DTC’s Daily Digest brings you the latest news on the world’s fastest growing direct-to-consumer brands. In today’s edition: Monzo disband Monzo Plus team; Lucky Brand partners with SoundCommerce; and Atom Bank selects Google Cloud. 

Monzo disband Monzo Plus team

UK digital bank Monzo has disbanded the entire team responsible for its subscription-based Monzo Plus offering after receiving a wash of negative feedback from customers who signed up for the service.

The premium service, which went live five months ago, was a key plank in Monzo's attempts to drum up additional revenue as it strives to break even. Users were charged up to £13 per month for a range of packaged service bundles like additional ATM withdrawal allowances, travel insurance, airport lounge access, Monzo merchandise and prize draws. 

Tom Davis, product marketing manager at Monzo announced the news of the service suspension on the bank's community chatboard, stating: "For a number of reasons, things just haven’t gone the way they should have with Monzo Plus so far this year.”

"We’re going back to basics and starting from the beginning. While we are fortunate to see our customer base growing faster than ever, it’s important we take steps now to ensure we’re moving towards becoming a sustainable business. One of our biggest opportunities for this is a paid subscription that unlocks more value for our customers and gives us steady revenue in return."

Lucky Brand partners with SoundCommerce

Lucky Brand, fashion designer and manufacturer of premium denim jeans, apparel and home goods, has adopted the SoundCommerce operations data platform (ODP) to elevate its direct-to-consumer (DTC) commerce operations.

Lucky Brand sells direct to consumers via its e-commerce website and more than 260 retail store locations. SoundCommerce provides Lucky Brand commerce operations insights and decisioning across sales and fulfilment channels to drive better customer experience.

"Lucky Brand is obsessed with customer centricity. Our shoppers are at the heart of everything we do," stated Lucky Brand COO Michael Relich. "The SoundCommerce platform allows us to make critical operations decisions fast, serving Lucky Brand's base of customers in ways that build trust and engagement. Our partnership with SoundCommerce is key to delivering superior experiences that keep customers happy and coming back to us."

SoundCommerce connects data between systems and partners, monitors operations, enables business intelligence, and drives machine learning-enabled predictive decisioning. The platform is integrated with Lucky Brand's major commerce systems including Salesforce Commerce Cloud, NetSuite and Full Circle ERP systems, third-party logistics (3PL) partners, and leading parcel post carriers.

Atom Bank selects Google Cloud

UK-based challenger Atom Bank has selected Google Cloud to underpin its application and product development.

The bank had been using a third-party data centre since 2015. According to Google, the “clear benefits” of the cloud for spinning up new products and services meant that Atom turned to the Google Cloud solution.

“The types of products we offer today run very effectively on our current technologies, but things have changed,” says Atom Bank CTO Rana Bhattacharya.

Atom revealed in July that a £50 million funding round would go towards creating products on a new cloud-based platform provided by Thought Machine, a core banking provider led by Paul Taylor, a former Google head of text-to-speech.

“To take advantage of cloud native innovation and ensure we can meet anyone in the race for speed and efficiency we’re re-platforming the bank,” adds Bhattacharya on the Google deal. “By leveraging Google Cloud we are delivering core business needs and creating an architecture that is efficient and resilient.”

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