Michael McBride
Founder & CEO, Atelier Commerce
Michael McBride
Founder & CEO, Atelier Commerce
We did not just move Gearstar to a new platform. We launched it in the middle of an attack, protected every ranking they had, and then built a year of growth on top of it.
We did not just move Gearstar to a new platform. We launched it in the middle of an attack, protected every ranking they had, and then built a year of growth on top of it.
The Challenge
Gearstar had real demand and real authority in the performance-transmissions world, but the legacy storefront was holding them back, and then it came under attack.
The legacy site was failing on every front. Slow load times, an aging architecture, and an experience that bounced more than a third of its visitors, stuck in the double digits on Google for most queries that mattered. The launch happened under a live DDoS. The legacy site was under active attack. Most agencies would have asked for a week. Atelier built, migrated, and brought the new BigCommerce storefront live in hours, under fire, without losing the catalog or the organic footprint. Rankings could not be put at risk. A replatform is where most sites bleed traffic. The brief was the opposite: migrate the entire catalog, preserve every redirect and ranking, and come out the other side faster and higher. The experience had to convert. A new site is only worth it if visitors stay, engage, and buy. Speed, mobile-first design, and conversion-focused architecture had to be built in from day one. The brief was clear: relaunch without losing a thing, then grow on top of it.
The Challenge
Gearstar had real demand and real authority in the performance-transmissions world, but the legacy storefront was holding them back, and then it came under attack.
The legacy site was failing on every front. Slow load times, an aging architecture, and an experience that bounced more than a third of its visitors, stuck in the double digits on Google for most queries that mattered. The launch happened under a live DDoS. The legacy site was under active attack. Most agencies would have asked for a week. Atelier built, migrated, and brought the new BigCommerce storefront live in hours, under fire, without losing the catalog or the organic footprint. Rankings could not be put at risk. A replatform is where most sites bleed traffic. The brief was the opposite: migrate the entire catalog, preserve every redirect and ranking, and come out the other side faster and higher. The experience had to convert. A new site is only worth it if visitors stay, engage, and buy. Speed, mobile-first design, and conversion-focused architecture had to be built in from day one. The brief was clear: relaunch without losing a thing, then grow on top of it.
The System
We replatformed Gearstar onto BigCommerce and rebuilt the storefront from the ground up, then owned it.
Emergency replatform and migration. Full catalog migration onto BigCommerce, executed live during a DDoS on the legacy site. Theme, checkout, and product architecture stood up under pressure, with a 301 redirect strategy and Search Console verification coordinated through the rush so no equity was lost. Design and front-end development. A mobile-first storefront built for a buyer base that lives on their phones. Mobile is now the primary entry point, carrying the majority of organic clicks at an average position inside the top five. Performance and SEO foundation. The new build was fast, crawlable, and structured to rank. Impressions climbed nearly every month, and average position improved from the double digits into the top half of page one. Content and authority. Top-of-funnel education pages were built into the site, pulling qualified traffic that only converts because the storefront underneath it is fast and built to sell. CRO baked into the rebuild. Faster pages, cleaner hierarchy, and reduced friction turned more of that traffic into engaged sessions. Bounce rate fell to roughly a quarter of visitors, engagement rate rose to nearly three-quarters, and average session duration grew 59%. Platform, integrations, and ongoing advisory. Financing and tax-automation integrations, bulk-pricing tooling and CMS support, SEO partners onboarded into the new property, and strategic counsel on every major vendor decision since launch.
The System
We replatformed Gearstar onto BigCommerce and rebuilt the storefront from the ground up, then owned it.
Emergency replatform and migration. Full catalog migration onto BigCommerce, executed live during a DDoS on the legacy site. Theme, checkout, and product architecture stood up under pressure, with a 301 redirect strategy and Search Console verification coordinated through the rush so no equity was lost. Design and front-end development. A mobile-first storefront built for a buyer base that lives on their phones. Mobile is now the primary entry point, carrying the majority of organic clicks at an average position inside the top five. Performance and SEO foundation. The new build was fast, crawlable, and structured to rank. Impressions climbed nearly every month, and average position improved from the double digits into the top half of page one. Content and authority. Top-of-funnel education pages were built into the site, pulling qualified traffic that only converts because the storefront underneath it is fast and built to sell. CRO baked into the rebuild. Faster pages, cleaner hierarchy, and reduced friction turned more of that traffic into engaged sessions. Bounce rate fell to roughly a quarter of visitors, engagement rate rose to nearly three-quarters, and average session duration grew 59%. Platform, integrations, and ongoing advisory. Financing and tax-automation integrations, bulk-pricing tooling and CMS support, SEO partners onboarded into the new property, and strategic counsel on every major vendor decision since launch.
Latest projects
Social Media Marketing
Alicia Adams Alpaca: Where nine in ten organic social visitors are meeting the brand for the very first time
Alicia Adams Alpaca runs organic social as top-of-funnel discovery, not bottom-funnel conversion. Nearly 90% of visitors it sends are first-timers, the brand's highest new-visitor rate of any channel, arriving curious after seeing a styled throw or editorial content, ready to look closer.
Social Media Marketing
Alicia Adams Alpaca: Where nine in ten organic social visitors are meeting the brand for the very first time
Alicia Adams Alpaca runs organic social as top-of-funnel discovery, not bottom-funnel conversion. Nearly 90% of visitors it sends are first-timers, the brand's highest new-visitor rate of any channel, arriving curious after seeing a styled throw or editorial content, ready to look closer.
Moonglow Jewelry: SEO & AEO, One Data Layer, Three Surfaces
We cleaned up a sprawling Shopify Plus catalog and enriched the product data behind it, structured for search engines and answer engines alike. The result: the blue link, the star-rating rich result, a seat in the AI Overview. Same data. Built to be found. Built to be cited.
Moonglow Jewelry: SEO & AEO, One Data Layer, Three Surfaces
We cleaned up a sprawling Shopify Plus catalog and enriched the product data behind it, structured for search engines and answer engines alike. The result: the blue link, the star-rating rich result, a seat in the AI Overview. Same data. Built to be found. Built to be cited.
Latest projects
Social Media Marketing
Alicia Adams Alpaca: Where nine in ten organic social visitors are meeting the brand for the very first time
Alicia Adams Alpaca runs organic social as top-of-funnel discovery, not bottom-funnel conversion. Nearly 90% of visitors it sends are first-timers, the brand's highest new-visitor rate of any channel, arriving curious after seeing a styled throw or editorial content, ready to look closer.
Moonglow Jewelry: SEO & AEO, One Data Layer, Three Surfaces
We cleaned up a sprawling Shopify Plus catalog and enriched the product data behind it, structured for search engines and answer engines alike. The result: the blue link, the star-rating rich result, a seat in the AI Overview. Same data. Built to be found. Built to be cited.
