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Executive briefings from a Fractional CTO on leadership, technology strategy, digital transformation, technical due diligence, subscription optimisation and AI implementation that bridges technology capability with business outcomes for D2C leaders in Health, Beauty & Wellness.

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Strategic Frameworks for Scaling D2C Brands | Fractional CTO Insights

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Hanabi spent two days at the pulse eCommerce Summit, an incredible event organised by the Vervaunt team. It's great to be part of this eCommerce community and events like these provide an opportunity to catch up with friends and making new connections. Here's our key takeaways from the event and a deep dive into our favourite talks.

Brands are investing heavily in engagement and internationalisation strategies, with 61% focusing on increasing engagement and 27% on international expansion

Loyalty programs are evolving beyond traditional points systems, with focus on digital integration and personalised experiences

Technical resilience during high-traffic events requires decoupled systems, thorough testing, and close monitoring of third-party providers

International expansion challenges are being addressed through partnerships with services like 

Sustainability is becoming foundational rather than a feature, with companies innovating in materials science, packaging and better inventory management

Community engagement and transparency through behind-the-scenes content drives significant growth

Capital allocation and profitable growth are essential, with companies focusing on strategic investments in brand development

Business scaling brings new complexities, particularly when approaching $100M revenue

Leadership transition involves moving from hands-on work to effective delegation and team development

There were so many great talks, but here are some thoughts from my favourite talks:

Tech Stacks for Hype Drops and Flash Sales

Shaun Baker, Chris Bishop, Tom Clements discuss Tech Stacks for Hype Drops and Flash Sales with Luke Hodgson from Commerce Thinking

 led an insightful panel on Tech Stacks for Hype Drops and Flash Sales with leaders from Oh Polly, Nobody's Child and Seraphine.

 reminded the room that peak seasons such as BFCM and hype drops also affect suppliers and fulfilment. Introducing balloting features brings more complexity with registration, communicating time slots and having the data to show which ballots have been the most effective. Shaun also stressed the importance of having failure alerts and an ironclad rollback process for when things go wrong.

 spoke about the brand being famous for its high celebrity moments, which are often unplanned, such as Holly Willoughby wearing their product onscreen. There also needs to be a balance with driving innovation.

 spoke about the key differences being intensity, going from 0-100 compared with a planned moment like BFCM. Sharing a story from his time at Palace Skateboards and a collaboration with Ralph Lauren when Ralph Lauren’s website was unavailable for three days, he went on to say that a non-negotiable should be to decouple systems as much as possible and not rely on legacy systems like an ERP that could grind everything to a halt.

Tom also spoke about the importance of keeping an eye on suppliers and payment providers, informing them of your intentions with these drops and turn off payment providers like IDEAL that can cause overselling in these moments due to the sales taking longer to complete.

The Future of Commerce: Emerging Trends, Technologies & the State of AI

Liam Quinn and Barrett Ahern from Vervaunt on stage, discussing AI and Model Context Protocol

 from Vervaunt provided an overview of AI maturation, sharing results from a survey of Vervaunt’s customers (who are primarily in the premium fashion space) that showed only 1/3rd of their customers are doing anything with AI and it’s mostly limited to ChatGPT.

Liam and Barrett also shared examples of how brands are using AI; CurrentBody and Represent using tools like Airtable, Seraphine partnering with Emfas for content translation and H&M using human models for initial photos and then using GenAI to create different poses.

The impact of brand visibility/discoverability due to LLMs (Large Language models) has also been a hot topic, with focus on potential negative impact on SEO work. Attention is now turning to GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation), with brands starting to track their presence and traffic directly from LLMs using tools like AthenaHQ.

Agentic AI (an autonomous agent that can perform tasks on its own, without needing constant human input) is likely to be the big thing over the next 12 months, bringing operational efficiencies in QA and UX testing, Competitor analysis and low level data entry.

Coupled with Agentic AI, Model Context Protocol (MCP) provides a framework for AI Models to have contextual understanding of your data, including: products, customers and sales patterns. Shopify have released their MCP to interact with Shopify APIs.

To summarise, AI should be implemented from the top down in an organisation and having a strategic view at the leadership level will really help brands to stand out over those brands whose use of AI is limited to the people who are lower down in the organisation structure.

Growth, Leadership & Scaling Success in Modern-Day eCommerce

Bethan Rainford from Vervaunt on stage with leaders from TALA, Rough Trade, VIEVE & French Bedroom

Morgan spoke about being a Customer-first brand and gave insight on her day-to-day schedule (which can be quite isolating as a CEO) of managing the board and the other investors who are not on the board. The importance of reviewing agreements with investors to be clear on what their approvals are, how many meetings they want to have and diarising reporting. On the subject of AI, Morgan said that TALA feels like a company that doesn’t need to be an early adopter.

Lawrence spoke about setting the right incentives and internal structure for retail. KPIs that are a focus: Stock turn, Margin (because Rough trade operates on razor thin margins) and cashflow – Rough Trade is a bootstrapped, high-growth business with sensible investors.

Emma spoke about operating in the very competitive Beauty space and finding a positioning that separated Vieve from others. Acquisition is the single biggest focus for the brand, followed by Customer retention, Loyalty and building a Community. Vieve shares customers with retailers like Space.NK to be mutually beneficial. Emma spoke about managing stakeholder priorities and working with their founder who didn’t want to be the CEO of the company and navigating that relationship between founder and CEO is critical to making the business work.

Holly spoke about the unsustainable pace of AI in the space that French Bedroom operates in and a reminder in the value of using Gen Z, that they are our future workforce – they are not lazy, they just work in a different way. Holly also spoke about the importance of self awareness, to stop wasting energy on things that aren’t true – even if your mind is telling you otherwise.

Louis Tinsley from ThruDark on stage

. Though I wasn't familiar with the brand beforehand, Louis immediately captured everyone's attention. He introduced himself as a man of few words—which resonated deeply with me — and proceeded to make each one count. His compelling presentation covered his military background, ThruDark's authentic brand identity (which has some exceptional photography & video content), and their powerful mantra: "Endeavour Through Adversity" — a message for everyone who faces hardship in their lives.

Later, I had the fortunate chance to sit next to Louis and express how much his talk meant to me.

Stefan Lewis (L) and Paul Spencer (R) from Represent on stage

 closed Day Two as the headline act, with CEO 

 sharing the brand's growth story. This was an incredibly insightful, honest and open retrospective of how the brand got to where it is right now and their aim to be a $1bn business.

Paul and Stefan spoke about building a brand with Family and having a Foundation of trust and safety where people can be brave is at the heart of what Represent is about. Paul also talked about the importance of honesty with business partners, how wholesale partners have been intrinsically linked with Represent’s growth and that EBITDA is not currently where they would like it to be but they are currently investing heavily in the brand and that will pay back in 3-4 years. Stefan spoke about how loyalty is playing a key part in their retention strategy with 390k of their 1.7m customer base currently signed up for the loyalty programme.

Events like these provide such a great opportunity to meet and hear from people at all levels of a company, offering insight and perspectives that is so much more rewarding to hear in person than through a podcast or an article. What the Vervaunt team have created with this event is something that feels genuine and authentic. This was only my second year attending but I’m looking forward to 2026!

The event also gave me the chance to see comedian Maisie Adam on stage. I’ve loved seeing her on the A League of Their Own Road Trips, and enjoyed seeing her in person – even though I got a bit roasted as “Neil the Web Developer” and unfortunately being described as the next Elon Musk. Taking my chance to leave following Maisie’s set – I got heckled by comedian Zoe Lyons who shouted “Neil, where are you going? - you can’t leave, you’re the oldest person here!” 🤣

Pulse eCommerce Summit 2025

Tired of agencies that overpromise and underdeliver? Hanabi takes a different approach — offering hands-on consultancy and fractional CTO support for brands navigating digital growth, re-platforming, and system integration. Let's talk!

02 Apr 2025

Digital Consultancy & Fractional CTO Support That Delivers

Over 20+ years, I’ve been lucky to work across a mix of businesses, from household names to early-stage startups and hyper-growth SMEs. I set up Hanabi to take a different approach, one with more clarity. It's allowed me to work directly with clients I believe in.

I think it’s time I reintroduce myself, to share more about the work I do but also how I approach it and what I’ve learned along the way. I’m passionate about E-commerce, technology strategy, systems architecture and integration, customer and user experience, brand and design; this is the space I live in. And I want to use this platform to open up some of those conversations.

A bit about me: I started out in web development, first in the NHS, then into agencies, working with brands like Mars Drinks, Virgin, Cloud Nine and Visit Lincoln. Over 20+ years, I’ve been lucky to work across a mix of businesses, from household names to early-stage startups and hyper-growth SMEs. Along the way, I have worked with some exceptional leaders, but I have also seen the impact of poor leadership firsthand, which has helped shape who I am as a leader. These days, I run teams with a belief that people do their best work when they’re trusted to.

I set up Hanabi to take a different approach, one with more clarity. It's allowed me to work directly with clients I believe in; businesses like Gardening for Kids, who came out of the pandemic with a great idea and needed the right technical setup and growth marketing to scale it. Helping companies like that become a thriving business is where I get the most satisfaction.

Most recently, I was at Absolute Collagen, where I led the tech side as they grew from £20m to £30m+ in revenue. I worked on everything from technology strategy to scaling internationally, their loyalty programme to rebuilding their cancellation flow, and built a strong team along the way.

Now I’m back to focusing on Hanabi, working with founders and teams who want someone they can rely on to get things done.

I’m using LinkedIn to share what I’ve learned: the wins and the missteps. If you're interested in digital transformation and data-led decision-making or just want to avoid common pitfalls in scaling tech, I hope you’ll find some value here.

And if we haven’t connected yet, feel free to say “Na then” or hello. 😄

Reintroducing Myself: A Fresh Approach to Tech, E-Commerce & Leadership

We are proud to announce that we have been appointed by the UK's well-known household brand Gardening for Kids as their digital agency to scale their online business and help them in their mission to inspire and encourage kids to play, learn and grow through gardening.

 is a brand that resonates with us as a business. They are on the ambitious path to grow their business sustainably. We have been delivering full 

 - SEO, Paid Media, Technical, and overall performance optimisation services for Gardening for Kids since October 2021.

We'll be developing and executing a robust 

 to boost their sales and brand awareness and get people excited about the fantastic products Gardening for Kids has to offer.

Gardening for Kids, a family-owned company, is on the mission to inspire the next generation of gardeners! From educating children about the wonderful world of gardening to encouraging them to care for the world they live in, you'll find everything educational, fun and even unusual for 

Sarah Edgeworth, Gardening for Kids, Director, says:

"We have been work­ing with Han­abi since Octo­ber, and have been delight­ed with their work so far. Neil and Deepi­ka have been the per­fect part­ners in help­ing Gar­den­ing for Kids to grow and improve our online offer­ing. They have gone above and beyond with their kind­ness and exper­tise, exceed­ing our expec­ta­tions by far.

They have fun­da­men­tal­ly under­stood the nature of our busi­ness and have pro­vid­ed real­is­tic expec­ta­tions, bud­gets, and tasks through­out the whole process. They have been agree­able with all our sug­ges­tions. We real­ly look for­ward to work­ing with them for the fore­see­able future — we don't think we could have cho­sen a bet­ter part­ner to sup­port us with the next step of our business."

Neil Bradley, Hanabi's Director and Founder, says:

Gardening for Kids is an excellent example of a family-owned business that has a real passion for what they do and was started with a mission to inspire young people through an understanding of nature.

The past two years have been a challenge for everyone, particularly children. When parents also became teachers and had to find new, creative ways to support their child's learning – Gardening for Kids provided parents and their kids with products to do just that.



 also partners with schools and charities – adding credibility and trust to what they do.

We are grateful for the opportunity and know great things will come from this partnership.

Gardening for Kids Appoints Hanabi for Digital Marketing Services

We are thrilled to announce our newest partnership with the UK’s leading and award-winning collagen supplement provider, Absolute Collagen.

01 Sep 2021

Absolute Collagen appoints Hanabi as their eCommerce Consulting Agency

Gem Wigs is a leading and trusted online retailer of stylish and premium blended, human hair and quality synthetic hair wigs in all styles, lengths, and colours. Gem Wigs was conceived from a reputed wigs brand Hair By Sleek, which has been successfully trading in the industry for over 30 years.

Hanabi’s market-leading digital expertise and data-driven solutions will help Gem Wigs reach its business goals and help its customers with an integrated shopping experience. We aim to develop and implement a best-in-class 

. Key areas of focus will be website and user journey optimisation, SEO, and increasing revenue via smart channel marketing campaigns.

Jing Wang, Managing Director at Hair By Sleek and Gem Wigs, says:

“We’re delighted to be working with Hanabi. As we build and scale our business, our strategic partners must bring innovative and customer-focused marketing strategies. Hair by Sleek did extensive research to find a digital agency partner that could fulfil these criteria, and Hanabi surpassed on all fronts."

Emily Holmes, Marketing Manager at Hair By Sleek and Gem Wigs, says:

“We are looking forward to working with Hanabi on raising our brand's online visibility and increasing sales in the UK. Hanabi approached the brief with a great deal of expertise and passion that was paramount to us in finding the right digital agency to work with.”

Neil Bradley, Director and Founder at Hanabi, says:

“We’re extremely excited to be working with Gem Wigs and are delighted to have been chosen as their digital partner agency. There is a great deal of opportunity to work creatively & strategically with brands like Gem Wigs and Hair By Sleek and we are looking forward to building it in the UK and internationally and raising their brand awareness of their extensive offerings.”

Interested in how we can help you reach a wider audience?

We are delighted to announce that Hanabi has been appointed by the UK's leading wigs merchandise e-tailer, Gem Wigs, as its digital agency.

Gem Wigs appoints Hanabi as their Digital Agency

Hanabi is a strategic digital agency, helping clients not just build websites, but create brands.

Unlock the full potential of your D2C eCommerce or subscription business. We provide flexible, top-tier technical and strategic leadership, perfectly tailored for brands seeking expert guidance without the full-time salary commitment.

Fractional CTO

A robust technology strategy is not just an advantage—it is the foundational backbone for sustainable growth and market leadership. Hanabi provides specialised Technology Strategy and eCommerce Consulting services designed specifically for D2C eCommerce brands, empowering them to make informed technology decisions, navigate digital complexities, and drive continuous innovation.

Technology Strategy & eCommerce Consulting

Outrank your competitors and increase your brand visibility, traffic, and ROI with smart digital marketing strategies and tactics.

Digital Marketing

Understanding the competitive nature of the business world, we offer the following design and user experience services for engagement and sales.

Web Design

Our favoured platforms are Shopify for e-commerce and Craft CMS for all other websites. However, we are also happy to work with other platforms such as WordPress and Magento.

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Strategic Frameworks for Scaling D2C Brands | Fractional CTO Insights

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