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Trellis is a forward thinking digital agency and information Technology Company that focuses on building scalable and effective websites for its clients. Their tactical approach to improving your website and web presence focuses on four major targets: Strategy, design, technology & operations, and post launch maintenance & marketing. Below is our recent interview with Isaiah Bollinger, Co-Founder and CEO at Trellis:
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to Trellis?
A: We are a full service eCommerce solution provider that specializes in implementing eCommerce and CMS websites on platforms like Magento, WordPress, Shopify, and BigCommerce. We can also provide managed AWS solutions and build custom web applications for integrations or for customer facing software use. Our capabilities allow us to plan and design a solution that not only meets your specific goals and budget today, but will also scale with you as you grow. Once a site is launched we stick side by side with our clients to help them improve the site and market the site to generate more customers.
Unlike many development firms, our work does not cease there. In order to achieve maximum ROI it is essential to invest properly in the continual expansion of your online reach while constantly monitoring and improving your website to keep your conversion rate high. Therefore we work with our clients on an on going basis to consistently improve their websites.
Q: You’ve recently been named top Boston eCommerce agency; could you tell us something more?
A: We have worked very hard to become the leading eCommerce agency in Boston. When we first started there were some major players here who were much larger and more sophisticated than we were. We were both fortunate enough for some of those major players to move outside of Boston and to have sustained growth over the last six years allowing us to compete on a much larger scale.
We are very proud of our success in Boston but we see ourselves becoming a larger player across the US and eventually global as we continue to improve and progress.
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Q: What makes your approach different?
A: I think there are several things that make us stand out.
First, we have a strong culture of value and efficiency, which gets passed down to the client via our services. We only hire what we think is the most valuable option. We do this by being hybrid remote in which we have an office in Boston to build and foster talent locally but also hire globally / remote to get the best talent in the world at a great value.
Second, we are constantly looking at ways to improve communication. We integrate with our client via various tools so that there is real time communication and many ways to work together in a seamless fashion. We also allow developers to communicate with clients so there is not the middleman problem. I think that is very common in agencies and causes many problems because the middleman (project managers) are not always technical enough to explain the problem properly.
Third, we make sure to do our due diligence in the sales process and post sale via discovery to ensure the budget, scope, and timeline are realistic. Software development is very hard and it’s easy to have one or two things destroy an entire project. We do our best to make sure that there is very little room for error or something like that to stop a project from launching.
Q: What kinds of services do you offer to your clients?
A: Our services fall into six main buckets. We offer strategy services ranging from scoping out an entire project to helping clients come up with a more robust digital strategy for growth. We offer eCommerce solutions on platforms like Magento, Shopify and BigCommerce. We also offer CMS solutions on platforms like WordPress, CraftCMS, and Hubspot.
There are three other areas we are looking to grow that have proven extremely successful for us. We are now doing managed AWS services and hosting for clients, this has been wildly successful for us. We also provide integrations to various platforms like ERP’s and CRM’s and are working on some infrastructure to improve this process. Lastly, we can build custom web applications for various internal or external customer-facing purposes using frameworks like Vue.JS and Laravel.
Q: Where do you see the ecommerce industry going in 2018?
A: I see the eCommerce industry getting far more sophisticated in 2018. I think there are still a lot of companies trying to get their infrastructure in place to be competitive. However, I think that there isn’t much time left to do this and compete.
2018 is a pivotal year in which companies need to get their eCommerce act together and start expanding beyond the basic infrastructure of catalog, cart, shipping and payment. They need to find more innovative ways to compete via things like personalization, custom product options, rewards, better user experiences, better social media marketing, and much more. I see 2018 as the year in which companies begin to take eCommerce customer experiences to the next level.
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Q: What can we expect from Trellis in the future?
A: I am very excited about the future of Trellis. It’s been a tough journey to get to where we are but I finally feel that we have hit our stride and are starting to build the vision that I always had.
I think you will see Trellis begin to execute on some really exciting projects and become a leader in the major platforms like Magento, Shopify, and BigCommerce as well as a thought leader in eCommerce overall. We will start to expand more beyond local New England and become more of a global company.
We are also working on many exciting internal products, processes, and projects that will separate us from the competition. I think by 2019 you will see some exciting things that we are doing that go beyond the traditional agency scope. However, I am careful to ensure these projects compliment our core services and actually add to our customer experience so we don’t lose focus. I don’t want to give away too many secrets haha because I really think some of these things will help us separate from the pack.
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