Marmeto Platform Integration boosts Superkicks Sales by 10%
Superkicks is a pioneering company in the connected footwear industry with over 12 reputed brands currently listed under them. Sangeet Paryani opened the Superkicks store in Mumbai, drawing inspiration from his father's enterprise; it was likely around five years ago when the establishment was first envisioned. The store features popular models, trendsetters, and modern, aesthetically pleasing designs like the Nike Air Jordan, Adidas Ultra Boost, Nike Vapormax, and many more with high quality.
Being the master franchisee and distributor in Rajasthan for some of the best sportswear brands like Adidas, Reebok, etc. the Superkicks team is continually expanding and developing worldwide with acclaimed shoe designs.
The company recently switched to Shopify Plus platform with FCFS and raffle system integration:
Here is a small brief of what FCFS and Raffle system means as the unique marketing strategy that was built for Superkicks.
FCFS means The "first-come, first-served" (FCFS) system in which the priority is given to the person or entity that arrives or makes a request first. In Shopify, FCFS refers to a setup where products are sold and fulfilled on a "first-come, first-served" basis. This means that when a customer places an order for a product in a Shopify store with FCFS system setup, the product is reserved for that customer and marked as "sold" or "out of stock" to prevent others from purchasing the same product.
And the "raffle system" refers to a method of selling products where customers purchase tickets or entries for a chance to win the opportunity to purchase a limited quantity or high-demand product. It is often used for products that are in high demand and have limited availability, such as limited edition items, exclusive releases, or highly sought-after merchandise.
Challenges
The performance and traffic handling of Superkicks, an e-commerce site that engaged in selling limited edition sneakers, had several challenges during product drops. The challenges included:
Scaling Blockers and Limited Drops
Superkicks was using an ecommerce platform, which caused scalability issues and limited their ability to handle concurrent traffic during product drops( A marketing strategy where a limited quantity of new products is released for sale at a specific time and date, often with high demand and anticipation from customers).
Additionally, the limited order confirmation capability only allowed the first 60 customers to confirm their orders, resulting in lost sales.
Bulk Uploads
Customers had trouble trying to access and buy the products they desired because of store performance issues and slowdowns brought on by the product bulk uploads. This was especially problematic because thousands(30,000) of people were competing for a limited number of pairs of shoes. This caused chaos when the products were uploaded in bulk and the demand was very strong.
Influx of Traffic
Similarly, when a product was dropped, there was frequently an increase in traffic that was too much for the website to handle. This resulted in problems like double or negative orders, when buyers believed they had successfully made a purchase only to learn later that their order had failed. The fact that consumers had to wait until a certain drop time (12 AM) further contributed to the issue because it generated a sudden spike in traffic that the store was unable to handle well, which caused delayed backend performance and checkout issues.
Inventory Sync Between the Store and the Slow Checkout System
Maintaining accurate inventory levels across the store with a very high traffic provided the checkout system was lagging. Both the systems did not sync properly. This sometimes led to out-of-stock products being displayed during the checkout process, frustrating customers and negatively impacting sales.
Solutions
Our team came up with multiple solutions to tackle the challenges faced by Superkicks and to improve their overall e-commerce capabilities. In the following sections, we will discuss solutions we proposed for each of their problems. We were able to help Superkicks optimize their online store and improve their customer experience, leading to increased sales and business growth. The solutions are:
Shopify integration with FCFS and raffle system
First we recommended that Superkicks migrate from their old ecommerce platform to Shopify. Because it is a more robust and scalable platform that can handle high traffic and process orders quickly. It also offers better inventory management tools and has a more intuitive user interface for managing products, orders, and customers. Additionally, Shopify has a large ecosystem of apps and plugins that can be easily integrated with the platform, which allows for greater customization and flexibility.
By migrating to Shopify, Superkicks would be able to streamline their operations and provide a better overall shopping experience for their customers.Subsequently, we integrated the FCFS and Raffle systems to Shopify. By doing this, Superkicks can enhance user experience while also boosting the performance and scalability of their website. Here is the explanation of what the FCFS and raffle systems are and why they were implemented for the 1st problem:
Raffle system
To solve scalability issues and limited edition drops we suggested implementing a lottery/raffle mechanism. The Raffle system is a lottery-based checkout model that allows customers to enter a draw to purchase a limited-edition product. This allowed all customers an equal chance of securing a limited-edition product, reducing the rush during product drops, and rewarding loyal customers through a Raffle system where selected customers were given priority to purchase through a specialized link shared via email.
FCFS System
To address the challenge of limited order confirmation where the supply was low and demand was high, we implemented a First Come First Serve (FCFS). The FCFS system is a checkout model that allows customers to purchase products on a first-come, first-served basis.
With the FCFS method, the sneakers were held in the cart for two minutes for the first 20-200 customers to add the product to their cart, allowing customers to purchase before it sold out and ensuring an equal opportunity to purchase limited edition sneakers. If the customer failed to complete their purchase within the given time frame, the product was released back into inventory and made available for others to purchase.
The integration with Shopify would provide Superkicks with a reliable and scalable platform to handle high volumes of traffic during product drops.
Bot protection
Next, to solve the influx of traffic issues, we added bot protection on the cart to prevent bots from adding products to the cart and interfering with the sales process. This ensured that real customers had an equal opportunity to purchase the limited edition sneakers.
Backend integrations
Lastly, a custom backend system was built to address bulk uploads and to address the issue of inventory sync between the store and the checkout system that could handle high traffic and process orders quickly.
We also used our own database to ensure that the checkout process did not rely on Shopify's database, which allowed us to optimize the checkout process and make it lightning fast. We conducted multiple load tests to make sure that the system could handle high volumes of traffic without crashing. Additionally, we optimized the website's code and image sizes to reduce load times and ensure that customers could complete their purchases quickly and efficiently.
Our custom integration seamlessly synced inventory levels across both systems. This ensured that customers would not be able to add out-of-stock products to their cart during the checkout process, which improved the customer experience and reduced cart abandonment rates.
Additionally, our waitlist feature allowed customers to stay informed about the availability of sold-out products and improved their chances of purchasing the product if it became available again. Our proposed app development would further enhance the customer experience by providing easy access to the website and a seamless shopping experience.
Overall, our solutions helped Superkicks overcome their e-commerce challenges and improve their online shopping experience for customers. .
Results
- 10% revenue rate improved after migrating to Shopify Plus
- Inventory syncing: Working flawlessly
- Store performance: Seamless with no crashes and performing well
- 10% sales and accuracy rate increased after migrating to Shopify Plus order processing and fulfillment.
- The time span earlier taken was around 1:30 hrs to complete the sale, which now is done in 10min with FCFS system (first come, first serve)
- The manual work mode increased from 6 hrs to 2 min after Shopify integration.
Conclusion
After migrating to Shopify Plus, the Superkicks team has been able to dedicate their efforts solely to brand growth and innovative footwear product experimentation.
Having faith in Shopify Plus's ability to scale regardless of how quickly Superkicks grows enabled the company to reach millions in sales, achieve a healthy revenue rate, and become one of the fastest-growing all-around footwear brands.