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Hawkeye Fan Shop Case Study
A Storefront Built to Handle Gameday, Not Just Survive It
A look at the measurement, product-page tracking, and site reliability work behind Hawkeye Fan Shop - the official online retailer for University of Iowa Athletics.
Project Overview
| Project | Ongoing eCommerce & Storefront Partnership |
| Organization | Hawkeye Fan Shop, the official online retailer for University of Iowa Athletics |
| Focus | Measurement Strategy, Product-Page Tracking, Site Reliability |
| Outcome | Ten years of accurate reporting and a storefront that holds up on gameday |
The Challenge
Hawkeye Fan Shop runs on a calendar it doesn't control. Traffic follows the Iowa Hawkeyes schedule rather than a steady curve, and every part of the storefront - from measurement to page speed - has to hold up when a single Saturday can outweigh a normal week.
Key challenges included:
- Gameday traffic spikes that dwarf typical retail patterns
- Reporting that needed to hold up across years, not just a single campaign
- Product and catalog tracking detailed enough to inform real merchandising decisions across a catalog of thousands of products.
- A decade-long relationship that meant carrying measurement forward without losing historical continuity
What Was Built
Rather than a single project, the work has been a continuous relationship - measurement rebuilt as tools changed, product tracking extended as the catalog grew, and the storefront kept steady through a decade of gamedays.
The homepage leads with gameday and promotional merchandising, backed by tracking that shows which campaigns actually drive fans through to a product.
Faceted browsing across a catalog this size only works if filter and sort interactions are tracked well enough to show what fans are actually narrowing in on.
Product-level tracking follows each listing from view to add-to-cart, so merchandising decisions rest on real behavior instead of guesswork.
Some products carry their own tiered pricing, like this "Buy 2 Shirts for $30" bundle. Tracking has to capture which tier a fan picks, not just that something was added to cart.
A Closer Look: The Homepage Carousel
The homepage hero rotates through several promotional slides rather than showing one static banner. Each slide is tracked as its own creative variant, so a specific promotion's click-through and conversion can be measured against every other slide in the rotation - not lumped together as generic "homepage traffic."
This BOGO tees slide is one rotation among several, each carrying its own tracked link so the sale's actual lift can be attributed back to this exact placement.
The gift card slide points to a defined landing flow rather than a generic homepage link, so gift card revenue tied to this exact placement is visible on its own.
Seen in context, that same banner sits inside the full homepage - navigation, search, and cart are all instrumented together, so a promotional click can be followed all the way through to checkout.
Category Navigation & Merchandising
Rather than one flat product catalog, the storefront is organized into a deep category structure - a dozen entry points like Jersey - Personal & NIL, Football, Tailgating & Gameday, and Collectibles, each acting as its own tracked path into the catalog rather than a generic browse link.
Twelve category tiles break the catalog into distinct entry points, from personalized jerseys to tailgating gear, with each tile's click-through tracked separately from the rest. The grid isn't static, either - tiles can be swapped, reordered, or re-themed on the fly to match the schedule, spotlighting a rivalry game or a homecoming week and then rotating back, all without touching the tracking already built around each category.
On mobile, this same grid trades a mile-long vertical scroll for a horizontally swipeable carousel - a smoother way to browse a dozen entry points on a small screen. Even in a quick swipe, tiles like Jersey - Personal & NIL (a customizable jersey builder) and Football (refreshed each year with new arrivals like this schedule magnet) carry enough detail to make stopping worth it.
That same category structure resurfaces on the homepage as merchandising rows - Just Arrived, Hawkeye Tee's, Shop by Brand - so each row's performance can be measured on its own instead of being buried inside one long product feed.
Product Highlights
Individual products get their own editorial treatment, too. A "Product Highlight" module pairs marketing copy with a specific product or product family, so a merchandising push for one item can be measured on its own instead of disappearing into overall category traffic.
The Gameday Bib Overalls highlight walks a fan from the Women's Big Logo Stripe Overalls down to matching Youth, Toddler, and Infant sizes, with each product tracked individually so this one promotion's performance is visible product by product.
A single high-margin item, like this Flying Herky Reverse Weave Crew, gets its own highlight module across both colorways, so one SKU's performance can be measured as its own placement rather than folded into a category's overall numbers.
Filtering & Category Depth
Category tiles are only the entry point. Once a fan lands inside a collection, a full faceted filter sidebar narrows things further, and the "Shop All" menu underneath the homepage tiles goes well beyond the dozen highlighted categories - the full list runs past thirty, with deeper submenus like Shop by Sport tucked a level below that.
The price filter isn't hardcoded - that $399.99 ceiling is read live off the catalog's most expensive item in this viewed category, so the range moves on its own as pricing changes instead of drifting stale the way a fixed slider would.
The full "Shop All" menu shows how deep the catalog runs - more than thirty categories, with a chevron on Shop by Sport hinting at a submenu underneath. Every one of these is its own trackable path into the catalog, not just the twelve highlighted on the homepage grid.
The Footer: Navigation, Signup & Trust Signals
The footer carries almost as much weight as the homepage itself. Two separate email signup forms, a full secondary category menu, a brand carousel, and the complete policy link set all live below the fold - so a fan who never scrolls past "just browsing" still gets another shot at converting on the way out.
Social links, a one-line trust statement, and a second, separate email capture all sit in the same row - three different ways to stay connected with a fan, each one measured on its own instead of as one generic "footer engagement" number.
A brand logo row for Nike, Champion, and Tommy Bahama signals this isn't a print-on-demand shop - these are licensed manufacturers fans already trust, placed right before the policy links close the page out.
Taken together, the footer runs three distinct jobs stacked in one place: a repeated category bar for anyone who scrolled straight to the bottom, brand logos for trust, and the policy links plus copyright line that close out every page on the site the same way.
Gift Cards & Store Pickup
The gift card and store network both get closer looks of their own. Each ties the online storefront back to something a fan can hold - a denomination-based gift card with real reviews attached, or a specific store with its own hours and contact info.
Denominations run from $10 to $100, gifting goes either to the buyer's own inbox or a recipient's, and the product page carries genuine reviews right alongside the buy box, all on one page and all trackable together.
Four featured locations - two in Coralville, one each in Davenport and West Des Moines - each carry their own hours, phone, email, and a direct "Get Directions" link, so in-store visits tied to a specific location can be measured alongside online orders.
Checkout & Payment Options
At checkout, Hawkeye Fan Shop offers four express payment options beyond a standard card form - Shop Pay, PayPal, Google Pay, and Venmo - each shaving steps off the path from cart to completed order.
Each express option is its own button and its own tracked click, so if one payment method is quietly driving a disproportionate share of completed orders - or abandoned carts - that's visible instead of buried inside a single generic "checkout" event.
Product Page Details & Refinements
Product pages carry more structure than a single hero image and an add-to-cart button. Breadcrumbs, review counts, and variant selectors all shape how a fan decides, and the pattern shifts depending on what's being sold - a straightforward tee doesn't need the same interface as a build-your-own jersey.
A breadcrumb trail, a 4.0-star review badge, and swatch-style Color and Size pickers give a fan everything needed to decide without leaving the page - five gallery thumbnails let both colorways and the printed schedule on back get seen before checkout.
A "Fans Also Bought" row surfaces related gear right on the product page, turning a single-item view into a shot at a second sale - each recommended product carries its own click-through, tracked separately from the page it's shown on.
The personalized Nike Football Player Jersey swaps swatches for dropdowns and adds a Player selector on top of Color and Size - interface complexity scales with the product, and a 71-image gallery lets a fan step through every angle before committing to a $144.99 purchase.
BOGO Tees: From Landing Page to Bundle Checkout
The BOGO Tees campaign gets a dedicated landing page rather than just a homepage banner - hero copy, a plain-language explanation of the deal, and a grid of eligible tees, each with an interactive slider so a fan can compare colorways without leaving the page. That same "buy the deal" logic carries through to checkout, where selecting the bundle option swaps a single product picker for two independent ones.
The full BOGO Tees page runs hero copy straight into a grid of eligible tees - no filtering, no extra clicks, just the deal and its pricing laid out in one continuous scroll.
Each product card carries its own before/after slider, letting a fan drag between colorways - like this Arch Vintage Logo Tee's white and black options - without leaving the grid or opening a separate product page.
The same slider mechanic scales to less expected colorways too, like this Logo Flash tee's tan-to-pink comparison - a lightweight way to surface variety that would otherwise take a full product-page click to see.
On the product page itself, the deal starts as a simple toggle: Buy 1 at $17.99, or switch to Buy 2 Shirts for $30 - the second option stays collapsed until a fan opts in.
Selecting the bundle expands into two independent product pickers, each with its own size and color options, so a fan can mix - one Arch Logo tee, one Logo Flash tee - without adding two separate items to cart by hand.
The Results
With a decade of continuous work behind it, Hawkeye Fan Shop can trust its numbers and count on the storefront when it matters most.
- A storefront that holds up under sharp, gameday-driven traffic
- Reporting that stakeholders can act on without a background in analytics
- Product and catalog tracking detailed enough to guide real merchandising calls
- A measurement setup carried forward, not rebuilt from scratch, as tools have changed
Business Impact
A retailer tied to a live sports calendar doesn't get a slow ramp-up, and a ten-year relationship doesn't run on guesswork either. Measurement has to keep pace with the catalog, the schedule, and the platform itself, all at once - and it has to hold together across channels, not just on the storefront itself.
The online storefront is one piece of a larger footprint - physical locations across Iowa plus a concessions presence at every home game at Kinnick Stadium, all reporting into the same numbers.
Promotions like this BOGO tee campaign get their own tracked landing page, so a sale's actual lift can be measured against the traffic and revenue it pulls in.
Gift cards are redeemable both online and in-store, so revenue from a single purchase can surface in either channel - reporting has to reconcile the two, not just track them separately.
Fan Alerts signups feed the same audience that promotions like the BOGO campaign later target, so list growth and campaign performance get measured as one connected loop.
Through structured measurement and ongoing site work, this partnership has given Hawkeye Fan Shop a foundation it's built on since 2016.
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A storefront that holds up on gameday and reporting you can trust doesn't happen by accident. It's built deliberately, year over year, so the numbers you're looking at are ones you can count on.