Level Nine Sports: BigCommerce Migration Success

Level Nine Sports: Gear Up and Go

A BigCommerce transformation powers a leading sports gear retailer's reinvention of online shopping for skis, snowboards, and biking equipment.

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PROJECT OVERVIEW

Level Nine Sports partnered with Mira Commerce for a strategic platform migration from Magento 1.0 to BigCommerce, adopting a headless architecture to achieve a flexible, high-performance system. This project involved custom development and complex integrations to support scalability and ensure a seamless online experience for their growing customer base. The collaboration focused on a co-development approach, emphasizing strong communication and precise engineering.

The Challenge

How can an established retailer like Level Nine Sports modernize its platform without sacrificing uptime or performance?

Magento 1.0 had been hosting Level Nine Sports’ e-commerce website for a while, but the version was being sunset. The company had to move to Magento Enterprise or choose a different platform. Nick, head of IT, explains that running on Magento 1.0 presented constant challenges, which led them to look at other options.

“We wanted to get away from having to support the architecture to run Magento 1.0,” Nick says. “It’s just older technology where the caching system and the indexing are hard to contend with. The site would often go down. Every few months there would be an unexpected, decent-sized outage. That was a big problem. We constantly had to do security patches to support the infrastructure. That’s the primary reason we wanted to get away from it.”

Nick says they were looking mainly at two options: Magento Enterprise or BigCommerce. If the latter choice, a cloud-based e-commerce SaaS platform with unlimited integration potential, they’d have to deploy a new website operating on a completely different technology than was used to run applications.

But for a large online retail company with complex back-office operations, a full website overhaul in terms of migrating apps from an internal database to going headless on a platform driven by APIs is a big undertaking.

Naturally, this kind of operation requires a lot of thought—from choosing the right platform and finding the best exterior team to help with development. The decision and approval process can be slow, but an important catalyst sped it up.

“Finally, we ran into an issue where we weren’t going to be able to accept payment,” Nick recalls. “There was a TLS (Transport Layer Security) update that made Magento 1.0 not an option anymore. For a short amount of time, we didn’t know if we were going to be able to accept credit cards.

“We ended up going with BigCommerce,” Nick continues. “As a SaaS based eCommerce head for us, they offered more flexibility than other options. The biggest upsides were that it was a modern platform, and we wouldn’t have to deal with the infrastructure. Of course that’s something we would get from other SaaS e-comm solutions, but BigCommerce seemed to be the most robust.”

The challenge then was to build a sturdy architecture that ensured seamless integration of Level Nine Sports’ workflows and middleware. In other words:

“We had to keep the business functioning while we had to move everything into hosted applications in AWS,” says Nick. This was no easy feat, and one that needed to be supported by an external team of developers.

The Brand

Level Nine Sports, a fast-growing e-commerce company, provides outdoor enthusiasts with affordable ski, snowboard, and biking gear. Valued for their passion and knowledge of the perfect equipment at the best prices on the market, you also can't beat their impeccable customer service.

Services

E-commerce Development: Custom solutions for business needs.
Platform Migration: Seamless transition to new platforms.
Digital Marketing: Strategies to drive traffic and boost sales
SEO & Content Management: Enhancing online visibility
24/7 Support & Maintenance: Ensuring operational efficiency

“We were looking at companies that had some engineering wits about them. Within talking with Mira Commerce, it seemed pretty clear that they were the best candidate to go for, especially in terms of customer development, which was important for us.”

Nick Murdock

IT Director, Level Nine Sports

Results

To get the process started, Level Nine Sports sought out a partner that could provide a particular kind of co-development relationship, with a knack for communication and an engineering edge. With multiple complex integrations to oversee, choosing the right solution provider was essential. Mira Commerce showed up to be a fitting match.

“We were looking at companies that had some engineering wits about them,” Nick says. “Within talking with Mira Commerce, it seemed pretty clear that they were the best candidate to go for, especially in terms of custom development, which was important for us. One of the main reasons I wanted to go with them was also the communication level with the people doing the work. If you’re running the dev shop for an e-commerce company, you have to make sure your request is being understood by the end guy doing the development, or you’re going to waste a ton of hours and money.”

Mira Commerce proved to be an ideal partner for Level Nine Sports, bringing the technical expertise and clear communication needed to tackle complex custom integrations. Their team worked closely with Level Nine, ensuring every requirement was fully understood and executed with precision, which saved time, minimized costs, and delivered an exceptional final result. This partnership laid the foundation for a robust, scalable solution that supports Level Nine's growth and commitment to customer satisfaction.

Metrics at a glance

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SUMMARY

Level Nine Sports collaborated with Mira Commerce to overhaul their digital platform, migrating from Magento to a modern, headless BigCommerce architecture. This transformation brought the stability, scalability, and reliability Level Nine needed to support their expanding customer base. With improved performance, higher conversion rates, and increased revenue, the project’s success has positioned Level Nine Sports for sustained growth and enhanced customer satisfaction.

TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS

BigCommerce

API-driven Architecture

Cloud Hosting Solutions

Content Delivery Network (CDN)

TLS Security Updates

Caching Systems

SERVICES