How Shoe Retailer Shoebacca Chose to ‘Step Up’ Their eCommerce Game
By, Christopher Knapp, VP of Global Strategic Alliances at Visionet
Visionet helped Shoebacca to revamp their online shopping experience with a mobile-first approach and Adobe Magento technologies to achieve record-breaking overall site traffic and conversion rates during the peak of holiday season.
At the turn of the millennium, Marc and Robert Schlachter were selling used athletic shoes at local markets in Texas. The community-minded brothers were also shipping truckloads of shoes to third-world countries. This passion for sneakers and charity work became the inspiration for SHOEBACCA.com, a shoe retailer and community outreach program. Officially formed in 2002, SHOEBACCA extended its reach by becoming a reseller on eBay, then launched a full-scale eCommerce website in the spring of 2007. Through word of mouth, the store quickly became a leader in the online footwear retail market. Today, SHOEBACCA.com boasts a sprawling headquarters and a 250,000 square-foot warehouse in Irving, Texas, where they stock over 25,000 styles of shoes, accessories, and athletic gear — all at competitive prices.
With its increased popularity, the needs of SHOEBACCA.COM customers changed. The company offered an expanded line of products, and started to look beyond eBay and their website. They focused on growth through innovative technologies, competitive shipping processes, and professional customer service. With over 700,000 SKUs in their system, SHOEBACCA.COM needed to streamline their inventory data by organizing and simplifying their structure. They needed to optimize their merchandising while handling a massive product catalog, and they needed to connect to multiple marketplaces. Their customers love to shop at Amazon, eBay, Rakutan, and the Walmart website, so that’s where they needed to sell. SHOEBACCA.COM decided to create an eCommerce system that could scale their growth, integrate their current systems, and sell customers the perfect sneaker wherever they start their journey.
“Magento was a key factor in our x15 revenue growth in just three years.” -Thomas Finney, CTO, SHOEBACCA
Selling shoes to everyone, everywhere
SHOEBACCA.com had grown their business on the Magento platform since October 2016. In November 2017 they migrated from Magento Open Source to Magento Commerce 2.1. The upgrade allowed them to handle the large data processing required for their massive product catalog, including new fashion seasons and new sneaker designs. It empowered them to capitalize on that huge data to drive eCommerce growth, by connecting the backend with multiple marketplaces and drop-ship service providers. By offering their shoes and accessories for sale on multiple channels, including eBay and Amazon, they can now reach their customers wherever they prefer to shop.
Magento Commerce 2 also provided a wide range of other features, including an improved interface to tightly integrate their back-office systems. The new site created a single eCommerce platform on which SHOEBACCA can manage their whole operation, including inventory, pricing, shipping, CRM, and managing sales from those multiple marketplaces. “Magento also gave us a completely responsive design that displays an optimized depiction of our brand on almost any mobile device,” said Thomas Finney, CTO of SHOEBACCA.com.
“We wanted a fully integrated solution that could handle our eCommerce needs across multiple sales channels, a warehouse management system, and finance — one that could also handle a high degree of customization,” said Finney. “It also needed to scale and be flexible to meet our needs as we kept growing.” They pulled this off by integrating Magento with Acumatica Cloud ERP, while seamlessly connecting with third party drop-ship solution providers. Magento not only increased the visibility of their products across all channels, it simplified their massive product catalog data and improved the user experience.
Walking on air
As you read this article, more than 250 SHOEBACCA.COM orders are being processed. Following their optimization with Amazon, they received 1,800 orders in the first day alone. “Through improved customer relationship management, planning processes, and integration of all its systems, SHOEBACCA.COM put itself in a prime position to succeed,” said Finney. Magento made the SHOEBACCA experience smoother for customers and for the company, while increasing sales and traffic by 25 percent. They enjoyed smaller customer acquisition costs, and a 30 percent increase in sales from the marketplace. This proved how smart marketing put their brand in front of those who are looking for their product, in this case the latest Adidas and Nike styles.
The improved marketplace visibility resulted in a 30 percent increase in sales from those channels, while SHOEBACCA.com’s new website has shown noticeable improvements in customer browsing and purchasing behavior. In the first week after launch, their average order value increased by an impressive 50 percent and average visit duration increased by 31 percent. As online sales and traffic rose by 25 percent, SHOEBACCA saw their entire business skyrocket. More customers were arriving, staying longer, buying more, and most importantly, spending more. In the last three years, their total sales have increased a staggering 1,400 percent.
Modernize YOUR eCommerce business with Visionet & Adobe Magento
So how do I make this all this work? Modern Commerce and PWA platforms from leading cloud providers such as Adobe Magento are increasingly being adopted by businesses worldwide to manage their orders better and satisfy customers all while maintaining profit margins.
Visionet helped Shoebacca build a revamped mobile-first eCommerce experience emphasizing on navigation, search, and product details.
Leveraging Magento’s PWA Studio on top of Magento Commerce, Visionet enabled a seamless, native app-like experience with optimized speed and lesser data constraints.
Fact Sheet — PWA Characteristics:
- Offline Access: PWAs work even if a device loses its Internet connection, so your customers will no longer have their experience interrupted by spotty WiFi.
- User Experience: By accessing hardware directly and using native interfaces, PWAs provide a more responsive user experience, improving user engagement with features like push notifications.
- Installability: PWAs can be accessed through a web browser, eliminating download times while providing users with the option of accessing the app directly on their device.
- Security: PWAs pass network requests through service workers, minimizing their interactions with the internet.
- Discoverability: PWAs can be accessed and used right from a link in a search engine or on social media, exposing them to far more potential users than a visit to even the most popular app store.
Cross-Browser Compatibility: PWAs work across all modern browsers, including Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari.
Along with leveraging PWA, the UX improvements, critical issues of high bounce rate and low conversion were also addressed and the store was integrated with the necessary analytical and behavioral toolset consisting of Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and more.
Conclusion
Visionet’s combination of strong partnership with Adobe and digital commerce expertise helped Shoebacca achieve record-breaking site traffic and conversion rate during peak holiday season for events like Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday.
If you wish to run a successful business in 2021 and beyond, the latest eCommerce trends are an imperative. Design your strategies around Mobile, Omnichannel, Voice, AR/AI, etc.
Stepping up your eCommerce game into Summer 2021 is a must. If you want to be a part of it, get in touch with our eCommerce experts at Visionet today.