We help you sell moreRequest a Free QuotePro Audio LA builds custom studio cabling in Los Angeles and sells the gear that plugs into it. Its Volusion store was nearly all white and left the team little control over its own content. Over twelve months we moved the store to BigCommerce and rebuilt it with page templates the staff choose themselves.
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The challenge
Pro Audio LA describes its job as helping people "Make Better Music." The team designs and integrates studio systems, tunes workflows, gives engineering advice, and hand builds cables, snakes, panels, and patchbays in its Los Angeles cable shop. Visitors can try gear in working demo rooms.
The online store told a smaller story. It had run on Volusion for years, and the team had come to see the platform as a limit on growth. Pages were mostly white with little color or style, categories were rows of small thumbnails beside a long sidebar, and the staff had little say over how a category or product page was laid out.
They asked MAK Digital for three things: move all of the store's data to a platform with room to grow, give the staff control over content, and make sure the new store was sound for search and worked on every screen. After weighing its options, Pro Audio LA chose BigCommerce, and we handled the move as a full Volusion to BigCommerce migration.
What we did
The data migration came first. Design and custom development ran alongside it, and the last step before launch was a check of on-page SEO and every screen size.
Step 1 of 4
Everything the store knew had to arrive on BigCommerce intact, and some of it had to change shape on the way. On Volusion, Pro Audio LA had used category pages to stand in for brand pages. A straight copy would have carried that workaround into the new store.
We wrote custom logic for the move so those categories became entries on a real Brands page, with their content attached. Extra product and category attributes that BigCommerce does not hold by default went into metafields, managed with the Space48 Metafields app, so the staff can edit them from the admin.
This is the work our BigCommerce data migration service covers: products, categories, customers, orders, and the SEO data that keeps old addresses pointing at new pages. If you are weighing a move, a migration audit shows what your own data will need.
Step 2 of 4
Pro Audio LA curates a studio for each client. We set out to do the same with its store. The old site was mostly white. The new one opens on a photograph of a working podcast studio and uses color and photography throughout, so shopping online feels closer to walking into the Los Angeles shop.
Navigation was rebuilt around how customers look for gear. A custom mega navigation gathers everything under Products, Services, Brands, Sales, and Financing, with search in the header. Below the first screen, large tiles lead to acoustics, recording and live sound equipment, studio furniture, system design services, and the hand-built cabling the shop is known for.
The design followed our BigCommerce web design process, with user experience decisions made before visual ones.
Step 3 of 4
Control over content was the request that shaped the build. A cable, a mixing console, and an acoustic panel do not sell the same way, so one layout for every page was never going to fit.
We built several custom templates each for category pages, product pages, and brand pages, with more than one view. When the staff add a category or a product, they pick the layout that suits it, at any time and without a developer. Category pages can show products as a list with descriptions or as a grid. Product pages carry tabs for the overview, specifications, questions, and accessories.
The mobile navigation and the side cart are custom React components, so a shopper can open the menu or review the cart without leaving the page. Images are delivered through the Cloudinary API for faster load times. All of it sits in a custom BigCommerce Stencil theme, built by our BigCommerce development team.
Step 4 of 4
A migration changes addresses, templates, and page weight at the same time, which is why search visibility can slip when a store moves. The last part of the project was a pass over on-page SEO across the new store and a check that every template worked on phones, tablets, and desktops.
For the ongoing side of that work, see our BigCommerce SEO services and responsive design pages.
Before and after
The same four screens before and after the project. Select any screenshot to open it at full size.
Before, a phone showed the desktop page shrunk to fit: a sidebar of category links too small to tap and a grid of thumbnails.
After, the phone number sits at the top, the menu and search are one tap away, and each department is a full-width tile.
Before
After
Before, a sale banner led into rows of small category thumbnails on a white page, with payment logos down the side.
After, one studio photograph sets the tone and six tiles cover acoustics, equipment, studio furniture, services, cabling, and demo experiences.
Before
After
Before, the patchbay category opened with a block of small text, then thumbnails, then a plain list.
After, subcategories are buttons under a title band, filters open from one bar, and the shopper switches between list and grid views.
Before
After
Before, a small photo and small text shared the page with the sidebar and a column of accessories.
After, the photo, price, and savings lead, with warranty, financing, and cable credit badges beside the Add to Cart button and the details in tabs.
Before
After
Technology
Apps handle the jobs apps do well. Custom code went where the store needed to behave in its own way.
The outcome
The project ran from January 2022 to January 2023. Pro Audio LA came out of it with its data on BigCommerce, a design that carries the feel of its Los Angeles shop, and the thing it asked for first: control over its own content, through templates the staff select themselves.
| Area | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | Volusion | BigCommerce with a custom Stencil theme |
| Look | Mostly white, little color | Color and studio photography throughout |
| Navigation | A sidebar list of categories | Custom mega navigation, and a React menu on phones |
| Category pages | Small text and thumbnails | Subcategory buttons, filters, list and grid views, several templates |
| Product pages | Small photo and small text beside a sidebar | Large photo, price and savings, badges, tabbed details, several templates |
| Brand pages | Category pages standing in for brands | A Brands page built from the migrated data |
| Content control | Limited | Staff choose the template for each category, product, and brand |
The "Before" column describes the Volusion store as it appears in the screenshots on this page.
What it shows
The details belong to one audio retailer. The decisions apply to most stores that have outgrown their platform.
Categories posing as brand pages were a workaround. Migration was the moment to turn them into real brands. A migration audit finds these before any data moves.
Several templates per page type let the staff match the layout to the product. Content changes stop waiting on a developer.
Search, reviews, shipping rates, and backups went to proven apps. Custom code was saved for navigation, templates, and the cart. See BigCommerce API and integrations.
A move changes addresses and templates at once. Review on-page SEO and every screen size before the switch, while a fix is still cheap.
What we did for Pro Audio LA, how long it took, and what it means for a store on Volusion today.
Three things: we migrated all of the store's data from Volusion to BigCommerce, designed and built a new storefront on a custom Stencil theme with several templates for category, product, and brand pages, and confirmed on-page SEO and responsive behavior before launch.
One year, from January 2022 to January 2023. That covers the data migration, a full redesign, nine custom-built features, and eight app and service integrations. A store that keeps its design and needs less custom work moves faster. Our Volusion to BigCommerce migration page explains the steps.
Searchanise for on-site search, Stamped.io for reviews, ShipperHQ for shipping rates, ShipStation for fulfillment, Rewind for data backups, Space48 Metafields for extra product and category attributes, Cloudinary for image delivery, and Bolt for payments, all on a custom BigCommerce Stencil theme.
The mega navigation, category and product pages with multiple views and templates, a Brands page with the logic to convert the categories Volusion had used as brand pages, the Space48 Metafields and Cloudinary API integrations, a React mobile navigation component, and a React side cart.
The team saw its previous platform as a limit on growth and wanted more control over content. After weighing its options it chose BigCommerce. As a BigCommerce partner we then planned the move. If you are comparing platforms, start with our platform migration overview.
Yes. We move Volusion stores to BigCommerce and to other platforms, with products, customers, orders, and SEO data carried over. Start with a migration audit, or request a quote and tell us about your catalog.
Tell us what your store runs on and what it cannot do. We will tell you what a migration would involve and what we would build.
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