Sportsdirect.com strengthens online infrastructure as consumer interest in online sports retailers grows

Sportsdirect.com has moved to strengthen its online infrastructure in the face of growing customer interest in the channel.

The multichannel sports equipment retailer says that its online business has grown quickly in the last year, helped by the Olympic Games.

“Sportsdirect.com’s online business is an important, rapidly growing retail channel for our company, increasing 83% over the past year,” said Jay Lyford, IT manager of Sportsdirect.com.

“The Olympic Games have created a tremendous spike in interest for sports and sporting goods, generating a surge in demand for our brands online.”

Currently its network of websites, which includes sites for its USC, Lillywhites, Field & Trek and Dunlop brands as well as Sportsdirect.com, sees more than 436,000 peak daily visitors, and 7.7m page views a day. But the increase in traffic over the last year challenged its existing platform, and the company has now moved to a standardised content management system from DotNetNuke in response. It will be developed and integrated by Cantarus, who will also train staff.

“We needed to strengthen our online infrastructure to better handle the volume of traffic and transactions,” said Lyford. “DotNetNuke’s Web Development Framework and CMS was chosen because it easily integrates with our existing systems, allows us to redeploy sites quickly, and enables us to scale to meet growing demand.”

Bob Cortale, senior vice president, sales and customer care at DotNetNuke said: “At DotNetNuke we measure the calibre of the company we are by the company we keep and we are thrilled to add Sportsdirect.com to the growing number of global organisations standardising on the DotNetNuke platform.”