Rock Bottom GolfHitting multiple markets in one easy swing

Company Overview

RockBottomGolf.com was founded in 2000 by three friends who started the business by diving for golf balls. Todd Rath, Tom Rath and Shannon Smith decided to use their education and past work experience in technology, engineering and finance to make their systems and processes as efficient as possible. After launching its website in 2003, RockBottomGolf.com moved up to the sixth most-visited golf retail website in just two years, according to Alexa.com. RockBottomGolf.com supports golfers’ needs around the world with a variety of name-brand merchandise including Callaway, Mizuno, Adams, Wilson, Taylor Made, Nike, Tommy Armour, Ogio and more. RockBottomGolf. com is able to serve more than 30 countries in three days or less and has over a 99.8% customer approval rating.

The Situation

When RockBottomGolf.com launched on eBay in 2002, it was one of the first retailers specializing in sporting goods and equipment, buying large quantities of close-out merchandise and passing the savings on to consumers. Finishing its first year with $3.2 million in sales, RockBottomGolf.com knew it would have to keep overhead low to continue to meet its goals. The company decided that leaning heavily on technology was its ace in the hole.

Before choosing ChannelAdvisor Marketplaces, RockBottomGolf.com had no real solution for managing eBay sales. When they looked around at the available options, they were particularly impressed with ChannelAdvisor’s industry expertise and how well Marketplaces integrated with RockBottomGolf.com’s back office shipping, accounting and reporting systems.

“ChannelAdvisor had been growing at a pace similar to ours,” said Tom Rath, CEO at RockBottomGolf.com. “We were familiar with their philosophy and we liked their proven technology. We chose ChannelAdvisor Marketplaces because we envisioned a partner that would grow with us, not just create a platform and say here it is and then walk away.”

The Solution

When RockBottomGolf.com launched its eBay strategy with ChannelAdvisor Marketplaces, the company was immediately amazed at how streamlined its processes became and how much more could be accomplished in less time. The back-end operational efficiencies helped make all the difference.

“We like to call ChannelAdvisor our hub,” said Rath. “The ChannelAdvisor software provides us our available-to-promise inventory – whether we’re selling on Amazon.com, or eBay or other channels. It’s the central location where I plug in all my partner tools. ChannelAdvisor is the hub of the wheel that houses all our product data.”

With its newfound competitive advantage, RockBottomGolf.com was soon on target to meet another one of its goals: $1 million in revenue per employee. “ChannelAdvisor helps us do more with less,” said Rath. “Now we can do more sales, do more listings and post to more marketplaces with just one software platform instead of using four different software tools to get to the same end result,” Rath added.

The Results

With the help of ChannelAdvisor’s Marketplaces software, RockBottomGolf.com was able to efficiently integrate Amazon as an additional marketplace last year, helping revenue grow more than 25 percent. With sales totalling $25.5 million and a head count of 30 employees, RockBottomGolf.com is close to reaching its goal of $1 million per employee.

According to Rath, ChannelAdvisor’s return on investment lies in its far-reaching efficiencies. “We’re in a world today where you have to be very high-tech to make money,” said Rath. “In the close-out golf business, our margins aren’t great, so we have to depend on volume. If I didn’t use Marketplaces, I’d have to increase headcount and my revenues would definitely suffer.”

Recently named #326 on Internet Retailer’s Top 500 list, RockBottomGolf.com is confident that with the help of ChannelAdvisor it will continue to successfully grow and reach its goals.

Due to the overwhelming success with ChannelAdvisor Marketplaces, RockBottomGolf.com has since launched on ChannelAdvisor Digital Marketing and Rich Media. Check back for future updates on RockBottomGolf.com’s success.