About Me

I've been on both sides of the table

Most ecommerce consultants come from agency or corporate backgrounds - they understand the theory and they've advised on growth. I've also done it myself.

Before moving into consultancy, I spent nine years building Freeze Pro Shop from a loss-making sub-£1m bricks and mortar retailer into the UK's largest online retailer in its sector. Scaling to £6M+ turnover, trading profitably across 90+ countries.

Earlier in my career, I was a Business Consultant at Accenture, working with major UK retailers including New Look and Thomas Cook on large-scale digital transformation programmes.

What I Do

Since founding Al Conroy Consulting in 2018, I have worked with mid-to-large B2B and D2C retailers and brands across industrial supplies, construction, fashion, FMCG and technology.

I work at C-suite level, either as a long-term fractional appointment or on focused strategic engagements, across the full spectrum of digital transformation, from setting strategy with the Board to leading hands-on delivery.

Engagements typically take one of four forms:

  • Fractional Head of Ecommerce: Embedded senior ecommerce leadership, running the function or supporting an existing team through a period of change or growth

  • Digital Transformation: Leading end-to-end programmes across new B2B and D2C website builds, PIM implementations and systems integration

  • Growth Roadmap: A focused opportunity audit to help address a specific issue or unlock the next phase of growth.  Delivering a prioritised roadmap across acquisition, CRO, retention and internationalisation

  • Board Advisor: Providing strategic oversight, challenge and accountability to leadership teams on an ongoing basis

Awards

  • BQ Magazine’s Scotland’s Ecommerce Exporter of the Year 2018 (Own business: Freeze Pro Shop)

  •  Retail Bulletin’s UK Ecommerce Team of the Year 2023 (Client: MGM Timber, Donaldson Group)

Let's Talk

If you are looking for a senior ecommerce leader who has operated at every level: consultant, operator and Board advisor, I would welcome a conversation about how I can help your business grow. Contact Me

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  • Paul Walker – Founder and MD – Walker Slater

    "Al provided valuable insight when updating our existing website. His in-depth knowledge of ecommerce and customer care allowed him to suggest, and put into practice, fixes and alterations which would make the customer journey more enjoyable. This started with the functionality of the site; the product selection and checkout process, payment options and ease of use. After the pressing elements were updated he helped us update our available information; returns, delivery, Ts&Cs, how to contact and where. We had never ventured into paid advertising, SEO or organic search and with his help we have been able to direct a well run set of campaigns with outside sources, for which he played the contact role.  Having an outside eye on the project made all the difference, his fresh perspective combined with personal achievement in the industry meant he knew what would work for us. His patience, clarity and cheerful personality made him a joy to work with. The team learned a lot from him and the site has improved greatly in both performance and visual appeal”

  • Crawford Sinclair – Commercial Director – Innis & Gunn

    “We engaged Al at the start of our website/e-commerce revamp journey, who came highly recommended. With the challenges we were facing in our DTC e-commerce business, our scope was to build an e-commerce roadmap to steer the growth of that business, to review both our vendor (and e-commerce/CMS platform) for the website and our fulfilment partner for our DTC e-commerce business. Al immediately added value to both processes in understanding the market place (in terms of website developers, platforms and fulfilment partners), sharing experience from other business to aid us in avoiding pitfalls, and bringing a structured approach to both tender processes. Once those vendors were appointed, Al fed into the process of implementing both, sharing best practice and insight from other industries. Al was very thorough throughout his scope and quickly became a trusted part of the team working through the project.”

  • Michael Rolland – Managing Director – The Paint Shed

    “Al started working with us in the middle of 2019 following a Magento 2 replatforming from our old website. Since then, the business has stabilised following that migration and has gone through COVID which saw unprecedented demand for our products. Al has been a constant source of knowledge and experience to deal with everything from how the site should look, to how to handle warehouse and customer services issues. Ecommerce can quickly be seen through the eyes of traffic or site performance but Al has been able to help us see it as a end to end process from when someone finds your site to when they return. Al is one of the few consultants who will actively get involved and be hands on if required. I would not hesitate to recommend him to anyone looking to improve their online business.”

  • Callum Bastock – Owner - CCL Technology & Logistics

    "Al offers a unique and wide-ranging experience of growing an online businesses and what makes a real difference to their success having run his own company and working with a range of retailers in different sectors.  His insights helped us to better understand our market, our audience's challenges, how we can best serve them and how we can engage with them as efficiently and effectively as possible.  His detailed market and competitor analysis helped us better-define our own go-to-market strategy and understand how to be as relevant as possible to our target audience"