STIGA Sports' new game plan: Headless ecommerce

The classic Swedish table tennis brand, STIGA Sports AB, offering both hobby and professional products, has global reach with partners in over 100 countries. STIGA started the production of table tennis products in 1944 and, over the years, rose to become one of the world's largest table tennis brands. 

STIGA Sports have partnered with the implementation and front-end design agency Ventanas95 to migrate from the Magento 2 platform. Now, running on Centra, STIGA Sports is ready to face the challenges of growing big without technological and design limitations:

• Local pay and shipping options for every market

• Visual, feed-inspired storefront

• Ability to handle peak traffic

• Better control of stock availability to avoid overselling

With Centra powering its composable headless commerce setup, STIGA Sports has gained the agility to add new features and vastly improved its day-to-day handling of products. 

Challenges

STIGA Sports' previous setup involved multiple systems: Magento 2 for wholesale and direct-to-consumer (DTC) business, inRiver as product information management (PIM). This complex setup led to inefficiencies, high costs, and a poor conversion rate. Moreover, the company experienced long loading times of up to 10+ seconds for the checkout and order forms. 

Running the whole operation with a relatively small team, STIGA Sports needed a more efficient and scalable solution that would help them maintain a lean operation while growing their business.

Revolutionizing operations: STIGA Sports’ strategic replatforming to Centra

Benjamin Avramovici Östgårdh, who took over STIGA Sports' operations as Interim Head of eCom, was the one who initiated the ecommerce platform change. The company had been working with the ecommerce and business development company Omniarch and researched potential platforms for over a year before Östgårdh joined. After mapping their requirements and evaluating the shortlisted platforms, STIGA Sports decided to migrate to the headless, composable ecommerce platform Centra.

The move to Centra lowered STIGA Sports' overhead by over 50% concerning day-to-day costs for both DTC and wholesale businesses. The platform allowed the company to consolidate their operations into one centralized ecommerce platform, simplifying the tech stack and making it easier to scale.

Results

STIGA Sports experienced significant improvements after the migration to Centra. They successfully launched their platform simultaneously in France and Germany. Now, they are continuing their expansion into the UK and planning to establish their presence in new markets. The company has seen conversion rates and revenue increase by over 100% and has enjoyed a more efficient and scalable solution.

According to Östgårdh, the contrast between their previous setup with Magento and their current experience with Centra is like "night and day." With Centra, the company has reduced development time from three months to just 2-3 weeks. STIGA Sports has also benefited from Centra's simplicity in PIM management and product launches, making it easier to launch products quickly and with better quality.

STIGA Sports' management team appreciates Centra's dashboards for analyzing sales and revenue. Managing DTC and wholesale operations from a single back end has proven to be a significant convenience for the company. The support from Centra, particularly from the Customer Success Manager, Tommy Palomäki, has been exceptional, with the platform being open to new development requests and delivering them quickly.

STIGA Sports: Page speed scores after replatforming to Centra

Conclusion

The migration to Centra has proved to be an invaluable decision for STIGA Sports. By replatforming, they have overcome the challenges of running an international ecommerce business and can now focus on continued growth and success. Centra's platform has provided STIGA Sports with a more efficient, scalable, and cost-effective solution, enabling them to expand their global presence and improve their overall business performance.

STIGA Sports’ new ecommerce tech stack