Al Conroy Email & Phone Number

Scotland

The consultancy supports retail and manufacturing clients to profitably and sustainably scale B2B & B2C sales across a variety of sectors from FMCG, construction, fashion, F&B to technology and industrial supplies.Engaging collaboratively with clients, I assess the business’s ecommerce ecosystem and create a prioritised strategic roadmap across key growth including customer acquisition, CRO, internationalisation, marketplace strategy, customer service, customer retention, online reputation, fulfilment, and systems & technology.Once the roadmap is established, I offer hands-on support in delivery of digital transformation and ecommerce projects including new website builds, systems integration, B2B launches, international acquisition, responding to market pressures (i.e. Brexit/Covid), resource planning, team development and customer service.• Develop omni-channel strategies to seamlessly integrate ecommerce to a wider customer-centric retail experience• Identify immediate opportunities to deliver a measurable and significant impact on revenue with minimal investment whilst ensuring alignment with wider commercial and operational business considerations• Work with clients to find best-fit agency partners for PPC, SEO and development best suited to their business, setting KPIs and expectations whilst monitoring ROI and performance against agreed objectives • Enable businesses to balance spend across acquisition and website optimisation to maximise conversion rate and AOV, ultimately delivering sustainable and scalable growth in revenue and margin.I offer long-term fractional consultancy support to clients as Board Advisor and acting Head of Ecommerce to bring companies to a ‘steady state’. In addition, I coach in-house teams to improve capability, and lead on recruitment of high-calibre ecommerce and marketing professional to strengthen business capacity for ecommerce growth. Please see the roles below as examples of my consultancy results.

Engaged to manage Magento development partner and implement an international ecommerce strategy targeting European markets as well as supporting wider digital transformation initiatives:• Lead launches of multiple multi-lingual websites, built on Magento Commerce platform, with optimised user-experience for international users. Launching late 2024.• Define a seamless systems integration to ERP, ESP, PIM and payment gateways to maximise efficient use of ecommerce within the wider business, fulfilling from a European warehouse.• Provide ongoing ecommerce coaching to client team as they deliver the European ecommerce roll-out.• Support the client with definition and delivery of additional digital transformation projects including CRM, email marketing, consent management and MI & analytics.

Advise on ecommerce strategy, including UX & CRO, customer acquisition, agency oversight, internationalisation, data insights and reporting:• Supported the client with development agency selection, migration and end-to-end redesign of user journey to improve conversion rate and create a best-in-market user experience.• Navigated Brexit focusing on reducing friction for European customers and minimising administration overhead for EU order fulfilment, where the client has a significant buyer footprint.• Addressed a complex UX challenge to re-launch ‘Configure Your Own’ servers, which sets ETB apart from competitors in terms of quality of user experience. This drove significant growth in AOV and high value sales online and offline (KPIs confidential at client’s request).

Provide support as a subject matter expert on ecommerce and internationalisation to the government agencies and the businesses they support. This includes speaking at events, running webinars and delivering training as well as providing 1:1 coaching and mentoring.

Collaborated with the Group CEO, CTO, CMO and Divisional CEOs and Head of Marketing to shape delivery of a major digital transformation project across three of the Group’s 13 brands including omni-channel experience for B2B and B2C customers (MGM Timber, Plane & Simple and TimberCut4U). Sat on the Board of the Group’s Retail and Distribution Division and ultimately enabled the Group to hire an experienced Director of Digital Commerce. Focus was on the Group’s three trading websites:Results delivered for MGM Timber: Revenue = 150% growth | Traffic = 122% growth | CR = 25% growthResults delivered for Plane & Simple: Within 24 months of ecommerce launch 3,200 products were being sold by 15 merchants in three focus regions of the UK.Results delivered for TimberCut4U: Revenue 56% growth | Traffic 10% growth | CR 46% growth

Conducted an end-to-end opportunity audit across acquisition, UX, CRO, shipping & fulfilment, customer service and post-purchase experience. Led on internationalisation, growth roadmap, multi-channel retail, team development, agency selection and oversight. Navigated through Brexit, addressing drop-off in EU customer business through focus on US and UK markets.Results delivered in the UK market: Revenue = 315% growth | Traffic 62% growth | CR = 135% growth Results delivered in the US & European markets: Revenue = 316% growth | Traffic = 83% growth | CR = 40% growth

Appointed to support the firm following a surge in online business growth of 2500% per month during Covid lockdown. Acted as digital transformation advisor and strategist to a newly created ecommerce team within a business that had been heavily focussed on offline sales to bars and retailers.

Supported this traditional bricks & mortar retailer’s digital transformation, focused on multi-channel B2B & B2C sales as well as an Amazon Marketplace launch. Acted as Board advisor presenting monthly updates on ecommerce performance and future plans. The success in ecommerce contributed to The Paint Shed securing investment from the Business Growth Fund in July 2020. Results delivered:Revenue = 350% growth | Traffic = 242% growth | CR = 55% growth

Freeze Pro Shop was a leading winter sports, surf and outdoor online retailer based in Edinburgh, UK. The business was acquired by Absolute Snow in March 2020.As a Board and executive team member, held accountability for the overall strategic, operational and commercial development of all business areas with a focus on ongoing expansion to the international market. Key highlights include:• Implementing strategy that drove growth from a loss-making <£1m turnover in 2012 to turnover of £6.1m (net) in 2017 following consecutive profitable years• Developing outstanding ecommerce strategy that delivered 450% growth in website revenue and 61% growth in conversion rate from 2012 to 2017• Successfully securing external investment to support international growth ambitions - built the largest international footprint of any UK retailer in the sector with 70% of business out of the UK and selling to 100+ countries - key markets: US, Australia, Germany, New Zealand and Norway• Leading on diversification of product range to address seasonality and cyclical sales of a winter-focussed business• Joined the business in 2009 as Business Development Manager Awarded BQ Magazine ‘Scottish ecommerce Exporter of the Year’ award 2017-2018

London

An effective member of a high-performance client-facing consultancy team providing expertise to corporate clients to define and deliver their ecommerce strategy. Contributed to the consultancy team, working with stakeholders to define and implement new ecommerce platforms and integration with legacy systems.