evo

The Challenge

The goal was audacious: reimagine and build a new, omnichannel ecosystem based on a modern tech stack in 14 months that was comparable to what evo had custom-built over 20-plus years – and do it without disrupting the business.

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An ecommerce pioneer in the early 2000s, evo grew from a ski gear startup to a global, multi-sector company spanning retail, rentals, travel, and hotels. Nearly everything was custom – website, in-store point of sale (POS), product information management system (PIM), content management system (CMS), and customer support.

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While these custom systems had served the company well, evo had reached a tipping point: the tech was blocking innovation and growth. Maintenance costs were ballooning.

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While it was clear to evo that it needed to migrate to a new commerce platform, what wasn’t clear was how they would do it. What was the best path forward to strategically leverage out-of-the-box software to simplify development and maintenance and also create a solid foundation to enable new channels like agentic commerce?

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The Solution

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evo’s project was much more than a replatforming “lift and shift.” It was a fundamental change of the company’s commerce operations, both online and in store. Envisioning and implementing this new structure required a diverse ehouse team with a range of experience in strategy, design, development, integration, and commerce, as well as deep Shopify ecosystem expertise.

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Strategic plan and roadmap: Working collaboratively with evo, ehouse built a comprehensive, phased plan to successfully pilot and deliver a future-proof omnichannel system in 14 months, including what software to retain or replace, in what order, backend system integrations, product and customer data migrations, POS rollout, customer service migration, and training the evo team for a seamless transition.

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From a business perspective, ehouse took a consultative approach to help evo determine where and how they could simplify business operations, content management, and search and merchandising that had previously been custom and complex.

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International Shopify Plus site: The team redesigned and rebuilt the evo site on Shopify Plus, leveraging Shopify Markets to personalize shopping experiences for customers in the US, Canada, and internationally. The launch required careful timing: after the peak holiday season to minimize potential revenue loss.

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In-store POS system: ehouse developed curriculum to train hundreds of store associates and helped evo pilot the new POS at its flagship US store to inform the full rollout in the US and Canada. ehouse also resolved a key friction point for store associates – processing returns – by leveraging Shopify's native ability for web returns in the in-store POS.

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Omnichannel CX and single customer view: evo’s ultimate goal is a “one customer, one view” capability across every touchpoint, stitching together retail and travel experiences for the brand. ehouse’s integration team consulted on how to connect backend operations like NetSuite ERP into Shopify to enable seamless shopping experiences everywhere (i.e., BOPIS, order in store, ship from store, drop-shipping), as well as designing a data architecture for a centralized customer profile.

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SEO migration: To protect evo’s hard-earned online presence, ehouse worked with evo to successfully implement a plan to maintain the brand’s SERP rankings and organic traffic for its huge product catalog consisting of hundreds of thousands of active SKUs.

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New product system: ehouse built a new structure for managing products of 250+ brands in the new system, including highly technical product detail pages (PDP) and collection pages. The team also developed product tiles that can be used for merchandising (e.g., product bundles) and booking trips (skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking). In addition, ehouse integrated Constructor, which leverages AI for search and merchandising.

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The Results

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evo’s new commerce platform paid off almost immediately when the first major promotion outperformed the company’s sales plan just days after launch. Maintenance costs have dropped dramatically thanks to the more flexible platform that makes it easy to integrate new software, enable new payment types, and turn on new channels like agentic commerce. ehouse continues to partner with evo’s engineering, merchandising, and design teams to get them comfortable with Shopify best practices, as well as explore how to leverage Shopify’s Agentic Commerce functionality as AI continues evolving.