- Start & Build
Product Overview
What you can do with BigCommerce.
Agentic Commerce
AI-powered solutions for growth.
Design Your Store
Build your store with or without code.
Apps & Integrations
Over 1,200 apps to help you grow.
Migrate to BigCommerce
Switch from Shopify, Woocommerce, Salesforce, Magento, and more.
- Launch Services
Overview
Chart your path to success with specialised services.Implementation Project Management
Experts to ensure you launch on time and under budget.Solution Architecture
Seasoned advisors to help you best design your store.Data Migration & Optimisation
Expertise on a clean and clear path to migrating your data.Enterprise Launch Package
Personal training on how to set up and launch your BigCommerce Store.
Professional Services Blog Series
Get to know our teams and how they support your success in this Q&A series.
The Global B2B Buyer Behavior Report
This in-depth report provides actionable strategies to help you sell more online.
JUGS Sports Hits It Out of the Park with BigCommerce
Discover how customisable, cost-effective and reliable BigCommerce is and why we built it that way.
Want to see how BigCommerce can work for you?
260%
increase in sessions
52%
increase in revenue post launch
93%
improvement in site speed
Challenge.
Outdated platform required heavy developer involvement.
Clunky backend processes and limited integrations with core business systems.
Environment lacked the scalable solution to support both DTC and institutional buyers.
Solution.
Migrated to BigCommerce for a user-friendly, scalable foundation.
Partnered with Above the Fray to modernise design and boost site performance.
Integrated tools like ShipperHQ to manage complex shipping requirements.
Results.
Significant increase in revenue and sessions post-launch.
Improvement in site and page load speeds.
Scalable storefront improved the overall ecommerce experience.
From developer dependence to doubled conversions
JUGS Sports didn't become the world's largest pitching machine company by standing still. The brand serves everyone from backyard athletes and schools to baseball teams and equipment dealers — a hybrid model pairing direct-to-consumer sales with a B2B dealer channel.
But its custom-built ecommerce system couldn't keep up: every update was a struggle, every integration a project.
So JUGS Sports swung big, replatforming to BigCommerce with agency partner Above the Fray. The payoff:
A redesigned site that performs and scales
An internal team that moves fast, free of maintenance headaches
A smoother path to purchase for shoppers and dealers alike
Challenge
A patched-together platform that couldn't keep up.
For more than a decade, JUGS Sports ran its ecommerce on outdated code and hard-to-manage templates, with little the internal team could change on its own.
“We had to go out of house to get a lot of things done on it,” said Kevin Bates, Art Director at JUGS Sports. “We were looking for a platform that made it easy to make changes on our own.”
The friction showed up everywhere. Even simple page updates meant calling in outside developers. Backend processes were clunky. Integrations with the company's core business software were hit-or-miss. And as the brand grew across individual buyers and schools, those limitations became harder to ignore.
“The site was looking dated,” Bates explained. “It also just didn't integrate with the software our business runs on very well.”
JUGS Sports sized up enterprise-grade options like Magento, and found them oversized.
“Magento seemed like it was designed for a company that had maybe 300 storefronts. It just seemed too big,” Bates said.
What the company needed was a platform that fit, one that was modern, scalable, and built to:
Support both DTC and dealer sales
Integrate cleanly with core backend systems
Let the team manage the site without leaning on developers
The goal wasn't just a redesign; it was a foundation for long-term growth.
“We had to go out of house to get a lot of things done on it. We were looking for a platform that made it easy to make changes on our own.”
KEVIN BATES, ART DIRECTOR AT JUGS SPORTS
Solutions
Putting site control back in the team's hands.
For years, even simple site updates meant going out of house. With BigCommerce, that changed on day one.
“The part that we liked best was being able to work on it in-house and get things done without having to send it out to a developer,” said Bates.
With an intuitive control panel and built-in content management tools, the JUGS Sports team now updates product pages, manages content, and ships site changes on their own, with no outside help needed.
“The CMS, and everything else that has to do with the backend, is really user friendly,” Bates shared. “I think I could train somebody that has no experience, and they'd be able to work with it really well.”
The result: less reliance on outside resources, faster turnaround, and a digital presence that keeps pace with the brand.
A storefront rebuilt from the ground up.
A dated look and hard-coded templates were holding the brand back online. To change that, JUGS Sports partnered with Above the Fray and what began as a redesign became a full transformation.
After discovery workshops and a code audit, Above the Fray rebuilt the storefront on BigCommerce:
Swapping hard-coded sections for flexible, native BigCommerce widgets
Restructuring navigation and taxonomy to surface products beyond baseball as the brand expands into new sports
Bringing the site up to modern accessibility and performance standards, with faster load times across devices
Consolidating and rewriting content for 200+ products, moving details scattered across PDFs, catalogues, and manuals into clear, search-optimised copy, and giving the brand a centralised content library for the first time
“We just upgraded the site and it looks and functions way better,” said Bates.
The new experience also makes it easy to feature product videos, which is critical when demonstration drives purchase decisions.
“One of the features BigCommerce empowered our team with on the new site was the ease of being able to put videos on the pages,” Bates added.
Kickoff to launch: four to five months.
Built to scale without the complexity.
Where other enterprise platforms felt oversized, BigCommerce fit the business (and the budget).
“It seemed like it was more for our size and fit us a lot better,” Bates said. “And the price was quite a bit better.”
As JUGS Sports grows across DTC and dealer channels, the platform scales without disruption.
“The scalability aspect was huge for us. As our company grows, it can grow with us,” Bates explained.
BigCommerce's open ecosystem also lets the team integrate tools without overcomplicating the stack. ShipperHQ, for example, handles complex shipping logic for bulk orders of balls and equipment. “If somebody buys one box, the shipping price is not the same as if they buy 20 boxes,” Bates noted.
Combined with built-in SEO controls and a streamlined checkout, the result is a foundation that just works.
“BigCommerce works without any headaches,” Bates remarked.
“The scalability aspect was huge for us. As our company grows, it can grow with us.”
KEVIN BATES, ART DIRECTOR AT JUGS SPORTS
“Conversion rates used to be about 10% on our website. Now they're over 25%.”
KEVIN BATES, ART DIRECTOR AT JUGS SPORTS
Results
Faster site. Higher conversions. Full control.
Since relaunching on BigCommerce, JUGS Sports has posted measurable gains across the board:
260% increase in sessions
52% increase in revenue
93% improvement in site speed
And the headline number: conversions have more than doubled.
“Conversion rates used to be about 10% on our website. Now they're over 25%,” Bates shared.
A faster site, streamlined navigation, richer product presentation, and a more intuitive checkout have made it easier for customers to move from browsing to buying.
The operational wins are just as real. Routine updates that once required outsourcing are now handled in-house.
“In the past we would have to send out to get pages updated or get functionality added,” Bates explained. “Now I can do just about anything on the site right now.”
That self-sufficiency saves time and money while accelerating campaign launches and product updates, and platform stability has removed the friction that once slowed growth.
Today, JUGS Sports runs on a digital foundation built for sustained growth, serving individual buyers and institutional customers without added complexity.
“In the past we would have to send out to get pages updated or get functionality added. Now I can do just about anything on the site right now.”
KEVIN BATES, ART DIRECTOR AT JUGS SPORTS
Looking ahead
Built for what's next.
With a modern ecommerce foundation in place, JUGS Sports is focused on continued growth across both direct-to-consumer and dealer channels — and beyond baseball, as the brand expands into new sports.
There's room to grow inside the platform, too. The team plans to keep refining site content, deepening product education, and optimising performance as new opportunities emerge.
“The best part about BigCommerce is that it can scale with us,” Bates said. “If we grow a lot, we don't feel like we're going to have to change platforms.”
As demand climbs among schools, training facilities, and individual athletes, the foundation is already in place. JUGS Sports didn't become the world's largest pitching machine company by standing still, and with BigCommerce, it doesn't plan to start.
“The best part about BigCommerce is that it can scale with us. If we grow a lot, we don't feel like we're going to have to change platforms.”
KEVIN BATES, ART DIRECTOR AT JUGS SPORTS
Published October 2026
See More On These Topics
