Melbourne-based sporting goods retailer Sturdy Sports has spent nearly a decade building a thriving retail business across both physical and online channels. Today, the company manages thousands of products, serves customers across multiple sports categories and continues to expand its operations.
Behind that growth is a technology stack built on Retail Express by Maropost and Maropost Marketing Cloud, helping the business unify retail operations, customer data, and marketing into a single ecosystem.
Over the past four years, Sturdy Sports has achieved consistent year-on-year growth of approximately 15%, while managing an increasingly complex product catalog and launching a second brand.
Launching Sturdy Sports with Maropost and Shopify
When Sturdy Sports launched in 2016, the founders selected Retail Express by Maropost as their retail management and POS platform, with Shopify powering their ecommerce store.
This combination allowed the business to manage inventory, reporting, and in-store sales through Maropost while running their online storefront on Shopify.
“Backend reporting was a major reason we chose Maropost,” says Vipy Agrawal, Co-founder and Director at Sturdy Sports. “And the front end is easy enough that we don’t have to spend a lot of time training staff.”
From day one, Maropost became the operational backbone of the business, supporting both in-store and online retail activity.
As an accountant familiar with ERP software, Agrawal had carefully evaluated several systems before making the decision.
“Either retailers were offered very high-end ERP software or very basic systems. There wasn’t a robust solution designed for medium-sized retailers.”
Maropost provided the balance the business needed — powerful functionality without the complexity of enterprise ERP systems.
Managing a fast-moving sporting goods catalog
As the business grew, Sturdy Sports faced a challenge common in sporting goods retail: managing a large and constantly evolving product catalog. Manufacturers regularly release new equipment models, creating thousands of SKUs that change every season.
“In cricket, every year there are new models and new SKUs. We’re talking about almost 3,000 to 4,000 SKUs every year that get launched,” says Agrawal.
These products also have relatively short sales cycles.
“The realistic time cycle when we actually sell those products is around five to six months. It’s highly seasonal.”
Using Retail Express by Maropost, the team can track product performance, manage inventory, and analyze reporting across thousands of SKUs while maintaining visibility across both their physical store and online channels.
Scaling product catalogs while maintaining control
Since launching the business, Sturdy Sports has significantly expanded its product offering.
The company began with approximately 1,500 SKUs and now manages more than 4,000 cricket products. Across both Sturdy Sports and the newer Sturdy Racquets brand, the business now manages over 5,000 live SKUs.
“We’ve grown three to four times in terms of SKUs since we started,” says Falgun Patel, Co-founder and Director.
Despite this growth in catalog complexity, the team continues to operate efficiently with a lean staff — a testament to the operational visibility provided by Maropost.
Launching a second brand within the Maropost ecosystem
In 2025, the founders expanded their business by launching Sturdy Racquets, a brand dedicated to tennis and pickleball equipment.
Before launching the new venture, the team reassessed their technology stack and explored whether a different platform might better support the new business.
Ultimately, the evaluation reinforced their confidence in the Maropost ecosystem.
“We went back to square one and asked ourselves what issues we had with Retail Express,” Patel explains. “To be honest, we found none that were major. That made the decision very simple.”
The new brand launched with around 200 SKUs and has already expanded to more than 1,000 products, showing strong early growth.
Personalized marketing powered by Maropost Marketing Cloud
To strengthen customer engagement, the company has also begun using Maropost Marketing Cloud to power email marketing for the Sturdy Racquets brand.
By connecting Marketing Cloud with Retail Express by Maropost, the business can leverage customer purchase history and product preferences to deliver highly personalized campaigns. For sports equipment retailers, this level of personalization is particularly valuable.
“If someone is a left-handed batter, they won’t need right-handed gear,” Patel explains. “The system understands that from their purchase history and sends marketing that’s relevant to the customer instead of spamming them.”
This allows the team to segment customers based on:
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equipment type and player orientation
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brand preferences
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price range
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previous purchase behavior
The result is more targeted campaigns and stronger customer engagement.
Expanding Maropost Marketing Cloud across the business
Currently, Maropost Marketing Cloud is being used primarily for the Sturdy Racquets brand, while Sturdy Sports continues to run campaigns through Klaviyo.
However, the team plans to expand their use of Maropost marketing capabilities as they continue to refine their customer engagement strategy.
“Once we’re fully comfortable with the Marketing Cloud setup on the racquets side, we’ll move Sturdy Sports across as well,” Patel says.
By bringing both brands onto the same marketing platform, the team expects to centralize customer communications and better leverage unified retail data.
Supporting sustainable long-term growth
After ten years using Retail Express by Maropost, Sturdy Sports continues to scale its operations while maintaining efficiency.
The business now manages thousands of products, operates across both online and physical retail channels and continues to expand its brand portfolio. For the founders, having an integrated platform has been critical to supporting that growth.
“If we weren’t confident in the system, we wouldn’t have used it again for our second business,” Patel says.
As Sturdy Sports continues to expand its catalog and customer base, the team sees Maropost as a long-term partner in their retail journey.
Results
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15% year-on-year growth over the past four years
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Product catalog expanded from 1,500 to 4,000+ SKUs
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5,000+ SKUs managed across two brands
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New racquets business scaled from 200 to 1,000 SKUs
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9+ years using Retail Express by Maropost
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