Umbro UK

The Challenge & Objective

As one of the world's most famous sportswear brands, Umbro required a digital storefront capable of matching its century-long global reputation. The legacy platform faced technical limitations, so our main objective was to launch a future-ready, modern website capable of easily launching product ranges and limited edition collaborations; supporting dedicated landing pages for campaigns without developer intervention, and maintaining a smooth user experience even during busy, peak traffic product launch days or seasonal sales.

Our Solution

mtc created a bespoke eCommerce solution within our own, custom CMS, designed to unify Umbro’s product ranges for both B2B and B2C customers within a single architecture. This approach was SEO-led, designed for a mobile-first user experience, and developed for speed and flexibility: directly addressing the expectations and needs of the brand’s user base and aligning with best practices. This helped expand the site’s digital reach, as well as converting and retaining casual lookers and loyal fans alike. The site also supports a range of payment options through the STYLEman EPOS integration.

The Impact

By refining the user experience, modernising the design, and addressing market demand through a bespoke SEO strategy, mtc delivered a platform that set new standards for digital performance. In the first year following the new site launch, Umbro saw transformative growth across every key metric:

• 49.3% overall increase in website traffic
• 15.5% increase in overall site engagement
• 1,002.3% increase in purchase events (with an 875.5% surge in purchases attributed to organic search)
• 14.1% increase in average purchase value
• 100.3% increase in total sessions and a 110.2% increase in active users
• 23.3% decrease in bounce rate, proving the effectiveness of the new, faster-loading UI

Insights

Brands often invest in a number of large, expensive campaigns throughout the year alongside mini campaigns and releases… Only to see traffic temporarily spike and activity remain largely the same! This can be due to poor technical site performance, bugs and blockers, or unexpected user flows. Clarity and easy of navigation isn’t exclusively an accessibility metric, it’s also a retention and SEO metric which can convert into revenue!

As we look at the current e-commerce landscape in 2026, our team is noticing three key areas that even global brands sometimes lose focus on. Taking our work for Umbro as an example, here are the things to consider for your own site when performing a mini audit and “taking a step back” to assess performance.

What we found by working on Umbro:

By refining the UI and ensuring a mobile-first experience for "Shop Now" interactions, we achieved a 23.3% decrease in bounce rate.
High-resolution hero imagery, such as the Home Collection 2026, must load instantly. If a visitor has to wait for something to render, they can skip past it, ignore it, or move on to a competitor. 
Acquiring a customer in 2026 is more expensive than ever. If a customer only browses or buys a single item, your profit margins are being eaten by acquisition costs. The goal is to move from selling a single product to building a full basket and encouraging upsells, brand buy-in, and retention.

Some challenges for your team: 

Take your phone off Wi-Fi and load your primary campaign landing page using mobile data only. Do your key calls to action and imagery load quickly and smoothly? What about in areas with poor signal, like during a commute? Is the site clearly visible in outdoor conditions? All things to consider!

Look at your top-selling products or services - what information or add-on is missing from the landing page that turns the discovery of that product/service from a one-off/single purchase into a larger basket or repeat purchase? How easy is it to bridge that gap at present? 

Success in 2026 isn't just about traffic; it's about what you do with it once it arrives. Umbro's 110.2% increase in active users wasn't an accident - it was the result of tailored campaigns that assess the full user journey and address market and user demand.