The McCarthy Group Builds a Custom Magento Ordering Platform

The McCarthy Group specializes in graphics and branded decor solutions for outdoor events, trade show booths, conventions, and large-scale visual displays. 121eCommerce helped The McCarthy Group replace its outdated manual workflow with a scalable Magento Commerce platform featuring a fully customized artwork upload, proofing, and approval system integrated across vendors and internal operations.

The challenge

The Problem Faced

The McCarthy Group prints graphics and brand decor for outdoor events, tradeshow booths, and conventions. They specialize in wall, floor, ceiling, and window graphics.

Their original online portal was custom-built for one particular client and was not meant to function as an e-commerce platform. Changes could only be made by the original developer; the system was not scalable and could not integrate with other systems. Orders for their other customers were processed through Outlook and Dropbox.

Not only did McCarthy need to create a brand-new eCommerce site, but they also needed to create a streamlined, online ordering process where customers could upload artwork files, view a proof, and then approve or reject it. With McCarthy’s online business growing rapidly, this ill-equipped system needed to be replaced with a robust, scalable eCommerce platform. ASAP.

Key Challenges:

Outdated & Non-Scalable Ordering System

Manual Order Processing Workflows

Lack of Artwork Proofing & Approval Functionality

Platform Was Not Scaleable and Robust

The Client Journey

“One of the biggest issues we had with the old site was that it would crash whenever it experienced a high volume of traffic. 121eCommerce was able to provide our website with a great structure, which resulted in our ongoing success. We recently ran a Cyber Week promotion, and it’s the most successful sale we’ve ever had.”

our approach

The Solution

After a thorough review of their requirements, we chose to create their new eCommerce site on Magento Commerce for its customization and scalability. However, since their complex ordering process was not native to Magento, our team went to work to design and develop a highly-customized ordering system from scratch that allowed customers to choose a product, upload multiple artwork files in multiple formats (as well as paste links to art files), view a proof, and then approve or reject it.

Heavy integration with McCarthy’s internal system and third-party vendors was required so that any changes/updates to the order by either McCarthy of third-parties would be reflected in the order record. A new tab was created in the order record where proofs would appear and could be easily approved or rejected. Because not all products required this workflow, we linked this entire functionality to a single product attribute. This allowed McCarthy to easily apply the process with pinpoint precision.

Magento Commerce Platform Development

We recommended building the new platform on Magento Commerce to provide the scalability, customization flexibility, and operational stability needed to support McCarthy’s rapidly growing online business.

Custom Artwork Upload & Proofing Workflow

Developed a fully customized ordering system that allowed customers to upload multiple artwork files, submit file links, view proofs, and approve or reject designs directly through the platform.

ntegrated Vendor & Internal Workflow Management

To maximize flexibility, the proofing functionality was tied to a single product attribute, allowing McCarthy to easily enable or disable the process for specific products.

the results

Customized Magento Commerce Platform

McCarthy is thrilled that it can now provide customers with an easy-to-use website where they can place orders, upload artwork, view proofs and approve them for printing. Plus, they love the ability to turn on/off the entire order-processing functionality by simply adding a specific product attribute.

They’ve gone from processing orders with Outlook and Dropbox to a custom-built ordering platform that ties together third-party vendors, McCarthy, and the customer into one seamless system.

Postscript: To top it off, actual hours at launch came in 8% under estimated hours. In an industry where 20-30% over budgeted hours is average and accepted, McCarthy was quite pleased, to say the least.

Streamlined End-to-End Ordering Experience

McCarthy successfully transitioned from disconnected manual workflows using Outlook and Dropbox to a centralized custom ordering platform that streamlined communication between customers, vendors, and internal teams.

Improved Artwork Proofing & Approval Process

Customers can now easily upload artwork, review proofs, and approve designs directly through the website, creating a faster and more efficient production workflow.

Delivered Under Budget

The project launched successfully with actual development hours coming in 8% below estimated hours.

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