Ski-Doo Outlet

WHY Centre PowerSports and Marine is a Sauk Rapids-based ATV, Snowmobile, and outdoor sports store with a huge history of fun. They’re knee-deep in a good time, at all times. Centre PowerSports tapped Irish Titan for a portfolio of projects, working for years on a handful of their sites. We shared a long history of solid work together (maybe bonded by that mutual love of fun). However, a critical analysis of their Ski-Doo Outlet site, running on Magento 2, revealed a troubling picture. The total cost of ownership for the site had become unsustainable, drained by continuous costly upgrades and patches, without the high sales needed to justify the ongoing expenses. Facing such financial strain, Centre PowerSports reluctantly decided that they might have to shut down the site, a move that would unfortunately also result in job losses and business operations changes to preserve overall profitability. Upon hearing this, Irish Titan jumped into action. Ecommerce is a powerful driver for growth, but only when implemented right. We knew if we could replatform quickly, we could lower the total cost of ownership and put some of that money into driving marketing punch to the site. If we could reduce the total cost of ownership and right the Ski-Doo Outlet ship, maybe we could save Centre PowerSports from dramatic business changes. That’s what Business First, Online Second℠ is all about.

HOW This project started with a bang. We had to convince Centre PowerSports that saving the site was worth it. They’re ecommerce experts. They know how costly, time-consuming, and challenging replatforming can be. Eric (Owner and President of Centre PowerSports) even swore his past Magento 2 upgrade would be his last replatforming project because of these challenges. Here’s how we did it. We gave Eric a 45 day timeline. This is EXTREMELY tight for the size and scope of the replatforming they needed. This project would be fully after-hours, knowing we needed to continue to manage his other sites during normal business hours. Why 45 days? Well Black Friday and Cyber Monday were on day 55 of our timeline, the highest-grossing weekend in Eric’s highest-grossing quarter. The stakes were sky-high. If we wanted to alleviate the pressure for Centre PowerSports, we needed to launch on time and on point.

WHAT We opted for Shopify Plus for its power and speed, attracted by the platform's lower total cost of ownership. This was particularly appealing for Ski-Doo Outlet, where development, marketing, and frequent site changes had been a constant source of frustration for Eric and his team. This single change dramatically reduced the ecommerce overhead cost. Shopify’s plug-and-play app integrations would allow Ski-Doo Outlet to grow over time, another strong consideration if the site needed to right the ship. Ski-Doo added Feedonomics and ReturnZp for stronger omnichannel, customer experience, and return management. Added Feedonomic for single source tracking. They moved to Vertex for stronger tax compliance. Last, they kept Klaviyo and Attentive (which they used before) to continue to pack the marketing punch they needed to drive their site. The Irish Titan team went to the mat for Ski-Doo Outlet. We had near-daily war rooms, after-hours Zoom calls into the wee hours of the night, with members from every Titan department involved. This was truly 100% commitment from the team. 

RESULTS

Ski-Doo Outlet powered through. Even experiencing a light year of snow, they were relieved to have lower ecommerce overhead and significantly higher power for their site. Some of that savings went to additional marketing power that stabilized Ski-Doo Outlet. Black Friday Cyber Monday smashed their expected numbers, with a rise of 65% over 2022. Combined with the speed and flexibility of Shopify, they’re well set to charge into future winters with confidence. We’ll let Eric speak for himself in the letter he wrote once the Black Friday Cyber Monday dust settled: "Team - I don’t know where to start! You are amazing! 45 days ago, today Heather, Paul and I got in the car and drove down to the IT office to have a meeting. The entire way down, we talked about what we should do. I was sick about it but all I could think was I am done with eComm and I am not doing this again. Mark and I had very clear intentions when we built the Magento site, that was the last time we were going to do it.

Somehow, Somehow-Irish Titan gave me a little glimpse of hope. We left there that day and talked the entire way home what this would look like. If we didn’t do this, what employees were going to be out of a job? How was the business going to change? I talked with Mark the next week and we decided we needed to give this a try…….. remember- Magento was going to be the last one. Today we launched what I would say is the most kick ass site we have ever had. It looks and feels better than anything else. The best part is I keep being told that we are just getting it operational for now and we will really get it doing some great stuff as we move forward.

How can this happen? It happens because of team members who truly care about their teammates. This is not about clients; this is about teammates. You have proven to me that you don’t just like what you do every day, but you care about what you do every day. You care about the people you work with, not just inside the walls of the IT office, but the people that are on the other side of that Zoom meeting. That doesn’t happen on accident, that happens from leadership building a culture where people enjoy working and want to shine. Darin, Anna & team have done an amazing job of that, and it truly shows!!

Truly from the bottom of our hearts- THANK YOU!! You will never know how much it means to us! Much appreciation!"

Eric, Heather & Ben