Case Study: One Way Lease

Overview

Client: One Way Lease, Inc. https://onewaylease.com

Industry: Shipping Container Sales, Leasing, and Customization

Services Provided by Astrabrand:

Complete Website Redesign and Development (React)
Brand Modernization
Inventory System Integration & Automation
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Digital Marketing Strategy
Tradeshow Support - Print Design

Challenge

One Way Lease, a significant player in the shipping container sales and leasing market, was operating with an outdated online presence that hindered their ability to compete effectively and manage operations efficiently. Their existing WordPress website suffered from critical limitations:

Outdated Aesthetics and Poor User Experience: The website's design was visually unappealing and failed to convey a modern, professional brand image. Crucially, the inventory display, central to their business, was a static list devoid of filtering, sorting, or faceted search capabilities, making it frustrating for some customers to navigate their catalog.
Inefficient, Manual Inventory Management: The process of updating website inventory was entirely manual, involving exporting data from their enterprise database, formatting it, and then importing it into a WordPress plugin. This was a time-consuming bottleneck prone to delays.
Technical Instability and Limitations: The existing WordPress site had technical issues, including unreliable contact form submissions via Constant Contact and a lack of a CAPTCHA to prevent spam submissions, necessitating urgent temporary fixes. The underlying architecture limited flexibility and performance.
Undifferentiated Value Proposition: The website did not adequately showcase One Way Lease's distinct advantages, such as their container customization and refurbishment services, factory-direct sales model, or the crucial value of their reliable US-based team.
Ineffective Marketing Enablement: The website lacked features to support modern marketing initiatives, including limited integration for lead capture and an inability to easily present educational content like container grade explanations or common modifications to attract and inform potential clients.

Solution

Recognizing the fundamental limitations of the existing platform, Astrabrand recommended and implemented a comprehensive digital transformation centered around building a completely new, custom-developed website using the React framework. While immediate, temporary fixes were applied to the old WordPress site (like addressing the Constant Contact issue and adding a CAPTCHA) to maintain basic functionality in the short term, the core solution focused on creating a robust, scalable, and high-performance platform from the ground up.

The React-based solution provided by Astrabrand delivered:

Modern Brand Identity and Superior User Experience: A complete brand refresh was executed, bringing a fresh, professional aesthetic to One Way Lease. The new React website architecture allowed for the creation of a dynamic, intuitive user interface. The centerpiece was a re-envisioned inventory system featuring a sophisticated faceted search, robust filtering options, and both list and grid views with thumbnails, drastically improving how customers find and explore containers.
Automated Inventory Management & Scalability: The new platform was engineered to facilitate the automation of the inventory update process, integrating seamlessly with the enterprise database. The React framework provides the flexibility needed to build custom integrations and scale the system as One Way Lease's business grows.
Technical Excellence and Performance: Building on React allowed for a highly optimized website structure, leading to significantly faster load times, smoother interactions, and inherent technical stability. The platform was developed with modern SEO best practices in mind from the outset.
Highlighting Value-Added Services: The new site architecture provided the versatility to prominently feature and clearly explain One Way Lease's key differentiators, including detailed sections on container customization, refurbishment, delivery, and paint options. Content emphasizing their US-based operations and factory-direct model was woven throughout the user journey.
Integrated Marketing Capabilities: The React platform facilitated the creation of dedicated landing pages (such as the NPSA tradeshow page), seamlessly integrated lead generation forms (like the one for the RAL color poster lead magnet), and provided a flexible structure for publishing educational content (container grades, modifications) designed to attract traffic and position One Way Lease as an industry authority.

Implementation & Key Deliverables

The project involved a strategic shift from patching the old system to building a new one:

Initial urgent fixes were applied to the existing WordPress site (Constant Contact form repair, CAPTCHA implementation) as a temporary measure.
Comprehensive planning and design for the new React-based website, including wireframing and UI/UX design focused on the inventory experience.
Development of the custom React front-end and supporting back-end infrastructure.
Building the advanced inventory filtering and display system within the new platform.
Migrating and restructuring existing content and developing new content focused on value-added services and brand messaging.
Implementing technical SEO best practices directly into the React development process.
Creating and integrating specific marketing assets, including the NPSA tradeshow landing page and the RAL color poster lead magnet form.
Setting up robust analytics (Google Analytics, Google Search Console) on the new platform for accurate performance tracking.
Investigating the enterprise database structure to implement the automation of inventory updates.
Coordinating the launch of the new React site and new branding to align with key business activities, such as the NPSA tradeshow.

Results

The development and launch of the new React-based website, modernized branding, and messaging by Astrabrand delivered transformative results for One Way Lease:

Radical Improvement in User Experience: The intuitive design and powerful faceted inventory search capabilities fundamentally changed how customers interacted with the site, making it easy to find exactly what they needed, leading to higher engagement and satisfaction.
Significantly Enhanced SEO Performance: The clean code, fast loading times, and technical flexibility of the React platform, combined with targeted content, provided a strong foundation for improved search engine rankings and organic visibility. This was a substantial upgrade from the limitations of the old WordPress site.
Modernized and Strengthened Brand: The new design successfully repositioned One Way Lease as a modern, professional, and reliable leader in the industry.
Streamlined Operations Potential: The architectural shift to React laid the essential groundwork for automating the inventory update process, promising significant future efficiency gains and customer satisfaction by reducing reliance on manual data entry.
Effective Marketing Enablement: The integrated landing pages and lead forms successfully captured high-quality leads, particularly from valuable events like the NPSA tradeshow, directly supporting One Way Lease's sales efforts.
Versatility for Future Growth: The decision to build on React provides One Way Lease with a scalable and flexible platform capable of adapting to future business needs, integrations, and digital marketing initiatives.

Conclusion

By identifying the inherent limitations of One Way Lease's existing digital presence and recommending a complete rebuild on the versatile and performant React framework, Astrabrand delivered a solution that went far beyond a simple aesthetic update. The new website not only modernized the brand and dramatically improved the user experience, particularly for critical inventory browsing, but also provided a technically superior platform capable of supporting future automation and driving enhanced SEO value. This case study highlights Astrabrand's capability to diagnose core digital challenges and implement advanced, future-proof solutions that deliver significant operational and marketing advantages for our clients.