Paper catalogues to data catalogues: How digital transformation has changed everything about retail

Image: Very Group

When embarking on a digital transformation project, it pays to have great data. For online retailer Very.co.uk, leveraging a company heritage dating back to 1890 has been instrumental in establishing what it claims to be one of the oldest and richest customer-focused data sets in the country.

Very has undergone numerous and significant transformations since its inception more than 100 years ago. Serving as a catalogue business for most of its existence under the Littlewoods brand, the company pivoted to online in 2009 and rebranded itself Very in an attempt to reinvent the business, following years of financial losses.

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"The work that we're doing – it's pretty transformational," says Steve Pimblett, chief data officer (CDO) at Very. "We're not just building a warehouse and moving a bit of data around – we're fully transforming, and we do that in a customer-centric way with technology and data at the heart of it."

SEE: What is digital transformation? Everything you need to know about how technology is changing business

In 2022, Very is a pure-play online business providing both retail offerings and financial services with its buy now, pay later (BNPL) service, Very Pay. Its paper product catalogues, which for decades had adorned coffee tables in British homes, are long gone. "It's all digitized and online," Pimblett tells ZDNET. Even the warehouses are fully automated, he adds.  

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