Brotherhood Books

About the Client

Brotherhood Books is a social enterprise of the Brotherhood of St Laurence (BSL), a social justice organisation working alongside people experiencing disadvantage to address poverty in Australia. Founded in 2009, Brotherhood Books sell donated second-hand books of all genres through their online bookstore.

The Challenge

The Brotherhood Books website is one of Australia’s largest online booksellers, stocking more than 60,000 titles. When the BSL team initially approached us, they were dealing with a problematic website. The large existing Magento instance wasn’t performing well, provided a poor user experience, and risked damaging the BSL brand. They sought a robust, sustainable digital solution to stabilise and strengthen their online store.

Solution

We took over control and management of the site and immediately implemented measures to stabilise it. This involved migration to hosting under our control and updating the core Magento instance and extensions, and conducting extensive debugging and code refactoring to improve performance.

Working closely with BSL, we implemented solutions to enhance functionality, reliability, and user experience. Flexible, scalable hosting allowed us to manage short-term issues such as traffic spikes and downtime while maintaining long-term stability.

Once stabilised, we focused on ongoing maintenance, enhancements, and system improvements. Since 2019, website sessions have increased by 150%, reflecting strong, sustained performance and growth.

The Results

• Enhanced capability supporting business growth and long-term viability
• Improved user experience through ongoing optimisation
• Seamless integration with third-party systems
• Updated interface elements as required
• Training and ongoing support for BSL staff
• Continuous system and security maintenance
• Reliable hosting, maintenance, and upgrade