Case study · E-commerce

ReebokFirst Pitch

An iconic sneaker brand wanted to sell shoes that didn't exist yet — Kickstarter-style, with prices that climb a dollar per order. We built the platform. The first drop sold out in fifteen minutes.

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WooCommerce + IgnitionDeckplus a custom hybrid-pricing plugin
15 minutesfirst campaign sold out
First Pitch by Reebok

The setup

Reebok is one of the most recognizable sneaker brands on earth — everything from pro sports shoes to limited street designs for die-hard collectors. They came to us with an idea that didn't fit any e-commerce template: a Kickstarter-style platform for sneakers, where a design's price starts at $1 and climbs a dollar with every order until it hits retail. Enough orders and the shoe gets made. Not enough, and it never goes to production.

Behind the cool mechanic was a serious problem. Fashion accounts for roughly 4% of the world's annual waste, because manufacturers produce whole lines on forecasts and trend data — educated guesses about what might sell. Reebok flipped the script: make only what people have already committed to buy.

To pull it off, they needed a partner who could build a pricing model that didn't exist yet. That's where we came in.

The challenge

E-commerce runs on static pricing. Crowdfunding runs on dynamic. Reebok needed both — on one platform.

  • Hybrid pricing. Dynamic dollar-by-dollar pricing up to retail, then static until sell-out — nothing off the shelf does that.
  • Commitment to what doesn't exist. Super-fans had to trust the platform enough to buy a shoe that hadn't been manufactured yet.
  • Survive the drop. Limited-edition sneaker launches bring brutal, spiky traffic — by design.
  • Enterprise-grade checkout. Secure transactions and a user experience worthy of a global brand.

The solution

A custom WordPress build on WooCommerce and IgnitionDeck — plus a plugin we wrote for the pricing model nobody had built.

  • WooCommerce foundation. A proven e-commerce core with the flexibility to bend around an unusual model.
  • IgnitionDeck crowdfunding. Campaign mechanics from our sister company — pledge-style commitments on any WordPress site.
  • A custom hybrid-pricing plugin. Purpose-built for First Pitch: dynamic to retail, static to sell-out, secure the whole way through.
  • Hosting that scales. Pantheon's on-demand resources absorbed launch-day spikes without a wobble.
The results

Sold out in fifteen minutes.

15 min

First campaign sold out — traffic crushed in and the site held.

4 drops

Campaigns launched — the first three fully funded and put into production.

$1 start

Prices climbed dollar-by-dollar to retail, then held static to sell-out.

0 guesswork

Only designs with committed buyers went into production — sustainability as a mechanic, not a slogan.

A launch the platform survived

The first campaign Reebok launched sold out in fifteen minutes, and the traffic that came with it would have flattened most sites. The platform held — server resources scaled on demand, checkout stayed secure and smooth, and the drop ended the way a drop should: sold out, not crashed.

Proof the model works

Four shoes launched on First Pitch — the first three fully funded and went into production, with more campaigns queued behind them. Designs people committed to got made; designs they didn't, didn't. Together, Reebok and DigiSavvy shipped a site as cool — and as successful — as the shoes.

“They were excellent technology partners, delivering on time and on budget.”
NG
Neil GoleDirector, E-Comm Platforms, Reebok
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