Casey’s Distributing Sees 8X Increase in Productivity

The Casey's Distributing success story

An ecommerce veteran of 15 years, Ben Johnson has trained countless brands on how to use the web to grow sales. His expertise has been sought out by the likes of NBC, CBS and ABC to explain the backend of business to a larger audience.

In 2014, that same expertise had one of North America’s largest sports novelties distributors — Casey’s Distributing — seeking out his advice and GSD attitude. After landing the deal, his KPI was to reduce website costs and increase business revenue for the 27-year-old brand using a site that had been built on Magento by a local firm.

Security issues, high development costs and lack of functionality led Ben back to his tried and true ecommerce recommendation for unique customization needs at a price point that makes business sense: BigCommerce.

Today, Casey’s Distributing works with several thousand resellers across North America, distributing for over 50 manufacturers and more than 50,000 SKUs. Soon, the company will launch an app off of BigCommerce’s API to grow that list of resellers even further — allowing other BigCommerce customers to expand their catalog and grow their sales with a click of a button.

Here’s how Ben and Casey’s Distributing found BigCommerce to be their B2B hub.

Tens of thousands wasted on Magento

As told to BigCommerce by Ben Johnson, VP Operations at Casey’s Distributing and President, MaxQV, LLC.

The BigCommerce-Casey's relationship came about when I was looking at the Casey's business model back in 2014. MaxQV, LLC had just landed Casey's as an account and started helping them with a new website that was being built for them.

At that time, we learned they had spent a lot of money on a Magento platform account through a local internet website builder. We looked that over and saw all the massive holes that needed to be plugged. If their site was a boat, it was sinking very rapidly.

They had poured tens of thousands of dollars into this Magento site — and weren’t seeing anything come from it. We put a halt to that and after careful consideration chose BigCommerce to solve their problems.

Only BigCommerce could provide the catalog management solution we needed

As told to BigCommerce by Ben Johnson, VP Operations at Casey’s Distributing and President, MaxQV, LLC.

We looked at Shopify, too, and even opened a couple Shopify stores and tested those out. We looked at WooCommerce, too, and Volusion. We tried Weebly and Wix and Squarespace. In over 15 years of website development, we’ve tried and deployed nearly everything.

But we knew very early on that BigCommerce was the one for Casey’s.

The basic interface of the platform where it is incredibly easy to upload and add a product to the store was very important. We manage 50,000 or more stock codes a year which require regular updates. We needed a catalog management solution that would allow us to do that without a huge cost and without a headache.

BigCommerce checked that box.

When you look at BigCommerce, you can take the required fields, add in your own custom fields, and then use spreadsheets to upload and download entire product lists in a matter of minutes. As long as you know the column headers, you can upload any product pretty darn easily.

From Magento to BigCommerce in under 1 month

As told to BigCommerce by Ben Johnson, VP Operations at Casey’s Distributing and President, MaxQV, LLC.

When we launched BigCommerce for Casey’s Distributing, it took us about a week to build, and another two weeks getting it all tested and approved by the team. In less than a month and for hardly any cost, we took them from an old, outdated website to a BigCommerce, mobile-responsive, very modern site.

The whole experience was so great that my internet development business is now a BigCommerce partner — MaxQV.com. We have about a dozen BigCommerce customers and we recommend it to everyone over who asks.

Partners for a secure web and protection from DDoS attacks

As told to BigCommerce by Ben Johnson, VP Operations at Casey’s Distributing and President, MaxQV, LLC.

Our move from Magento proved to be very wise, especially at the time we did it. We’ve gotten a bunch of BigCommerce security updates about DDoS attacks around the web — and Magento sites seem to get hit the most.

It’s a nice security feeling knowing that we don't have to watch the servers being attacked by the bad guys. BigCommerce does that for us.

When you put a Magento build on some server-host out there, you don't always get that sort of security and you certainly don't get the communication.

Building on the BigCommerce API

As told to BigCommerce by Ben Johnson, VP Operations at Casey’s Distributing and President, MaxQV, LLC.

We're building an app for the BigCommerce app store that will connect our inventory feed to BigCommerce store owners who want it. Working with thousands of retail businesses, we know that one of the challenges when starting a store is figuring out what to sell.

Well, Casey’s can help — and we’re using the BigCommerce API to do it.

Soon, BigCommerce store owners new to selling online can add NFL/NBA/NCAA/NHL/MLS merchandise to their sites to sell. These are brands people know and love.

The app will connect all the dots for BigCommerce customers. They can add products through it, pick the teams they want and then the app will update the quantities for them and it will help them remove products after they become obsolete. It’s a no-brainer if you are just getting started. The API makes it incredibly easy.

The 8X productivity power of BigCommerce + BrightPearl + ShipStation

As told to BigCommerce by Ben Johnson, VP Operations at Casey’s Distributing and President, MaxQV, LLC.

We picked Brightpearl as our inventory management software based on their relationship with BigCommerce. We wanted whatever we chose as our inventory management system to be extremely friendly with ecommerce platforms, because it needed to all tie together.

Before BigCommerce and Brightpearl, everything was manual. The orders that came off the old website were retrieved one at a time. Then, we had to key each one of them into the accounting software. Then, someone produced a pick ticket. Next, someone walked out to the warehouse.

We sold and picked hundreds of thousands of orders that way. It was amazing. The volume that you could see these people do during the holidays was mind-blowing. And they didn't know any different. The staff would just work, work, work, work, work.

They were working 14-hour days keying in stuff.

So, when they got a chance to see some of the technology and the connections BigCommerce allowed, it was remarkable.

An order would come in to BigCommerce, flow directly into Brightpearl, and then right into ShipStation. The tracking number flowed right back into Brightpearl. No one had to key anything in.

It was a life-changer for a lot of people.

Needless to say, the staff is ecstatic about BigCommerce. The automation cut down the labor by about 8x. It’s a great win for productivity. Now people can come in, get their job done and get out of here to spend time with their families.

The more we automate, the more people cheer. It's a neat example when you have your entire workforce working for the same goal — which is to work less, not more, work smarter, not harder.

BigCommerce offers ease of use for distributors

As told to BigCommerce by Ben Johnson, VP Operations at Casey’s Distributing and President, MaxQV, LLC.

Imagine if you will: We've have about 50,000 stock codes that we manage on a continuous basis. Every year, we get rid of 20,000-30,0000 stock codes, as well as those that become obsolete.

This means we have to upload products continuously, not only for our BigCommerce website, but share the information with thousands of customers out there that have their own sites and take inventory feeds from us.

We're responsible for this entire ecosystem and that means we need to ensure the information on products is accurate, including what the product is, what the image is, and how much is in stock.

Now, we do this every day with BigCommerce. We're good at it. I like to say we've got our black belt in BigCommerce! After all, it is our hub — for Casey’s as well as for 2,000+ of our customers.

Final word

As told to BigCommerce by Ben Johnson, VP Operations at Casey’s Distributing and President, MaxQV, LLC.

With BigCommerce, our ecommerce operations are all one big partnership. We partner with BigCommerce. We partner with BrightPearl. We’re all working together. That kind of mentality makes BigCommerce better positioned for the future than other competitive platforms.

I also like the customer service side of BigCommerce. People across the company, the whole staff — and I’ve gotten to know quite a few of them in Austin — are just fantastic.