Diagnosis before solutions.
Before you invest more, find out what’s holding the business back.
Barking Cat gives the boards and investors of £20m to £1bn retailers an experienced operator’s view of where ecommerce, technology and AI are failing to deliver commercially and what to fix first.
Founded by Steve Webster, who has spent 27 years leading ecommerce P&Ls and building digital businesses across the UK and Gulf, including Barbour, Boohoo, Bensons for Beds, GANT and Castore.
Independent commercial diagnosis. Two to four weeks. Fixed fee.
Why you are here
Something is not working, and the room cannot agree what.
The numbers are not moving the way the investment says they should. Conversion is down on last year, media spend is up, and the stock report shows healthy cover while the best sellers are out in the core sizes.
You do not need the problem defined before we talk. Working out what it is happens to be the job.
Expecting an institution to behave against its nature is expecting a cat that barks.
Talk to Steve about the problemWhere Barking Cat can help
Should we replatform?
Replatform assessmentAre we ready to sell internationally?
International ReadinessWill AI pay back here, or should we wait?
The AI DiagnosticCan the business deliver the growth plan?
The Cat’s WhiskersDoes the ecommerce number in this deal stand up?
For investorsIs our website costing us sales?
The ReviewWhy is traffic up and profit flat?
The ReviewThe board cannot agree. Where do we start?
The Board BriefingSelf-assessment
Check it yourself, or have it checked
Three tools, built from running these businesses. Nothing you enter leaves your browser.
Cat’s Whiskers self-assessment
Thirty-six readiness checks across seven foundations.
StartAI self-assessment
Twenty-one checks across the five foundations, and the three AI Inventory questions that come before any of them.
StartPre-Peak Checklist
Find your constraint before the traffic arrives.
StartThe Commercial Toolkit
Five free workbooks for the questions a trading meeting asks every week
Each one runs in Excel on your own numbers and ends in a decision, with an owner and the money behind it. No form to fill in.
Budget
How far is the plan from the board’s number?
The Ecommerce Budget Builder
OpenKPIs
Which KPIs belong on the board dashboard?
The Ecommerce KPI Framework
OpenStock
Which sizes are out of stock, and what is it costing?
Availability and Stock Intelligence
OpenPromotions
Did the promotion make money?
Promotion Economics
OpenMedia
Does the last pound of media pay?
Contribution and Media Efficiency
OpenFrom the operating record
international growth, heritage apparel
22%9% to 22% of revenue, a £1bn consumer electronics business
82%growth three years running, furniture retail
120%year-on-year growth, online fashion
Results delivered by Steve Webster as an operator, 1999 to 2026.
The £20m to £100m range is one Steve has traded through himself: an ecommerce channel built from negligible to £30m in three years, another run from £60m to £240m.
Track recordIndependence
How we are paid
Barking Cat Advisory is paid a fixed fee by its clients, and nothing else.
How Barking Cat Advisory is paid- No referral fees from platforms, agencies or vendors.
- No commissions and no success fees.
- No implementation work.
- We do not sell, resell or implement any ecommerce platform: not Shopify, Adobe Commerce (Magento), Salesforce Commerce Cloud, BigCommerce, commercetools or any other.
Thinking
Published judgement, dated and specific
The practice writes down what it believes and dates it.
November 2026 · Position
What most retailers need instead of a shopping agent
29% of AI shoppers say an AI tool shaped their last purchase most. Eight shopping agents tested on 10 November: none would place an order. What to build, and what not to.
November 2026 · Position
Should we pay less for development now AI writes the code?
AI models given no security guidance still introduced a vulnerability in 38% of Veracode’s coding tasks. What that should change in what you ask of your agency.
October 2026 · Media tool
Contribution and Media Efficiency
A ROAS of 5.7 that returns £1.03 per pound once margin, returns and incrementality come off. Contribution per campaign, the return on the last pound, a step-down test and a verdict for each. Free workbook, no form.
Contact
You do not need to know what is wrong before you call.
Name the decision in front of the business and when it has to be made. If there is work in it, a fixed fee, in writing, within two working days.
