Gearing Up for the Digital Future

In recent years, the online fitness market has undergone tremendous growth, propelled by technological innovation and a shift in consumer behavior toward more-convenient wellness solutions. This online fitness revolution was further fueled by the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, as many brick-and-mortar businesses closed to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, including fitness industry giant SoulCycle.

Since its beginnings in 2006, SoulCycle has captivated fitness enthusiasts with its immersive indoor cycling and spinning workout classes across the US, UK, and Canada. But in early 2020 following global pandemic lockdowns, the beloved fitness studio announced the temporary closure of all its studios. Despite putting a spoke in the wheel of its initial ecommerce strategy, the lockdowns presented SoulCycle the opportunity to reimagine its digital presence in the lucrative online fitness world.

To sustain SoulCycle’s major cult following around the globe, the company aimed to create an online destination analogous to its community-focused studios, where customers could purchase apparel, accessories, or even its at-home bike, anywhere, anytime.

SoulCycle first engaged Astound Commerce in early 2019 to transition the company’s ecommerce ecosystem to Salesforce Commerce Cloud. The goal was to build a best-in-class site that would propel commerce sales and help the brand conquer not only pandemic-related disruptions but also the continuously shifting digital world.

Based on a comprehensive digital maturity assessment of SoulCycle’s organizational alignment, customer experience capabilities, technology solutions, data governance, and demand generation strategies, Astound identified four key focal points: improving tagging and data capturing, maximizing shop site visibility, increasing social media engagement around the ecommerce site and studio openings, and unifying the entire customer journey to ensure a frictionless experience across all channels.

SoulCycle preselected Salesforce Commerce Cloud, a world-leading ecommerce solution offering best-of-breed features and functionality, to help secure its place in the hyper-competitive race for online consumer engagement.

Following the initial transition to Salesforce Commerce Cloud Storefront Reference Architecture (SFRA), the Astound team integrated Salesforce Page Designer for creating reusable page and component types, WebView for mobile optimization, and numerous payment offerings to bolster user experience. These included Catch, Afterpay, Ayden, user authentication of a SoulCycle custom-built program, and gift card functionality as a way to tap into additional revenue streams.

Furthermore, Astound provided dedicated technical services through Commerce Cloud Staff Augmentation and training on Business Manager, supporting SoulCycle in streamlining workflows and processes across its organization.

SoulCycle’s future-forward ecommerce platform is built to withstand exponential growth and sudden market divergence to continuously meet and exceed the ever-evolving expectations of online consumers.

• A highly customizable cloud-based software solution, Commerce Cloud empowers SoulCycle to design truly frictionless omnichannel journeys across all core functions.
• Commerce Cloud’s SFRA serves as the foundation of the company’s website. Using prebuilt commerce functionality, SoulCycle can create engaging ecommerce experiences at the speed of consumer demand.
• Additionally, Page Designer allows the company to easily design, preview, schedule, and publish engaging custom pages in an easy drag-and-drop interface with reusable components—all without having to enlist developers.