The Challenge:

After more than six years, Real Goods was ready to take the next step and move to a more modern Ecommerce platform. With limited internal resources and budget, making the next move was one that would be an important choice for the business’ online growth and future. Meanwhile, as their business was reliant not just on product sales, but also services, having a solution that could manage more complex Ecommerce scenarios allowed for better customer segmentation, along with the ability to provide and manage quotes.

What They Like About Zoey:

1. Managing products and their attributes has proven easier than their previous solution, saving time and energy in product data management.
2. They have been able to reduce the number of vendors they engage with, and reduce their monthly costs by 50%.
3. Zoey didn’t require a major third-party build investment like on other open source platforms, heavily reducing the upfront cost to get a new site live.
4. Real Goods was able to bring their blog into the Ecommerce site, instead of living separately.
5. Conversion rates are up, bounce rates are down, and session lengths are up.

More Than Just a Migration:

Real Goods’ previous Ecommerce store had been built on Magento 1. Sean Connolly, Website Administrator for Real Goods, said that the upcoming end of life support for that version of Magento meant it was time to figure out the next steps. “We were looking to get off that and get on to another platform that was more stable, more future proofed,” Connolly said. “We wanted something that we knew was going to stay up to date with the latest security threats.”

The natural first step was Magento 2, but Real Goods, like others, discovered that it isn’t just a simple migration, but instead a full rebuild of their website to move over. The quotes received made such a migration impractical. “Some of the prices we were quoted were two full years of Ecommerce revenue for us,” Connolly said. “It was kind of a non-starter.” Meanwhile, a simple version upgrade still didn’t resolve some of the business goals for the future without further development, adding to the cost.

Real Goods’ Magento development partner suggested they check out Zoey as an option. Since design could be handled internally and more features came out of the box, it required a lot less set-up investment time and money vs. a custom build on an open source platform.

To learn more about how Real Goods has opened new doors and taken the next step for their business with Zoey, download the full case study:

To learn how Zoey can help you, request a customized walkthrough with our team!