e→d Films Thrives Online Thanks to New E-Commerce-Based CMS

By Nils Cayrol On Sep 20, 2019

Award-winning e→d films is in high demand. The Montreal-based producer of high-quality cultural and educational films complements its successful animation business with an online store selling digital assets and tools to creators worldwide, letting them plug these assets into their next film, game or video to speed up the project. Unfortunately, those visiting the studio’s website and online store weren’t getting the customer experience they needed, facing slow loading times, nonintuitive navigation, and limited product displays and descriptions. For this venture to succeed, the website and e-commerce platform needed to change, and so Emily Paige, the studio’s president and creative producer, reached out to Yaksa in October 2017 for guidance.

After a thorough analysis of e→d films’ existing solutions, its goals, and requirements, we quickly discovered what was holding the website back: a faulty solution architecture and backend platform. The off-the-shelf CMS the studio was using wasn’t scalable nor did it give them the flexibility they needed to manage content easier so they could quickly get their art in front of the potential customers. To meet e→d films’ needs while providing customers with a more satisfying browsing and shopping experience, the website needed an e-commerce solution with a strong flexible CMS that is also:

Based on the ubiquitous Microsoft.net technology
Easy to use by web designers, developers and content creators and especially “editor friendly,” without requiring CSS or HTML knowledge
Highly secure, without the need for PHP coding
Based on open source, to eliminate staggering licensing fees

Umbraco and UCommerce: An Ideal Integrated Technology Solution

As we’d learned back in 2015, Umbraco CMS offers all of the above, which made it an easy decision for e→d films. Umbraco, used by more than 500,000 live sites worldwide, is designed to be especially easy for editors and content creators to work in while giving developers the flexibility and freedom to build their websites with the look and features they want. It also integrates with best-of-breed technologies such as Ucommerce, an open source eCommerce solution that is highly extensible and a proven effective engine to enable Sales. With Umbraco and Ucommerce, we were able to give e→d films one of the most competitive and powerful content and commerce combination on the .NET platform. We knew Umbraco and Ucommerce would get them to market quickly – and get the art to clients faster.

These two platforms let us modernize the complete online customer experience by refreshing and customizing the environments setup, content blocks, site template, product definition, categories, product search, product detail page, checkout, payment, fulfillment, and so on. After three months of development, including implementation, we delivered a new, robust, and customized platform that drastically improved the site’s user experience while serving as a solid foundation for e→d films’ passive income revenue stream. Our developers – and the editors at e→d films – love using it.

Better Customer Experience = More Customers

In addition to having a CMS that is easier (and less expensive) to use for all parties, Umbraco has also eliminated many unnecessary steps for e→d films, and content blocks now enable the studio to quickly and easily add to their online store and website.

As a result, the studio immediately experienced a:

300% gain in efficiency when uploading new products to the website
300% increase in engagement of recurring visitors
250% more qualified web traffic
300% increase in team efficiency

In addition, Umbraco has let them simplify maintenance over their last website, opened up more time and resources for managing the platform as Yaksa’s team is taking care of the entire maintenance and support; saved money by improving productivity of e→d films’ team members and improved SEO results.

“Previous off-the-shelf solutions could not meet our requirements, and as a digital company, we needed a fast, efficient, simple, and up- to-date web presence; something more customized and responsive to our specific needs,” Emily said. “Thanks to our new website, we will be able to move our business to the next level – reach the international market and grow the list of our products. None of this would be possible if we didn’t get such a fantastic platform and IT support.”

“One of the biggest pluses for us has been the adaptability and responsiveness of the back end,” Emily added. “It’s been so easy to play with and test the site to increase Sales and refine the messaging, without the worry of messing anything up. We’re really happy so far.”