US Patriot Tactical

/ CASE STUDY
US Patriot Tactical — By Soldiers, For Soldiers
A move from Magento helps increase sales and 4x mobile conversion
THE BIGCOMMERCE DIFFERENCE
47%
17%
280%
100%
Increase in
Increase in
Increase in mobile
Uptime during the
online sales
conversion rate
conversion rate
2014 holiday season
"Since moving to Bigcommerce, our site is now faster, the user experience is
better and we have achieved a higher search rank — showing up as the
number one result in organic listings on Google."
— Paul Yoo, President & COO
Business goal: Boost sales and mobile conversion
With their on-premise Magento platform, US Patriot Tactical suffered weekly site outages.
Their site also slowed to a crawl when traffic spiked, and their poorly converting mobile
channel was crippling potential earnings.
Bigcommerce benefit: Outstanding user experience
and performance
Now Bigcommerce’s hosted SaaS solution provides US Patriot Tactical with 99.99%
uptime and best-in-industry site speed while eliminating on-site maintenance. Their
responsive themes help US Patriot Tactical sell more, regardless of whether shoppers are
on mobile phones, tablets or desktops.
For more information bigcommerce.com/enterprise
Challenges
Since their founding, US Patriot Tactical focused on building career-long relationships with
their military customers. Paul Yoo, President & COO, recognized that providing an
unparalleled website experience cultivates trust, so it pained him when his site went down.
“When we were on Magento, our site was down about once a week over the course of three
years. When customers see a 404 error, they lose trust and we lose the business.” He also
noticed site speed dramatically decreased when traffic or shopping activity spiked — not
the ideal experience to win long-term customers.
With 55% of site traffic generated by mobile devices, Yoo also wanted to
offer customers a better mobile experience and make on-device shopping
easier. Mobile conversion rates were underwhelming, and Yoo saw the
mobile channel as a huge opportunity to improve his bottom line.
Solutions
Moving from self-hosting to a SaaS model has proven to be the perfect solution to meet US
Patriot Tactical’s platform stability needs, providing them with outstanding uptime and
unparalleled speed. Bigcommerce’s content delivery network has server nodes all over the
world, meaning US Patriot Tactical shoppers now enjoy lightning-fast load times. Moving to
Bigcommerce also eliminated the need for in-house technical maintenance, significantly
reducing overhead. “We get a huge resource with the [Bigcommerce] support team and an
excellent platform to start from without having to pay for it all upfront,” said Yoo.
One of the first benefits US Patriot Tactical took advantage of on Bigcommerce was the
out-of-the-box mobile themes. The responsive design allows their mobile shoppers to easily
browse, add to cart and check out — instead of waiting to get back to a computer to buy.
Results
Despite a downturn in their industry, US Patriot Tactical saw a 47% increase in revenue,
29% in transactions, and 17% in products ordered since moving to Bigcommerce in 2013.
They’ve eliminated significant technology maintenance overhead, and saw a 17% increase
in conversion rate due to 30% faster site speed.
Mobile improvements also paid dividends. “On Magento, our mobile conversion rate was
around 0.5%. Since moving to Bigcommerce, it’s at 1.9%. This has been a huge
improvement for us.”
Today, US Patriot Tactical are leaders in their industry and impressively rank #637 on the
prestigious Internet Retailer Second 500 list.
For more information bigcommerce.com/enterprise