Ecommerce Consultant · Ian Rhodes · 28 years of ecommerce expertise
The ecommerce consultant brands hire to unlock next-stage growth.
UK-based independent ecommerce consultant with 28 years of experience and 750+ brands worked with. Senior strategy, not just another tactician.
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“One of the world’s Top 25 Most Influential Conversion Rate Experts”
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GrowthFunnel
Ecommerce growth architect
Why you need an Ecommerce Growth Architect, not just another tactician.
If you’re searching for an ecommerce consultant, chances are one of three things is happening:
- Growth has stalled
- Acquisition or retention isn’t where it should be
- Or the business has outgrown its original model
At this stage, you don’t need another freelancer to “optimise a channel”. You need to redesign how growth actually works in your business.
That’s why my role isn’t just ecommerce consultant: I work as your Ecommerce Growth Architect. It’s how you make best use of my 28 years of expertise building, growing and scaling ecommerce brands (including my own).
This is big picture ecommerce growth strategy.
Traditional ecommerce consulting usually means a blend of Meta and Google Ads, SEO, CRO, email campaigns and flows, tech audits and funnel optimisation.
All useful. But they’re also component-level fixes. They make parts of the machine work better… without ever questioning whether the machine itself is still fit for purpose. That’s where brands hit plateaus.
Ian Rhodes
Ecommerce consultant and growth architect
“One of today’s leaders in Conversion Rate Optimization, people who don’t just talk the talk but put their theories to the test on a daily basis.”
CrazyEgg
My approach
Redesigning your entire growth model, not just a channel.
My work starts above the tactics.
Instead of asking
“How do we fix this channel?”
I ask
“Is this the right growth model for where the business is going next?”
I help brands redesign their growth strategy and business operations across:
- Evolving their retention strategy
- Improving the customer experience before and after the sale
- Redesigning their content and community strategy
- Rethinking their partnership strategy beyond one-time influencers and codes
- Creating their organic business strategy around an ‘authority build’
- Ensuring best selection and use of tech and data
So growth becomes
More
predictable
More
profitable
Less
stressful
Less
dependent on paid traffic
Far more
defensible long-term
Experience and credentials
What do I bring to your ecommerce business?
- 28 years in ecommerce as an employee, startup founder and ecommerce consultant
- Former European Marketing Director for the world’s largest online travel company
- Bootstrapped my own ecommerce business from 0 to £2m in 3 years
- 17 years running Ecommerce Growth Co. as an independent ecommerce consultant, working with 750+ brands, running audits and consulting in a wide variety of markets
- Spoken at 20+ conferences around the world on the customer-first strategies that drive real ecommerce growth
“Ian was a huge help in supporting us with developing a best-in-class set-up of ecommerce tools, helping us plan strategically for optimising the site, and making informed decisions to improve how we support our customers with the right services for their needs, through a simplified streamlined platform.”
Elliot Brooks · Nature.com
When brands typically hire me
Next-stage growth territory.
Most clients come to me with great products and a good understanding of product-market fit. This is about what comes next. The business is a success and healthy, however…
- Revenue has plateaued
- Acquisition costs keep rising and you’re feeling margins squeezed
- You’re scratching your head to understand why repeat business isn’t growing
- The tech stack feels bloated or fragmented
- Teams (either in-house or agencies) are busy but unfocused
- Or the founder feels stuck inside the business and needs trusted, expert advice
This requires architectural thinking, not more tactics. I’ve built the consulting business I wish I had when I was running my own ecommerce store: that level of top-down expertise I lacked. Someone to show me what needs to be done.
Hiring an ecommerce consultant
What does an ecommerce consultant actually do?
An ecommerce consultant is an independent, senior advisor who looks at your whole online business, not just one channel, and tells you what to change, in what order, and why. The best have run ecommerce businesses themselves, so the advice is grounded in commercial reality rather than theory.
What you should expect from one
- An honest diagnosis of what’s limiting growth, backed by your own data
- A prioritised plan across acquisition, conversion, retention and your tech stack
- Senior judgement on where to spend, and where to stop spending
- Help hiring and directing agencies, freelancers and in-house teams
- Accountability for results, not activity
How to choose the right ecommerce consultant
Five questions worth asking before you hire anyone:
- Have they run an ecommerce business, or only advised one?
- Will you work with them directly, or be handed to a junior team?
- Can they show results with brands at your size and stage?
- Do they know your platform and stack, from Shopify to Klaviyo?
- Will they build your team’s skills, or keep you dependent on them?
If the answers are yes, direct, yes, yes and build, you’ve found the right person. That’s the standard I hold myself to.
My 4-stage process
How ecommerce growth architecture works.
Just like a traditional architect, my work follows four clear stages.
01
Discovery & diagnosis
Auditing your customer experience, data and growth constraints
I’ll strip the business back to fundamentals:
- The shopping experience (before and after the sale)
- Your marketplace
- Your data
- Your discovery and customer retention strategy
- The systems and people you have in place
- The constraints on growth
This reveals what’s truly limiting growth, not just what feels loud.
02
Growth architecture
Redesigning your retention-first growth model
I redesign your growth model around:
- Retention-first thinking and strategy
- Customer experience as differentiation
- Content and storytelling as a long-term focus
- Partnerships as a scalable acquisition channel
We reduce the reliance on paid ads as your go-to channel. This becomes your next-stage growth blueprint.
03
System design
Turning your growth strategy into clear operational workflows
We translate strategy into action, knowing exactly who is doing what and why:
- Brand architecture across your store and social channels so everything works as one
- Ecommerce technology structure
- Data flows between channels, with customer insights gathered with ease
- Onboarding systems for new customers, developed and personalised
- Loyalty mechanics in place to drive customer retention
- Content and partnership engines that make your business feel like a media company as much as an ecommerce store
Vision becomes machine.
04
Build oversight
Coordinating your team, my role and specialists to implement the blueprint
This is where my handy black book comes in (I’ve been building relationships in the industry for 28 years). I recommend and coordinate, as and when needed, local and international:
- CRO specialists
- Email experts
- Meta and Google Ads specialists
- Content writers
- Videographers
You don’t waste money hiring the wrong people in the wrong order, and everything gets built to the same plan. Do I get my fingers dirty too? Absolutely. For many brands I take the lead on organic strategy, driving growth through search and AI.
Most ecommerce consultants optimise what exists.
I take a step back and redesign what comes next.
I help founders and their people (the brand):
- Stop reacting
- Stop patching
- Stop chasing tactics
And start building a growth system that actually compounds.
My ecommerce background
Building and growing ecommerce brands for 28 years.
Employee, director, ecommerce business owner and consultant.
1998
Straight off the back of an economics degree, I found my feet at a startup online magazine subscription retailer. When animated GIFs first roamed the ‘net, browsers were at version 1.0… and SEO was a hell of a lot easier.
2002
I moved to Priceline.com as European Marketing Director, learning sustainable growth at a true market innovator, now the world’s largest travel company, under the direct guidance of the now CEO of Booking.com.
2004
I gave up my swanky Mayfair office and launched my own ecommerce business. From 0 to £2m, bootstrapped. Doing the things you’ve done: balancing time and energy marketing the business and running the business.
Today
For the past 17 years I’ve been building my ecommerce consulting business and teachings here at Ecommerce Growth Co. Working with management and in-house teams to lay the foundations for next-stage growth, stabilise acquisition costs, scale, and deliver customers a better shopping experience.
“The work we have done together has seen our online business go from strength to strength, driving more traffic to our website and yet reducing our cost per conversion.”
David Winstanley · Managing Director, Pramworld
“He is an e-commerce professional with a depth of expertise and is a pleasure to do business with. I would not hesitate in seeking his consulting services again on another project.”
Mathew Wade · Head of Digital, Gossard
How we work together
Your questions, answered.
What does an ecommerce consultant do?
An ecommerce consultant diagnoses what’s holding an online business back and builds the plan to fix it, across acquisition, conversion, retention, technology and team. As an independent ecommerce consultant I work directly with founders and in-house teams, then help coordinate the specialists who implement the plan.
Who do you work with?
Clients are in-house teams requiring senior-level guidance and project management to take their ecommerce offering to the next level.
Businesses that value their customers. Know their customers. Businesses built on behalf of their customers. I have to believe in the products you’re selling, whether premium brands or innovative products. We have to share an understanding that there’s a demand for what you sell.
I work alongside senior management to plan, and in-house marketing teams to implement. You might also be transitioning from an outsourced agency who simply didn’t perform, and now you want to bring your marketing in-house.
Who don’t you work with?
I work with innovators, not copycats. I work with long-termists, not get-rich-quick companies. I work with specialists, not generalists. I’m not interested in boosting sales through Amazon or eBay; I want to build your profit, not theirs. I do not work with drop-shippers or non-physical product companies. I work with partners. I’m not an ‘outsource solution’ for your business. This is about partnership.
We’re outside Europe, can we still work together?
Yes. We’ll make use of the technology available to us so that we can work together as effectively as possible. Sometimes it’s better than sitting around a boardroom table. And I can still travel to you.
But… what if we want to manage our marketing internally?
Perfect. That’s our objective. My intention is to work with you and your team for 6-12 months: to build and help manage your ecommerce optimisation strategy, and advance your team’s marketing skills and technology expertise to build traction measured by revenue growth. Long term, I want you to successfully manage your marketing internally. I’m on hand to advise and review the transition until you’re comfortable managing your marketing in-house.
How many clients do you work with?
I limit my work to 6 consulting clients at any one time. I won’t work with your direct competitors. It doesn’t make sense.
How soon can we start?
Availability changes through the year as client projects complete. Get in touch and I’ll tell you honestly when I can start.
We need in-house skills. Do you offer workshops?
Yes! In-house workshops are available for clients in the UK, Europe and North America. They can be structured over 1, 2 or 5 days depending on your team size and requirements. Zoom workshops are also a great way for founders and smaller teams to build in-house skills, audit your own website and gather the insight to confidently build and manage your growth strategy in-house. Contact me for pricing and availability.
How much will this cost?
You may be looking at a one-off project with a specific objective (e.g. reducing cart abandonment) or a review and strategy that fits across all marketing and ecommerce operations. My retainer-based fees depend on that remit, and I can outline fee expectations during our introductory call. Unlike agencies, I won’t hold you to a long-term contract. My task is to prove my value to your business each and every month. I don’t outsource. You’re bringing my 28 years of ecommerce expertise to the table.
Why hire you rather than an agency?
Good question. Accountability. When you hire me, I’m your only point of contact. I’m the one who works with you to learn all I can about your business, to put our work together to maximum effect. You’re hiring 28 years of ecommerce expertise. Within agencies you’ll work with specialists focused on specific tasks and specific goals. My work is holistic: it’s about growing your business and putting in place a structure so you can effectively manage the growth strategy in-house.
Talk to an ecommerce consultant
Let’s talk about your next stage of growth.
If you’re searching for an ecommerce consultant because something feels stuck, you’re probably right.
The question now isn’t “How do we grow faster?” It’s “What does scalable growth actually look like for this business now?”
That’s the architectural conversation. Use the form, or email me at ian@ecommercegrowth.com.