A wholesale and retail brand headquartered in Wisconsin, Weyco Group manufactures and distributes footwear for men, women, and children in stores across the globe. Weyco Group’s portfolio of well-recognized footwear brands includes Florsheim, Nunn Bush, Stacy Adams, BOGS, Rafters, and Umi.
Apart from selling their products in footwear, department, and specialty stores, they have a vast online presence where buyers can shop for their designs from the comfort of their homes.
Weyco Group has been a Noibu customer for nearly two years. Initially, they deployed Noibu on three domains; now, they rely on the platform across all their websites, including Canadian domains.
We recently sat down with Marcel Mundt, Web Development Team Lead, and Ryan Wittmann, Business Insights Manager and Growth Marketing Manager at Weyco Group, to learn more about their experience using Noibu.:
We spoke about how their teams use Noibu and the value they have been able to derive from the platform so far across their domains and businesses.
Here’s a closer look at their journey with Noibu:
What Encouraged Weyco’s Team to Explore Noibu?
When Ryan and his team first encountered Noibu, they were eager to learn more. They had never before had visibility into their custom code, and Noibu’s ability to correlate site errors with revenue loss was a unique and promising feature that encouraged them to test it across their portfolio of websites.
The Team’s Experience with Noibu’s Proof of Concept (POC) Process
After deploying Noibu’s tag on their website for a few weeks as part of the POC process, the results were eye-opening for the team at Weyco. The cumulative impact of unaddressed errors on their site added up to $1.5 million in predicted annual revenue loss.
“The only other tool that we had dabbled with in the past was a session recording and heat mapping tool, but it lacked any kind of aggregation of raw data or insights. We got that functionality through Noibu along with all the other things that it brought to the table. So, we didn’t really have a reason to look elsewhere.”
– Ryan Wittmann, Business Insights Manager and Growth Marketing Manager @ Weyco
Ryan, Marcel, and the team at Weyco were not familiar with the e-commerce monitoring space at the time they were introduced to Noibu. Their positive experience made it clear they didn’t need to look for any other solutions
“The only other tool that we had dabbled with in the past was a session recording and heat mapping tool, but it lacked any kind of aggregation of raw data or insights. We got that functionality through Noibu along with all the other things that it brought to the table. So, we didn’t really have a reason to look elsewhere.”
– Ryan Wittmann, Business Insights Manager and Growth Marketing Manager @ Weyco
Ryan also mentioned how the POC process uncovered issues with their site search and filtering, which is used by 30-40% of site users. The team was able to address these issues immediately, thanks to Noibu.
Weyco’s Error Monitoring Workflow Before Using Noibu
Before partnering with Noibu, the error detection workflow at Weyco was fairly ad-hoc. Marcel shared that If an employee discovered an error, they would forward it to the development team, often with minimal context and perhaps a screenshot.
A member of the development team would then use whatever details were provided, along with any available error logs, to attempt to recreate the issue and resolve it as efficiently as possible. However, this approach often lacked the necessary context and information needed to fully address the problem. Additionally, this workflow was entirely reactive, with no proactive measures in place to discover errors before they affected users. As a result, errors were only addressed when someone happened to encounter them on the website.
Ryan also highlighted that, beyond lacking visibility into errors, the team struggled to validate the errors reported by other departments. They had no way to gauge whether an error was worth investigating, how many customers it affected, or the error’s scope.
“Noibu provided clarity into those issues. It took the human, subjective element as well as the unknowns that can lead to distrust, bad relationships, and friction, out of the equation.
It really strengthened relationships between the customer service and the web team and the marketing team and the web team, because it is such an objective tool that clearly tells us the impact and scope of a particular error. So, I would say Noibu is a great relationship builder.”
– Ryan Wittmann, Business Insights Manager and Growth Marketing Manager @ Weyco
How Weyco’s Error Monitoring Workflow Evolved with Noibu
Here’s how Marcel and his team use Noibu to efficiently address bugs on Weyco’s domains:
- Error Discovery and Prioritization: The team uses Noibu’s dashboard to identify errors and prioritize them based on frequency and revenue impact.
- Gathering Technical Details: They collect browser information, device details, page location, error messages, and code snippets from Noibu’s technical details tab.
- Custom Code Analysis: Given that Weyco’s domains are built on custom code, these details help the team quickly identify where the error resides in their codebase.
- Collaborative Debugging: The development team collaborates to determine whether the error is due to recent code changes or if it’s been persistent.
- Error Resolution: Urgent issues are addressed immediately, while others are added to the next sprint cycle for prioritized resolution.
“Noibu is like a loss prevention tool, similar to a store having a security system or guard.”
– Ryan Wittmann, Business Insights Manager and Growth Marketing Manager @ Weyco
Biggest Achievements Since Using Noibu
“It’s been two years since we’ve been using Noibu and have saved a combined top-line revenue of $6 million. There really is no question from our side as far as the value of the platform is concerned.”
– Ryan Wittmann, Business Insights Manager and Growth Marketing Manager @ Weyco
Saving Critical Development Hours
For Marcel and the development team at Weyco Group, the biggest win was reclaiming critical development hours. Previously, much of their time was spent validating reported bugs as well as investigating and resolving them. With the comprehensive technical details that Noibu provides, the team was able to significantly reduce their error resolution time.
Reducing the Opportunity Cost of Investigating and Fixing Bugs
Marcel was able to reclaim his time as the web development lead and redirect his bandwidth on more strategic projects that had a direct impact on website functionality and performance.
Eliminating Subjectivity and Guesswork from Error Resolution
Before Noibu, proving the validity of a bug was challenging, often leading to friction between departments. Noibu eliminated this subjectivity by providing clear, objective data on the impact and occurrence of errors, allowing teams to align on which issues to prioritize.
“Addressing bugs for us was more of a reactive strategy, and now we are able to track and resolve them proactively before anybody even notices them. So, I think that shift from reactive to proactive is a major win.”
– Ryan Wittmann, Business Insights Manager and Growth Marketing Manager @ Weyco
Providing Peace of Mind During Important Milestones or Events
Both Ryan and Marcel agree that Noibu has brought them peace of mind during critical times like the holiday season or a replatforming. Knowing that Noibu is monitoring their site gives them confidence that any issues will be detected and addressed before they impact the customer journey.
“Noibu is like an insurance policy. You don’t ever want to use it, but knowing that it’s there gives you peace of mind. It gives you the confidence to make new releases knowing that you’ve got something to make sure that things don’t go wrong.”
– Marcel Mundt, Web Development Team Lead @ Weyco
Summing Up
For Weyco group, Noibu has been instrumental in eliminating subjectivity from bug management, streamlining proactive error detection, and strengthening interdepartmental relationships. As a 150-year-old brand, Weyco values long-term partnerships with reliable vendors, and they’ve found that in Noibu.
In 2024 alone, Weyco Group detected and resolved numerous high-priority issues across seven of their websites, preventing $761,285 in potential annual revenue loss.
“The customer service that Noibu offers is the best that we have from a vendor-relationship perspective. The contract negotiation with sales was one of the best we’ve had. I think those things set Noibu apart from all of our vendors.”
– Ryan Wittmann, Business Insights Manager and Growth Marketing Manager @ Weyco
If you’re interested in exploring how Noibu can streamline your e-commerce operations and prevent revenue loss, request demo today.
