Blue Inc eyes recovery via digital growth abroad

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Mar 9, 2018

Blue Inc, the under-pressure UK value fashion retailer is trying to bounce back from tough times on the UK high street and believes international digital growth is the way forward.

It has teamed up with service provider Visualsoft and global payments specialist Ingenico to offer a localised website approach for international shoppers.

It marks a change of direction for the company which was once considering a stock market listing and had no less a chairman than Sir Stuart Rose. But trading challenges saw an administration filing followed by a company voluntary arrangement last year that resulted in the closure of 50 stores.

Now it seems that online is seen as the way to drive growth and after establishing local websites in France, Germany and Russia, the company has more countries in its sights, although we don’t which markets are next on its list.

Ingenico said this week that it has integrated its payments gateway into the Visualsoft platform and this has reportedly improved the retailer’s delivery of its online business.

Ingenico also said that the technology reduces the time it takes for the retailer to set up an international website
Lee Whitehead, Director of eCommerce at Blue Inc, said the company has noticed a significant improvement in authorisation success rates for transactions, which has, in turn, considerably reduced the number of chargebacks Blue Inc has experienced, saving it money and helping to protect consumers from fraud.