GORUCK was frustrated with the NOPCommerce platform on Amazon Cloud. While highly customized, it wasn’t what the outdoor gear retailer needed. At a 10-second average, page loads were painfully slow, and servers struggled to load new events, which resulted in high abandonment rates.
The GORUCK mobile experience was rocky. A quick-fix solution — replacing the event map with an event list to cut back on load times — actually reduced usability and frustrated customers. Finally, everything on the site was hard-coded, meaning that every change — no matter how small — required the intervention of an IT resource.
GORUCK needed a stable and proven e-Commerce platform that would reduce time spent troubleshooting and maintaining the site. The retailer also needed an open and flexible platform that would allow it to seamlessly integrate events, like the GORUCK x Ingress competition, into the site.
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“We knew that our existing solution was holding us back,” said Andy Nelson, Content Director for GORUCK. “So there was not a question as to if we needed to switch, it was really just a question of who do we replatform to?”
Rapid Improvement In Key Metrics
After considering options and going through a diligent evaluation process, GORUCK chose Mozu in early 2014, when Mozu had only been in the market for four months. GORUCK’s developers took the time to sit down with Mozu CTO Jason Wallis to understand better the way that Mozu was architected and how that would drive their site to better speed and performance. The results were almost immediate: within the first few weeks GORUCK saw:
- A 48% increase in online revenue;
- 65% increase in conversion from mobile;
- 50% increase in content management productivity; and
- 3x faster page load time
“We did expect to see an improvement in our business as a result of selecting Mozu, but were pleasantly surprised to see them very quickly,” Nelson said.
GORUCK’s decision makers knew that Mozu possessed the flexibility that would allow their business users reliable access, and the ability to optimize the site for any device. The Mozu API would help them integrate events in a sustainable and extensible way. By implementing an event management widget, GORUCK’s marketing team could finally manipulate the site without IT resources.
“The result of the diligence was a tool that lowers time spent managing events by 50% and increases the visibility and flexibility of the event content on the site,” said Mike Haze, VP Product Strategy and Solutions for Mozu.
With Mozu, GORUCK could produce a customizable mobile shopping experience boasting rapid load times. To dramatically reduce page load times, GORUCK utilized Mozu’s multi-tenant SaaS approach, citing its scalability and performance optics. The retailer now had a consistent shopping journey from mobile to desktop, along with:
- Ability to integrate events in a sustainable and extensible way;
- Optimization of the site for any device; and
- Flexibility that provided business users with reliable access.
GORUCK is planning to expand into international markets, particularly around events, to continue growing its business, and suggests that any retailers looking to change platforms should plan well and avoid cutting corners.
“Replatforming is a big undertaking, so it’s important to take time to properly implement enhancements to the platform that set you apart from the competition,” said Nelson. “A great digital customer experience is key to growing your business.”
