BigCommerce Positions FirstVet Second to None in Online Petcare

Petcare 24/7, 365 days of the year

According to the American Pet Products Association, more than $103 billion was spent on pets in the United States during 2020. Of that amount, $31.4 billion was spent on routine veterinary care, surgical procedures and the sale of pharmaceuticals and other products through veterinary clinics.

The truth is people all around the world love their pets and want to make sure they are kept healthy, safe and pain-free 24/7, each and every day of the year. FirstVet gives pet owners across the globe peace of mind by enabling live video chat consultations with independent veterinarians anytime, day or night. The veterinarians provide professional advice, treatment recommendations and referrals to local veterinary clinics when a person’s pet is not feeling its best.

FirstVet was founded in 2016 in Stockholm, Sweden and has expanded into six other countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, Denmark and Finland.

CHALLENGE

Getting it right the first time

Created as an online business from the start, FirstVet knew it needed a flexible ecommerce platform that would help it grow globally.

Several vendors were evaluated and BigCommerce was selected. “What we wanted was a headless solution that had a stable documented back end with good APIs. We also wanted a company that was stable and we could trust,” said Lars-Martin Norviit, FirstVet Co-Founder and Head of Ecommerce. “I actually Googled and read about the different vendors and headless solutions that were in the market. I contacted each vendor and at the end of the day our choice was BigCommerce.”

SOLUTION

BigCommerce: The bread and butter

FirstVet chose BigCommerce for a couple of reasons. One was that it allowed the brand to have its own custom checkouts where it could integrate Klarna, which is the industry standard solution in Sweden. “You need to have it [Klarna],” Norviit said. The other reason was, well, quite frankly, FirstVet liked us. “We also liked the team. We got good energy from the pre-sales team at BigCommerce, and we thought that was a positive,” Norviit commented.

FirstVet has a strong team of developers that built the middle layer and front end using the back-end functionality of BigCommerce. “The reason for building our own front end is that we want the full flexibility to integrate it with our core service, which is the video meetings. So, to do that, we use all the standard functionality from BigCommerce’s back end,” said Norviit.

RESULTS

Flexibility that delivers results

It took FirstVet just two months, mid-October to mid-December 2020, to launch on BigCommerce. The platform is providing the stability and flexibility needed to enable FirstVet to develop its own functionality to get specific statistics, sales figures, campaign support, discount code support and the like. FirstVet only uses a few third-party apps, including: Rewind Backups, Mailchimp, Google Ads and Inventory Planner.

Performance metrics comparing June 2021 to March 2021 showed a 9% increase in conversion rate, 307% increase in orders and a 324% increase in customers.

LOOKING AHEAD

Keeping things moving

Norviit says FirstVet has plans for expanding its geo-location presence to serve more people and pets. That includes further integrating ecommerce with its core service — video meetings — with things like a seamless login and increased functionality for veterinarians to recommend products during their video consultations.

FirstVet’s development team quickly completed what was on the brand’s initial roadmap, but they are not about to slow down in further enhancing the website. “I have a list of maybe a hundred things that I would like to do. It's a matter of prioritization. But, we are going to continue to use BigCommerce the way we use it today as a stable back-end platform with all the basic functionality we need,” says Norviit.

Published: August 2021