Case Study – Medoo.ie

Medoo.ie is the Irish flavour of a Hungarian fashion franchise owned by a Wicklow couple. They approached us in Q1 2020 with their ideas and asked if we could help them realise their dream. Of course this is exactly the kind of project that excites too so from day 1 we were a match made for each other.

In 2019, online sales figures in Ireland hit €2.2 billion. This is more that double the €1.05 billion figure from 2010. Furthermore current predictions are for that figure to hit almost €4 billion by 2024 so it’s fair to say that online sales are trending up. Fashion is the biggest online shopping segment in Ireland accounting for 29% of all online sales and this is the healthy market that Medoo Ireland want to enter.

We met with the clients on a number of occasions and gathered their requirements. At a high level, they wanted:-

• Impressive front end design
• Attractive rolling banners on homepage
• Clear layout of products and categories
• Newsletter
• PayPal integration
• Content management
• Social Media integration
• Intuitive and easy order process
• Comprehensive backend portal that would allow them to manage content and orders
• Contact form
• FAQs
• Online vouchers
• wishlist functionality
• Ability to showcase special offers
• Returns capability
• Stock management
• Invoice management
• Customer Communication Integration
• System Dashboard
• Ability for customers to view order history
• Ability for customers to submit returns
• Optimised for mobile

Having looked at the above requirements we felt that we could achieve all of these with a WordPress / WooCommerce installation along with some specific customisations and 3rd party plugins.

We developed 4 initial homepage designs for the client and worked with them to pick their favourite and refine this. When the clients were happy with the design layout, we started to put some meat on the bones and implemented the functionality from their requirements. During development, we provided incremental prototypes on a weekly basis for them to play with and provide feedback. This worked well and led to a much smoother implementation.

A very important aspect of such a system is user training. The client requested a comprehensive training manual specific to their store. The manual covers how to add categories, products, upload images, process orders, manage customers along with all other management functions. This document has been designed to be a one stop shop for the client to reference for any updates they want to make into the future.

It was very rewarding to see the solution develop and emerge on a weekly basis and the client certainly appreciated this. The project was developed in a very agile fashion, meaning the client got to get their hands on the system early on and provided regular feedback.

By working closely with the client throughout all stages of development we were able to stick to the requirements and suggest improvements along the way.