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Navage Nasal Care
RhinoSystems, Inc. manufactures and distributes Naväge Nasal Care, a saline nasal irrigator that relieves nasal congestion with gentle powered suction. The company sells its products at retail stores throughout the United States and Canada, on Amazon, and on its own online store.
The company was sold in a private equity deal in 2023 and the new owners made the decision to migrate the online store from BigCommerce to Shopify. Ezra Firestone, one of the investors, explains that one of the major factors in the decision was Shopify’s superior checkout experience.
“Our BigCommerce checkout was falling behind, lacking the modern customization and app support needed for today’s ecommerce landscape.”
Shopify makes it easier and faster for customers to purchase products with one-page checkout, accelerated checkout options such as Shop Pay and Apple Pay, and checkout extensibility for easily integrating apps for upselling and cross-selling.
Another factor in the decision to migrate to Shopify was how intuitive and user-friendly the platform is, making it easier to make changes to the site.
“A lot of our BigCommerce site was custom coded and so it made things a little bit more difficult to make updates or changes.”
We had done several BigCommerce-to-Shopify migrations before and had previously worked with Ezra and his portfolio of ecommerce businesses, so we were brought on to help migrate the Naväge online store to Shopify.
Migrating a large, international online store with active subscriptions from BigCommerce to Shopify
To migrate the Naväge online store from BigCommerce to Shopify, we built a customized theme, set up a Canadian site in addition to the U.S. one, and migrated the site content, customer and order data, and active subscriptions.
There was a strong desire to keep the existing layout and branded content, so in developing the custom theme, we aimed to replicate the site’s content and branding almost exactly while implementing some strategic design improvements along the way, such as a new product form and an improved FAQ template.
Internationalization adds a layer of complexity when it comes to migrating platforms. We used Shopify Markets to set up the Canadian site. We used Shopify Translate & Adapt to do an automated translation of the site’s content into French. The native French speaker RhinoSystems, Inc. brought in to review and edit the translation for accuracy was very impressed with the translation and only had to provide minor corrections. We implemented Shopify Geolocation to automatically redirect customers from the U.S. and Canada to the correct site.
Another factor that can make store migrations more complicated is a subscription program. To minimize any issues in migrating Naväge’s active subscriptions, we found and vetted a Shopify subscriptions app vendor — Loop. We styled the subscription form and coordinated with the Loop team as they took care of the subscription payment migration. We were so impressed with how their team handled the migration that Loop is now our go-to vendor for subscriptions.
Migrating platforms can stir up worries about losing search traffic, even if it’s just for a short while. To mitigate the impact on SEO, we worked very closely with the stellar Gert Mellak and his SEOLeverage agency. They did ongoing SEO audits of our work and we implemented all of their recommendations. The goal was to keep content alterations to a bare minimum. In addition to taking care of the usual basic measures of redirecting URLs, scanning for broken links, and moving all existing content, we went a step further and duplicated the page titles, meta descriptions and H1 tags. We also made sure all internal links were set up properly so that Shopify’s CMS can do its best work. By taking these steps, we minimized the differences search engines would notice, lessening any temporary decline in organic search traffic.
We imported Naväge’s more than 10 years of customer and order data using Matrixify. We implemented Stamped Product Reviews & UGC to import past customer reviews and continue to collect and display new ones. To get customers to activate their accounts on the new store, we used Shopify’s Bulk Account Inviter. We also implemented Shopify Flow to streamline operations through automations, Matrixify for ongoing bulk catalog updates, and Better Reports to create the custom reports the company needed.
“I think overall Ethercycle did a great job. They duplicated the site, they were able to move everything, they got all the apps in order, and they made sure everything was running as smoothly as possible. They had communications with several different teams, making sure everything was connected and connected right."
Increased conversion rates, greater ease in running successful Black Friday promotions
The new site went live in October 2023. Switching to Shopify had a positive effect within the first few months of launching, says Ezra.
“After revamping our site and checkout process, we saw a remarkable 15% increase in conversion rates, proving the power of a streamlined checkout experience. A shoutout to Ethercycle for their exceptional support and technical expertise. They’re truly best in class, transforming our online store into a seamless shopping destination.”
The company had its best Black Friday performance ever in 2023, both on Amazon and the online store. Jacqueline says the work we did together made it easier to run Black Friday promotions.
“With Ethercycle’s help, we were able to get apps that changed all the prices to 30% off and added a gift to the cart when someone purchased a certain thing. We didn’t have custom code anymore, so switching themes was pretty easy because all you had to do was insert one of those blocks with an image instead of having to be worried about all the code involved or if it was going to mess something else up. It was also nice because you could have it switch at a scheduled time, instead of us having to manually switch it at a specific time.”
We have continued to work with the company in the months since the launch, providing day-to-day operations support such as helping implement promotional campaigns, conducting testing, and installing new apps.
“We have great support with Ethercycle. It’s stuff that we can’t figure out ourselves and need competent people on our side to research and also implement. We just had something come up where we wanted to do a conversion A/B test and we’ve been getting help from Ethercycle on what we can use, how we can do it, and what kind of apps we would need to install.”
OUR WORK TOGETHER
Ethercycle helped RhinoSystems, Inc.:
- Move the Naväge Nasal Care online store from BigCommerce to Shopify, allowing for a modernization and streamlining of the checkout, which helped achieve a 15% increase in conversion rates.
- Build a customized Shopify theme that replicated the site’s design.
- Migrate site content, 10+ years of customer and order data, and active subscriptions.
- Set up a Canadian international site.
- Implement SEO audit recommendations with a meticulous attention to detail to minimize the impact of store migration on organic search traffic.
- Make it easier to run Black Friday promotions.
- Implement promotional campaigns, conduct testing, and install new apps with post-launch ongoing support.