How a Magento Agency Helped a Marine Surplus Retailer Increase AOV by 42.64% and Conversion by 37.16%

Using proven Magento extensions to improve product discovery, customer confidence and checkout experience

• Industry: Marine & Boating

• Merchant: Online marine surplus retailer

• Location: Wisconsin, USA

• Platform: Magento 2

• Implementation approach: Four targeted Magento extensions

• Results: +42% Average Order Value | +38% Conversion Rate

The Merchant Challenge

For an online marine surplus retailer, having the right products in the catalog is only part of the challenge. 

Customers may be looking for a specific marine brand, trying to determine whether a part is suitable for their needs, or searching for complementary products to complete a purchase.

 The Magento agency supporting this Wisconsin-based retailer identified several opportunities to improve the shopping journey:

• Make relevant products easier to discover.

• Encourage customers to consider complementary products.

• Give shoppers a convenient way to ask product-specific questions.

• Make brand-based browsing easier.

• Reduce friction during login and account creation.

• Improve conversion without relying on extensive custom development. 

The objective wasn't simply to add more functionality.

The goal was to make the existing Magento store work harder for every visitor.

The Agency's Approach

Rather than treating each issue as an isolated development requirement, the agency mapped the merchant's challenges to four key stages of the customer journey:

Discover → Understand → Choose → Buy

The agency recommended Aheadworks Magento 2 extensions to address each stage.

This approach allowed the development team to introduce proven ecommerce functionality while keeping custom development focused on the merchant's specific business requirements.

One Implementation. Four Conversion Opportunities.

The agency's implementation addressed four different sources of ecommerce friction:

The important point wasn't simply adding four extensions.

It was connecting each extension to a specific merchant problem.

The Business Impact 

Following the implementation, the merchant reported significant improvements in two important ecommerce metrics:

42% Increase in Average Order Value

The enhanced product discovery experience created more opportunities for customers to discover and purchase relevant products alongside their initial selection.

38% Increase in Conversion Rate

The combined improvements to product information, brand discovery and login experience helped create a smoother path from product consideration to purchase.

Why the Agency Chose Aheadworks 

For a Magento agency managing multiple merchants, choosing the right extension is more than comparing features and prices. Every new extension becomes part of a client's store—and therefore part of the agency's responsibility.

Before recommending an extension, the team may need to research multiple vendors, compare functionality, review Magento compatibility, assess code quality, check for known security vulnerabilities, evaluate the vendor's update practices, and determine whether reliable support will be available when something goes wrong.

That evaluation takes time—and getting it wrong can create ongoing technical and reputational risk for the agency.

Aheadworks helped simplify that decision.

With more than 15 years of experience in the Magento ecosystem, Aheadworks brings deep platform knowledge and an established understanding of Magento development and security requirements. Rather than repeatedly evaluating unfamiliar vendors for common ecommerce functionality, the agency had an experienced Magento-focused partner they could build confidence in.

The agency also explores Aheadworks with a $1 first-year subscription, providing a low-risk way to evaluate the quality of the extensions, implementation experience, and support before recommending them more broadly.

The partnership offered additional value beyond the extensions themselves:

• Free migration — reduces the effort and risk involved in moving from another solution.

• Feature matching — helps agencies identify the right Aheadworks solution for a merchant's requirements without starting the evaluation process from scratch.

• Dedicated priority support — gives the agency access to support when implementation or troubleshooting requires additional help.

• 15+ years of Magento expertise — provides confidence in working with a vendor that understands the platform and its ecosystem.

• Ongoing security and platform considerations — gives agencies an established vendor relationship rather than having to independently assess and manage every unknown extension provider. 

After implementing Aheadworks solutions across several stores and evaluating the quality firsthand, the agency gained the confidence to recommend Aheadworks to other Magento merchants and agencies.

Less time evaluating vendors. Less implementation risk. More confidence in the solution.

For the agency, the value wasn't simply access to four Magento extensions.

It was having a Magento partner they could trust so developers could spend less time evaluating vendors and more time delivering value for their clients.