How Bauer Hockey Scored a 60% Revenue Surge by Switching to Shopify

Driving Growth with Shopify Migration

When Bauer Hockey realized its legacy commerce platform was holding back new features and slowing time to market, the digital team mapped out a migration to Shopify Plus. Partnering with agency CQL, Bauer set out to streamline development, gain control over page updates and integrate essential systems without endless IT cycles.

The Challenge

As a market leader in hockey gear, Bauer’s brand is trusted by pros and amateurs alike. Yet its old platform required lengthy development sprints for every design tweak or new loyalty feature. International sales, custom warranty pages and a planned loyalty program all threatened ballooning costs and delayed launches.

The Solution

Bauer moved to Shopify Plus in a structured 5-phase migration: planning, design, integration, testing and launch. Core integrations with SAP, Avalara for taxes, Klaviyo for email, Searchspring for site search and Loop Returns were built in parallel with a minimum viable loyalty program on Yotpo. A new page builder gave non-tech teams flexibility to update content instantly, cutting reliance on engineers.

The combined Shopify ecosystem—native checkout, global hosting and an app store—made it easier to add features fast and reallocate dollars from platform maintenance to creative marketing and content creation. By offloading infrastructure work to Shopify, Bauer freed up in-house developers to build core experiences like “Shots,” a sweepstakes-style loyalty game on Yotpo.

The Results

Within six months of launch, Bauer posted a 60% year-over-year revenue lift, a 30% bump in order volume and an 18% rise in site conversion—especially on mobile, where Shop Pay accelerated checkouts. The move also delivered 20% savings on overall platform costs by reducing custom development needs. Teams now iterate faster on new categories, run promotions in hours, and test product storytelling without IT bottlenecks.

Conclusion

By switching to Shopify Plus, Bauer Hockey reclaimed control, cut costs and unlocked a growth engine ready to support global expansion. The platform gave marketing and digital teams room to experiment, and the integrated loyalty program keeps fans engaged season after season.