Nil Nisi Optimum (Nothing but the Best):
How Molsoft Changed the Order Management Game for Sports Excellence
“Families matter. Communities matter. And now more than ever, fun matters.”
Founded in 1950, SE is an innovative business model for a sporting goods store; they help local entrepreneurs open their own franchises and have over 200 stores across North America. They also have a robust eCommerce store. Keeping that all running smoothly though is why Molsoft was called in.
SE needed a completely new commerce ecosystem that could handle continental level logistics. This included: database migration, connecting multiple POS providers to a central hub, simplifying a complex order dispatching system, using new shipping platforms, etcetera. The goal was to holistically integrate all the digital and physical aspects of SE, ensuring synchronization across the company. The challenge extended all the way to the customer experience, with the dysfunction of the previous platform already having had a negative impact, with: slow loading times, hindered browsing, difficult product searches, and a frustrating checkout process. However, the biggest challenge of all was that this all needed to be done in nine weeks!
Molsoft had to: (1) make inventory management seamless, (2) simplify the shipping and fulfilment process, and (3) efficiently handle thousands of Stock Keeping Units, making it easy for customers to find what they are looking for and easy for SE to get it to them. The first move was to migrate them to Shopify Plus.
For the inventory management system (1), Molsoft built custom plug-ins that allowed perfect link-up between Shopify Plus and the two Point of Sale (POS) systems that were in operation (Lightspeed and ChainDrive). These integrations enabled the seamless synchronization of inventory, product information, and of the sales data between the online and offline channels. This ensured accurate stock management and a unified customer experience.
Next: simplify the shipping and fulfilment process (2). First step: implement in-store pickup as a checkout option online. This made it faster for customers to get their products when a nearby store had it in stock, and reduced the overall strain on SE logistics. Second step: update the dispatching logic to optimize the order routing process. To do this Molsoft developed custom logic that enhanced Shopify’s Order Routing feature. Step three: to simplify shipping Molsoft integrated Machool for all orders in Canada, and ShipStation for all orders in the States, streamlining the shipping system overnight. This also allowed better tracking and control over shipments, while simultaneously allowing individual stores to just see the orders from them. Final step: create a cutting-edge custom order routing feature by using a beta version of Shopify’s Order Routing feature. In collaboration with Machool, Molsoft developed this custom feature that allowed more flexible order relocation capabilities. Molsoft hit it out of the park on this front, but they were not done yet…
Down the back straight Molsoft really got into their stride by designing a completely bespoke experience for SE’s online experience. This included a custom theme that organized their huge product list in such a way that it was like having that local SE expert show you around the store. Molsoft made the data much more intuitively navigable via a site map that showcases the products customers are most likely to purchase. The interface further allowed customers to customize the equipment they need; a great example of this is the bundle option for skates, which suggests the most compatible blades that go with the customer's style of play. Features such as this significantly reduce purchase errors, saving customers and customer service invaluable time.
In business, like in sports, it’s all down to the results, and Molsoft had the performance of a lifetime! Not only because of the quality of the final result, but because they managed to pull it all off in only nine weeks (before SE’s Magento license was up). In that time Molsoft migrated SE onto the Shopify platform and integrated their entire commerce ecosystem to function seamlessly. This included data migration, custom connector development, bespoke storefront setup, and complete logistic integration; and so much more! Some of the stand-out stats from this performance were: the much faster loading times, the smoother and more enjoyable browsing experience, the reduced bounce rates, the improved conversion rates, the seamless transition of their historical products, customer information, order history, and SEO data, the granular control individual stores have over their order management (which results in less errors in the system overall and far less customer services hours spent), and these are but some of the nitty-gritty wins when you start combing over the stats.
In the long run this move will allow SE to take advantage of Shopify’s ever-improving eCommerce platform, allowing greater scalability for their business, as well as flexibility with features and performance-focused user experience enhancements. At the end of the day great players come and go, but great organizations can last forever, and with the help of Molsoft SE has guaranteed its next era of greatness.