Entertainment e-tailer and white label e-commerce provider The Hut Group will stick with its strategy of developing bespoke software as it continues to increase the list of retailers it works with.
In addition to running its own site, Thehut.com, the company also runs white label sites for retailers including Phones4U and The Co-operative Group.
The Co-op has begun working with the company so that it can offer an expanded product portfolio of DVDs, CDs and games through its website while maintaining customer service.
The Hut Group IT director Anuraag Jain told Retail Week that 99 per cent of the company’s systems are bespoke and created using open source software by a team of 15 developers. He said that this has served the business well and continues to complement its strategy.
Jain said that the company will continue to plan new functionality and intends to stay one step ahead of the market.
In the next two months, the company will release a system that allows business-to-business trade online, at the request of several of its existing retail customers. After May, the company will begin “massively adding functionality” to its systems, Jain added.
In addition, several retailers have already approached the company to take over the running of their corporate websites. To cope with all of this, the development team, as well as a team of 10 web designers, are expected to continue to grow this year.
The company runs one set of systems and platforms that all its sites are based on. Jain said that he did not see this strategy changing unless one customer had a particular requirement for something unique.
Since joining at the beginning of the year, he has already been involved in discussions with new retail customers where their initial belief that they would need an individual solution has been changed once they see what The Hut Group’s existing systems are capable of.
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