We’re AnOpen SourceEcommerceAgency.

We help enterprisebusinesses develop &improve their ecommerce operations using open source software, Magento.

Call us +44 161 236 5504 Learn more ampersandcommerce.com

About Us.

Hello. Nice to Meet You.

Ampersand Commerce is a multi-award winning, Magento Gold Solution Partner with extensive experience designing,

developing and supporting scalable ecommerce solutions for international multichannel retailers. We are passionate

about helping our customers maximise return on investment and meet key business objectives through the strategic use

of technology.

We’re a technical agency that takes pride in our ability to produce elegant, scalable software solutions to highly complex

requirements. We’re not a full-service agency; rather we programme manage a project from beginning to end, working with

partners like design and UX experts to produce the best results. We have extensive experience delivering and supporting

complex integrations between business systems and have strong relationships with 3rd party service providers, building

products that add value to the Magento platform.

Our team of seasoned developers, analysts, project managers and creative thinkers live and breathe Magento. From years

of delivering some of the most challenging and innovative projects on the Magento platform, we have gained a reputation

in the United Kingdom for being one of the most technically able agencies in the Magento ecosystem.

Meet our senior team.

Darryl Adie, Managing Director

Tweet him @DarrylAdie

Darryl is committed to customer service and

technical excellence. He leads the business

from a sales and solution design perspective,

focused on customer goals and system

efficiency.

Pamela Ravenscroft, Head of Project Delivery

Tweet her @pam_rave

Pam is overall responsible for the agency’s

programme of work, making sure our project

delivery processes and procedures are right

the first time, focusing on priorities, timelines

and client expectations.

Iain Hubbard, Development Manager

Tweet him @iainhubbard

Iain mentors the development team, always

applying better and more efficient methods

for development, deployment, testing and

monitoring.

Joseph McDermott, Senior Developer

Tweet him @Joseph_McD

Joseph is a Magento Certified Developer Plus

and Zend Certified developer. He leads our

internal training programme as well as leads

client facing development.

Josh Di Fabio, Senior Developer

Tweet him @joshdifabio

Josh is a Magento Certified Developer Plus

who is passionate about making things work.

He leads the meticulous development of

Magento integrations.

Magento is going to win the ecommerce software war, hands down. I’ve never seen another platform so well architected and designed as Magento.

Jack Aboutboul RedHat

Why We Love Magento.Magento is a feature-rich, professional open-source ecommerce solution that offers merchants complete flexibility and

control over the look, content and functionality of their online store. Magento’s intuitive administration interface contains

powerful marketing, merchandising and content management tools to give merchants the power to create sites that

are tailored to their unique business needs, putting no constraints on business processes and flow. When Magento was

released in 2007, it transformed the ecommerce platform market. In a period of 18 months, Magento surpassed one

million downloads and now records billions of dollars of transactions worldwide by tens of thousands of merchants.

Purchased by eBay in early 2011, it continues to be the fastest growing ecommerce platform in the world.

Magento is written in PHP and utilises the Zend Framework (which is MVC based) and uses an EAV-based MySQL database.

The system is highly modular and Magento’s architecture handles module database schema updates automatically.

Magento Enterprise.The features in Magento Enterprise can:

• Turn browsers into buyers with marketing and merchandising tools, up-sell and cross-sell, and special pricing

programmes and promotions.

• Personalise the customer experience with superior search capabilities, special storefronts for specific customer

groups, and preference and behavior-based content delivery.

• Built Magento to fit your business with easy integration with 3rd party applications, flexible product/catalog

management, and comprehensive admin capabilities including multi-site management.

Magento Enterprise.Features In-Depth.

Marketing Tools• Rule-based promotions

• Customer targeted banners and content

• Promote select products with marketing

campaigns

• Integrated email marketing and

newsletters

Enhanced CMS• Easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor

• Stage content before going live

• Admin privileges to control editing, publishing,

pricing and promotions

• Multi site, language and currency

management with a single admin

Security• Magento’s Secure Payment Bridge is PA-DSS

certified simplifying PCI Compliance

• Strong data encryption

Rich Merchandising Suite• Present products relevant to customers

while they browse

• Group products in virtual product sets

• Product image capabilities give an

“in-person view” of products

• Rule-based product relationships for up-sell,

cross-sell and related items

Performance & Search Capabilities• Full page caching for all users

• Scalable performance for transactions and

orders

• Layered navigation and Solr search

• Order archiving for high volume

businesses

Reports & Analytics• Analyze the entire sale process on a per

website/storefront basis

• User-friendly Admin Dashboard

Customer Loyalty• Identify key customer segments and market

to them

• Permission-based product/category access

and sales for identified user groups

• Full Private Sale Suite - scheduled and timed

events for special promotions with limited

access to the public

• Loyalty points reward program

• Product reviews and ratings

Sales Boosters• Wish lists, gift registries, gift certificates, store

credit and gift wrap.

• Persistent shopping feature - maintain items of

interest from one browsing session to the next

and frommultiple devices

• Minimum advertised price (MAP) - sell

inventory at low prices while abiding

manufacturer policies

• Automated email reminders to reduce

abandoned shopping carts

Our Services & Process.

A Typical Project Process.We pride ourselves on our technical ability, transparency and communication skills. Whether you are

technically minded, or not, we speak your language.

Our services are a process. We are with our customers through every step of a project; starting with

consultancy to design solutions, development to deliver scalable solutions, integration to add value, and

support to ensure stability and availability.

UX Consultancy

• User research We believe in the ‘users first’ mantra. Your users are what keep your brand alive, so

knowing what makes them tick is extremely valuable at the start of a project.

• Information Architecture We can create or re-organise your category structure, products, information

pages and processes. Converting users into buyers is just as much about the way your store does things,

not just about what it does.

• Wireframing We’ll make sure your Magento store is solid in terms of functionality, behavior, and

priority of content, based on proven UX methods.

Magento Consultancy

• Solutions Architecture Our Business Analyst will map how all of your current business systems work,

fit together and communicate with Magento. This will build the foundation for your project.

• TechnicalSpecification This document, written in collaboration between our Business Analyst and

customer, will map out all systems integration, data flows, outcomes and plans for a project.

• Code reviews If you are having issues with your current Magento Enterprise solution, we can review

your code base, log all known problems, and recommend next steps.

• Feasibility Studies If you are considering Magento Enterprise, we will go through your business

processes, analyse your web traffic and transactions, and let you know if Magento is right for you.

• Infrastructure Audits Do you think your Magento store could be quicker? We know how to set up a

hosting infrastructure that makes the Magento platform run faster.

Programme Management

All of our projects involve a high level of interaction with external agencies including design, SEO, marketing

and other specialists. We have a deep understanding of how these functions fit within a project, and manage

all aspects as part of delivery.

We’re a trusted source of expertise to international multichannel retailers. We work with customers to identify problems and design solutions.

Consultancy

We believe that a successful project starts with a strong partnership between agency and customer. That’s

why we start at the beginning, getting to know our customers, their business and their goals. We then design

solutions that deliver measurable value, optimise business processes and leverage the full capabilities of

Magento Enterprise. Whether a customer needs to assess the feasibility of a new Magento-based solution,

or reaches an impasse with their current solution and needs guidance on how to move forward, we can help.

We truly understand Magento, multichannel and ecommerce. We develop robust systems for delivering elegant, scalable solutions to complex customer requirements.

Development

Our development method is based on transparency, communication and defined milestones. Because of

this, our customers trust in our ability to deliver extensible, scalable solutions. We do all the things you’d

expect of an enterprise-focused development house; we use Subversion to store incremental versions of

development changes and an automated deployment process for development, staging and production

environments. We create defined, measurable projects that are divided into distinct work packages. These

are broken down into appropriate cases in our bug tracking system, giving our Project Managers a clear basis

on which to deliver updates to customers.

Our Methodology

• Internal Coding Standards We set and follow standards when it comes to writing code. We make sure

that all of our developers adhere to these.

• Daily ‘Scrum’ Meetings Every morning we hold a developer scrum meeting where every developer

states what they did the day before and what they are going to do that day. It is a tried and true method

for pointing out issues that need further discussion and making sure projects stay on track.

• Continuous & Automated Testing We test as we code, and yes, we actually do. It’s the best way to

reduce the number of bugs in production code, which increases productivity. For functional tests, we

use Selenium, run on Sauce Labs. For visual cross-browser testing we use a Windows VM. For ‘exotic’

browsers, we test manually with a test plan written by our Support Analyst.

Project Management

Organised and good communicators, our project managers make sure a project stays on track and within

budget, managing priorities, timelines and expectations. We follow a PRINCE2 methodology to project

management for a majority of projects. PRINCE2 has a process-based approach to project management. This

guides the project through a controlled, well-managed, visible set of activities to achieve the desired result.

According to PRINCE2:

• A project is a finite process with a definite start and end.

• Projects always need to be managed in order to be successful.

• For a successful project, all parties must be clear about why the project is needed, what it is intended

to achieve, how the outcome is to be achieved and what their responsibilities are in that achievement.

We have built a powerful framework for Magento integrations that allows us to develop robust, transactional

interactions with other service providers. Using this framework we can extend, support and upgrade users

of our modules. The framework also provides our customers with real-time transactional message history

for all systems. We regularly build enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management

(CRM) and payment gateway integrations as part of larger solutions for our customers, and have exclusive

agreements with a number of service providers to develop and support Magento integration modules for

their APIs.

We have a robust, testable framework for systems integrations. We work with customers and industry partners to build and integrate multichannel systems.

Integration

How does the Ampersand Commerce Integration Framework work?

The integration framework works as an abstraction layer between Magento and the majority of interactions

with external business systems. The framework works using 3 levels of abstraction:

• Mapper for matching Magento events and external interfaces and Magento object data with documents

in external systems

• Renderer for building queries based on interface format (e.g. SOAP) and field mappings

• Query sending of data based rendered query and logging of all responses (successes and failures)

Magento 3rd Party

Transform Transport

XML, CSV, SOAP... HTTP, File, FTP...

Logging

We offer monitoring and support through a dedicated team and automated systems. We ensure stability, availability and scalability for all of our customers, at all times.

Support

We provide our customers with meticulous support and monitoring services for their operations, focusing

on both preventative and reactive support. We use Zabbix to proactively monitor servers, environments

and application layers. Zabbix monitors hundreds of server metrics, to proactively flag issues that could

potentially prevent access to services or a degradation of the user experience. These findings are flagged

by our team before they even cause downtime. If there is downtime, we have redundant monitoring of both

customer servers and our Zabbix system that alert our team, who then responds within an agreed support

package.

We offer support packages to suit the needs of international multichannel retailers need, from business

as usual (BAU) support to around the clock monitoring plus strategic support to keep up with the latest

technologies. Typically, the type of change to be made through your support package should require no

more than two days of development effort per request. Any change over two days should be reviewed in

order to understand if this requires a more structured project approach.

There are two levels to our support process.

The days allocated in your service level agreement can be used for any of the offerings within our emergency

services area called Help Desk or our lovingly named client services area called Can You Just.

• Helpdesk is a one-stop-shop for all initial support issues. Every customer has their own Ampersand

Helpdesk through ZenDesk to log bugs and requests for change.

• Can You Just is the change services area to address and fix issues not resolved within the Helpdesk

area. Can You Just addresses and fixes small changes, maintenance, feasibility, and strategy*.

* Strategy offering only with our platinum plan.

Our Support Packages Support Days Per Month

Support Hours 9am - 5:30pm M-F

8am - 10pm M-F

8am - 10pm, 7 Days

24/7

Strategy*

Happy Customers.

Made.comKey Accomplishments

• DevelopedMade.comonMagentoCommunity,latermigratedtoMagentoProfessional

• SitelaunchedontimeforbigPRandmarketingpush

• Bespokemodules:Productvotingsystem,cashbackreferralscheme&‘BeingMade’

• Highlysuccessful,theMade.comteamgrew3xwithinfirstyear

• TrainedtheMade.comteamtotaketheirMagentodevelopmentin-house

• Won5awardsintheRetailcategoryfrom3separate

ceremoniesin2011

Based in London and Shanghai, Made.com make designer furniture accessible to everyone. By cutting out the

middlemen, they can offer prices that are 70% lower than the high street. A democratic voting process allows

customers to choose which products are to be manufactured next and advanced order management allows

customers to trace the progress of their order through manufacturing and the supply chain.

Made.com approached us during the very first weeks of the business, in February of 2009. With a definite and

very tight deadline, we were tasked with completing development in time for an already scheduled, large-

scale PR and marketing push.

The project required significant bespoke development; including a CMS, front-end development, a cash

back referral scheme, a custom checkout process, integration with OpenERP for the tracking of product

manufacturing and supply chain progress, and the creation of a product voting system.

Made.com chose industry leading partners to integrate with in order to improve customer experience and

back office processes. One of the integrations, named ‘Being Made,’ tracked the journey of products for the

customer from manufacturing plants to the warehouse to their doorstep. This bespoke technology was built

Project Objectives

• To develop Made.com on Magento

• To launch site within budget and on time for planned PR and marketing push

• Create bespoke modules: Product voting system, cash back referral scheme & ‘Being

Made’

Planned Partnerships

Client since 2010made.com

Made.comas a Magento integration using OpenERP for supply chain management and Realtime Despatch for warehouse

management.

Through thorough planning and hands-on project management, we delivered the initial release of Made.com

on time and within budget on the Magento Community Edition, later re-platforming on Magento Professional.

Post-launch we worked with the Made.com team to deliver regular, incremental releases using a broadly Agile

methodology and robust automated testing suites and deployment processes. We also helped the Made.com

team take their Magento development in-house, aiding with recruitment and training processes.

Client since 2010made.com

Hosting Offices WarehousesMagento Instances

Ampersand put together a solid solution for Made, and then implemented it to a very tight deadline with such an ethic of organisation and professionalism.

Andy SkipperChief Technology OfficerMade.com

SKINS.Key Accomplishments

• 2011deliveredthemostprofitableresultsthroughtheecommercechanneltodate

• SKINSusedMagentoEnterprisetoscaleandfullylocaliseecommercesitesin9marketswithlocalcurrencies,paymentandshippingmethods

• IntegratedwithSAP,allowingforlow-riskexpansionintonewmarkets

• Simplifiedcomplexsizingrequirementswithaninteractivesizeguide

• Optimisedsearchfunctionalityandcategorystructure,thusincreasingconversion.

Beginning in 2009, our partnership with SKINS has been a successful one. With 2012 marking the two-year

anniversary of the brand’s first launch on Magento Enterprise, here is a look back on the technical innovation,

user-centred design choices and ecommerce development expertise that has widened SKINS’ ecommerce

reach internationally.

SKINS produce compression clothing for athletes. Established in Australia and based in Switzerland, SKINS’

goals for multinational ecommerce expansion truly mirror its global roots. In the beginning, SKINS needed

an easily scalable ecommerce solution that would integrate with the company’s current business systems

and eventually process transactions across nine different localities, fulfilled from three different distribution

locations. With stakeholders based across various markets and disparate time zones, SKINS required an agency

partner that could react quickly and understand complex business requirements

Project Objectives

• To develop SKINS on Magento Enterprise with 4 initial storefronts in Australia, the United Kingdom, Europe and International.

• Phase two launches for five additional countries: Germany, USA, Japan, China and France.

• One single integration with SAP for low-risk

global expansion

Planned Partnerships

Client since 2009store.skins.net

SKINS. Client since 2009store.skins.net

We built multi-lingual, multi-currency stores for all of SKINS’ core markets. The initial launch on Magento

Enterprise in early 2010 included four online storefronts including Australia, UK, Europe and International.

Phase two launches included five more: Germany, USA, Japan, China and France.

In early 2012, after nine successful multinational launches, the SKINS team implemented a re-design and

restructuring. Along with a new look, SKINS improved the user experience, implementing an interactive size guide

to clarify the complicated size requirements of their compression clothing; developed a simplified category

structure for easier browsing and better SEO; and integrated with Fact-Finder, providing comprehensive multi-

site and multi-lingual search results, bringing together content from Sitefinity and products from Magento.

The technology that facilitates quick ecommerce expansion into new markets is impressive. Our solution

for SKINS used a single integration with SAP. By integrating with SAP, technological complexity was reduced,

therefore reducing the usual costs and risks associated with global expansion. Other integrations included

Sitefinity, the company’s .NET CMS, and several payment gateways for different markets.

We continue to work together as SKINS widens the scope of its offering across new markets.

Hosting Offices SAP WarehousesMagento Instances

Ampersand took the time to understand the scope and complexity of the SKINS business, creating bespoke add-ons within the Magento platform to handle multiple warehouses, price lists, languages and product display requirements.

Grant BayleyChief Information OfficerSKINS

Bench.Key Accomplishments

• Re-platformedBenchfromaproprietaryecommercesolutiontoopensource,MagentoEnterprise1.11.1

• LaunchedstoresintheUKandGermanyontimeandwithinbudget

• IntegratedMagentoEnterprisewithAdobeScene7images,Navision,Wordpressand2differentpaymentgatewaysforUKandDE

• Finisheddevelopmentintimetolaunchspringline

• Preparedforfutureglobalecommerceexpansion

Established in Manchester during the dynamic late 80’s, Bench make innovative, fashionable clothes inspired

by real people and the real lives they lead.

Bench previously relied on a proprietary system for their ecommerce solution, but as part of the business

strategy for 2012, the Bench team had open-source in their plans. The business needed a long-lasting solution

that could scale with growth and integrate with their current systems. The Bench team decided to re-platform

on Magento Enterprise, and called on us to implement it.

Switching from a proprietary system to an open-source system requires starting from square one. Through

meticulous project management, thorough planning, and open communication between agency and customer,

the UK and German Bench sites were launched on Magento Enterprise, on time and within budget.

Project Objectives

• To re-skin and re-platform Bench.co.uk and Benchstore.de on Magento Enterprise 1.11.1

• To launch sites on time for planned PR and marketing push of spring line

• Integrate with WordPress allowing the Bench team to manage content

Planned Partnerships

Client since 2011bench.co.uk

benchstore.de

Bench prides itself on a two-way relationship with its loyal customers, so an online experience that keeps

customer engagement strong is essential to multichannel success. The powerful merchandising, marketing

and personalisation tools native to Magento Enterprise enabled Bench to keep the same personal touch

online as in-store.

To add value to Magento Enterprise for Bench, we integrated with industry partners. Among these is the

innovative Adobe Scene 7, a cross-media publishing platform for delivering dynamic content to any channel,

a custom WordPress module for Magento which allows the Bench team to have control over content; and an

integration with Navision, a top of the line ERP software. To process payments in both the UK and Germany,

Bench integrated with two different payment gateways, SagePay for the UK and WorldPay for Germany.

The multinational Bench stores launched within budget and on time for the marketing push of the spring line

that Bench customers were waiting for. The success of this project is a testament to how a tough decision—

such as a re-platform—can be made confidently with the right support and tight deadlines can be met with a

combination of trust and partnership between agency and customer.

We continue to strategically support and develop for Bench as the brand extends its ecommerce presence

internationally.

Bench. Client since 2011bench.co.uk

benchstore.de

Hosting OfficesMagento Instances Warehouses

We chose Ampersand Commerce to deliver multiple international sites as we had confidence in their ability to deliver the technical integration that was so important to our operation.

Matt JeansHeadofEcommerceBench.

Bauer Media. Client since 2010bauermedia.co.uk

key103deals.co.uk

Key Accomplishments

• Simplifiedadministrativeaccesstomultiplestationwebsiteswithonelogin

• Easedcreationofnewradiostationanddailydealswebsites,withasharedcodebase

• InnovativeuseofMagentoforKey103Dealsandfuturestationdealswebsites

• CreatedCMStoeasilyinputvendorsandvouchersfordailydeals

• Builtcustomfunctionalityforproductschedulingandpromotion

Bauer Radio is a UK-based division of Bauer Media Group, Europe’s largest privately owned publishing group.

The Group is a worldwide media empire offering over 300 magazines in 15 countries, as well as online, TV and

radio stations. Bauer Radio manage radio stations across the UK and Scotland.

When Bauer Radio’s commercial web team approached us in July of 2010, they had over 20 radio station

websites with an equal number of logins. Management was a time-consuming task. The team enlisted our

expertise to develop a solution that could manage multiple websites, ticket sales and reporting from one

interface. In addition, Bauer Radio was eager to get on board with the daily deals trend, starting with Key103,

one of Manchester’s most popular radio stations.

Using the Magento Community Edition, we developed a solution for Bauer Radio that allowed for simple

management of all station websites. This same solution was the foundation for Key103 Deals, allowing for

simple creation of future daily deals websites.

Our solution utilises a single login with access to overall reporting pictures, making it possible for the web

team to manage all separate brands with speed and efficiency. By sharing the same code-base and using a

Project Objectives

• To simplify administrative access to multiple radio station websites by using one login and a shared code-base

• To create a daily deals functionality to be used on an initial website, Key103 Deals, with the ability to easily duplicate that functionality across other stations

Planned Partnerships

single instance of Magento, every new website possessed all common features in a single deployment.

Bauer Media were able to use the same payment gateway integration across all radio station and daily deals

websites, streamlining accounts and backend processes. Also, integrating Silverpop into the CMS allowed for

customised marketing of promotions and deals.

After development, the Bauer web team were able to manage all front-end aspects of the deals website

themselves. Through the custom entities we created within the Magento admin panel, the team could easily

create vendors and vouchers with valid expiry dates based on the day of purchase, and promote chosen

products on the homepage for definable time periods.

Bauer Media. Client since 2010bauermedia.co.uk

key103deals.co.uk

Hosting OfficesMagento Instances

Ampersand offer a refreshing and honest approach to development. It is clear from working with Ampersand that they know Magento inside and out. They approached our project with professionalism and vigour.

Aaron CornishTeamLeader,CommercialWebTeamBauerRadio

3CTariffStreetManchesterM12FF+44 161 236 5504

ampersandcommerce.com@AmpersandHQ

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