McSport & MBC Bundles App. A short story of highly-successful collaboration: ‘I don't think there was anything I suggested that you have not implemented!’

mcsport.ie


We talked with Leo, the e-Commerce Specialist at McSport - one of our biggest customers, about their company, business goals, bundling strategies, and the MBC Bundles App performance (spoiler: the AOV increased by 50!%).
Enjoy reading! ;)

About the Brand and Business Goals

McSport is a family company founded 40+ years ago by siblings Philip and Carol McLaughlin. Today we are the leading independent supplier of sports and fitness equipment covering the entire island of Ireland: the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
We sell everything from footballs to commercial gym equipment like Squat Racks, Power Racks, Weight Benches, etc. We provide equipment to lots of schools in the country, commercial gyms, and individual consumers, of course.

For now, our main business goal is to increase McSport's brand awareness by increasing our online presence to make people know who McSport is and what McSport does.
As a result, we expect to see sales growth in those channels where we weren't so present before, more conversions coming from new online channels, like Pinterest and TikTok. And maybe channels that you could think that they are unconventional to sell fitness equipment.

Bundling strategies and Bundles performance analytics

I like to analyze. For example, which are our best-selling products? So, I have a list of ten best-selling products, and then using the reports that I have, I can see what other products are frequently bought with that product that is a best-seller. And I create a bundle based on that.
Also, another way to create bundles is basically using intuition. For example, we know that customers who buy barbells need to buy weights for their barbells. No one buys only the barbells. So, with the experience that we have in the business, we kind of already know which bundles to create.




I would say those are the main methods we use to create bundles: our experience in this industry, knowing what sells the best; and using data to identify which products go well together.

Also, we keep track of the bundles' performance every week. So, we extract a report from Shopify every week, and we can see which bundles sold the most. Which bundles didn't sell? And then, using that week-on-week report, we can identify if this particular bundle is successful or not and what we can do to make it successful.

Are you happy with the results MBC Bundles brings you?

Yes, definitely. We had bundles before using the app. But they were physical bundles and used to take up a lot of space in the warehouse.
And not only that, we didn't have a lot of autonomy to create bundles. So if we needed to create bundles back then, we would have to engage with several other areas, like procurement or the warehouse - to ensure those bundle products were in stock, bundles assembled, and everything. And now, when we want to create a bundle, it's like 30 seconds. Just think of the bundle you want and create it in the app. And that's it. No need to have any bundles packed in our warehouse. The warehouse staff would see the order as a regular one, not a bundle order, they just pick the products, and that's it. So yes, the app really helped us to achieve our goals. It increased sales and removed a lot of the labor involved in creating physical bundles.
By the way, talking about sales - we have numbers increased on our average order value of at least 50%. So, for example, if the AOV before MBC Bundles was €100, it jumped to €150 depending on the month, sometimes even more.

What would you tell our potential customers who are just considering using the MBC Bundles app?

I would recommend to anyone to at least do a trial with the app. Because, honestly, I only have compliments to the team.

One thing I like about the company a lot is that every kind of necessity we have if we want to change something in the app or customize it - the team is always open to our suggestions. And I don't think there was anything that I suggested that you have not implemented. And that was really nice.


You see that a company (and we are not your exclusive clients) is open to working with us to adapt to our requirements - that's the best thing about MBC Bundles. Even if the app works really well, that's not the point. It's bringing results, as I said. However, this characteristic the company has is the best thing for me. And that's what I would say to anyone thinking about installing the app: these guys are very committed to working with the stores and their clients to improve their experience.

Updated on: 10/01/2023