#BTstory: the story of the BT - Blugento partnership. With GoOnline eCommerce solution, from offline to online in 3 days maximum

The news of the moment from Banca Transilvania is that, together with Blugento, it has launched a complete eCommerce solution for SMEs , GoOnline. Basically, by using it, an entrepreneur can open an online shop or expand his business online in no more than 3 days.  

Through GoOnline, BT and Blugento have set out to support entrepreneurs together, offering them everything they need to make the step from offline to online. Because every partnership means people and has a story behind it, let's find out what's behind the scenes :).

BT - Blugento - entrepreneurs, a win-win-win relationship

Blugento is an ambitious company from Cluj, specialized in providing eCommerce solutions based on the Magento platform. It defines itself as: flexible, performative, complete . The collaboration between BT and Blugento, a company from Cluj specialized in providing eCommerce solutions based on the Magento platform, started more than a year ago. "Basically, the goal from the beginning was to create a turnkey solution, useful for all small merchants who want to expand or complement their sales business through classic channels, i.e. physical locations, with the online area, through their presence on the internet. In the beginning it was quite difficult because we were facing reluctance and fear of the unknown. But now we can declare ourselves satisfied, especially with the launch of GoOnline, as a handy option" says Marius Flore, Director, Integrated Digital Services Department, Banca Transilvania.

"The first meeting with Blugento was a confirmation that the path we have chosen to support entrepreneurs is the right one. Apart from the support we can offer through loans, through everything that falls under the category of banking transactions, it was increasingly clear to us that we can try, together with relevant partners, to solve other major business pains in Romania. At BT we have over 250,000 entrepreneur customers, we want and can find partners that have an innovative product, solve a real need, can be scaled online and integrate with the bank's other products and services. Blugento is such a partner. They have been working on the do-it-yourself online shop solution for a long time and I am convinced it will be a success. We, BT, will certainly do our best to make it happen - says Daniel Szekely, Coordinating Director, SME and Microbusiness Division, BT.

The first concrete step was taken last year, when the pilot phase of the GoOnline solution was launched, which could be accessed by entrepreneurs from Cluj-Napoca and Bucharest. Appreciations and concrete results have not been slow to appear, which is the reason for the national launch. "The partnership with BT is the biggest achievement so far for Blugento, it is a win-win relationship. We joined forces to create an integrated eCommerce solution and to give Romanian entrepreneurs easy access to a new sales channel: online. It's nice to see that a bank is close to its customers and actively contributes to the development of their businesses. Through Banca Transilvania we reach many entrepreneurs who have offline businesses and understand the opportunity to go online" - says Sandu Babasan, CEO of Blugento.

Blugento for entrepreneurs

With GoOnline, Blugento offers entrepreneurs everything they need to successfully launch an online store: "In as little as 3 days we can have a fully functional online store ready to sell. We take care of hosting, security updates, maintenance and continuous development of the platform, and customers can focus on what is important to them, promotion and business growth", adds Sandu Babasan.

The setup is 59 euros, and there are 3 types of subscriptions, depending on the number of products sold in the online shop and the desired functionalities, with prices of 19 euros, 59 euros, and 99 euros/month respectively. Details about subscriptions can be found here.

A few simple steps to having an online shop with GoOnline:

• Go to goonline.blugento.ro to choose the desired design and subscription and place your order. Within 24 hours, the entrepreneur will be contacted by the Blugento team to start customizing the store with specific business details.
• If the entrepreneur is not so sure what suits him, he can fill in the form available on www.bancatransilvania.ro/GoOnline, where the GoOnline offer is displayed. The Blugento team will also get in touch with the entrepreneur to find out more about the business and to offer the best solution.

Blugento: over 300 online stores in the portfolio and 25 people in the team

Blugento's story began in 2015. The actual development of the platform was initiated within MindMagnet, an agency with 13 years of experience in creating online stores based on Magento technology. "Most of the agency's clients are from the USA, but when requests from Romania started to appear, we realized that the amounts of 5,000-10,000 euro, required to create a custom store on Magento, are prohibitive for the market here and prevent entrepreneurs from entering eCommerce. We came up with the idea of Blugento platform, designed to simplify the process of creating an online store and especially to offer this service at an affordable cost" - Sandu Babasan told us.

Blugento's clients' businesses are in a wide variety of fields: shops for product designers, restaurants or cafes, NGOs, production-oriented businesses. "One of the interesting, heartfelt projects for us is the online shop of the Cluj brand Meron, shop.meron.coffee, a brand focused on coffee specialties and barista equipment. It was interesting because Meron coffee shops have a strong offline presence and it was necessary to create a design that would fit perfectly with the visual identity of the brand. Meron's owners were open to our proposals and a very nice project came out" added Sandu Babasan, CEO Blugento.

Go online with GoOnline :)