SportHill Places Emphasis on Digital Commerce Strategy and Operations
SportHill (www.sporthill.com) designs and manufactures performance athletic apparel for Olympic athletes, collegiate teams, and adventurers worldwide.
Jim Hill, president of SportHill, launched the companies’ first online catalog in the early 90’s and is no stranger to mail order operations and internet sales. In late 2014, Mr. Hill recognized that it was time to modernize all aspects of SportHill’s digital commerce programs in order to stay up-to-date with technology and industry trends.
Moving E-Commerce to the Forefront
SportHill is known for its high-end athletic apparel, but its website hadn’t kept pace with rapidly changing best practices for e-commerce. After placing an order, customers were not receiving tracking numbers or notification that their products had shipped. Checkout pages were not fully integrated into the website. Customers reported confusion because the shopping experience spanned three separate domain names.
Since SportHill’s website was not optimized for mobile, the company was missing out on a major chunk of business. According to ComScore data, consumers are increasingly turning to tablets and smartphones to complete their online purchases—in fact, more than half of all time spent shopping online happens via mobile devices. And in 2013, Custora reported that more than one-third of all “Black Friday” holiday purchases were made on mobile devices. In order for its business to thrive online, SportHill required a complete website overhaul.
SportHill engaged OpenMedium to deploy a mobile-ready e-commerce site, an integrated shipping manager, and robust reporting tools. In addition, OpenMedium helped craft a digital marketing strategy to drive more business to the SportHill website.
OpenMedium began by streamlining the SportHill website and bringing all e-commerce activities together under a consistent URL. OpenMedium used the Big Commerce platform to develop an easy-to-navigate online shopping experience that was stable and secure. In addition, OpenMedium implemented Ordoro’s shipping management solution, which improved SportHill’s efficiency by allowing shipping team members to process and ship orders and send out customer tracking numbers all from one system.
Converting Leads to Sales
To drive more traffic to the SportHill site, OpenMedium shifted marketing dollars away from traditional channels, such as print advertising, into digital advertising channels. In fact, OpenMedium created a complete digital marketing strategy, with emphasis on SEM, retargeting, and social media. OpenMedium also developed an email marketing strategy built on the MailChimp platform.
But getting customers to engage with SportHill online was only half the battle. Prior to working with OpenMedium, SportHill had no way to track leads that were generated from its website and no insight into online customer behavior.
OpenMedium implemented Zoho CRM to give SportHill sales reps a way to capture inbound leads and track leads throughout the entire sales pipeline. Google Analytics and webmaster tools have been essential in refining the SportHill website and optimizing landing and lead capture pages.
Improved Customer Experience Leads to Increase in Sales
Since the launch of SportHill’s new and improved e-commerce site, direct-to-consumer sales have increased by 32 percent. And over Memorial Day weekend, SportHill saw an astounding 586 percent increase in sales compared to the previous year. The Memorial Day weekend sales numbers outpaced sales from SportHill’s previous biggest sales weekend by 88 percent.
Customer satisfaction has improved, as well. Customers are writing more five-star reviews about SportHill’s bestselling products. And instead of abandoning their sales carts, customers are completing more sales than ever.
Transformation Results
- Increased online B2C sales
- Improved customer satisfaction
- Enhanced B2B lead-tracking abilities
Technology Integrations
- Bigcommerce
- PayPal PayFlow Pro
- Google Analytics
- Google Webmaster Tools
OpenMedium’s Services
- Digital commerce planning and strategy
- Technology implementation services
- Advertising campaign management
Digital Advertising Systems
- Google AdWords
- AdRoll
- Facebook Ads
In the Client’s Words
“We recently contracted with OpenMedium to re-launch the SportHill website and to start a new web marketing campaign. OpenMedium delivered an excellent new website on time and within budget. Since the site’s implementation on May 1, 2015, in conjunction with other digital marketing efforts recommended by OpenMedium, our direct-to-consumer sales are up 32 percent over the same time period in 2014.”
—Jim Hill, President, SportHill Inc.
