Mountaineer World is a family-owned retail store and e-commerce website that offers an extensive selection of officially licensed WVU merchandise.
- Company: Mountaineer World
- Problem: They needed assistance switching to the Shopify platform in time for football season, and they were having issues with organic traffic and sales
- Solution: Take over and complete the Shopify integration, reconfigure Google Analytics, address SEO to improve organic traffic, and create a user-friendly website design
- Improvements: E-commerce platform, SEO, user interface, and Google Analytics tracking
- Tools Used: Shopify, Asana, Google Analytics
Problem
After years of trying to work within the limitations of their POS platform and its associated vendors, Mountaineer World decided it was time to make an upgrade. The company identified Shopify as its ideal platform and found an integration that worked with their existing POS system. However, the Mountaineer World team soon found that implementing and launching a Shopify-based website before football season was beyond their capabilities.
Additionally, Mountaineer World’s Google Analytics had broken, organic traffic had collapsed, and the e-commerce website was not generating orders.
PIC Services
As a former client, Mountaineer World was familiar with PIC’s extensive inbound marketing services and knew our team could help deliver the solutions they needed. In addition to the e-commerce website development services necessary to complete the Shopify integration, PIC also needed to account for the tracking, traffic, and sales issues the client was facing. Ultimately, the services PIC rendered included SEO, SEM setup and management, website training, and social media marketing and ads management.
Since Mountaineer World’s busiest season is in the fall, they don’t require the full might of PIC’s marketing services throughout the rest of the year. The flexibility to adjust services as necessary is one of the pillars of PIC’s Walk With You Marketing approach as well as a major reason clients like Mountaineer World return when the situation calls for it.
Solution
PIC has extensive e-commerce experience and an intimate understanding of Shopify, so our web development team quickly stepped in to handle the switch to the new platform. This process included a theme optimized for e-commerce, an eye-catching but simple design, and the addition of several apps from the Shopify marketplace. These updates improved the website’s load times, user experience, and search and product sorting functionalities.
Simultaneously, members of the PIC team tackled other problems Mountaineer World was experiencing. First and foremost, Google Analytics was reconnected so goals could be set up and KPIs could be addressed. The PIC team then reviewed and optimized the site architecture and all product collections for SEO.
PIC was able to complete the project ahead of the WVU football season, which is the busiest time of the year for Mountaineer World. PIC continued to assist Mountaineer World throughout the following months with Facebook and Google ad campaigns.
Mountaineer World is positioned to build on the successes of this solution in upcoming seasons, and their team has been trained to manage their new website.
Results
This project has proven to be a success for Mountaineer World, with their new website outperforming benchmarks set prior to the onset of their Google Analytics troubles:
- Users went up 12.5%
- Sessions went up 20%
- Transactions went up 360%
- Revenue went up 313%
Working with Jeff and his staff to cultivate a new and improved webpage was a task easily completed. Their ability to use technology to communicate what needs done on your end personally as well as the progress they have made leaves your mind at ease. Not only will they complete your project on time, they will blow past your desired expectations and create something that will stand the test of time in a tech driven age.
Tyler Pinti
