How Heat Transfer Warehouse Scaled with BigCommerce and Boosted 44% Revenue

Transforming Growth with a Scalable Platform

When Heat Transfer Warehouse opened its doors in 2010, the team braced for traditional phone orders rather than explosive online demand. Initially launching on WordPress with WooCommerce, the e-commerce site quickly became a victim of its own success as traffic and transactions doubled, then tripled, each season. Seeking more flexibility, the team rebuilt on an open-source solution only to confront mounting development cycles that stretched features out over months. Compatibility issues with apps and ERP integrations blocked critical enhancements, creating a roadblock that threatened both agility and profitability.

Challenge: Overcoming Development Bottlenecks

Tasks that should have taken hours instead demanded weeks of developer time. Adding even simple affiliate links or updating product catalogs became a tedious, multi-step process. B2B customers—responsible for a sizable share of revenue—lost patience as manual discount codes and error-prone invoicing ate into team bandwidth. Without a streamlined back-end, the business risked plateauing just as its market opportunity was expanding.

Solution: Migrating to BigCommerce

In 2020, Heat Transfer Warehouse made the decisive leap to BigCommerce. Its intuitive control panel allowed the team to spin up updates in under an hour, replacing what once took months. The migration process, guided by BigCommerce experts, felt seamless—data moved cleanly, and design tweaks could be previewed instantly. With customer groups, pricing tiers for silver, gold, and platinum B2B clients automatically applied discounts at login, eliminating manual coupon distribution. The consolidation of their DTC acquisition, Shirts From Fargo, under a single Enterprise account further streamlined operations, giving marketing and fulfillment teams a unified interface.

Results: Tangible Gains and Operational Efficiency

Post-launch metrics soared: conversion rates improved by 16%, revenue climbed 44% and customer count grew 41% year-over-year. By integrating Bolt for fraud detection, the team reclaimed hours previously spent flagging suspicious orders and prevented thousands in chargebacks. Affiliatly enabled a robust affiliate program with over 100 partners up and running within weeks. Automated email flows via Klaviyo increased repeat purchases, recommending complementary materials to past buyers. These newfound efficiencies freed the team to focus on growth-driving initiatives rather than maintenance.

Looking Ahead: Scaling with Multi-Storefront and B2B Edition

Empowered by BigCommerce’s flexibility, Heat Transfer Warehouse is now engineering two new specialty storefronts to serve niche customer segments. Regular strategy sessions with BigCommerce advisors uncover opportunities within B2B Edition, headless APIs, and International Commerce. With a growth-driven culture and reliable technical partnership, the company stands ready to dominate the custom decoration market for years to come.