Yeti Cycles Builds Beautiful Brand Experiences using BigCommerce

Pushing boundaries offroad and online.

Yeti Cycles is widely recognized as being the best of what they do. They are leaders in the sport of mountain biking and have been instrumental from the very beginning in defining and furthering the evolution of the sport. 

As innovators in their field, they approach everything they do with the same level of rigor and enthusiasm that they give to their product. A loyal customer base offers a cult-like devotion to their brand and has created a community beyond compare in the cycling space. A brand such as this one needs an online experience that matches the one they provide offline.

CHALLENGE

Platform complexity was keeping them from expanding.

Back when Yeti Cycles first came online, they were using a wide range of tools to create the experience they wanted their customers to have, including Salesforce, Magento 1, and Readymag. This complex mix worked at the time, but they knew that, if they wanted to grow, they would need a more integrated backend that could connect their systems and help propel their brand forward more efficiently.

“Previously we had a really complicated tech stack, so it was very hard for us to move products to market very quickly,” said Matt Hicks, Director of Technology and Customer Experience at Yeti Cycles. “That was a really big issue for us because we needed to be nimble when it came to our online presence.”

They needed a new website that was easy to maintain and update; one that could process B2B wholesale orders to retailers; and one that could educate and inform consumers about their products. “We knew we had to move to a platform that would allow us to go to market faster and keep that premium brand, look, and feel that we wanted,” Hicks explained. 

To create this new solution, Yeti Cycles teamed up with BigCommerce agency partner ZaneRay to determine their options. The big question was, what kind of implementation would they use to match the precision engineering of their products? The answer: headless.

SOLUTION

Going headless to kickstart innovation and growth.

As Yeti Cycles and ZaneRay worked together to determine the best way to achieve their branding and business needs, they decided that leveraging a headless framework would not only set them up for success in the present, but also the future. “This was the early days of headless, and as we both looked down the road we said ‘Yeah, this is the way we need to go,’” explained Penny Porterfield, Vice President Operations and Business Development at ZaneRay. 

This headless implementation would allow them to create more dynamic storytelling opportunities with a more robust CMS. It also tied into Yeti’s existing ERP, Syspro, so it wasn’t necessary to switch to a new service provider.

Managing B2B and DTC sales from the same platform.

Traditionally, B2B and DTC ecommerce sites have offered very different experiences. Now, as expectations have shifted, B2B customers look for user-friendly, DTC-like experiences from their vendors. That means a variety of payment options and an easy-to-navigate interface, but also bulk ordering options, back-in-stock notifications, and fulfillment options specific to retailers.

“Everything that a bike shop needs in terms of fulfillment is available to them right there on the site,” explained Porterfield. “These people may not be highly technical, so if you make it simple for them, similar to how a regular consumer would shop, the B2B user can have a really great experience.”

When Yeti Cycles’ leadership team decided to start selling DTC from their existing B2B site, the addition was almost instant. “We had designed a framework that was poised to make the shift to DTC at some point, and given the fact that they were already headless on BigCommerce, they were well-positioned to move once they made the decision to do so,” said Kirk Cornelius, Vice President of Strategy and Communications at The ZaneRay Group.

Yeti Cycles was able to launch the DTC arm of their business in a month, and it opened up an entirely new revenue stream that would have otherwise taken a massive amount of time and development resources.

“Our customers have expressed interest in buying directly from Yeti Cycles, and through our new program, we’re able to deliver a premium online buying experience,” said Chris Conroy, CEO at Yeti Cycles.

RESULTS

A seamless customer experience.

The resulting website was astounding. Large, sweeping visuals paired with Yeti’s bike lineup brings an air of elegance to the site, so much so that you almost forget that you’re looking at one of the world’s most extreme sports.

The site also functions as good as it looks. “When their team realized that they were able to build a page in just a few days rather than a few months, they were blown away,” said Porterfield. “They were just amazed at how quick it was, how great of an experience they were dealing with. Suddenly they felt empowered to create, and you can see it on all the pages on their site. It really is an experience. It’s not just a website.”

“WIth BigCommerce, we're not just stuck with what’s there out of the box,” Hicks said. “We can innovate easily, which I love. And that goes for customization, too. Our speed to market has increased dramatically.”

The site looked amazing, functioned beyond comparison, and it had the numbers to show that the investment in the headless implementation was truly worth it.

LOOKING AHEAD

Riding into the future.

Yeti Cycles continues to innovate their site and grow their business while also providing a “hub” for their community to connect with one another. Not only have they expanded by selling DTC, but they have also begun creating new forms of content, with a mix of text, image, and video creating an interactive, magazine-like experience online. Yeti continues to push the limits of what can be done on a bike, and they apply that same energy to their brand.

“The Yeti Cycles site is a great example of how far BigCommerce allows us to push further creatively,” Cornelius said. “If you’re holding back coming off of a monolithic platform because you think you might be giving something up, some sort of experiential aspect, you can look at the Yeti Cycles site and see that you’re absolutely giving nothing up there. If anything, you’re gaining performance, along with all the other things that come with a lighter, more nimble approach to design.”

This headless approach will allow Yeti Cycles to be more precise in its marketing efforts and explore new channels to support its ever-growing business. And, with the expansion into the DTC market, they will undoubtedly see continuing increases to these numbers in the years to come.

Published: November 2023