collaboration and implementation is proof of how well Aphid Consulting and Magestore work together. With Magestore’s fit and high-quality POS system and Aphid Consulting’s deep understanding of local business needs, the two companies have always won customers’ trust and hearts.
“One of my main clients that the Magestore team is working with right now used Magestore POS on a Magento 1 system, and they were quite satisfied with it. When we moved to Magento 2, this client already had an organizational investment with Magestore and was open to an upgrade. When I researched all the different point of sale solutions, Magestore had both the best set of features and the best integration with Magento. It’s also something familiar because the client had already used it for several years and never had a problem. So it was easy to convince them to switch to the Magento 2 POS version.” — says Shane.
Thorough consultation process
that makes the Aphid team
feel confident
Before choosing a technology provider for a client, the Aphid team must go through a “competitive selection process”. No agency would want to make any mistakes during this process because the result will seriously affect the company’s reputation and revenue. That’s why as Aphid’s main contact point, Shane has to be careful and thorough with his research. And with the help of Magestore, Shane and Aphid Consulting have been able to reduce the risk of choosing the wrong system for their customers.
“When it came time for us to evaluate a Magento 2 POS solution, we contacted Magestore for a proposal. Their sales representative was very experienced and produced a large amount of documentation that described our business case. She researched our company and our needs in a surprising amount of detail to make sure she recommended the right configuration for us.”
Shane DoerksenSolution Architecture Director | Aphid Consulting
Customization to give clients the exact solution they need
With a point of sale system, Shane thinks that “there’s no one-size-fits-all system”. Every customer wants some kind of customization or integration eventually. Magento POS from Magestore is an open platform that allows developers to create unique features, so “anything that the clients requested, we were able to customize the POS exactly how they needed”, says Shane. The ability to offer a flexible and customized solution was one of Aphid’s main selling points over another off-the-shelf system by big companies.
By identifying both the short-term needs of the customers and their long-term goals, Aphid Consulting was able to find a best-fit solution for their client and gain another satisfied customer.
Words from Shane
“The feedback’s been positive and the customers are very happy that they can get it exactly the way they want.”
Support and delivery performances that boost customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction is also a result of the smooth collaboration between Aphid and Magestore. Aphid Consulting has an experienced team that understands diverse systems, from eCommerce to CRM or ERP. That means they can quickly understand business requests from clients, define them in technical terms, and transfer them to the Magestore team for implementation. This approach leads to faster go-live times, better results, and happy customers.
“I've been very impressed with everybody there. The working processes are very good. Every one of them is very professional, very efficient. Not just technically knowledgeable, but they're very friendly people. That really matters.”
Shane DoerksenSolution Architecture Director | Aphid Consulting
Go-live service to minimize business disruptions
As with any complex system, edge cases and changing customer needs can sometimes require urgent attention. Any time an unexpected situation comes up, Magestore has been available to quickly solve the problem.
Shane sees that the Magestore support team has gone to great lengths to follow up with Aphid Consulting. Aphid also enjoys detailed training sessions so the POS users can adopt the system in their daily work seamlessly. Anytime Shane has a question, he only needs to chat with Magestore on Slack to get the answer within a few hours. Any time there is a technical issue, the MageStore developers are available to chat with him directly to help find a solution.
“Our site has launched now and the POS has been received very positively. Most of the staff have picked it up without any stress and minimal training. Since launch, we have had zero technical issues, zero configuration issues, and zero training issues. It has been a complete success.” — shares Shane.
Covid and future expansion with Magestore
As a response to this, Aphid Consulting and Magestore were able to collaborate to rapidly pivot the way they and their clients use the point of sale system.
For example, Aphid works with a multi-national manufacturer of high-value leisure goods who sells their products in different retail locations across Canada. During COVID lockdowns, these retail locations were closed to the public and the manufacturing lead time for these products became unpredictable. Demand, however, remained high.
Aphid worked with the client and Magestore to create an ERP-integrated solution for MOTO (mail order/telephone order) sales, enabling retail sales to keep flowing even in the absence of store traffic.
“All these circumstances made it very difficult for us to actually physically sell to people for a while. So what we did was we changed the major point of sale system so that we could accept these different types of sales transactions”, Shane says. And that means the point of sale was flexible enough for his client to accommodate the tough situation during COVID-19.
“There’s no problems there at all in terms of future goals”. Shane is looking at expanding the POS system in the very near future for their clients to include loyalty programs, deeper CRM integrations, and an expanded network of cross-Canada locations. He thinks that Magestore’s POS will be critical to that expansion.
His customers are expecting Aphid to provide a solution that integrates with Magento 2’s multi-source inventory control and be scalable across the country, with essentially zero installation costs — a challenge that Aphid and MageStore are happy to take on.
“That’s another reason why we chose Magestore. I think it’s going to be a good fit for them over the next two to three years as they do their retail expansion.” — Shane says.
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