Olympia Sports
Stepping Into the Online Game
Industry
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National sporting goods retailer Olympia Sports offers premium athletic specialty brands for the entire family. Their superior service and cutting-edge assortment is what keeps them ahead.
Equipping customers with apparel and sports equipment since 1975, sporting goods retailer Olympia Sports knows how much competitive advantages matter. Stepping back into the ecommerce game after an absence of five years, choosing the most modern and flexible platform was a must in order for the company to not only outperform their competition today, but for years to come.
While evaluating several ecommerce platforms, the privately-owned retailer searched for one that could help them easily replicate the feeling that their 200-plus brick and mortar locations were known for, without creative or technical restrictions. From the start, Olympia Sports was only considering cloud-based solutions where scalability is a non-issue, and tech operations and hosting are handled by the ecommerce platform provider.
Aware of all the ecommerce strategies and tools that must work together in harmony (mobile-first, content management, A/B testing, on-site search, analytics, SEO, unmatched customer service), the limitations of disparate systems quickly presented themselves. The same goes for the bulk of SaaS cloud-based platforms where “simple updates” are never simple, and a reliance on an IT department can cause delays and loss in revenue.
After seeing firsthand the omnichannel capabilities, progressive functionality, control, scalability, and built-in flexibility of Workarea, Olympia Sports found their online teammate.
“Ultimately, we went with Workarea because the admin's the easiest to use. It is straightforward and understandable.”
Rachael Gelowtski
Director MIS & Ecommerce Olympia Sports
A home run experience for every user.
Exceeding customer expectations at brick and mortar stores is something Olympia Sports has mastered in a retail category riddled with bankruptcies, turmoil, and acquisitions. Armed with decades of in-store knowledge, Olympia Sports wanted to bring their unrivaled understanding of customers to the online realm, regardless of how they interacted with their new site.
Like most retailer’s sites, more than half of Olympia Sports’ online traffic stems from mobile users. Through the native responsive design within Workarea, Olympia Sports is seeing mobile conversion rates improve month after month since customers now experience a compelling site that adapts to any screen size. Additionally, average mobile shopping time on site has increased. By avoiding the redundancies that come from managing multiple instances when using an m.dot site, Olympia Sports’ ecommerce team is freed up to focus on tasks that improve the total customer experience and drive revenue.
At the top of that list is giving OlympiaSports.net shoppers a worthwhile search experience. Since search users can convert at 50 to 80% higher rates than non-search users, Olympia Sports chose the powerful search tool in Workarea to quickly show the products users are seeking. Site visitors are provided with autocomplete suggestions, filters based on refinements of size/color, and sorting through popularity, price, and highest rated products.
The exclusive Learning Search tool within Workarea constantly improves the shopping experience by collecting automatic feedback from users’ search queries and navigation. This native feature in the platform works to understand what’s most relevant based on a shopper’s intent.
The freedom to stand apart from major competitors.
Like many online merchants carrying third-party products, Olympia Sports goes head-to-head with major retailers and brands. Although this has its challenges, nothing could be more familiar to their team.
To stand out over the last 42 years, Olympia Sports’ lean marketing department has become intimately aware of how brand authenticity and content plays a role in capturing customers. They know the power of individual brand expression through high-quality lifestyle and product photography that resonates with customers. While Olympia Sports is reliant on manufacturers such as Nike and Adidas for eye-catching images, their ecommerce team is responsible for marketing products in ways that sets the company’s site apart.
Using the built-in content management system within Workarea, Olympia Sports has the creative freedom needed to easily create seasonal campaigns, spin up new categories, swap responsive content blocks, manage page titles, and quickly add or remove media all while boosting SEO. Also at their fingertips is total control of navigational elements including which categories are featured. Having zero restrictions, true back-end freedom, and not being held back by dull design templates were prerequisites to Olympia Sports’ search in a commerce platform partner.
“The flexibility to schedule releases was huge for us. Being able to set things up in advance on a calendar that everyone could see, that is a unique feature of Workarea that we didn't see in other ecommerce platforms.”
Rachael Gelowtski
Director MIS & Ecommerce Olympia Sports
Customer-centricity 365 days a year.
Translating the high level of customer service found in stores, Olympia Sports made sure that the focal point of its new ecommerce site was its customers. In an effort to elevate every on-site touchpoint, dedicated customers can access the company’s loyalty program, Edge Rewards, online for the first time. After logging in, reward points, aggressive coupon offers, new products, and order statuses are seen. Also brand new is Olympia Sports’ ability to sell e-gift certificates and allow them to be redeemed in-store or online, on top of customers being able to email them directly to a recipient. Utilizing the flexible rules-based discount engine in Workarea, in-store discounts are now reflected on the site and the Olympia Sports team is configuring and launching promotions such as buy-one-get-one-free offers faster than ever. Finding ways to make I-want-to-buy moments happen more frequently for online shoppers is only getting easier for Olympia Sports since they relaunched their site.
Peace of mind through automation.
To get ahead of promotions or comprehensive site updates/changes (i.e., site navigation)—and avoid staying awake until midnight—Olympia Sports leverages the Site Planner tool within Workarea. By enabling their team to plan, preview and publish changes to content, categories, products and more, Olympia Sports has saved time and collaboration has exceeded expectations.
The ecommerce team is no longer stuck planning for a group of changes to be scheduled as part of an upcoming code release. Automating tasks whenever possible, Olympia Sports is maximizing their workdays thanks to the intuitive functionality Workarea offers.
