Real ecommerce businesses. Real problems. Better outcomes.

From cash pressure to a stable platform for growth

A menswear retailer came to us because cash had become increasingly tight.

The business was still trading and generating reasonable sales, but declining revenue, rising costs and expensive borrowing meant there was very little room for manoeuvre.

Cashflow had become difficult to predict, larger payments were creating regular pressure and the founder was spending far too much time worrying about what was coming out of the bank next.

The business wasn’t in crisis, but it was becoming clear that continuing in the same way wasn’t sustainable.

So we started by improving the immediate cash position.

We reviewed expenditure, negotiated temporary changes to several payment commitments and identified ways to create more breathing space within the business.

But easing the short-term pressure was only the first part of the turnaround. We also needed to understand why cash had become so tight in the first place.

We introduced detailed cashflow forecasting and better KPI management, reduced unnecessary costs, improved stock management and identified opportunities to increase margin and profit. We also helped replace several expensive loans with a lower-cost funding arrangement.

As the pressure eased, the founder could start making decisions based on what the numbers were showing, rather than whichever issue happened to be most urgent that week.

And with better control over cash, costs, margins and stock, attention could start moving back towards growth - this time from a much stronger position.

The result wasn’t simply an improvement in cashflow.

It was a more stable, better-managed and more profitable business, with much greater visibility over what was happening and far less need for the founder to constantly step in and firefight day-to-day financial issues.

Rebuilding growth after two years of declining sales

A womenswear brand turning over around £1.2m came to us after sales had fallen for two consecutive years.

The business was still established and trading successfully, but growth had gone into reverse and the founder could see that simply carrying on with more of the same wasn’t going to change things.

The immediate priority was straightforward: work out what was holding the business back and get sales growing again.

It would have been easy to respond by increasing advertising spend or simply adding more marketing activity. Instead, we started by understanding why sales had fallen in the first place.

We surveyed existing customers, analysed visitor behaviour and identified several issues affecting how customers perceived the brand, navigated the website and made purchasing decisions.

That gave us a much clearer picture of where the business was losing opportunities before we started trying to generate more demand.

We then made changes to the Shopify store, product strategy and pricing, followed by a wider overhaul of marketing across digital PR, influencers, email and SMS.

As those changes took effect, conversion rate increased, average order value improved and the business developed a much clearer and more repeatable approach to generating sales.

But getting sales moving again was only part of the job.

We also wanted to make sure future growth didn’t depend on the founder personally having to identify every problem, set every priority and drive every change.

So alongside improving sales, we put clearer priorities, systems and marketing activity in place that could be managed more consistently by the wider team.

The result wasn’t simply a return to growth.

It was a stronger business with better commercial fundamentals, a more repeatable approach to generating sales and less dependence on the founder having to personally drive everything forward.

Building a stronger business the second time around

After the owners of a specialist accessories and gift retailer closed their previous company through a voluntary liquidation, they had an opportunity to start again.

Our role was not to manage the liquidation itself. It was to help make sure the new business was built on much stronger commercial foundations.

The owners understood that simply recreating the previous business would risk recreating many of the same problems.

So from the beginning, we focused on improving financial control, profitability and the way the business was managed.

We introduced better cashflow management, worked on margins and profitability, and improved return on advertising spend.

We reviewed the product range, identified opportunities to increase average order value and repeat purchasing, and helped the team adopt the new processes and systems being introduced.

As the new business became established, we added management dashboards, P&L forecasting and KPI tracking so the directors had a much clearer view of performance and where attention was needed.

That meant decisions could increasingly be based on numbers and priorities rather than reacting to problems as they appeared.

Over time, the business became more structured, more profitable and easier to manage.

The directors had better visibility, the team could take more responsibility and the founders could gradually become less involved in the day-to-day running of the company.

The result wasn’t simply a replacement for the business that had been lost.

It was a stronger, better-managed company built on healthier foundations, with greater control over cash, profit and performance - and a much lower risk of repeating the problems of the past.

Finding the real obstacle with a growth problem

A £600k sporting goods ecommerce business came to us because the founder believed the next stage of growth would require additional investment.

The logic seemed reasonable. More capital would provide the cash needed to buy stock, support growth and keep the business moving forward.

But once we looked more closely at the numbers, it became clear that funding wasn’t the real constraint.

Too much cash was already tied up inside the business.

We introduced detailed cashflow forecasting to get a clearer picture of where money was being absorbed and where pressure was building.

Stock quickly emerged as one of the biggest issues.

Only around 40% of the range was fast-moving, while roughly 15% was generating particularly high levels of returns. Hundreds of slower-moving products were tying up working capital, increasing complexity and making purchasing decisions harder than they needed to be.

We reduced much of the slower-moving stock and moved the business towards a leaner approach to purchasing, with more cash focused on products that were actually generating a return.

We also restructured the timing of several financial commitments, giving the business more flexibility while those changes took effect.

As working capital improved, the business became cash positive again and the founder gained much better visibility over how cash, stock and growth were connected.

Most importantly, the company could move forward with its growth plans without immediately taking on additional debt or giving away equity.

What initially looked like a need for more funding turned out to be a need for better use of the resources already inside the business.

By fixing the underlying working-capital problem first, the founder preserved ownership, avoided unnecessary borrowing and put the business in a much stronger position to grow.

Every founder we work with gets something different because every business is different.

But the outcome is always the same: a business that performs the way it should, and a founder who's finally getting what they deserve from it.

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