Brock’s Performance Selects BigCommerce to Throttle Up its Business

Freedom unleashed

Hollywood may have made the movie Gone in 60 Seconds, but it was former motorcycle drag racer and current business owner, Brock Davidson, who was gone in less than seven.

Back in 2000, Brock made history when he powered up a 1997 Suzuki Bandit 1200 motorcycle with nitrous oxide and did a quarter of a mile in under seven seconds, becoming the first person in the world to do so on a street-legal bike. Today, racers are looking to do it in half the time and are turning to Brock to help make it happen.

Brock already had been developing high-performance motorcycle parts to make the two-wheelers go faster, and when people caught wind of it they began asking if they could buy his products. The answer was yes. Demand was high, and before long, Brock’s living room storefront grew to become a brick-and-mortar business by the name of Brock’s Performance.

Based in Dayton, Ohio, Brock’s Performance manufactures and sells name-brand motorcycle parts to the likes of Suzuki, Kawasaki, Harley-Davidson and Yamaha. The company does sell its products directly to customers, but its main business is serving as a worldwide distributor to 1,200 motorcycle dealerships whose customers are looking for innovative aftermarket motorcycle parts to enhance their bikes’ performance and equip them to reach speeds up to 230 miles per hour. That’s not just fast, as Brock’s would put it, that’s STUPID FAST.

Challenge

Sometimes it's best to stick with what you do best

Homegrown is the way Brock’s Performance Vice President Jeff Grieco described the company’s first ecommerce platform. It was actually built by Brock’s warehouse management system (WMS) provider.

“The WMS worked well for us, but not the ecommerce solution,” Grieco said. “It was just terrible. As a medium size company, with a contract IT person, we ended up spending the majority of our time managing servers, writing code, maintaining compliance, upgrading software and improving hardware. Our goal was to focus more on generating revenue and relationships not on IT.” 

 On multiple occasions Jeff told the WMS owner that his company didn’t need to be in the ecommerce business. Eventually, the owner decided his company would build connector APIs to integrate with the top ecommerce platforms. And that’s when Jeff went shopping for a new ecommerce platform provider.

Solution

A platform that simplifies complexities

“At the top of our list we were looking for a payment experience where customers could get in and out seamlessly,” said Grieco. “Also, with our largest distributors being in the Middle East, South Africa and Asia, multi-language capability was a very important criteria for our next ecommerce solution to have.”

But that wasn’t all Jeff and the Brock’s team were looking for in a new ecommerce solution. Other criteria included:

• A platform that could grow with the company and handle all the complexities of a world-class website,
• The ability to market to six different and unique customer types,
• A stable tech environment,
• The ability to use product options,
• Growth opportunities without hassle.

After vetting several providers, Brock’s selected BigCommerce over Shopify and Magento.

“I just felt that we needed a platform that would grow with us,” said Grieco. “BigCommerce was the platform that not only met our criteria, but also helped us take things up a notch with its built-in native features and customizable templates. And it gave us the ability to have different price structures for different customer types, which was really a crucial feature for us to have,” Grieco said.

Although a robust platform, the simplicity of BigCommerce enabled the Brock’s team to build the first iteration of its new online store in-house, and in February 2018, the company launched on BigCommerce. 

“We had 15 employees when we launched on BigCommerce. It’s the same today, yet, as a business, we’ve doubled in size. I thought about it for a moment and then the light bulb went off. We were able to focus on what we do best: making motorcycles go fast and getting new products to market. What we were mired down with prior to BigCommerce was IT stuff, server stuff, making sure that we were always compliant with internet protocols, and maintaining our own website,” Grieco said. “Once we were relieved of all that through BigCommerce, we were able to take those 15 people and move them into more business growth, marketing and other strategic positions.”

Adding on the parts that enhance the ride

The flexibility of the BigCommerce platform allows Brock’s to add high-octane parts to extend and further power its website. Integrations to Facebook and Instagram enable the company to present products to its fans and followers on social media. And FavSEO enables the company to edit, analyze and optimize the title and meta description of all its products, categories and pages in one place.

Results

BigCommerce revs up Brock’s engine

Brock’s is very much an advocate of educating the customer before the sale, and BigCommerce helps the company do it without leaving the platform.

“With our previous platform, customers had to be taken to another site to receive additional information. However, BigCommerce provides us with the functionality to create our website more like a library for a worldwide audience. Whether it's clicking on a link for a PDF or a video, or having tabs for overviews and technical features, BigCommerce gives us what we need to help our customers make an informed decision,” said Grieco.

Increased visibility is another benefit Brock’s is experiencing since switching to BigCommerce. At a time when Alexa ranking was still a thing, the company ranked in the 30,000ths position for most viewed websites worldwide. Brock’s ranking improved significantly on BigCommerce, moving into a 9,000ths position. 

Improved visibility certainly played a role in the impressive increases Brock’s experienced on BigCommerce when comparing YoY 2021 over 2018. During this time period the company saw a 94% increase in revenue, a 97% increase in customers, a 104% increase in orders, a 60% increase in conversion rate and a 61% increase in site visits.

Inventory management is another Brock’s priority where BigCommerce helps.

“One of the things we love about BigCommerce is that we show real-time inventory, and we are so confident in that number that if we're ever wrong, we will pay the purchaser 10% of the price of the product,” said Grieco. “In four years we've never been wrong.”

Looking Ahead

Stay vertical and keep an eye on the horizon

To rev things up this year, Brock’s hired development agency IntuitSolutions to redesign its website. The new site will include a long-awaited “shop by” filter feature. “Adding the ‘shop by’ feature is huge for us. As we add more and more products, we want to make sure it’s easy for our customers to find what they are looking for,” Grieco said.

A second BigCommerce store is a strong possibility for 2022, and this one will be for the four-wheel traveler. “This year we're planning a second website that will cater to automobiles. To start, we're going to import carbon fiber wheels for the Ford F-150 and Porsche GT,” Grieco said. “ There isn’t anything new we’d need to develop. BigCommerce already has it.”

Going forward, BigCommerce will continue to innovate and evolve its platform to ensure Brock’s will continue to have exactly what it needs to sell more parts to help its customers not just go fast, but to go STUPID FAST and look good doing it.

Published: April 2022