The C2 Group partnered with Moody Publishers for a redesign on the Optimizely (Episerver) Commerce platform to provide a cohesive, one-stop shopping experience across multiple devices.
The redesign of the Moody Publishers site, launched in November 2015, arrived just in time for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the peak of the holiday shopping season. Leveraging the Optimizely (Episerver) Commerce system's out-of-the-box functionality, C2 was able to provide a longtime client with a robust e-commerce manager.
The redesign tackled significant business and user experience problems by eliminating the need for users to "change channels" to complete orders. Previously, users had to check out through a secondary site and third-party vendor, which confused users by presenting an opportunity to purchase from competing retailers. Now, moodypublishers.com is a cohesive, one-stop shopping experience across multiple devices that provides the Publishers team exclusive control over e-commerce efforts vital to long-term viability.
Founded in 1894, Moody Publishers is the publishing arm of Moody Global Ministries, a Chicago-based global Christian ministry that also has interests in higher education and broadcasting. C2’s decade-long partnership with Moody has covered leadership for web and technical issues, ongoing development, and web strategy, including being tasked with a redesign and e-commerce overhaul of the Publishers site.
Without the capability to complete and process orders, moodypublishers.com had previously redirected users to a secondary site and third-party vendor to complete their purchases. This process only continued to confuse by presenting options to order from competing online retailers. Meanwhile, the site’s existing framework prevented the Publishers team from completely integrating and realizing the full potential of its UNISON software, which provides e-commerce management tools specific to the publishing industry.
To better serve the needs of a global audience as well as internal stakeholders, C2's redesign and CMS implementation aimed to improve user experience by consolidating the work of two sites into one, all while providing a developer-friendly framework in which to integrate legacy systems and restore autonomy over e-commerce efforts vital to the business' long-term viability.
Optimizely (Episerver) allowed C2's development team a cleaner framework from which to work and integrate with UNISON, providing up-to-date e-commerce technology with the scalability to incorporate additional integrations. Moreover, it provided the Publishers team with control of its own e-commerce manager, acting as the single source of truth for managing products, promotions, and inventory.
Taking an agile project approach, essential functionality to the Moody team was delivered on schedule, while transitioning quickly and seamlessly between project sprints. Meanwhile, the use of new project management tools improved progress tracking, collaboration, and communication between project teams.
