eCommerce Case Study: Deans Beans

An eCommerce Website’s Long Journey

Dean’s Beans came to us in 2013 with a problem. Their current eCommerce website was out of date and they had decided to rebuild, this time leveraging Magento’s powerful, open source platform.

The catch was that they’d initially attempted to contract a low-cost developer to get the job done. It had been some time now and the project was turning into more of a mess than they ever imagined. It was time to get help and they came to the right place.

But First, Coffee

We began by doing what is often the most difficult part of a web development project, planning it out. We sat down and took the time to discuss Dean’s Beans’ priorities for the website as well as their business as a whole. We took what came out of those conversations and organized our findings into two categories: what absolutely needed to be done, and what Dean’s Beans wished could be done. Then we took the list of wants and needs and turned those tasks into a phased out road map. Planning is central to our process.

Once we were able to organize the project we moved onto assessing the state of what had been done. What was worth keeping was kept. What wasn’t up to our standards was fixed. We were well on our way to turning the project around and launching Dean’s Beans’ brand new website!

Planning Pays Off

The result turned out to be a huge improvement for Dean’s Beans. A powerful new eCommerce website, optimized to make Dean’s Beans customer’s experience rich and smooth; just like the coffee they were buying!

There are two features we’re especially proud of. An entirely custom “Design Your Own Coffee” tool which allows customers to create their own delicious blends of coffee! And for Dean’s Beans employees we leveraged Magento’s API for an entirely custom integration with their FileMaker Pro ERP. That custom work made the process of converting customer’s orders into actionable items for Dean’s Beans’ fulfillment team uber simple.

An Update: A Brand New Design!

Cut to 2016. The site has been humming along and we’re continuing to work with Dean’s Beans to refine their website. But the time came for the inevitable. Dean’s Beans decided it was time for a brand new design. This was a job for one of our favorite design partners, Aaron Taylor-Waldman. Aaron and I went out to Orange, MA to hang out with the Dean’s Beans crew and it was clear from the start this group of people was going to make magic happen. If you ask me, we did just that. See for yourself, https://deansbeans.com

But the new theme wasn’t all we did. The new version of the website brought additional goodies for everyone. We leveraged ShipperHQ to make Dean’s Beans’ shipping workflow crazy powerful. We created an entirely new rewards points system so the customers could earn while they buy. We integrated the site with Springbot to give Dean’s Beans the ability to improve their marketing abilities. And we optimized the performance of the website with Amazon Cloudfront to speed up load times and create a better user experience.

Jeez, I Should Contact Knectar…

Are you interested in discussing your new eCommerce project with us? Send us a message! We’d love to help you make your vision a reality.

Collaborator: Aaron Taylor-Waldman