Focus Camera was looking for a secure, standardized front-end solution built on Magento that took full advantage of the Adobe Commerce platform; here is how Snowdog made it happen.
Focus Camera, a family-owned business since 1966, has two retail locations, a dedicated team of hundreds of employees, and millions of online customers.
Due to numerous issues with the legacy headless front-end application of their site Focus Camera was eager to move quickly to a more standardized solution from the custom and unwieldy platform they were on. They wanted a secure front-end built on Magento that leveraged the rich functionality and modularity of Adobe Commerce.
Relaunch a more responsive, accessible, stable, and high-performance website on a stable and ADA-compliant Hyvä frontend for three sites.
Create a seamless, efficient, and user-friendly process for customers to complete their purchases.
Simplify website content management with an intuitive drag-and-drop interface using the native Page Builder functionality of the Magento ecosystem.
Ensure seamless integration between Adobe Commerce, the payment gateway, the inventory management system, shipping providers, third-party applications, and other critical components by rebuilding existing connectors to improve efficiency and performance.
Migrate the search engine functionality from an external service to OpenSearch to improve the efficiency of the online store and integration capabilities.
Implement popular payment methods Amazon Pay and Affirm while ensuring compatibility with Hyvä and Hyvä Checkout.
Aligning infrastructure with running processes and integrations when rebuilding an online store poses challenges due to the need to ensure seamless compatibility between existing workflows, integrations, and the new infrastructure. This involves navigating complexities such as data migration, maintaining uninterrupted operations, and addressing potential conflicts or disruptions that may arise during the rebuilding process.
Remodeling the data and managing SEO for the newly created site, especially one previously operating under a different address, posed challenges during the rebuilding of the internet store due to the intricacies of redirecting existing URLs, preserving search engine rankings, updating metadata, ensuring proper indexing of new pages, and mitigating potential disruptions to organic traffic flow — all critical elements in maintaining the site's online visibility and search engine performance.
Leftovers from migrating from Magento 1 to Magento 2 at the database level, along with remnants created for a previously running front-end application, were challenging. These leftovers included redundant data structures, incompatible configurations and outdated code, leading to complexity in the development process.
The Focus Camera team was deeply involved in the implementation activity. Collaboration between two teams located in different time zones is always a challenge. Misaligned working hours can hinder real-time communication and coordination.
Adobe Commerce provides a comprehensive set of features, including advanced product management, flexible pricing options, powerful marketing tools, and extensive customization capabilities. With Adobe Commerce, Focus Camera can easily scale their online stores to accommodate growth in traffic, sales volume, and product offerings. The platform can handle large catalogs and high transaction volumes, ensuring reliable performance even during peak periods.
Focus Camera knew they wanted to work with the Hyvä theme for their site rebuild and Snowdog had a comprehensive solution in their Snowdog Sparq offering. This foundation is built on the Hyvä theme with the Hyvä checkout and other fully vetted third-party modules for optimal efficiency and performance.was This approach was central to achieving the desired benchmarks of quality, fiscal efficiency, and timely delivery.
OpenSearch is an open-source search and analytics engine that provides fast and scalable search capabilities. Snowdog combined this with the ElasticSuite module, which is specifically designed for e-commerce platforms like Magento, it offers advanced features such as faceted search, autocomplete suggestions, typo tolerance, and relevance tuning. This solution significantly improves the search experience for customers.
Utilizing Adobe Commerce Page Builder to manage content offers a seamless and intuitive solution for creating, editing, and organizing content. This tool allows users to customize layouts, add multimedia elements, and optimize content for different devices, ensuring a consistent and visually appealing experience for your customers across desktop and mobile devices.
Digital accessibility is crucial for online store owners to consider, as it ensures that all users — including those with disabilities — can access and navigate their website effectively. By prioritizing accessibility, store owners can comply with legal requirements also. The Snowdog team, as accessibility specialists, made sure that the new Focus Camera online store meets accessibility requirements. This includes providing keyboard navigation, implementing adequate color contrast for readability, providing compatibility with screen readers, providing captions for multimedia content, and making forms accessible to users with disabilities.
Using AWS infrastructure in conjunction with GitHub, AWS CodeBuild, and AWS CodeDeploy allows for the creation of an automated pipeline for artifact building and deployment. GitHub serves as the repository for the source code, AWS CodeBuild automates the build process by compiling the source code and generating artifacts, and AWS CodeDeploy automates the deployment process by deploying the artifacts to the appropriate environments. This setup streamlines the development workflow, ensuring consistency, efficiency, and reliability in the deployment of software updates.
Snowdog successfully delivered the frontend within the scheduled timeline and allocated budget, seamlessly replicating the existing design across all three sites using the Hyvä framework.
After preparing a set of Page Builder widgets along with documentation, the Focus Camera team was able to independently set up content across all three domains of the store.
Snowdog created a digitally accessible solution that they tested with their custom a11y testing tool. The conducted audit and tests confirm that the store fulfills all specified requirements.
We implemented Hyvä Checkout and made Amazon Pay and Affirm compatible with the new front-end.
We've established clear communication channels between teams, ensuring transparent planning and reporting for upcoming tasks.
Constructing the frontend posed significant challenges, yet through meticulous planning and seamless execution, supported by backend architects, compatibility hurdles were efficiently addressed. This included ensuring integration with various payment methods (Affirm, Amazon Pay), Klaviyo, and resolving ongoing integration issues alongside the Focus Camera team. As final pre-implementation tests revealed infrastructure remodeling needs, collaboration with Centuria and the Focus Camera IT team facilitated stabilization, leading to a successful store launch, with continued support provided to the Focus Camera team.
As a testament to Snowdog’s efforts, Focus Camera now operates as a seamlessly functioning store, boasting excellent performance and accessibility for individuals with disabilities. Ensuring that Focus Camera online store meets digital accessibility requirements is vital as it enables them to reach a broader audience, enhances user experience, and fosters inclusivity, ultimately boosting customer satisfaction and loyalty while expanding market reach.
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