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Case STUDY
Cognito Motorsports Migration To Adobe Commerce
Cognito Motorsports is a manufacturing-driven automotive brand specializing in high-performance aftermarket parts with complex product catalogs and operations. 121eCommerce migrated their platform from Magento Open Source to Adobe Commerce, delivering improved scalability, streamlined operations, and a stronger technical foundation for growth.
The challenge
The Problem Faced
Cognito Motorsports had outgrown its existing eCommerce ecosystem. Initially operating on a legacy platform and later moving to Magento Open Source, the business faced increasing complexity due to its diverse product catalog, pricing structures, and operational scale.
Previous development efforts created more friction than progress, projects ran over budget, communication gaps slowed execution, and the lack of strategic guidance left the internal team managing critical technical decisions without expert support.
Fortunately for you, 121eCommerce recently spoke with Brandon Hong, the Operations Manager, from Cognito Motorsports on the successful porting of their website from Open Source to Commerce. We also asked them the specifics on what made them choose 121eCommerce, and how working with us has been different from other agencies. Our Senior eCommerce Marketing Manager, Cole Godsey, led the interview with Brandon.
Key Challenges:
Over-reliance on third-party extensions
Poor project execution from previous developers
Fragmented communication due to offshore teams
Limited scalability of Magento Open Source for complex catalog
The Client Journey
Cole: Tell me a little bit about you and your role with Cognito, Brandon. What do you do on a day to day basis?
Brandon: I’m the Operations Manager, so I oversee lots of things. We have about seven departments that I oversee, and about 55 employees across two shifts and two buildings.
Cole: I mean, we’re kind of in the same boat over here, too! From my role, like, I kind of do a little bit of everything, it’s, maintaining our website, doing marketing and then interacting with clients. So, it keeps you busy, though, that’s for sure!
Brandon: You know, there’s never a minute where I don’t have a million things to do. We do manufacturing. And so that in itself is a force to be reckoned with. We do a lot of in house manufacturing, we build a lot of products, we build a lot of jobs, we build all kinds of stuff. I mean, we have a CNC robotic welder in house, powder coat packaging…we have an automated tubing vendor and automated sandblaster. We do a lot of stuff in house!
Cole: That’s awesome! CNC is really on the uptick lately. There’s so much in that field and even with some of the 3D printing that’s going on for parts and stuff like that. It just amazes me the technology that’s in this space!
Brandon: Yeah, we do! I mean, automation is the wave of the future for lots of reasons. You know, our biggest hurdle is the workforce pool, at least locally. And you know, I’ve been hearing and reading on a national level, it is an issue, too. But where we are geographically, it’s just hard to find good, skilled people. We’re just constantly on the hunt. So anywhere that we can automate or streamline our manufacturing processes helps.
Cole: So, with all of the stuff that you guys manage, and I know with you being on the eCommerce side, what made you decide to end up working with 121?
Brandon: I’ve been here two and a half years, but I’ve had a long-term relationship with this company (Cognito). Justin, the owner, and I are good friends. So, at the company I was at before, I built a website for that company in 2013, which was a Magento-based platform. When I got here, we were using a Webshop Manager. It didn’t take long for me to realize that that platform wasn’t very scalable for where we were trying to go; everything was literally built from scratch. And their admin and dashboard were very old school and rudimentary, and there’s a lot of coding involved. It just wasn’t very good.
Cole: And it kind of ties into like my next couple questions. I mean, you already highlighted a bunch of the issues that you were experiencing previously. But what ultimately made you decide to switch from Open Source to Commerce?
Brandon: Mostly it was the infrastructure and the B2B tools were the primary reasons. Those are the two factors that just sort of felt like the community was cool. And then the B2B tools; we can tell that we were overdriving the community platform in the sense that everything that we needed or wanted to do, none of it was native, everything required an extension, so now I’m doing the math, and I’m like, “alright, we’re already half a dozen extensions deep. Do I want to double that just to make this thing somewhat function like we need to, and it’ll never be as nice as if these tools were native?” And then you scatter your support all over the place, because you got 30 different companies involved in trying to make your website run because of all the extensions and it just, it just didn’t seem like the move. Right?
Cole: That makes perfect sense! And I think that alone is like a perfect reason for Commerce because he said it right there. I mean, that’s what we see, not just for this case, but a lot of the clients we consult is that you end up having like 30 different points of contact just to support your site. It gets really messy.
Brandon: One of one of the biggest caveats or one of the biggest issues I had with our previous developer is that they didn’t have a lot of preference or guidance in the sense of like, on this project, for example, Paul and your guys’s team are like, “hey, if this is the shit that you want to do, these are the things that you need to do it.”
Cole: And that’s the thing too; it will never cease to amaze me how other agencies are just like, “figure it out on your own” rather than actually helping guide you.
Brandon: I think part of it is, I mean, I’m sure there’s more than one reason, but my experience, or what I took away from the interactions I was having with the previous developer, was I could tell that we were exceeding their in-house capabilities. And so therefore, we were wanting things from them that they weren’t really set up to do. Instead of telling me, “hey, you need to go find somebody else.” They were just doing what they could or what they were willing to do to sort of suit my needs.
Cole: Yeah, and you’ll definitely get that working with smaller agencies like that! I know, we ported the site over for Cognito. I just wanted to know how long it took on our side to help you with the porting of the site from OS to Commerce?
Brandon: The first move that we had was we agreed that we were going to move because we were hosting our website, on site, with a private server, with our existing developer at the time. So, we had to get this stuff moved over to LexiConn.
Cole: Compared to the other folks you’ve worked with before, how is the communication done and working with 121?
Brandon: It’s more streamlined and consistent with 121. We have a Slack channel, and that has been the primary means of communication, which is pretty transparent and open, obviously. So that has been good, where previously it was basically we would email their (previous developer’s) tech support email, and they would open a ticket and slowly but surely chip away at that.
Cole: Nice! I’m glad to hear that things have been going well, and the communication has been so streamlined.
Brandon: Yeah, that’s like what I explained to Paul, and I’m sure you understand, that a lot of times, it depends on what seat somebody sits in because, like, I’m sure that I have had candid conversations about this site where, you know, some, some customers have more robust internal infrastructure as far as, “hey, we just need you to do the nuts and bolts, and we’ll handle all this other stuff.”
Cole: No, that’s awesome! That makes me happy to hear that too. So I’m going to kind of combine these next two questions together, because they do go hand in hand. So we know your switch news sites live. So from a business and financial standpoint, how has Cognito been impacted by switching over?
Brandon: I think it’s a little bit early to tell. Part of the reason why it’s hard to tell is because we complicated it a little bit because there was a big segment of our B2B business that we weren’t putting through our existing website. So, there wasn’t much change in revenue or in a positive or a negative way in regards to the switch only because we really didn’t change a lot like from the customer perspective, and daily use. It’s an exact copy of the existing site.
Cole: Just to kind of wrap things up, and I know you’ve already highlighted this a couple times, but I just wanted to reiterate this again. Overall, how is your experience in working with 121?
Brandon: I think it’s good! I mean, I don’t have any negative things to say on a global scale.
Cole: Awesome! With that being said, was there anything else that you wanted to add in just about anything we talked about?
Brandon: I don’t think so. That’s pretty much the gist of it. Like I said, outside of this conversation, you know, there’s a lot of transparency between Kim and Paul and I. We’re pleased with the decision we made to make the switch!
our approach
The Solution
121eCommerce partnered with Cognito Motorsports to deliver a seamless migration from Magento Open Source to Adobe Commerce, focusing on stability, scalability, and long-term efficiency. Rather than rebuilding from scratch, the team leveraged a strategic porting approach to accelerate deployment while minimizing disruption.
Beyond the technical migration, 121eCommerce provided hands-on guidance, helping Cognito make informed decisions around architecture, integrations, and best practices, transforming the relationship from vendor to true strategic partner.
Strategic Platform Migration
Instead of a costly rebuild, 121eCommerce executed a direct port of the existing site to Adobe Commerce. This reduced development time, avoided redundant work, and ensured a faster path to a more robust platform.
Infrastructure & B2B Enablement
The migration unlocked Adobe Commerce’s native B2B capabilities, eliminating the need for excessive third-party extensions. This streamlined operations, reduced dependency on multiple vendors, and improved overall site stability.
Transparent Communication & Project Management
121eCommerce introduced structured communication through dedicated channels and hands-on account management. This ensured real-time collaboration, faster issue resolution, and consistent alignment throughout the project lifecycle.
the results
A More Reliable Setup
The migration positioned Cognito Motorsports for scalable growth by replacing a fragmented, extension-heavy ecosystem with a unified and enterprise-ready platform. While the initial launch focused on stability and continuity, the new foundation enables ongoing optimization and performance improvements.
Equally important, the partnership with 121eCommerce delivered a more reliable and strategic development experience, one that supports both immediate needs and long-term innovation.
Faster, Cost-Efficient Migration
By porting the existing site instead of rebuilding, Cognito avoided unnecessary development costs and reduced time-to-launch while maintaining operational continuity.
Simplified Tech Stack
Native Adobe Commerce B2B features reduced reliance on multiple third-party extensions, lowering complexity and improving maintainability.
Stronger Agency Partnership
Consistent communication, proactive guidance, and dedicated account management provided Cognito with a dependable partner capable of supporting evolving business needs.
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