I arrived in Voodoo in 2013, a tech heavy e-Commerce agency, to help the customers of the websites they had built to be more successful with their D2C sales.A six month contract turned into 9 years looking after everything from smaller e-Commerce clients to developing the business of very large global companies. I’ve worked with our team of web design and developers on everything from global brand position to direct to consumer advertising.Our consultancy work is often around identifying problems. A large proportion of our work is e-commerce website development. We also build technology, bespoke integrations, and maintenance, optimisation and marketing.What you’ve built your site on doesn’t matter, the team at Voodoo can help your marketing team to deliver more value.

It became clear to me that I needed to find retailers who were in a very particular segment of trouble, as that is where I excelled. I was able to quickly turn a business from loss into profit, then move to the next.I realised I would be skipping roles every 18 months. The sector I was working in expected people to stay in one company for 10 years.This is why I decided to work agency-side and create our own environment to find the work that we really were interested in.One of our clients was a venture capital VC company that would buy up businesses that were in trouble, float me in, and I was required to effectively run the business for six months, identify the business problems, flush out the stock, make sure people had jobs again and give the keys back. World of Linens was one of the many businesses I worked with.

Heal’s were losing £150k a year with their online presence when I joined.I was trusted by the CEO to change the strategy, and I decided we ought to sell furniture on the website. It had been thought too difficult previously. (I usually pick the most difficult, as its often the most rewarding)It was a time of great opportunity, I was one of the first brands to sign up to Affiliate Window. They said to me, I’ll give you access to 6 million people in the UK. I said, I’ll try that!I discovered marketplaces like Amazon and eBay, too many brands ignored these for too long.18 months after starting in the role, we were making a profit online of £1.5 million.

As part of the team that helped develop and launch Bear Factory for Hamleys globally, from research, franchise, marketing and more. This was a golden opportunity to grow a huge range of skills and knowledge.Launching the concept of making your own teddy bear and personalising it with outfits and voices, with special launch activities, costume characters, PR giveaways, Radio interviews, aged me considerably! From the 4 test stores that then quickly became a roll out 25 stores across the UK, it was an amazing experience. At one point, I remember opening 3 stores in one day in three corners of the country!We called it ‘Bear Factory’, the margins were huge, we rolled them out to the Middle East, China, all over the place! I partnered with Children-in-Need. Pudsey bear was made in our stores and we organised the first sleep-in in Hamley’s as a fundraiser for the charity appeal. (I won an innovation award presented by the loveliest man I’ve ever met, Sir Terry Wogan)Bear Factory was acquired by ‘Build-A-Bear’ who wanted to expand out of the US.Hamley’s were delighted.

When I was a young whippersnapper at Hamley’s, all my colleagues were about the age of my mum and dad.Instead of being threatened by me, or hostile to me, they were generous in sharing their knowledge.The IT Director, who I would spend half a day figuring out the tills because it was super interesting. Then, the product buyer, and she would explain merchandising. The warehouse manager, who made me curious about buying and shipping.I worked my way around the building where all these senior people let me understand how it worked. It gave me the holistic view of the business which I could apply to new opportunities.I liked the idea of buying off the internet, I told my colleagues that one day, people will buy their groceries online!This got me noticed. Simon Burke, the then CEO at Hamley’s approached me and said, “Look, Peter, we need the next big opportunity. We want to do this inside ‘plush’ (the soft toys department).”This lead to me to be part of the small but great team that brought 'The Bear Factory' to the UK, Middle East and China.