Disappointing and Expensive Experience
We commissioned Absolute Design in June 2023 to migrate our existing PHP-based website to Adobe Commerce (Magento). The goal was to significantly improve site speed, user experience, and overall site authority. They came recommended by Adobe as one of several potential partners, and we chose them â perhaps naively â because their quote was roughly 40% lower than the next providerâs.
At first, things looked promising. The team were friendly, approachable, and seemed a good fit. Unfortunately, the project soon began to unravel. Timelines slipped repeatedly, costs escalated sharply, and by the end we had spent around three times the original quote.
In hindsight, the project was never properly scoped by Absolute. We accept some responsibility, as our in-house eCommerce expertise at the time was limited. However, the lack of clear planning, technical direction, and proactive project management from Absolute caused major issues. The repeated delays meant we began paying substantial Adobe hosting fees for a site that wasnât even live â roughly £100,000 in wasted hosting costs, on top of the inflated development spend.
When the site finally went live â about a year later than planned â it quickly became clear that the build quality was poor. The site used an outdated Porto theme, soon to be obsolete, and lacked the performance improvements weâd expected. In fact, site speed and user experience were worse than before. Even more frustratingly, Absolute repeatedly invoiced us to fix their own errors, leading to spiralling costs and growing frustration.
While their team were polite and generally responsive, their technical competence and billing practices left much to be desired. Their approach was reactive rather than proactive, offering little guidance, innovation, or best-practice insight. The end result felt like a minimal-effort build designed simply to get the site out the door.
We eventually switched to a new development partner, who reskinned the site using a HyvÀ front end. The difference was immediate â vastly improved speed, smoother UX, and much better overall performance, at a fraction of the ongoing cost.
In summary:
If you have a small, non-critical website, Absolute Design might be adequate.
But if youâre migrating an established, business-critical eCommerce site to Magento, we would strongly advise caution.
Be especially wary of their billing practices â you may end up paying to fix problems they created themselves.
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