THG Ingenuity Powers the Future of Brand Commerce

THG Ingenuity, formerly known as The Hut Group, is a British e-commerce company specializing in beauty, nutrition, and cloud services. Through its proprietary Ingenuity platform, THG provides end-to-end solutions for brands, enabling direct-to-consumer sales. Leveraging Pure Storage scalable and sustainable infrastructure, THG powers AI-driven initiatives like fraud detection and personalized customer experiences. This partnership has helped THG reduce data center power consumption by 80%, achieve zero downtime, and seamlessly scale its operations to meet growing global demand.

THG Ingenuity is built on a culture of rapid innovation. Technology teams are encouraged to move quickly, fail fast, and pivot instantaneously.

Just ask Schalk Van Der Merwe. In 2016, the CTO at THG Ingenuity faced a pivotal moment that threatened the very heart of the company’s operations. With THG Ingenuity expanding rapidly across ecommerce markets, its infrastructure was beginning to show cracks. During a critical period, the company’s storage system failed.

“It was the worst moment of my career,” says Van Der Merwe. “We had no clear path to recovery, and the stakes couldn’t have been higher.”

With more customers, more data, and more expectations to meet, THG Ingenuity needed a scalable, reliable storage platform to move forward. Based on past positive experiences, Van Der Merwe turned to the Pure Storage storage-as-a-subscription (STaaS) model for the ultimate in scalability and reliability.

Since then, and the addition of Joanna Drake as CIO of THG Ingenuity, the two have invested in cutting-edge technology to support additional expansion and their vision for growth. This includes a standardized data storage environment built on the Pure Storage platform. Pure Storage FlashArray™ and FlashBlade® systems running on the Evergreen//One™ STaaS subscription extend across THG Ingenuity’s 35 global data centers.

THG Ingenuity now has the confidence that online portals will be available at any time, including during high-volume periods such as Black Friday. With Pure Storage, THG Ingenuity benefits from faster performance, rapid failovers, and zero downtime for maintenance and upgrades. But the value extends beyond the technology capabilities.

“Obviously, we want fast, scalable storage, but one of the main reasons we work with Pure Storage is because we have a fantastic relationship. We're very culturally aligned,” says Drake. “They’re an extension of our team.”

Today, 400 global websites, thousands of ecommerce databases, and artificial intelligence (AI) training models run on the Pure Storage platform.

As a result, THG Ingenuity can take full advantage of every possibility for digital transformation. For example, the company has fully embraced automation and AI at every step in its operations over the last decade—from personalized product recommendations to managing traffic and transactions for its Ingenuity Cloud Engine, a proprietary ecommerce platform that powers digital retail experiences for global brands.

“Every decision we make is driven by data,” explains Drake. “We work with huge amounts of data which makes the Pure Storage platform critical to our business, including new AI initiatives like semantic search and fraud detection.” In fact, the latter has reduced its risk and exposure to fraud by 90%.

THG Ingenuity’s customer service strategy has also been transformed by AI, delivering automated translations and helping customer service representatives choose from more than 45,000 communication templates. As a result, representatives can provide thoughtful responses in less time to customers anywhere in the world.

“We view AI as key to our future growth,” says Van Der Merwe. “Having a solid technology infrastructure in place gives us the freedom to try new things, adopt early initiatives, and shift gears.”

As THG Ingenuity continues to expand its business, a Pure Storage Evergreen//One subscription gives the company the agility to scale its platform as needed. This is especially beneficial in its substantial hosting business, where onboarding clients can be a challenge because they’re often unsure of how much storage they’ll require. The STaaS subscription model enables THG Ingenuity to easily adjust storage volumes on the fly for clients while avoiding unnecessary capital investment.

“We went with the Evergreen//One storage-as-a-service solution because it gave us that flexibility to be able to burst the capacity, and not have to go and buy and invest in a big storage array if that wasn't what was needed,” says Drake. “It lets us focus on innovating for our customers, knowing we have the right infrastructure in place.”

It’s also simple to manage and operate and keeps THG Ingenuity ahead of the technology curve. Without multiple vendor contracts, renewal periods, and support agreements to manage, THG Ingenuity has the infrastructure to match its evolving business needs.

The issue of cyber resiliency in the event of a ransomware attack or other cyber event has become top of mind for THG Ingenuity in recent years. With data as the backbone of its ecommerce operations, securing customer information is paramount, and it’s a responsibility that THG takes very seriously.

To safeguard the business, THG Ingenuity replicates vital data from all its data centers to offline Pure Storage arrays. Indelible and immutable SafeMode™ Snapshots mitigate the impact of a ransomware attack, securing backups and critical data. Backups are conducted at regular intervals, and THG now has a solution that will get the business back up and running quickly in the worst-case scenario

“The last thing we want is to compromise the trust of our customers, which we’ve worked so hard to build,” says Van Der Merwe. “Pure Storage gives us the confidence that data is protected from ransomware or loss, and eliminates the possibility of disruption to the business, whether planned or not.”

With the data infrastructure in place to sustain future growth, THG Ingenuity is also prioritizing sustainability of another kind. The business has committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2030 and has already taken significant steps toward that goal by leveraging the energy-efficient, all-flash technology the Pure Storage platform provides. This transition has reduced data center power consumption by 80%, even as capacity expands.

“Sustainability isn’t just a corporate buzzword for THG Ingenuity —it’s personal,” says Van Der Merwe. “We want to leave the world a better place than we found it, for our children and for generations to come.”

Looking ahead, THG Ingenuity's dynamic duo is focused on continuing to drive innovation. One exciting development is an AI-powered foundation matching tool, designed to recommend the perfect makeup shade based on a customer’s skin tone. THG Ingenuity is also exploring the digitization of fragrance, an initiative that could transform how customers shop for perfumes online and power future growth.

Pure Storage will continue to play a central role in enabling THG Ingenuity’s ambitions. “We’re always looking for new ways to elevate the customer experience,” says Drake. “The Pure Storage platform gives us the freedom to explore new ideas and innovate at scale.”