Tony James Designs: Modernising an Established International Store

What the store really was

• 287 products and 541 product variations
• More than 200 motorcycle models and model years across nine manufacturers
• Around 2,100 orders and around 280 customer accounts
• 13 international shipping zones
• Around 30 plugins providing the store's behaviour

The recommendation

WordPress isn't the problem, as it runs a large share of the web very well. The issue was what this store had become. Much of what the business depended on lived in separate plugins, each with its own settings and update cycle, and none designed around the business. A refresh would have meant a new look over the same stack, so we recommended replacing the platform with an application the owner controls.

Understanding what already worked

Nothing was rebuilt until the store had been understood in detail. Each plugin's configuration was decoded from the data it had stored, then given an explicit decision: rebuild it, fold it into the new platform, replace it or retire it. This also showed what didn't need rebuilding, including a personalisation plugin that had been installed but never used.

What we built

• The product configurator. The most demanding part of the rebuild. 610 conditional elements guide a rider to the right kit for their exact bike, and they were migrated and audited against the original data.
• A full migration. Products, customers and around 2,100 orders came across with their tracking history. Product addresses kept their original URLs.
• Search that finds your bike. Search runs as you type across the catalogue and suggests matching models. The owner singled this out as noticeably better than the old site's.
• Interest in kits that aren't ready. Riders can register interest in kits still in design, and everyone waiting is emailed when a kit becomes available.
• Built-in shipment tracking. Customers get a tracking email and can follow delivery from their order page, and PayPal orders share their tracking with PayPal.
• A partner directory. Riders can find approved fitters and stockists on a map, and new partners are added from the admin.

Could this work for your business?

Plenty of businesses run on a website that has quietly accumulated years of logic. Replacing it carelessly loses things that matter, and refreshing it forever means paying to maintain a structure nobody designed. The answer is to understand what the business depends on, keep that intact, and rebuild only what needs to change.