Ascent Protein sets the benchmark in supplemental protein purity. Using all natural products and processing their own ingredients, Ascent helps athletes naturally improve their performance. With 30 years in the business of helping athletes achieve extraordinary results, Ascent’s team recognized when their ecommerce business could use a boost in performance as well.

Ascent depends on their trusted gym representatives to help product reach more gyms and more customers. Before Ascent connected with Sellry, the backend ordering options for gym reps were clunky and inflexible.

Making changes to the site’s front end was also difficult due to the high level of customization involved in the original site build. Ascent’s team members were required to call in outside help for even the smallest content changes.

After grappling with these issues for years, Ascent decided to call in backup. They were looking for a more stable experience on their website and foundation that would allow them more independence, more insight into their business, more organic traffic, and a sleek purchasing experience for the gym reps who help drive their business. Sellry was able to deliver these improvements and more.

Independence in ecommerce

The new Ascent Protein website looks far different than the site they had before. A focus on UX and UI has made their site easier to navigate while maintaining all previous functionality including their protein calculator which helps customers determine how much protein they need every day and what products can help meet that need. The new design is more intuitive, easier to navigate, focused on providing product information, and optimized for organic search. Sellry also built more robust reporting into the site to allow the Ascent team to make data-driven decisions and see the impact of various new features.

Importantly, the new site is also easier to maintain internally without the need for extensive, ongoing agency involvement. By moving the website to Shopify Plus, Sellry was able to build a strong foundation for Ascent’s ecommerce presence using the best themes, apps, and integrations Shopify’s extensive ecosystem of partners has to offer. One partner that made a significant difference in the backend purchasing options for sales reps is ReCharge.

Revamped repeat purchasing

ReCharge is a well-known purchasing solution for subscription products, and they deserve the hype. The UX of their checkout experience is optimized and enjoyable, and they make it easy for ecommerce companies to boost revenue. This is why Sellry often recommends their services to ecommerce clients with subscription services, but in Ascent’s case, we needed a more unique solution than your classic subscription checkout.

While Ascent was seeing some organic traffic and experiencing some repeat customers through their website prior to the new site build, the majority of the purchased on their website came from the gym reps on the back end. Ascent needed a solution for back-end purchasing, which isn’t something that’s built into the Shopify platform.

As a ReCharge partner, Sellry was able to work with the ReCharge team to obtain access to one of their newer features: One Time Products. This payment product was in beta mode at the time of launch on Ascent’s website and they were able to be part of a select pool of beta testers because of the Sellry/ReCharge partnership. The One Time Products solution solved a number of issues in the backend purchasing process for gym reps:

• Gym reps were now able to make backend orders through the use of the One Time Product feature of the ReCharge platform
• Sales reps now have improved UX and more flexibility with purchasing that allows them to make purchases for the customer account they are working with on the backend, place an order, update billing info, add discounts to that order, determine the frequency of shipment, and more.
• All billing info is saved and secure through ReCharge allowing gym reps to avoid the step of retyping and reviewing gym’s payment information over and over again.

Results 

Upon site launch, Ascent saw no drop off between their old metrics and their new metrics, an impressive feat for a redesign as extensive as theirs. Comparing their numbers from last year at this same time, their overall revenue is up 65.2% and their ecommerce revenue is up 16.8%.