Modernizing Subscription Checkout and Inventory Management for Ireland's Leading Newspaper Group

The Irish Times, founded in 1859, is Ireland's leading quality newspaper and delivers news, opinion and analysis to 1,451,000 readers each week. The Irish Times Group now operates multiple brands and regional newspapers.

The Group’s online subscription process suffered from significant inefficiencies. Each of their three websites with a subscription workflow operated independently, with custom-built systems that were costly to maintain. Every single promotional landing page required a lengthy development cycle, sometimes taking months to create. They also lacked integration with their subscription management platform and needed a modern, streamlined solution for B2B and B2C subscriptions.

Centarro consolidated The Irish Times Group's subscription websites into a unified Drupal Commerce platform serving all three domains. The solution integrated seamlessly with eSuite for subscription management, enabled rapid content creation, and supported complex validation for delivery zones, student verification, and international compliance requirements.

From months to 1 hour

Reduced promotional page creation time through standardized CMS workflows.

Unified multi-domain platform

Consolidated three separate websites into one Drupal instance serving different domains with unique branding.

Deep eSuite integration

Real-time synchronization with subscription management, billing, and customer data.

Complex validation automation

Automated address validation, delivery zone checking, and student verification through third-party integrations.

Rapid delivery

Complete platform delivered in 4 months despite complex requirements.

Irish Times and Irish Examiner subscription landing pages

New component library speeds up content creation for marketers

Previously, every promotional page required a full cycle of design, rounds of approvals from multiple stakeholders, revisions, and finally custom development. A single page could take months to get published.

We helped build a component library for Drupal’s native content management and layout building tools. Marketing teams can select products from a searchable interface, customize promotional messaging, and preview results in real-time. Most importantly, they can do all of this without touching code or requiring developer intervention.

The Irish Times can now respond to market opportunities in real-time, test promotional concepts quickly, and iterate based on performance–capabilities that were impossible under the old system.

Leveraging composable commerce

Drupal Commerce is designed to be composable, so you can assemble the best tools for the job. We leveraged that adaptability to integrate multiple third-party systems:

eSuite for subscription and account management
Salesforce Marketing Cloud for email communications
Custom middleware for payment processing

These capabilities, and more, led The Irish Times to choose Drupal Commerce over Shopify Plus.

GDPR-compliant data management

The platform maintains minimal data with automatic user purging after 60 days of inactivity and order data deletion after 7 days. All customer data is sourced from eSuite in real-time, ensuring compliance while maintaining full functionality.

A better user experience for current subscribers

Subscribers can manage their accounts with a single login across all three domains. A holiday stop feature allows subscribers in Ireland to pause deliveries during certain dates to avoid having papers piled on their doorsteps during absences. Gift subscriptions purchased with the old platform still work with the new system, offering seamless backward compatibility.

Offering the right options to potential customers

The Irish Times offers both print and digital subscriptions, but physical newspapers can only be delivered to certain geographic areas. Only valid options should be shown to potential customers. The new platform validates delivery zones for print subscriptions in real time. When customers enter their postal code, the system automatically populates addresses and checks delivery availability, providing customized messaging based on delivery schedules (weekday, weekend, or no delivery available).

Three brands, one system

Each domain maintains its own theme, branding, and specific functionality while sharing core commerce and content management capabilities. Each brand maintains distinct characteristics:

Different product catalogs and pricing structures
Unique promotional strategies and landing page designs
Brand-specific checkout flows and messaging
Separate customer communication preferences
Distinct delivery zones and service areas

The unified platform eliminates the technical debt of maintaining three separate systems while reducing hosting, maintenance, and development costs. Updates and new features can be deployed across all brands simultaneously.

“Drupal Commerce proved to be an excellent and flexible choice for the Irish Times Group and Centarro were amazing implementation partners.”

Ruairi Roddy, Commercial Product Manager, Irish Times Group

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Services

Business analysis
ERP integration
Order workflow design
Drupal Commerce best practices
Solution architecture design