With a growing portfolio of e-commerce brands, NexStep Internet needed streamlined technical management and a modernized online presence. WebCitz delivered a comprehensive solution – cleaning up legacy code, consolidating hosting, and ensuring smooth operations across all digital assets.
The Challenge
Managing a holding company with several independent e-commerce brands presents unique technical hurdles. When we began our work in 2014, the primary challenges included:
- Legacy Code Cleanup: The existing holding company site required a thorough audit and “cleanup” to ensure it met modern web standards and performed reliably for investors and partners.
- Multi-Brand Hosting Stability: Because NexStep managed multiple e-commerce storefronts, they needed a central hosting partner that could provide high uptime and consistent performance across various domains.
- Lean Maintenance: As a holding company, the goal for nexstepinternet.net was a professional, low-overhead presence that communicated authority without requiring the bloated management of a complex CMS.
- Technical Consolidation: They needed a single point of contact for domain renewals and technical support to avoid the administrative friction of dealing with multiple vendors for their different brands.
The WebCitz Solution
WebCitz provided a “Core-to-Edge” support strategy, securing the holding company’s foundation while optimizing the performance of its subsidiary brands:
- HTML/CSS Refactoring & Cleanup (2014): We performed an extensive cleanup of the NexStep Internet codebase. By optimizing the HTML and CSS, we reduced load times and ensured the site was responsive and professional – a critical requirement for a company overseeing other digital brands.
- Managed E-commerce Hosting: We provided the robust server environment necessary to power their active e-commerce properties. This ensured that even as the holding company’s central site served as a static landing page, the “money-making” subsidiary sites had the resources to handle transactions and traffic.
- Domain Portfolio Management: We streamlined their domain renewals and administrative tasks. By acting as the central “Technical Registry,” we ensured that no brand-critical domain names lapsed, protecting the equity of their entire portfolio.
- On-Demand Technical Support: Throughout our partnership, we remained on standby to provide CSS tweaks and layout adjustments as the company’s branding and portfolio evolved.
The Result
Our partnership allowed NexStep Internet to maintain a high-efficiency digital operation for over a decade. By cleaning up their code and consolidating their hosting and domain management with WebCitz, they were able to focus on the strategic growth of their e-commerce brands. Even though the central holding company site is now offline, the technical stability we provided during those formative years helped ensure that their revenue-generating assets remained secure and operational.
