Background

Epoch Lacrosse, a leading innovator in lacrosse equipment, had grown significantly in recent years, offering a wide range of products through multiple brands, including Wolf Athletics, Lacrosse Playground, and Synper. To scale their ecommerce operationsand provide a seamless shopping experience across their multiple brands, they sought to migrate from WooCommerce to Shopify Plus, which would provide a morerobust, scalable, and customizable platform.

TheGenieLab was selected to execute this project due to their expertise in complex ecommerce migrations and custom Shopify development.

Challenges

1. Complex Data Migration:
   Migrating from WooCommerce to Shopify Plus involved transferring large volumes of product data, customer information, and order histories. Each brand operated withunique product catalogs and bespoke templates, adding another layer of complexity to the migration.
2. Custom Multistore with a Shared Checkout:
   The key requirement was to build a multistore front to support the four distinct brands-Wolf Athletics, Epoch Lacrosse, Lacrosse Playground, andSynper-each with its own domain. However, the final checkout needed to be unified, ensuring customers could seamlessly shop across all brands and complete their purchases in a single,frictionless transaction.
3. Shared Cart Across Brands:
   To provide a cohesive shopping experience, TheGenieLab had to build a custom Shopify app that allowed for a shared cart across all brands. The brands operated ontheir own unique domains, but customers needed to be able to add products from different brands into a single cart and proceed to a unified checkout.
4. Custom Product Integration with Synoptive Product Customizer:
   Epoch Lacrosse required a bespoke feature for customizing protective gear, lacrosse heads, and shafts. The challenge herewas to integrate Synoptive, a product customization tool, into the Shopify Plus platform. This tool needed to allow customers to design and personalize their own lacrosse equipment directly on thewebsite, seamlessly integrated across all four brand stores.

Solutions

1. Data Migration & Template Implementation:
   TheGenieLab successfully handled the complex data migration by creating custom scripts that ensured accurate data transfer from WooCommerce to Shopify Plus. They also re-implemented the bespoke product templates for each brand, maintaining the unique branding and product presentation required by each store.
2. Custom Multistore Development with Shopify Plus:
   A multistore architecture was developed, allowing each brand to have its own domain while being managed under a single Shopify Plus instance. This approach provided unified back-end management while preserving the individual identities of each brand.
3. Shared Cart Custom App:
   TheGenieLab built a custom Shopify app that enabled the shared cart functionality across the different domains. This feature ensured that customers could shop from Wolf Athletics, Epoch Lacrosse, Lacrosse Playground, and Synper, add items to a single cart, and proceed through a unified checkout process. This provided a seamless, multi-brand shopping experience.
4. Synoptive Product Customizer Integration:
   TheGenieLab integrated Synoptive's product customization tool to allow customers to personalize products such as protective gear, lacrosse heads, and shafts. This custom integration ensured that the product customizer worked flawlessly across all four brand sites, enabling users to create customized items without leaving the multistore environment.

Results

• Seamless Shopping Experience:
  The unified checkout system, combined with the shared cart, resulted in a 25% reduction in cart abandonment rates, as customers no longer needed to manage separate carts for different brands.
  
• Increased Conversion Rates:
  The ability to shop across multiple brands and use a shared cart improved the overall customer experience, leading to a 30% increase in conversion rates in the first three months post-launch.
  
• Improved Operational Efficiency:
  With all four brands now managed under a single Shopify Plus account, Epoch Lacrosse's operations team experienced a 40% increase in efficiency. They could now manage products, orders, and customer service across all brands from a single platform.
• Enhanced Customization:
  The integration with the Synoptive product customizer allowed customers to create personalized lacrosse gear, boosting engagement and resulting in a 15% increase in custom product sales within the first quarter of implementation.