Over the years, we have helped many clients to migrate their online store to Shopify Plus and take advantage of the incredible power and versatility it offers. When it came to Westend DJ though, we were looking at an especially large project – a well-loved brand with 10,000+ customers, and just as many product variants to migrate.
Added to that, the client’s needs called for a smart selection of bespoke apps and functionality. This project was no small challenge, but the excellent end result stands as a great example of what our highly skilled team is capable of.
Westend DJ is a London-based equipment stockist serving the nation’s DJs and music producers. They offer everything from mixers, record bags and turntable accessories, to full lighting and PA systems for venues; as well as music production gear for home studio setups, and even a range of gear catering to the needs of independent podcasters.
After more than 25 years of business, Westend DJ is a well-established name in music circles, and their online presence needs to reflect the well-earned confidence that their many customers place in the brand – as well as being able to handle a high volume of orders, many involving high-value products.
Westend DJ had previously been using Magento to power their online ecommerce platform. That worked for them, for a time. However, Magento is a platform that has been on a downward trend for a while now, while other alternatives (chiefly, Shopify) are fast taking the lead as the best option for modern ecommerce.
So the challenge here was to take the existing Magento website – with its huge catalogue, decades of history, and a great deal of hard-earned brand trust – and turn that into something powerful and new, which would give the client access to all the improvements, security, and added features of a modern, top-tier ecommerce platform.
It always begins with a workshop phase. We went into this armed with the client’s wishlist for the new site… and also a list of the pain points we identified together for the existing platform.
Shopify migrations are one of the more common services we get asked for. Westend DJ are certainly not the first large retailers to make the decision to leave Magento in favour of the superior Shopify, or Shopify Plus – and so even while this job involved a larger-than-average brand, we nevertheless have a winning process already established for exactly this kind of service.
We always like to have a detailed plan for any project, but here it was especially important – as we would be migrating a huge amount of content and information, including:
To this end, we worked closely with Westend DJ to create a clear and straightforward plan for migration. Some of the earliest decisions to settle were as follows.
Selecting the Right Foundations for Westend DJ
Naturally, the work began with choosing a base theme for the build. It was important here to select one that offered a lot of the required core functionality right out of the box, and thus minimise development time and costs for the client. They didn’t need us to reinvent the wheel for them – they just wanted a clean, secure and professional site that represented them well, and was able to seamlessly handle a high volume of sales.
Any functionality not covered already by the base theme would need to be addressed through partnerships with select and trusted app providers. Given the volume of sales that Westend DJ handles, and the degree of bespoke functionality that their ecommerce store would require, we needed to integrate some clever app solutions. These included:
Finally, there were a number of other requests the client had, for bespoke functions we would have to implement using either apps, clever development solutions, or often a combination of the two. These included:
Working with Westend DJ was a significant project for us, and it was no small challenge. We were really pleased with the end results though.
Most importantly – the client was absolutely thrilled with their new site, reporting that the Inspira team had “knocked it out of the park.” We thought the final Shopify Plus store was a great match for the client, we were proud of the results, and we look forward to seeing some performance stats over the coming months.
