Combat Corner Achieves Lightning-Fast Site Speed with BigCommerce
Discover how customizable, cost-effective and reliable BigCommerce is and why we built it that way.
431%
overall performance boost
604%
improvement in Speed Index
328%
improvement in First Contentful Paint
Fighting its way to the top.
In the world of martial arts and combat sports, high-quality equipment is essential to achieve a proper workout and hone in on one’s skills.
After noticing a lack of professional equipment that could withstand the intensity of these sports, former professional fighter, Dan LaSavage, founded Combat Corner.
Since launching in 2007, Combat Corner has evolved into a leading martial arts equipment manufacturer. This global brand dominates the B2B market when it comes to supplying athletic facilities with professional equipment built to withstand even the strongest punch. More recently, they’ve started expanding into the B2C space, empowering fighters to purchase their own state-of-the-art equipment.Â
Over the years, the company has shaped itself into a thriving business in the combat sports industry. However, it faced several setbacks regarding its ecommerce platform that limited its ability to grow. Combat Corner knew that if it wanted to get stronger, it needed a robust ecommerce solution.
CHALLENGE
No pain no gain.
Prior to migrating to BigCommerce, Combat Corner experienced several challenges with the platform its online store was hosted on.Â
The team dealt with difficulties when it came to the site’s speed, causing visitors to experience slow page-load times, which negatively impacted the user journey. On top of that, the platform was not intuitive and the team often struggled to manage and update the site. These factors limited Combat Corner’s ability to scale — leading the brand to decide that enough was enough.
After some research, Combat Corner found BigCommerce and rebuilt the store with a Stencil theme. The team saw success after switching platforms; however, they noticed BigCommerce’s advancements toward headless commerce and felt this type of functionality aligned more with their ecommerce goals and ability to manage the site.
“BigCommerce was making a push into headless and I wanted to do something that was cutting edge. We thought that might be a good way for us to get where we wanted to be in terms of our tech stack and performance without having to switch up all of our back-end systems,” said Rob Capili, Digital Marketing Manager at Combat Corner.
“BigCommerce was making a push into headless and I wanted to do something that was more cutting edge.”
Rob Capili Digital Marketing Manager, Combat Corner
SOLUTION
Achieving victory by going headless.
To create the headless site, Combat Corner partnered with Click Here Labs and worked with its BigCommerce Customer Success Manager to turn its vision into reality. Together, they developed one of the first online stores with a headless React front-end built on WordPress Engine’s Atlas platform and a headless back-end built on BigCommerce.
The power of a headless solution allowed Combat Corner to easily incorporate the WordPress framework without having to re-platform the BigCommerce back-end.
“Now that our site is headless, we do a lot of stuff in both WordPress and BigCommerce. The integration of the back-end system with the front-end system is pretty seamless,” remarked Capili.
The freedom and flexibility of going headless have drastically improved the team’s ability to manage and update the site, as well as enhance the customer experience. This led them to redesign the look and feel of Combat Corner’s online store, offering customers a site that’s easy to navigate and fully embodies the brand.
“People love our redesigned site. It looks fairly custom, and we’ve been getting good feedback on the design,” said Capili.
On top of this, Combat Corner’s page load speed significantly improved — further enhancing the user journey for both desktop and mobile shoppers.
Through BigCommerce’s headless feature, Combat Corner has easily combined the platform’s robust back-end with WordPress’s simplified content management abilities — providing the best of both worlds and eliminating the need for a development team.
“We wanted to future-proof our site so that, as things developed, we'd be agile enough to adapt with it. We didn't want to staff a bunch of coders, so we needed the technology that we could get people up to speed on that wasn't too complicated,” explained Capili.
Improving the B2B experience.
In addition to going headless, Combat Corner takes advantage of other BigCommerce features designed to enhance the user experience.Â
Since the majority of Combat Corner’s business comes from B2B transactions, they decided to take advantage of BigCommerce’s B2B features, including customer groups and price lists. This allows businesses to shop the site based on their specific customer group. Through these functions, items that are most applicable to the business’s selected group are featured, and special discounts or pricing are automatically applied.
“We have a couple of different customer groups. We have one for our wholesale as well as pro team members, and we have a tool that people can use to bulk order products and simplify their process of reordering. These features have been really helpful,” said Capili.
Maximizing productivity with APIs and integrations.
Through the power of BigCommerce, Combat Corner has taken advantage of the platform’s robust selection of APIs and apps. The team incorporates these features to simplify back-office tasks and increase team efficiency.
“Something I really like about BigCommerce is the platform’s extensive APIs. You can automate a lot of things that you might not be able to automate if that functionality wasn't available,” remarked Capili.
Combat Corner uses webhooks to help process orders. Whenever an order is placed, the information is automatically communicated with the other systems and integrations Combat Corner uses. This automation ensures each integrated system has the most up-to-date information regarding orders placed, alleviating the team of manually inputting this data.
“We use BigCommerce webhooks so that whenever someone makes an order, we have some custom processing on the back-end so that this information is integrated with some of our other systems, which is very helpful,” explained Capili.
The company also uses the app Fishbowl to track and manage its product inventory. This provides the team with an accurate report of their entire inventory, as well as informs them of when products are low or out of stock.
Tech Stack:
Headless Front-end Layer
Content Management System
BigCommerce Services:
“Now that our site is headless, we do a lot of stuff in both WordPress and BigCommerce. The integration of the back-end system with the front-end system is pretty seamless.”
Rob Capili Digital Marketing Manager, Combat Corner
“Something I really like about BigCommerce is the platform’s extensive APIs. You can automate a lot of things that you might not be able to automate if that functionality wasn't available.”
ROB CAPILI, DIGITAL MARKETING MANAGER, COMBAT CORNER
RESULTS
Accomplishing wins and coming out on top.Â
It’s safe to say that migrating to BigCommerce and going headless was the right move for Combat Corner. Since transitioning to this solution, Combat Corner made a 431% jump in overall site performance.Â
When it comes to improvements in site speed, the company saw a 604% improvement. Other notable boosts include a 328% improvement in first contentful paint and a 483% improvement in largest contentful paint.
“With BigCommerce and its headless functionality, we wanted to make the look and feel of our site better and we wanted it to be more responsive,” said Capili. “Since moving to this ecommerce solution, the performance has been great and the site is super fast. A lot of people comment on how quickly it loads and how quickly they're able to see the pages — which has been great.”
Learn more about the results from WP Engine.
“Since moving to this ecommerce solution, the performance has been great and the site is super fast. A lot of people comment on how quickly it loads and how quickly they're able to see the pages — which has been great.”
Rob Capili Digital Marketing Manager, Combat Corner
LOOKING AHEAD
Continuing with a champion mindset.
Combat Corner’s motivation and drive to be the best in its industry makes it a tough competition for rival retailers.
A key goal for Combat Corner is to continue tapping into the B2C market and growing this customer base. The team plans to do this by perfecting the user experience through the launch of features designed to simplify purchasing custom products, as well as continuing to improve the site’s look and feel.
Other initiatives include simplifying back-office tasks by using APIs to automate more of their processes. Through these efforts and with the help of the BigCommerce team, Combat Corner knows its site will get stronger every day.
“BigCommerce support is really good. There's a lot of people that know what they're talking about and they can quickly get up to speed. One of the biggest reasons why I recommend BigCommerce is that if you have a problem, the support is excellent,” remarked Capili.
“One of the biggest reasons why I recommend BigCommerce is that if you have a problem, the support is excellent.”
Rob Capili DIGITAL MARKETING MANAGER, COMBAT CORNER
Published: March 2024
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