The Beer Bat Hits an Ecommerce Home Run with BigCommerce
Fast-growing maker of baseball bat-shaped drinkware turned to BigCommerce to drive growth of B2C and B2B sales
AUSTIN, Texas — September 8, 2022 — BigCommerce (Nasdaq: BIGC), a leading Open SaaS ecommerce platform for fast-growing and established B2C and B2B brands, today announced the launch and early success of The Beer Bat store on the BigCommerce platform. From the start of the baseball season in April through July 2022, the company experienced a 115% increase in revenue, a 98% increase in site visits and a 71% increase in orders, all while on the BigCommerce platform.
Sam McGee and his team at The Beer Bat’s parent company, Green Egg Design, had been creating branded drinkware for Hard Rock Cafe’s outside casino in Las Vegas, but when a minor league baseball team, the Hartford Yard Goats, opened shop just outside McGee’s Hartford, Conn., office, he got a new inspiration to create baseball bat-shaped drinking vessels. As demand for The Beer Bat increased so did the need for a scalable, user-friendly platform to support its B2B sales directly to baseball teams but also its B2C sales directly to consumers.
“We knew we had a great idea with The Beer Bat, and BigCommerce has played a huge part in our early success and fast growth,” McGee said. “BigCommerce made it quick and easy to launch our store, and we know they are the right partner to support our continued growth.”
The company went from producing a bat-shaped souvenir drink container for one minor league baseball team to receiving orders from 27 Minor League Baseball teams across the country. In 2021 they added several Major League Baseball teams including the Atlanta Braves and San Diego Padres. In 2022, the company added more major league teams and expanded internationally into Canada, Mexico, Japan and South Korea.
“An out-of-the-box experience to launch as soon as possible was key for us,” said Derrick Johnson, operations manager at The Beer Bat. “A fast, reliable platform capable of supporting both B2B and B2C commerce was what we were looking for and found in BigCommerce. BigCommerce provided us with an easy and well documented set-up experience to enable us to soft-launch in less than two months, as well as the features needed to support our future growth in any direction.”
BigCommerce’s BundleB2B integration provides next-level B2B functionality to simplify The Beer Bat’s ordering process and streamline operations. As The Beer Bat added major and minor league teams as customers and their orders got more complex, BundleB2B has made it easy for those customers to choose designs, quantity and delivery timing without a member of The Beer Bat’s small team getting involved until the order is placed.
“By going into the portal customers can point, click, customize and ship their orders. There’s no figuring out pricing over the phone with an account executive,” McGee said. “Customers access the portal and all the information is there. It designs their bats, which builds their pricing and gives them the shipping quote.”
The Beer Bat team operates with about a half-dozen full-time team members, so it relies on BigCommerce’s open SaaS approach for easy and flexible app integration that helps streamline, extend and scale growth. For instance, the company uses website translation solution Weglot to translate the website content to foreign languages furthering its reach to new customers and increasing sales across regions. The Beer Bat also leverages Doogma to add interactive product customization and personalization into its site so customers can visualize their custom artwork or logos, different colors, fonts and views of products without leaving the site.
“The Beer Bat is a great example of a merchant taking advantage of BigCommerce’s B2C and B2B capabilities, our open SaaS approach and our ability to support both a quick launch and fast growth,” said Marc Ostryniec, chief sales officer at BigCommerce. “We’re excited to help them continue to scale as they reach new markets and customers.”
Read the case study to learn more about how The Beer Bat is growing with BigCommerce.
About BigCommerce
BigCommerce (Nasdaq: BIGC) is a leading open software-as-a-service (SaaS) ecommerce platform that empowers merchants of all sizes to build, innovate and grow their businesses online. BigCommerce provides merchants sophisticated enterprise-grade functionality, customization and performance with simplicity and ease-of-use. Tens of thousands of B2C and B2B companies across 150 countries and numerous industries use BigCommerce to create beautiful, engaging online stores, including Ben & Jerry’s, Molton Brown, S.C. Johnson, Skullcandy, Solo Stove and Vodafone. Headquartered in Austin, BigCommerce has offices in London, Kyiv, San Francisco, and Sydney. For more information, please visit www.bigcommerce.com or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.
BigCommerce® is a registered trademark of BigCommerce Pty. Ltd. Third-party trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners.
About The Beer Bat
Green Egg Design LLC, d/b/a The Beer Bat, is the original, patented, drinkable baseball bat made in the USA. Officially licensed MLB teams are available for consumer purchase online at https://thebeerbat.com/. MLB and MiLB teams can also place orders on the same website by registering for a wholesale supplier account.
###