You are probably one of these
- A board considering a major ecommerce investment and not yet sure the case holds.
- A CEO asking whether technology is actually the constraint, or whether the agency simply sells technology.
- A PE-backed consumer business whose transformation plan is about to be tested by the people who funded it.
- A retailer being told to replatform by the firm that would build the replatform.
- A leadership team weighing an AI investment with a vendor deck on one side and a quarter-end on the other.
- A consumer business building the commercial case for digital investment and needing it to survive a CFO.
- An investment committee that wants the ecommerce growth assumption in a target tested by someone who has delivered one.
Sector pages: apparel and footwear, consumer electronics, homewares and furniture, publishing and subscription.
The problems we help solve
Trading & Commercial Performance
The numbers now: conversion, margin, mix, and the operating rhythm behind them. The work when the channel is running but underperforming, and nobody can say where the leak is.
Growth & Proposition Strategy
Where the growth genuinely is, and the proposition to win it. Deciding what to chase and, more usefully, what to stop chasing.
Operating Model & Organisation
The structure, capability and ways of working the ambition requires. The team built for the business you were, running the business you have become.
Will our AI investment actually pay back?
That is the question the Barking Cat AI Diagnostic answers, with five scored foundations, an AI inventory, and the one constraint holding the rest back.
Is there an operator who can sit with the board, not a consultant?
That is ongoing counsel, a standing arrangement with one voice who has run the P&L through a bad quarter and is not selling you a platform.
Who reviews our online experience from the customer’s side and tells the board what is actually wrong?
That is the Barking Cat Review, eleven commercial lenses walked from the customer’s side, resolving to one binding constraint.
What the work has in common
Something is not working, and the room cannot agree what. The numbers are not moving the way the investment said they would. Every voice offering to help also sells the fix it recommends. The job is to find the binding constraint before capital is committed to the wrong one, and to say so plainly when the answer is that you do not need what you are being sold.
Who this is not for
Businesses looking for an ecommerce agency, implementation or build capacity, software or tooling recommendations, or interim cover for an unfilled role. Barking Cat Advisory is a diagnostic and advisory practice and is never in a delivery partner’s payment chain. If the honest answer is that you need a permanent operator in the seat, that is the advice you will get.
Where to start
If something about commercial performance or customer experience is not working, start with the Review. If the question is whether AI will pay back here, start with the AI Diagnostic. If ecommerce or AI is not yet a shared language in the room, the Board Briefing comes before either.
If you are an investor, start with the Pre-LOI Read for a target you have not yet bid for: named on Monday, memo to the committee on Friday, no access to management required. For a holding already in the portfolio, start with the Portfolio Review. The other two instruments, Ecommerce Commercial Diligence and the Exit Readiness Read, sit at confirmatory diligence and twelve to eighteen months before exit.
None requires the others first.
Three ways in, not three rungs
Three ways in, not three rungs. You can start wherever your problem sits. Some businesses begin with a Review and stop there, having got the clarity they came for. Some come with the problem already named and want it solved. Some just want an experienced operator in the room. None requires the others first.
Before any of that, some boards need a different conversation first. If ecommerce or AI is not yet a shared language in the room, The Board Briefing is a half day spent building it, in plain terms, before there is a specific problem to diagnose.
In practice, most engagements start with a Review. From there the work might stop at diagnosis, move into a focused engagement, or develop into ongoing counsel. You decide which, once you know what the problem actually is.
- The Review
- For when you need clarity. An independent diagnosis of where the commercial constraint actually sits, walked from the customer’s side of the screen and landed in a working session in two to four weeks.
- Focused advisory
- For when the decision matters and you want it made well. It starts by diagnosing the problem and ends at an agreed solution: the replatform you should or should not undertake, the market you should or should not enter, the operating model the ambition needs. It closes when the decision is made and the route agreed. From there it may continue as advice to the implementation, move into ongoing counsel, or simply end with your team equipped to act. That choice is yours, not a follow-on sold in advance.
- Ongoing counsel
- For when you want an experienced operator in the room as you navigate it. A standing arrangement, minimum ninety days, not a rolling contract with no exit. One voice who has run the P&L through a bad quarter, is not selling you a platform, and will tell you the unwelcome thing before it becomes expensive.
