eCommerce MasterPlan Multi-Channel eCommerce Made Simple: Lessons from Charles Bentley’s £30M Strategy with Andrew Steel
Oct 20, 2025
Andrew Steel, E-commerce Director at Charles Bentley, shares insights from managing over 20 sales channels for a 160-year-old brand. He discusses the evolution of multi-channel selling and the innovative stock-splitting system that prevents overselling. Andrew reveals how cutting their SKUs from 1,300 to 600 boosted efficiency and growth. He emphasizes leveraging data, weather patterns, and search terms for accurate forecasting, and highlights the benefits of using fractional experts to scale effectively. Also, hear about plans for relaunching products in Europe despite recent challenges.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Customers Buy On Their Preferred Channel
- Customers choose their preferred channel so brands must be available where shoppers want to buy.
- Charles Bentley built multichannel presence to give customers choice and increase visibility.
Use Aggregators And Bridge Gaps Proactively
- Build or choose aggregation tools to avoid manual listing and to move data between channels.
- If integration gaps exist, build bridges but expect added technology complexity.
Split Stock Algorithmically To Prevent Oversells
- Split stock algorithmically across channels to avoid oversells and maintain buffers.
- Monitor partner stock update frequency because manual/slow feeds can still cause rare oversells.
