Thinking

Published judgement, dated and specific.

The practice writes down what it believes, when it believed it, and lets the record keep score. Every piece carries a date, a number, and a judgement you are welcome to disagree with.

September 2026

Bulletproof for the Golden Quarter

The Q4 readiness playbook: seven foundations where a binding constraint can hide, the 2025 peak read through Currys and The Works, and a 23-point pre-peak checklist. Free, no form.

September 2026

Should we replatform?

Six questions a retail board should ask before committing to an enterprise ecommerce platform, from the chair that approved the spend.

August 2026 · Index

The Commercial Experience Index, Edition Two: Premier League Club Shops

All twenty Premier League club online stores, scored out of 100 across eight measures read from the live shopfront. Bournemouth top the table on 73. The famous clubs build good stores for humans and poor ones for machines, and sixteen of the twenty return a 404 where an AI agent looks first. Full 26-page PDF free to download.

August 2026

The two numbers the AI visibility industry keeps confusing

The industry is awash with AI statistics, most quoted with more confidence than they have earned. I have read the studies so you do not have to. Two conversion figures, roughly 15 percent and roughly 2 percent, are being confused for one another, and the message underneath the noise is calm: AI has not remade ecommerce yet.

August 2026

The Commercial Experience Index, Edition One

Ten UK retail sites, scored out of 100 on a single axis: whether the experience helps the customer move from arrival to commitment. Reputation did not predict execution. PDF available.

2016, republished July 2026

The Five-Stage Retail Transformation Model

The journey mapped for UK retailers in 2016, naming AI personalisation as the destination a decade early. Republished as written, with a note on what held.

July 2026

The Retail AI Vendor Map: A Working View

Three layers, honest category judgements, and the sequencing questions that come before any vendor conversation.

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Barking Cat, Commerce Advisory

Barking Cat Advisory is an independent ecommerce and commercial advisory practice for UK retail and consumer businesses, giving boards and private equity investors an operator’s judgement before they commit to technology, transformation or growth investment. Founded by Steve Webster, who has run retail and ecommerce P&Ls since 1999.

Barking Cat Advisory Limited. Registered in England and Wales, company number 17338003. Registered office: The Old Constabulary, Welsh Row, Nantwich, Cheshire CW5 5ET. barkingcat.ai · Privacy