How Sand Cloud boosted conversion rates by 43% with Pack
Learn how Pack helped Sand Cloud launch a blazing-fast and content-rich custom storefront, propelling its sustainability efforts and fueling rapid growth.
Metrics
"DTC is the heart of our business, and our year-over-year growth is a testament to the strength of our headless site. Pack's white-glove approach to both the launch and continued maintenance of the site has been a game changer."
About
Sand Cloud is revolutionizing the world of beachwear with its premium Turkish beach towels, blankets, and various household accessories. Renowned for its meticulous quality and mission to #savethefishies, Sand Cloud has been featured in HGTV, The Fascination, Business Insider, and The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Challenge
As Sand Cloud grew and scaled operations, it needed a front-end solution that could keep up
Like many early-stage DTC brands, Sand Cloud established its roots on Shopify and built its first storefront using a theme. At the time, a Shopify theme provided their team with the perfect blend of simplicity and functionality, enabling them to grow the brand significantly over a short period.
However, after a Shark Tank debut and subsequent expansion of its product catalog, Sand Cloud found itself pushing the limits of its Shopify theme, especially when it came to boosting performance and driving incremental improvements on conversion rates. Their team knew it was time to consider launching a custom storefront and deliver a truly frictionless shopping experience — especially with the peak shopping season on the horizon.
“At a certain level of scale, it makes sense to invest in technology to improve conversion rates. We have aggressive growth goals, both from a top-line and bottom-line perspective, and when you're launching a new product basically every week, having absolute control over your front-end is critical."
Taking its first step toward a custom storefront, Sand Cloud worked with Pack as a web development agency to make the switch from a Shopify theme to Contentful. While the new custom storefront provided a performance boost, Contentful wasn’t nearly as user-friendly as Shopify, which slowed the team down significantly.
"Looking back, using Contentful as a CMS was a nightmare to manage and deal with. We lost the ease of use of Shopify, and weren’t able to make changes to our site.”
Solution
Pack’s new platform helps Sand Cloud win back the ease-of-use they lost when they first migrated to a custom storefront
To restore the user-friendliness of a Shopify theme, Pack’s team built the first iteration of the Pack platform that allowed Sand Cloud to migrate off of Contentful and restore the ease-of-use they missed.
“Pack’s platform makes managing our storefront infinitely easier. Now, we can do most of the tweaks or the updates to the site ourselves. The way Pack used Shopify as inspiration for the user interface has been great for us.“
With their new Pack-powered storefront, Sand Cloud has not only seen significant increases in site speeds but also a noticeable increase in:
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Content flexibility: Day-to-day content management is exponentially easier on Sand Cloud's new custom site. Updating product pages, implementing new site elements, and launching campaigns have become second nature to the Sand Cloud team.
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CVR and AOV: Sand Cloud's ability to combine content-rich site experiences with blazing-fast speeds has significantly boosted CVR and AOV. The friction in redirecting shoppers from an application to their site has effectively vanished.
With its new custom storefront and Pack's team of ecommerce experts on standby, Sand Cloud has the flexibility to enhance its shopping experience beyond what a Shopify theme could provide.
"What really won us over was Pack's ability to make front-end customization effortless, just like in Shopify. It’s infinitely faster to add banners, campaigns, upsells, cross sells, or update product pages from top to bottom—which is crucial when your product catalog is continuously expanding."
Results
Sand Cloud eliminates friction from its shopping experience — boosting CVR by 43% and AOV by 47%
Since partnering with Pack, Sand Cloud spends less time fretting about front-end maintenance and more time expanding its catalog to delight shoppers and drive conversions.
Here are a few key results Sand Cloud has seen since the launch of its custom storefront:
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43% increase in conversion rates
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47% increase in average order value
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500% YoY growth
As an early adopter of Pack, Sand Cloud can't wait to see how the platform evolves in the coming years. They're particularly excited about Pack's goals to offer curated shopping experiences based on geolocation — which will help them beat seasonality and drive revenue year-round.
"We've got a direct line of communication with Corey, and he's been super receptive to the suggestions I throw out to him. Whether it's new functions or features, he's been great in receiving our feedback and helping put a plan in place to execute on that."