Established in the late ’80s, Figleaves was a very early adopter of eCommerce technology. Using dotcom money spent on developing its own systems and infrastructure, the founders created a pureplay lingerie retailer. But pushing 30 years later, the in-house systems which enabled the retailer to trade in 100 countries across the globe have become dated in a mobile-first retailing industry.
Tom Fitzgibbons, head of web and IT at Figleaves, describes to Essential Retail how up until recently, all the e-tailer’s systems, platforms and applications were custom built in-house, supported by an IT team of 16 in its Hertfordshire HQ.
http://www.figleaves.com/uk/home/
“But over time, people left and some of that knowledge was lost within the business,” he explains. “The upgrades were not as forthcoming as we wanted, they were very difficult to support, maintain and improve and the situation was more and more costly.”
Fitzgibbons says it became difficult to keep pace with the market and deliver the digital customer experience expected today, by its 1.2 million monthly visitors.
“It was a strategic decision to focus Figleaves as an online retailer first and an IT company second, by procuring the right technology and configuring on top of that, even if in-house development is slightly more bespoke in the end.”
Bikini time