As Q1 comes to a close, I thought it would be worthwhile to share some of our experiences so far.
Without a doubt, it has been an eventful quarter so far for Surpass Solutions!
We’ve had the great good fortune of working with a number of new clients, and in the process, we’ve met some amazing people! Of course, business is all about relationships, which is why we have a “People First” philosophy.
Relationships are built on good communication which is a major area of focus for us, and one that we think sets us apart from our peers. That’s why we were humbled when Jay Johnson from Vintage Auto Garage pointed out we “were extremely responsive, especially by phone which is very helpful”.
It’s true – we always pick up the phone and are proactive in all of our communication.
To be sure, Jay and I have had a number of very interesting conversations about their business and the classic car industry in general. The product kits we’ve help them to build and integrate with SkuVault have been a game-changer for them. They are able to sell on various channels including BigCommerce, eBay & Amazon, and they are able to forecast inventory demand and fulfill more efficiently.
We’re looking forward to continuing to work with Vintage Auto Garage and other merchants on BigCommerce.
Another major thrill for me personally was working with golf brand SQAIRZ. Spring has (finally!) sprung in Toronto and golf season is right around the corner. SQAIRZ golf shoes are a leader in comfort and technology and getting to know their team, led by Eric Warncke, was a real treat.
SQAIRZ was having a major problem with their AvaTax by Avalara integration on WooCommerce. Every time an order was “completed” on their back-end (and trust me, they get a lot of orders!) the sales tax would simply vanish. Sure, it was calculated properly at checkout and charged to the customer, but bookkeeping, remittance & returns were made virtually impossible by this bug!
It had a serious impact on their operations and was a major drain on their time and energy. The problem had been going on for nine months (with various external support departments pointing fingers) and they were not able to come up with a solution – until Surpass was brought in!
We were able to build a custom function in PHP that would call the AvaTax API to re-constitute the taxes on-the-fly for completed orders. It now works 100% of the time!
I don’t mind sharing that Eric was very impressed at our “big brain” solution to a “really annoying problem”. Ultimately writing that we “saved them thousands of dollars and allowed them to focus on our core skill sets”.
That’s exactly what we do at Surpass: we solve problems and build solutions so you can focus on your business.
When Maurizio Cavalieri, CEO of LeadFly, came to us he was looking for a way to make downloadable products available to his customers on WooCommerce. Normally, that’s pretty standard, but the catch was that only certain information should be shown beforehand, and the rest of the data after purchase.
Not only that, but customer-specific downloadable products had to be associated with the user and stored on their account for future use.
For better or worse, LeadFly had worked with a previous developer who was only able to get them so far. Surpass Solutions was able to get them all the way! As Maurizio writes, “My company had come across a challenge where the developer we had retained did not complete our project and fortunately for us, that’s where Paul and his team at Surpass stepped in.”
We developed a custom function that would generate a PDF for each product, and upon purchase would map the pertinent data to the file and queue it for download and storage in ‘My Downloads’.
This solution is going to allow LeadFly to fully leverage their business model on WooCommerce and we were so gratified to be a part of their success, and grateful for the opportunity to continue working with Maurizio and his team – as he put it:
“I will be going back to Surpass for my projects going forward. Looking forward to working on the next project with Paul and the team. Thank you for the wonderful service!”
We are currently working on a number of exciting projects including a major Shopify App in the “green returns” space, a sophisticated pre-order solution in the toys & collectibles category, and a cutting edge integration between an EDI trading partner and Shopify storefront.
On the horizon, we are taking on a project integrating Shopify inventory quantities in real-time to Wayfair and Overstock, as well as a supplier API integration for a retailer in the appliances space. We are also in talks with a major auto parts wholesaler who are looking to adopt some automation into their legacy systems.
If you are growing, changing or have a project (or problem!) on your to-do list, we would love to work with you! Contact us today!
Speak soon,
Paul Tittel
Founder & CEO
Surpass Solutions Inc.
416-522-1613
