Rising above the competition — Pursuing superior digital commerce in the fitness industry.
Ecommerce Success Depends on Your Website
Hampered by an ineffective user experience, Concept2 needed a new website to
Improve user experience with a modern, responsive design and clear conversion paths.
Minimize admin effort and overhead by using streamlined processes and newer technologies.
Maintain stability and security by migrating to an up-to-date, modern, supported platform.
Concept2’s new technical infrastructure is composable, and its flexible decoupled nature is future-ready and scalable, allowing them to adapt to their evolving needs.
World Class Fitness Experts
Concept2 has been the global leader in the innovation and production of rowing oars since 1976. Their oars won 98% of rowing medals at the Tokyo Olympics.
In addition to the Concept2 RowErg, which has become a fixture in rowing clubs, homes, gyms, CrossFit boxes, and schools around the world, the company’s range of sports-based ergometers now includes the SkiErg and the BikeErg.
Time for Healthy Change
The pandemic significantly changed the fitness equipment market, shutting gyms and driving more people to purchase in-home fitness equipment to reach their goals.
With retail stores and their distributor network affected by quarantine closures, it became apparent that having an updated and integrated online sales channel for their B2B and D2C customers would make a substantial difference in a changing marketplace.
Concept2’s new website would provide comprehensive information and support, reflect the company’s position as the market leader, and allow it to promote new offerings, such as ErgData, their free app for iOS and Android. Connecting these services and products through their website enhances customer experience and improves brand consistency.
Sink or Swim: The Effects of an Outdated Website
When Concept2 examined its website closely, it admitted that its current infrastructure must be updated to improve scalability and promote growth. The limitation of their current setup had the potential to impact their bottom line significantly:
Not mobile-friendly—According to Forbes, mobile commerce sales, or sales made from a smartphone, are expected to account for 62% of all retail sales by 2027. Without a mobile-friendly and responsive site, Concept2 was leaving a lot of sales on the table for competitors to snap up.
Limited content management capabilities—The cornerstone of marketing is sending the right message to the right audience at the right time. Concept2’s marketing team was handcuffed because it could not easily edit or add new content and had restricted content and visual storytelling options.
Unrefined user experience—Their current site navigation was not user-friendly, lending to a clunky shopping experience. With today’s sophisticated online shoppers and Concept2’s premium brand, upgrading the user experience is influential in maintaining their elite brand awareness.
Restricted functionality and system security—The inability to link replacement parts to machines, the lack of centralized content or codebase for subsidiary sites, and the susceptibility to server overload mean that manual labour to maintain content and the site is a constant resource issue.
In addition to these hurdles, Concept2 has subsidiaries in the UK, Australia, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Benelux. Each subsidiary would need its own version of the site, which it could customize according to its market. Thus, they needed a multi-site experience that works globally.
Building the Future One Stroke at a Time
Create a modern ecommerce website experience using a decoupled infrastructure for maximum flexibility and future scalability.
Concept2 decided the new site should be built on Drupal 10 using Drupal Commerce to achieve this. Without in-house development resources, Concept2 needed a partner agency that could handle the scope of the build and bring it to life in a quick turnaround time.
Using our decoupled accelerator, Gesso, and our agile development process, we established a communication and development cadence with Concept2’s internal team and stakeholders, ensuring full Acro Commerce support from discovery through development to launch, starting with their US site, which launched in June 2024.
Gesso, our development accelerator, made C2 a reality.
Advantages of a decoupled accelerator
Optimized reducing development time.
Control of brand across multiple sites.
Swap platforms without impacting customer experience
Reduced time-to-market for future development
The dual-core setup of Drupal Commerce and Drupal CMS is a powerful combination that empowers Concept2’s non-technical resources, such as marketers and administrators, to build and maintain an unrivalled customer experience, propelling their online presence and maintaining leadership in their industry.
