Splash screen conundrum

Our users are split into 2 types, people buying our Sport products online and people enquiring about our Industrial products to buy offline. Roughly split 95% Sport and 5% Industry.

Up until now, we use a splash screen style homepage (which also has content for SEO) and then re-direct later once we know which type of user they are. This first page is often a barrier in getting users through to the e-commerce part of the site, they get stuck on the homepage, but there’s also frustration because they can’t get back to the homepage because of the re-direct. People often use the homepage as a quicker way to navigate to the shop.

During the re-design, based on our data, the initial approach was to take people straight to Sport that has traditional navigation with an option to switch to Industry.

This approach was rejected by the company, in favor to give Industry more prominence, and so the 50/50 splash screen is a requirement. I've tested the splash screen on people during the design process and the results were conclusive in favor of a solution without the splash screen.

A compromise, (whilst we're in the build and should be easier to implement than building the splash) was to use a modal overlay when a user lands on the website for the first time. Whilst I struggle with modal overlays, I wondered whether this is a better solution. SEO isn’t lost because the page is rich in content and the path to the shop is clearer.

Just wondering if anyone has come across something like this before? Any input would really help.