Reviews & Case Studies: Hificentre.com – 132% Year-on-Year Growth

Company

Hificentre.com is an ‘on’ and ‘off-line’ retailer of high-end retailer of audio and visual systems based in Vancouver Canada. With numerous failed attempts at trying to scale with Shopify and working with various agencies that over-promised and under-delivered for a few years. Igor Kivritski (the owner) was about to give up on making his already extremely successful offline business, become as successful online.

Problem

Using Shopify with a large inventory of some 2000+ SKUs, complex filtering requirements, a product filter app that incorrectly self-canonicalized, an absolute necessity for a shop by brand and shop by product type, and, a bespoke in-house POS system that controlled stock on and offline. 

As a result, like in so many other similar scenarios, the hificentre.com store was riddled with the typical Shopify technical SEO issues you’d expect to see in such a scenario which prevented the store from scaling organically, and any other channel for that matter.

• Under optimized product feed controlled by POS overwriting metadata

• Mass duplications of root collection pages caused by a low-quality filter app

• Shop by brand and product type collection duplications

• Sitewide keyword conflicts and cannibalization 

• Slow page load speed of 3.2 seconds

When Covid-19’s worldwide lockdown struck, Igor’s beautiful high street store was dealt a hammer blow and had to close its doors in early 2020, Igor’s primary revenue stream came to a screeching halt and had to switch his focus to online sales like so many others had to and decided to give the online world one last attempt at success and growth organically, as the technology sector works with very tight margins compared to other sectors and paid marketing was completely out of the question.

Solution

We first consulted on a new in-house POS system that would not override the ability to have a fully optimized Shopify store.

We upgraded hificentre.com to what was back then our world-exclusive Quantum-Tempus Shopify 1.0 theme with a design very specific to hificentre.com’s wishes.

We manually optimized a new product feed of 2000+ SKUs for the search engines, our filter tech, and the Google Shopping Comparison Service.

We planned, installed, and configured our Shopify AAP® SEO Product Filter tech which unleashed hundreds more fully optimized, high-converting landing pages in the search engines.

We created custom page templates and tagged certain products for ‘buy in-store only’

We eliminated all Shop by Brand & Shop by Product Type, collection page metadata, keyword, and content conflicts with our unique canonical programming system and tool. 

We ran a post-launch technical analysis to ensure a smooth transition to our tech.

We designed, planned, and published a 12-month content marketing campaign to drive additional traffic and attract high-quality links to build domain authority.

We fixed ongoing technical SEO issues

We provided ongoing monthly consultancy, support, and reporting on a rolling 12-month contract for our comprehensive marketing service and they are still with us today in 2024.

We now help manage their SEO, automated marketing and paid Google ads.

In 2023 we upgraded Hificentre.com to RankHigherTheme® which is our latest OS 2.0 theme.

Results

In the first 7 months of working with us, Hificenter.com achieved substantial 6-figure organic growth and since has gone on to become a 7-figure retailer in 2024.

We continue to work with the business in 2024 and Igor is happy to speak with any prospective clients.

2023 v 2022 YOY Comparison

• Revenue growth since 2020 is up 132%
• Total Sales Revenue Growth up 41%
• Online Store Sessions up 39%
• Average Order Value up 35%
• Paid Ads ROAS 956%

Review & Testimonial

Over the years I have worked with no less than 7 different agencies who all claimed that they can boost traffic to our site, that they can increase our revenue, etc. but every single one of them failed.  I spent a lot of money and got very little in return.  Integrity Commerce was the first agency that took the time to demonstrate that there were flaws in my website that prevented it from ranking very well.  Their promise was also quite different.  Instead of making claims about boosting traffic and increasing sales, they promised to fix the problems on my site so that my SEO efforts actually produced results which would then lead to increased traffic and increased sales.  I also liked the fact that they were completely transparent in what their service offered, how it worked, and how it would benefit me.  There was no voodoo SEO magic that so many agencies claim as their “secret sauce.”

The process took 8 weeks and actually required some work on my part, which is a good thing.  Our website was completely re-built using a Shopify theme that is substantially more searchable than before.  I also learned more about SEO in these 8 weeks than I had previously in all my years of owning a website.  The results?  Our website is receiving more traffic than ever before, email and phone inquiries have gone up and our online sales in the past 2 months are almost equal to the entire year before.

My rep, Mark, has been great to work with.  He has forgotten more about SEO than most will learn in a lifetime but he explains things in a language that anyone can understand.  He responds to all my inquiries in a timely manner and addresses every single question to full resolution leaving no detail behind.  For the first time I got the feeling that a rep and the agency actually cared about my success which is something that I had not experienced from other agencies.

Anyone reading this who has an E-Commerce website and is tired of all the BS that agencies have fed you, give Kristin Mark Digital a call.  When I forst started with them, I was getting 15,000 visitors per month and in 2024, I’m now getting 45,000 visitors per month. The increased sales you will experience will easily pay for their service within a few months and you will continue to have success for years.

Igor Kivritsky – Owner