Empowering RASA: From Poland With Dev Elevates Herbal Industry with Custom Shopify Solution and Support
INTRODUCING RASA
Established in 2018, Rasa emerged from Lopa van der Mersh's devotion to Ayurveda. As both a founder and a new mom, she was looking for a potent, natural alternative to coffee that could uplift her mood and keep her going without stealing her energy.
Thus, what began as an experiment of blending herbs in her own kitchen has evolved into a global venture, catering to over 100,000 customers with its range of nourishing, adaptogenic drinks.
Additionally, with over 50 botanicals sourced from 15 countries, Rasa emphasizes quality, purity, and social responsibility.
CHALLENGE
Initially, Rasa reached out to From Poland With Dev for Shopify support, but soon our collaboration extended to comprehensive development support.
Our first major challenge was to create a custom solution for a customer Quiz that would help Rasa better understand their customers' needs and preferences, a task beyond the capabilities of Shopify's native features.
After the Quiz was created, Rasa continued to rely on our team's expertise to further improve store performance, structure, and user experience.
SOLUTION
Our developers created the dynamic Rasa Quiz as a standalone app hosted externally on Cloudflare Pages and built in React.
Soon after this, in order to improve project structure and performance, we refactored the entire JavaScript structure from an impressive 7,000 lines of code into a more efficient and manageable module structure using Webpack.
In addition to these solutions, we conducted a thorough UX analysis and quality assurance, along with making ongoing store improvements as part of our monthly support.
WHAT WE PROVIDED
QA to find bugs, and recommend solutions for better user experience, and higher conversion rates
UX/UI analysis to recommend improvements in sales process and information architecture
Quiz fully custom development
Ongoing development support for any Client’s needs
Building apps with OpenAI/Azure’s ChatGPT SaaS is simple—if you’re aware of its limitations and can fix ongoing issues. However, when moving to production, things can get more complex. OpenAI/Azure’s ChatGPT in production can present challenges related to stability, scalability, and service degradation that may impact performance. In this post, I’ll walk you through common problems we’ve faced during projects leveraging popular LLM APIs, highlighting what to watch for as your team gets started.
Getting Started with AI: Key Considerations for Using OpenAI/Azure’s ChatGPT in Production
AI is everywhere these days, and using solutions like OpenAI/Azure’s ChatGPT in production is becoming increasingly common. With transformer-based Large Language Models (LLMs) taking center stage, the adoption of Machine Learning is spreading rapidly. It’s no longer a question of whether you should use this technology—because of its business impact and the push from the market (or maybe your CEO), it’s a must-have. My experience developing ShareTheBoard has significantly expanded my ML knowledge, enabling me to offer practical, valuable advice.
The good news is, to introduce some of this ML magic to your team, you no longer need a group of ML experts, huge datasets, or countless hours spent on model architecture and tuning. Now, all it takes is an OpenAI account, a linked credit card, and you’re ready to start building AI solutions—just like when you first adopted cloud services.
The good news is, to introduce some of this ML magic to your team, you no longer need a group of ML experts, huge datasets, or countless hours spent on model architecture and tuning.
But, as always, there are a few important things to consider before you dive in!
Here’s the exciting part: Even without a ton of Machine Learning experience, OpenAI or Azure lets you build a working Proof of Concept (PoC) in a matter of days, with a production-ready version possible within weeks. And we’re not just talking about startup projects; you can even update legacy software that’s been around for a decade or more.
OpenAI or Azure lets you build a working Proof of Concept (PoC) in a matter of days.
You no longer have to worry about:
The usual ML tasks like picking the right neural network, gathering data, and training models.
Deployment hassles like figuring out the best GPU for your LLM or scaling up.
This is a game-changer! We’ve spent countless hours building neural network-based applications, and the traditional methods took serious time and effort—data collection, model training, and deployment decisions all demanded dedicated resources. But now, with the OpenAI API, most of these challenges are behind us.
Our story
We recently launched a new service for a client, using the brand-new vision-to-text LLM from OpenAI (now included with ChatGPT-4o). We had previously used traditional algorithms and open-source tools, but OpenAI’s LLM was something else—just exceptional. We got the beta version of our new feature out in no time. It felt like a dream—until we encountered the first issues, that is!
Anticipating Disruptions with OpenAI/Azure’s ChatGPT in Production
It's essential to recognize that OpenAI/Azure's ChatGPT production issues do happen, and anticipating them can spare you a major headache.
Typically, when you choose a SaaS model, you expect to feel secure, with the peace of mind that maintenance is off your plate. But that might not be the case with OpenAI or Azure (if you’re using Microsoft’s services).
It's essential to recognize that OpenAI/Azure's ChatGPT production issues do happen, and anticipating them can spare you a major headache.
You might encounter service degradation more often than expected. The unpredictable nature of these disruptions can be particularly troubling.
Here are some of the most frustrating issues we’ve faced:
OpenAI API Service Unavailable
OpenAI ChatGPT Model Degradation
OpenAI & Azure Token Limits
API Request Delays
Although the list is short, the impact on your application’s stability can be significant, potentially leading to failures and lengthy meetings with stakeholders, especially as your user base grows.
OpenAI API Service Unavailable
At first, when we encountered failures, we were convinced the issues were on our end. However, a quick investigation revealed that the problems were actually coming from the API we were using.
One issue led to another—our requests were failing without any clear explanation, and eventually, even the entire OpenAI management portal went down. Fortunately, this happened while we were still testing.
To stay on top of these issues, we added an OpenAI health check to our alerting system. Unfortunately, I’ve seen the “Service OpenAI is experiencing some issues” alert more often than I’d like.
OpenAI ChatGPT Model Degradation
OpenAI’s new 4o model, while more affordable, has shown a decline in quality based on our experience and feedback from some of our clients.
The consistency of outputs has shifted, which can disrupt your app’s logic.
We’ve had to adapt by tweaking our post-processing layer, but these aren’t the issues you want to be dealing with once your project is stable.
OpenAI & Azure Token Limits
You might think that with enough budget, you can freely use the Azure or OpenAI APIs.
However, as we discovered while working on a client's project, there is a limit you cannot surpass.
Although this limit is relatively high, it can quickly feel restrictive as your service grows in popularity.
API Request Delays
When managing multiple complex requests, you might notice an increase in response times, leading to timeouts.
This might not be obvious during testing, but as your solution and prompts grow, your service will become unusable.
Additional Resources
There’s a site tracking ongoing OpenAI issues, where you can see that its uptime is around 99.7%—equating to roughly 30 minutes of downtime per week or 7.5 days per year. Click here to access it.
How to Manage OpenAI/Azure’s ChatGPT Production Issues
We've come across and addressed some tricky ChatGPT issues in our work. Let’s explore how to tackle them.
The right answer depends on your tech expertise, business goals, and budget.
We've come across and addressed some tricky ChatGPT issues in our work. Let’s explore how to tackle them.
One practical approach is to acknowledge ChatGPT's imperfections. Labeling your service as 'Beta' can set user expectations about possible hiccups. It might seem like a big step, but it's often a smart choice when you're just starting out.
If that doesn’t work for you, identify your key issues and tackle them one by one.
For example:
Managing Token Usage: As you approach your token limit, consider splitting accounts by application or feature. This way, a resource-heavy app won’t consume all your tokens. You could also segment your environments or the regions you support.
Reducing Delays: Check the regions you operate in. The U.S. is often the most crowded, so switching to a less crowded service region could help.
We’d be happy to consult, diagnose, and resolve your AI-related issues, backed by our 5.0 rating on Clutch and hundreds of successful projects!
OpenAI/Azure GPT Issues are a can of worms—plenty of them out there with very few known solutions.
If you have Machine Learning experience, you might be able to manage these challenges with your in-house team.
And in case your project requires a professional website, we recently published an insightful article on which CMS is best for you. Be sure to check it out!
We’d be happy to consult, diagnose, and resolve your AI-related issues, backed by our 5.0 rating on Clutch and hundreds of successful projects!
Webflow is a state-of-the-art tool for website creation, designed to be intuitive and eliminate the need for coding. It’s ideal for designers seeking autonomy in their projects, with features like automatic updates, managed hosting, and free SSL included. While Webflow may initially appear to have a higher cost than WordPress due to visible subscription fees, the overall costs can be similar when factoring in the latter’s maintenance expenses. Webflow provides exceptional integrations and a streamlined user experience, making it a great choice for businesses big and small, as well as startups aiming for high-quality, worry-free websites.
What is Webflow?
Are you curious about how effective Webflow is for creating websites? This article explores whether Webflow is the best CMS choice for you. Prepare to be amazed by its versatility – let’s explore!
Disclaimer: We won’t be diving into Webflow’s ecommerce capabilities in this article; that will be covered in a future post.
Webflow is a cutting-edge SaaS platform that simplifies website building.
Webflow is a cutting-edge SaaS platform that simplifies website building. It is a low-code/no-code solution that allows users to design, build, and launch websites without writing any code. It also offers the flexibility to use code if desired. Sites are published directly through Webflow’s interface, so there’s no need for a separate server or additional software.
Meant primarily for designers, Webflow empowers them to bring their creative visions to life independently, without relying on developers. While it does require some tech skills, most designers can train themselves on Webflow within a few weeks.
As a UI/UX designer, I can say Webflow is a fantastic tool. It eliminates the need for coding, allowing me to turn my designs into functional websites more easily than ever. The interface is user-friendly and similar to design software, making it simple to use. If you create your site using Webflow and understand how responsiveness works, simply preparing views for several breakpoints within Webflow will ensure it looks great on most devices. Additionally, Webflow gives you full control over animations. I see Webflow as a tool built by developers for designers. Last but not least, if you have some coding knowledge, Webflow lets you put that to use, making the tool even more flexible and useful.
Webflow Pricing: Is It the Best CMS Choice for Your Budget?
Webflow is not a free service, although it offers a free plan for testing, which allows the creation of up to two basic designs. These designs can only be published on Webflow subdomains, which may be sufficient for personal projects but inadequate for business needs. However, the free plan is a great choice for designers seeking an easy way to create a beautiful, hassle-free portfolio.
Webflow simplifies the process of creating visually appealing websites with fewer maintenance needs.
For professional websites, a subscription is necessary. As of August 2024, plans start at $14 per month, without CMS management. The $23 per month plan, billed annually, enables CMS features and totals $276 per year, including hosting, SSL, updates, and support. Domains must be purchased separately. When deciding which CMS to choose, Webflow’s transparent pricing structure can be appealing.
Webflow Plans
There are also Workspace Plans which cater to freelancers and agencies, and are typically not necessary for individual users building their own sites.
Purchasing a Workspace Plan is beneficial when custom code, code export, and designing CMS elements across multiple pages are needed for all current projects without having to purchase separate site plans for each. Site plans are required later to host the site on a custom domain.
Workspace Plans are particularly useful for agencies that design Webflow sites for clients and need access to additional features for all their projects without buying a site plan at this stage. These plans also allow for multiple users working simultaneously.
Webflow 101
With over 5,000 editable templates, Webflow enables you to construct your ideal site through trial and error.
Webflow development agencies love this website builder for its user-friendly interface and powerful features. You can start creating your website as soon as you sign up. It's worth noting that basic knowledge of HTML and CSS can be useful, as it might be tricky for absolute beginners.
Webflow Interface
With over 5,000 editable templates, Webflow enables you to construct your ideal site through trial and error. Additionally, Webflow's templates, which range from $50 to $150, are competitively priced and come with the assurance of high quality. Even top Webflow agencies use those paid templates, as they speed up the design process, saving development hours and overall project cost.
Are you looking for a Webflow Development Agency?
Contact ustoday to get started on your next web project with our experts!
Webflow Templates
Key Feature – Animations: No other CMS makes it as effortless to create beautiful and lightweight animations for your Webflow projects, making your site vibrant and engaging.
Webflow Animation Sample
Post-creation management of the site is very intuitive and easy to handle.
Webflow: The Best CMS Choice for Marketing?
Webflow's clean code generation ensures your site loads swiftly, which is critical for SEO success. Speed is a significant factor in search engine rankings.
Webflow CMS
Webflow offers image optimization to WebP format and full control over URLs, meta titles, and meta descriptions. It also includes an automatic translation feature, an automatic sitemap, alt tags, and a robots.txt file.
Webflow's clean code generation ensures your site loads swiftly, which is critical for SEO success.
More advanced configurations, such as setting up canonical tags, require coding.
Integrating with external applications, such as Google Analytics, is simple through Project Settings > Integrations. With over 5,000 integrations available, all major marketing and analytics tools are included.
Webflow Apps
Webflow vs. WordPress: Which is the Best CMS Choice
Webflow Features
5,000+ integrations
Low maintenance
User-friendly interface
Integrations cost
Extra e-mail service cost
Initial tech skills needed
WordPress Features
Many plugins available
Initially less expensive
Highly customisable
Performance issues
High ongoing costs
Complex, expert needed
Plugins: While WordPress boasts a vast number of plugins, these are often user-generated and may lack regular updates, increasing security risks. Additionally, they can often be of poor quality and significantly slow down the site.
In contrast, Webflow offers over 5,000 robust integrations. Features that need plugins in WordPress, like Yoast SEO and integrations with major platforms such as Google and Meta, come standard in Webflow.
Webflow offers over 5,000 robust integrations.
While WordPress initially appears to be a less expensive option, business use can drive up costs due to the need for hiring professionals and purchasing templates. These templates often require frequent updates and ongoing maintenance. Furthermore, managing a server, handling backups, and performing other maintenance tasks can further increase costs, whereas Webflow takes care of all these aspects for you.
Webflowsimplifies the process of creating visually appealing websites with fewer maintenance needs. While the expenses are comparable to WordPress, Webflow shines with its exceptional ease of use and reliability, ensuring your site functions effortlessly.
Company Mail: Basic email services usually included with external hosting are an additional purchase with Webflow.
Webflow and Self-Reliance
Automatic Updates: Webflow provides seamless integration with automatic updates, managed hosting, free SSL, and backups all included.
User-Friendliness: Webflow might be challenging for beginners, and having a developer's help can be beneficial. Nonetheless, Webflow’s support package can solve most issues, reducing the need for extensive developer hours.
Resources: Webflow doesn’t have as many tutorial materials on YouTube, making it harder to find solutions on your own. However, their support team is readily available to assist you. They also have their own learning materials called the Webflow University.
Translations can be easily added in Webflow. It’s a paid feature starting at $9 per month, offering editable machine translations.
Translations: Translations can be easily added in Webflow. It’s a paid feature starting at $9 per month, offering editable machine translations. In comparison, WordPress’s WPML plugin costs $99 annually. Additionally, advanced features like changing styles and element visibility based on language are only available in Webflow’s enterprise plan, which is more expensive, giving WordPress an advantage.
Summary: Is Webflow a Good Fit?
WordPress, much like Android, provides endless customization and plugins. Webflow, resembling iOS, is a bit pricier but offers a seamless, attractive, and hassle-free experience.
Cost Summary: Webflow may appear costly, but considering the inclusion of support, backups, and updates, the price difference is minor unless you can manage everything yourself.
WordPress, much like Android, provides endless customization and plugins. Webflow, resembling iOS, is a bit pricier but offers a seamless, attractive, and hassle-free experience.
Security: If not maintained by an expert, WordPress is vulnerable to attacks through outdated versions and plugins, a concern you won’t have with Webflow.
Target Audience: Webflow suits businesses big and small seeking a beautiful, trouble-free website. Startups and new businesses will find it beneficial if they can afford an annual maintenance cost of around $260 to $390.
Conclusion: Who is Webflow For?
Webflow is an excellent choice for businesses and designers who prioritize aesthetics, functionality, and ease of use.
Webflow is an excellent choice for businesses and designers who prioritize aesthetics, functionality, and ease of use. Webflow reviews often highlight its user-friendliness and powerful features, making it a top choice among webflow agencies. Seamless integrations make it a standout tool in the world of website building.
While it may require a higher investment than WordPress with subscription costs, it is usually faster to implement, saving you money on designers. The peace of mind and quality results it delivers are invaluable. If you're ready to elevate your web presence and simplify your site management, Webflow is definitely worth it.
Ready to take the next step and looking for a Webflow Agency to do it for you? Our team at From Poland With Dev specializes in creating professional, high-quality Webflow sites tailored to your unique needs. Contact us today to get started on your next web project and experience the difference that expert development can make!
On August 13, 2024, Shopify will discontinue support for Shopify Liquid Checkouts and reinforce Shopify Scripts AKA the new Shopify Checkout. In theory, the new option is better and the migration should be straightforward, the transition is complicated for non-standard e-commerce setups, particularly for Shopify Plus clients. The new checkout system is buggy, has misleading documentation, and lacks some previously available functions. If you haven't started the migration or are already experiencing multiple issues, read the full story below.
The new Shopify Checkout migration introduces many enhancements for your store, including enhanced analytics (with Pixel support), a new checkout editor, and the introduction of the Branding API, which offers extensive customization options for your checkout processes. This all sounds promising, even considering that the old checkout (based on a liquid layout) will be discontinued on August 13, 2024.
In theory, this sounds great, but in practice, we have found that migrating to the new checkout can be quite challenging. If you haven't started planning your migration yet, you should brew yourself a large cup of coffee and prepare to learn from the tough experiences we encountered during the migration of several Shopify Plus stores.
What's happening with Shopify Liquid Checkout?
Shopify has announced that as of August 13th, 2024, they’ll discontinue support for Shopify Liquid Checkout with Shopify Scripts to follow - tools used by Shopify merchants to modify the default configuration of checkout behavior. They will be replaced by Shopify Functions, and Shopify Checkout Extensibility.
Liquid Checkout
As a reminder, Checkout.liquid is a file written in the Liquid language, which is responsible for the display of the checkout page. Thanks to Liquid Checkout, Shopify Plus merchants had the option to alter the HTML and CSS of the checkout pages for a more branded and unique experience, aligned with the overall website’s design. Merchants were able to add Custom Scripts and work with custom validation, tracking or unique checkout processes.
Why is this happening?
The use of Liquid files could affect the performance of the Shopify backend; customization options for standard Shopify stores were limited; modification of Liquid files required the support of Shopify developers; and analytics were, in fact, limited. Moreover, Shopify is proudly stating that their checkout is the best converting checkout, and strong customization could affect these statistics.
Checkout Migration - Should I Even Care?
It depends whether you're a Shopify or Shopify Plus customer. If you use the default Shopify checkout without any modifications and run a small e-commerce, migrating to the new system offers a few interesting options. You will need to transition from the old management system in the admin panel to the new one, which provides enhanced options for customization and analytics, but it should not be that difficult.
However, if you are a Shopify Plus customer, it's likely a different scenario. Contrary to official marketing information and tech blog posts (I guess mostly generated by ChatGPT), you should brace yourself for some challenges.
The simplified process is as follows:
Compare your current functionalities with the options provided by Checkout Extensions and a few default Checkout apps that are already available.
Migrate everything from the script editor/liquid file into the new checkout and Branding API.
Test it in your staging environment.
Release it to production.
If only it were that simple.
What Could Go Wrong, as tested by our developers
Bugs
The new checkout is simply not ready. There are multiple bugs, so even if migration should be possible, it may be halted by issues with Shopify's behavior.
UI extensionsChanges
You completed your migration and think you're set? Think again. Shopify is continuously fixing bugs and releasing new versions of their API, with the new versions not always being fully compatible with the old ones.
Lack of Support
The documentation is incomplete or even misleading due to the regular API and system changes. Shopify tutorials are outdated, the community is confused, and support from any copilot or generative AI is lacking.
No Way Back
You've completed the migration and your checkout stopped working? Perhaps you think you can revert to the old checkout version with just one click? Unfortunately, there's no turning back by default. You may request Shopify support for old checkout restoration, but they have the right to refuse….
Testing on Staging
You tested your new Checkout on staging - that’s great, but we encountered situations where staging worked perfectly, yet after migrating to production, our new customization apps simply failed to work.
PS. Need help setting up staging? We’ve got you - contact us here.
Limited Functionality
Some functionalities that were possible with Shopify Scripts are no longer available with Shopify Functions. If your e-commerce was based on these, you need a different solution.
Pic. No way back - reverting to liquid checkout once you’ve upgraded ain’t an option
Shopify Checkout Migration: Our Story
I could say that we prepared for this process thoroughly, added some of our tech magic, and helped all our clients migrate with absolutely no issues or surprises. The issue is I’d be lying.
Due to the lack of documentation and training materials, this process is challenging, particularly for the initial few checkout migrations.
We’ve learned the hard way - understanding the system's limitations, recognizing standard issues, and figuring out how to address them, as well as deciding which old functionalities to abandon.
Shopify Checkout Migration: What should you do?
If you run a Shopify development agency, just try, fail, and try again. Over time, after working on two or three stores, you will learn how to handle most of the constraints, as we did.
If you are an e-commerce manager or the CEO of a company based on an e-commerce solution, you can opt for sorting the migration in-house (and hope for the best) or partner up with experts for less hassle - in that case contact us at hello@frompolandwithdev.com for an estimate or fill out the form below.
We’ll treat your e-commerce like our own, as backed by 5.0 on Clutch & hundreds of completed projects!