The Very Group is aiming to boost its customer experience strategy with a new ecommerce platform, in a move which the online shopping giant claims “is one of the most exciting technology developments in our history”.
The overhaul is being driven through a new partnership with Commercetools, a leading commerce platform built on so-called MACH principles, which apparently stands for Microservices-based, API-first, Cloud-native, and Headless architecture. In a nutshell, this means each component is pluggable, scalable, replaceable, and can be continuously improved.
The move is one of the first in a series of investments in technology and talent Very will make in 2022 to create the best possible conditions to further improve its digital customer experience.
Very insists the new partnership with Commercetools is a major step forward in its strategy to modernise its tech stack and allows the retailer to deliver customer experience changes more frequently and faster than ever before.
Beginning this month, Very will migrate each stage of the customer journey from its existing digital commerce platform over to Commercetools. Each migration phase will introduce more of Very’s new in-house presentation layer, which it is claimed will give customers a more contemporary, consistent and accessible design, built using the retailer’s new design system.
Very Group chief information officer Matt Grest said: “This is one of the most exciting technology developments in our history. Delivering a brilliant digital customer experience is more important than ever in today’s competitive retail environment, and Commercetools will give us increased scalability and reliability when delivering change.
“Our team will be able to make more simultaneous changes to different parts of our customer journey than ever before. The possibilities that this opens up from both a customer and a business perspective are greater than anything we’ve experienced, and we can’t wait to get started.
“But this isn’t all. Over the coming months we’ll be making even more investments in technology to give our customers their best ever experience on Very, and help our business to attract and retain more of the best tech talent.”
The company’s heritage dates to the launch of the UK mail order giants, including Littlewoods, the Liverpool pools and retail group founded by John Moores, as well as Great Universal Stores and Kays Catalogues.
It now describes itself as “the UK’s largest pureplay digital retailer” and financial services provider, with annual revenues of £2bn and over 4 million customers.
Related stories
Very Group hunts data science chief to boost business
Very Group brings back Hornby as digital CX director
Very investment pays off as AI chatbot leads the way
Very Group recruits first CDO to drive insight strategy
Very Group hunts data experts as Shop Direct is axed
