Jumpstarting online sales: Acon expands internationally with new ecommerce store
Acon, a Finland-based heritage sports brand, expanded internationally and grew its sales by 160% in two years by reinvigorating its online storefront.
Case Acon
The Challenge
Known throughout Finland as a premium manufacturer of premium trampolines, Acon’s growth was limited by its legacy online store. Their PIM couldn’t keep up with the complexity of their product offering or their need for multiple languages. Modifying the online store was complex, and their customer journey wasn’t supporting sales.
Acon identified three issues. Their existing ecommerce solution couldn’t keep up with the highly customized product offering and multiple data sources, while time-consuming development processes with previous ecommerce agencies hindered their ability to respond to changes in the market on time and within budget. Finally, their outdated Shopify theme was slow to perform, expensive to develop, and lacked crucial features for international growth.
The Solution
IONA helped the 30-year-old sport and leisure brand grow its business from 6.9 to 18 million euros in two years with a new Product Information Management (PIM) solution and Shopify storefront that enabled them to customize their offering across international markets.
Product complexity was one of Acon’s biggest challenges. Trampolines are sold together with safety equipment and related products. The additional need for multiple languages and markets made it essential to build an ecommerce platform to support this complexity. IONA helped Acon by updating its Shopify ecosystem to include custom features, integrations, and extensions - including a new PIM system that could handle product complexities.
After a total revamp of their online store, IONA helped their team redesign the roles and responsibilities of development using a Spring-Agile process, and created a documentation process to give Acon ownership of the backlog in the future.
The Results
Acon has grown its revenue by 160% in just two years. The new online store has reduced the time-to-market to new regions, increased the value of transactions thanks to customized product bundles, and improved conversions with more intuitive customer journeys. By returning the reigns of development work back to their internal team, IONA delivered a solution that required less manual maintenance and gave Acon opportunity to grow.
