Case Study: From Brick-and-Mortar to an Ecommerce-Driven Retail Hybrid

EBS Adventure is an independent outdoor retailer based in Saskatchewan. They sell gear and accessories for all seasons and offer rentals for stand-up paddle boards along with workshops and lessons. Most of their sales came through their physical storefront, but they began to see the need to expand their online presence to reach more customers and support their in-person offerings.

Close-up of wooden surfboards with branding on a sandy background

Background & Challenge

Their Shopify store was running on an outdated version of the Empire theme. The site was extremely slow, difficult to navigate, and not built to support seasonal services or local search. Blog articles weren’t tagged properly, broken links and oversized images affected performance, and key offerings like rentals and lessons were not easy to find. They also had very little visibility in local search results and no system in place to capture customer reviews.

What They Wanted — and How We Got Them There

  • Their Goal

    EBS Adventure wanted to modernize their website and shift toward a hybrid model where customers could discover and shop online before visiting the store. They needed better site performance, clearer navigation, and improved visibility in local search to increase both online orders and foot traffic.

  • Our Solution

    We began by upgrading their Shopify theme to improve speed and user experience. The main navigation was simplified to highlight only the most important pages. A new service page template was created to feature rentals and lessons more clearly.

    We fixed broken links, compressed large images, and cleaned up https redirects. Blog articles were organized with tags, and we made the brands page dynamic. A zoomable store map was added to support local shoppers.

    To boost local SEO, we updated and optimized their Google Business listing and created a QR code that made it easy for in-store customers to leave Google reviews. This helped build their credibility and improve their rankings in local search results.

Results That Moved the Needle

99%
increase in conversion rate
126%
Order volume jump
199%
Online revenue growth

From November 2024 to July 2025, online sales increased by 199%. Sessions were up 12% and the number of orders rose by 126%. The conversion rate nearly doubled with a 99% percent improvement. Visibility in local search also improved, bringing in more foot traffic from customers discovering the store through Google. EBS Adventure is now better positioned to grow both online and offline with a stronger digital presence that supports their community-based retail model.

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