CASE STUDY: The Decking Superstore: Keeping Up In Silicon Valley

Rebuilding a low-tech website with a new Gatsby/JAMstack framework resulted in search engine traffic increasing by 100% and sales growing by an additional 25% over the previous year.

Located in San Jose since 1965, The Decking Superstore is a major retailer of outdoor living building materials. Their previous website was a low-tech, traditional WordPress site. These slow loading, PHP rendered websites are an anathema in a market of high-tech individuals. 

Brandon Pasek, President of the Decking Superstore knew his company needed a much more technologically advanced website. His main criteria were speed (specifically page load times), improved SEO and online selling tools to convert visitors to sales.

Jambaree knew the solution to solve The Decking Superstore’s problems was a Gatsby/JAMstack website. “We were confident that by using React (a Javascript library) and Gatsby (open source framework),  we could build a super-fast website that would see an increase in SEO and user engagement,” says Blaine Yamakawa, project manager at Jambaree. 

But the team knew that converting user visits to online sales was the big challenge. “The sheer volume of products The Decking Superstore sells was a bit overwhelming. We had to figure out how best to categorize products to make it easier for users to find what they were looking for.  And then we had to determine which decision making tools we could add that would help enhance the user experience to result in a sale.” 

The components Jambaree built into The Decking Superstore Gatsby/JAMstack website included:

• An interactive siding decision-making tool to guide customers by asking them to answer a few basic questions and then present them with custom siding selections based on their answers;
• A composite decking comparison tool for a side-by-side comparison of the top composite decking products by Trex, AZEK, TimberTech and Fiberon;
• An advanced quote request system built in React that enhances user experience. The old system required customers to complete a long quote request form. The new system has interactive screens that lead customers through the project they want priced. The result is significantly improved conversion rates;
• Lastly, Salesforce CRM was added to manage quote requests and to nurture leads.

The new site is fast and easy for the client to manage because Jambaree has pioneered a way to connect a “headless WordPress” backend with a blazing-fast, React-based Gatsby frontend. 

“We use Gatsby to power the front-end of our sites, and WordPress CMS for the back-end. Clients love that they get all the speed and security at the frontend without sacrificing the familiar features and plugins of WordPress at the back,” says Robin Zimmer, a frontend Gatsby lead web developer at Jambaree.

“Our new site is super-fast, with a clean, fresh design that has proven to be a highly effective marketing tool for our business,” says Brandon Pasek, President of The Decking Superstore. “Our sales are up 25% (when compared to 2019) and traffic from Google (organic listings) has doubled over last year. Additionally, integrating Salesforce into our website has helped us immensely in managing and nurturing our leads.”

For information on how to get your own super-fast website, contact us now.