Skullcandy Crushes Ecommerce Innovation on BigCommerce

SOLUTION

Showcasing Skullcandy’s innovative brand with BigCommerce.

Skullcandy is a lifestyle brand and technology company, and innovation is key when it comes to growth. Whether that innovation is in their products, brand or website, it’s important for Skullcandy to have the freedom to be creative.

“Innovation is key for us,” said Hopkins. “We’ve got US and international sites, and we have to make sure we’re able to represent the brand in a way that resonates with our customers globally.”

“If you’re 100 percent focused on fixing your website, you’re not going to be able to address all of your other channels,” said Penny Porterfield, Vice President of Business Development at ZaneRay. “Having a solid foundation in your website that allows you to focus on your business rather than being deep down in the trenches will really make that work well.”

Launching campaigns and expanding into new markets.

Skullcandy has been able to launch a variety of brand campaigns to reflect their core ideas and products. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they released limited edition products, and new playlists with featured artists and moods, all centred around positivity and mental health. “The custom CMS we created using BigCommerce helped us integrate that into the site, so they could tell those stories and launch those campaigns,” Porterfield explained.

Their custom CMS has also helped as the business expanded its footprint into other categories. Leveraging the lifestyle audio position, Skullcandy has recently expanded into an adjacent category: gaming. Growing into new verticals and being able to expand their brand so quickly has been key to their success.

“They really want to lead with their brand, and that’s so important. To lead with that on your website requires the ability to launch campaigns regularly and quickly,” explained Kirk Cornelius, Vice President of Strategy and Communications at ZaneRay. “Having the flexibility that BigCommerce provides for us, that speed and being able to be quick to market on campaigns is really where BigCommerce excels.”

Optimising the ecommerce experience.

Their unique approach to ecommerce has also allowed Skullcandy to innovate not only with their brand, but with their site experience, as well. Using BigCommerce’s Stencil theme, they have been able to go live with eight separate site instances across the globe.

“There’s always some kind of limited edition collaboration we’re doing online,” said Hopkins. “We’re working with brands like Budweiser, Pit Viper and Doritos, and our flexible website infrastructure is key, allowing us to launch quickly and effectively.”

Optimising product pages has also been vital for customer education. Offering technical details about each product is a critical aspect of the customer journey.

“They need to serve up a lot of unique specs for their products, in a way that’s educational, but relatable,” Porterfield said. “It’s a lot of information, but it wasn’t a lot of work to do that, to help the customer get a sense of ‘I know what I’m buying and I feel good about it because I have all this knowledge.’”

Checkout is another area of focus for Skullcandy. To accommodate varying discount and payment strategies across the globe, they needed another custom solution that could work in a fast-changing environment. Again, ZaneRay was able to help.

“We were able to work with the BigCommerce storefront API and incorporate some very unique programs to accommodate Skullcandy’s needs. We were able to do that without it being too costly, which solved a lot of problems for them,” explained Porterfield.