HEADLESS ECOMMERCE
Combat Corner Lands a Knockout Punch With Composable eCommerce
The go-to source for martial arts equipment scales its online success with WP Engine Atlas for headless eCommerce.
“Using WP Engine Atlas, we built the fastest and most performant MMA site in the industry. We future-proofed our tech stack, reduced our IT expenses, and gained access to a thriving ecosystem where finding talent and solutions is much easier and more affordable than before.”
— Rob Capili, Digital Marketing Manager, Combat Corner
328%
Improvement in First Contentful Paint
604%
Improvement in Speed Index
438%
Improvement in Largest Contentful Paint
The Client
Combat Corner Professional is a martial arts equipment manufacturer founded in 2007 by professional fighters. Using only the best raw materials, innovation, and cutting-edge designs, the company supplies some of the world’s most-respected fighters and teams. With its eyes, ears, and fists in the gym, Combat Corner stays connected and relevant to the needs of all athletes, from beginners to pros.
The Challenge
Relaunch combatcorner.com with a new framework to provide greater control over frontend customization and drive performance improvements—all without re-platforming Combat Corner's existing storefront.
The Solution
Working with WP Engine Agency Partner Click Here Labs, Combat Corner leveraged WP Engine Atlas for headless eCommerce to gain an impressive performance edge, including the ability to build a custom eCommerce experience on a proven architecture—with prepackaged plugins, connected end-points, and world-class developer resources all readily available.
The Results
After relaunching its site with a bespoke React-based frontend that uses BigCommerce to power its online store and WordPress for seamless content management, the new Combat Corner site has shown an overall performance boost of 431%.
This includes dramatic improvements to Core Web Vitals and page speed metrics, as well as:
- Sub-second page load times
- FCP +328% (First contentful paint)
- SI +604% (Speed Index)
- LCP +438% (Largest contentful paint)
- TTI +583% (Time to interactive)
- TBT of ZERO (Total blocking time)
- CLS of 0.065 (Cumulative layout shift)
These impressive metrics tie directly to improvements in Combat Corner’s SEO, conversions, bounce rate, ROAS (return on ad spend), and most importantly, revenue.
By identifying a stable framework for eCommerce growth that would provide greater control over frontend customization and drive better performance, the Combat Corner team has been able to achieve these results without needing to re-platform their extensive catalog of products and merchandise.
Additionally, the new site has given Combat Corner’s internal teams much-needed flexibility, providing improvements to internal workflows that simplify content management and speed up time to market.
“Atlas has helped us build the fastest and most performant MMA site in the industry,” said Combat Corner's Digital Marketing Manager Rob Capili.
“We’ve future-proofed our tech stack, reduced our IT expenses, and we've gained access to a thriving ecosystem where finding talent and solutions is much easier and more affordable than before.
"And by keeping our existing backend, we were able to reap all these benefits without changing the way we do business.”
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