Quadrocopter’s Fully Custom eCommerce Website Takes Off with Shift4Shop, Grows to Multimillion Dollar Business in 2 Years

Located in northwest Montana, Quadrocopter is a fully MikroKopter licensed corporation with the goal to provide its clients with the foremost solutions for all multi-rotor aerial applications. The online store offers the industry’s vastest selection of professional grade multi-rotor/aerial related products. Ready to Fly systems built by Quadrocopter are the finest in the industry.

Copter Support Site Aspires to Be More

In 2006, Quadrocopter opened its doors as a non-commercial support website for universal aerial video platforms that were part of the MikroKopter and UAVP projects. At the time, the website was run by a group of copter enthusiasts, including Quadrocopter founder Flori Seeger.

Along with detailed instructions on how to assemble the complicated hardware, Flori and other community members contributed links on where to find parts. “A few years ago, finding the parts in the US was next to impossible,” Flori explains.

“You’d have to have them shipped from Europe. They’d take awhile to arrive. That’s when it hit us: instead of pointing our visitors elsewhere, why not supply the parts ourselves?”

So, in 2010, Flori began the search for the right shopping cart software provider. As a java developer and experienced designer, he really wanted to find a platform that included built-in, out-of-the-box website tools—but also featured a heavily customizable framework. The search was on.

Flori Finds a Flexible Framework

A coworker of Flori’s recommended Shift4Shop, a complete ecommerce software platform with the flexibility a developer would need to have full customization control.

Shift4Shop combines the best of both worlds. The software suite includes plenty of ready-made features for merchants with little technical expertise and to save time and money for experienced developers. But the software is also built on a flexible framework that gives developers and designers the ability to create certain elements of their store independently.

Flori rolled up his sleeves and jumped right in. “I built the entire site design from scratch,” he says. “It was very easy to understand the template and pull in certain code elements. We had access to the complete layout and CSS.” Quadrocopter found other advantages to using Shift4Shop, including features focused on:

• Social media marketing: Quadricopter makes use of Shift4Shop’s social media plug-ins (including Facebook store integration) to power a strong, connected social presence.

• Shipping integration: To manage shipping, Quadrocopter uses ShipWorks, a third-party application that integrates directly with the system. (Shift4Shop integrates with a number of shipping applications to give merchants a choice.)

• Built-in CRM: Shift4Shop includes a built-in customer relationship manager (CRM). On the backend, admins can view order histories, correspondence and other customer traits. On the frontend, customers can sign into their accounts and view their own histories on the website.

• Content management and admin control: On the administrative side of Quadrocopter, around 16 different employees have access to the shopping cart. Each administrator has a unique ID with specific permissions, making control of site content and backend tasks simple to perform.

• QuickBooks plug-in: Like many small businesses, Quadrocopter uses QuickBooks for online retail accounting. Shift4Shop simplifies how both platforms work together, bridging them with a simple plug-in that helps them interact in real-time.

Beyond the Software

Flori says that working with Shift4Shop as a company has been a reliable experience. “When we send a ticket or call in, there’s always someone around to respond and resolve the issue.”

But the bottom line is results, and according to Flori, Shift4Shop has delivered them for his business. In just two years with Shift4Shop, Quadrocopter has exploded into a multimillion-dollar business.

“Shift4Shop is a single solution that does it all,” he says. “From inventory management to rewards programs, it has everything you could possibly need to run an online retail start-up.”